Wildwood

Jadie Jones

Description

Tanzy Hightower is not crazy. At least, that’s what she tells herself. Crazy looks more like her mother, who studies each sunrise with the same fascination other women give tabloid magazines in the grocery store checkout line. Crazy sounds like the woman on the radio claiming there’s a whole separate world existing parallel to our own. Still, Tanzy can’t deny the tingle of recognition she feels each time she sees her mother standing at the kitchen window, or hears the panic in the woman’s voice coming through the speakers of her father’s truck.



Tanzy intends to follow her father’s footsteps into the professional horse world. But the moment she watches him die on the back of a horse in an accident she feels responsible for, everything changes.

On the first anniversary of his death, a fight with her mother drives her back to her father’s farm in the middle of a stormy night. Neither Tanzy nor life as she knows it escapes unchanged when she is struck by lightning and introduced to a world... unseen, and receives proof her father’s death was no accident.



Two strangers seem too willing to help her navigate her new reality: Vanessa Andrews, a psychiatrist who believes lightning chooses who it strikes, and Lucas, a quiet, scarred stable hand with timing that borders on either perfect or suspect. But Tanzy has secrets of her own. Desperate for answers and revenge, Tanzy must put her faith in their hands as her past comes calling, and her father’s killer closes in.

Sujets

• Horses
• Parallel universe
• Young adult
• Werewolf
• Horse
• Romance
• Magic
• Fantasy

Informations

• Publié par: The Parliament House
• Date de parution: 06 décembre 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 41
• EAN13: 9781537842097
• Langue: English

Extrait

Wildwood
The Hightower Trilogy: Book 1


Jadie Jones
Contents



Prologue

Part I


1. Traditions

2. For Every Action

3. The River

4. Ghost

5. Remember Me

6. Graduation

Part II


7. Nineteen

8. Sometimes The End Comes First

9. Lucky

10. Two of a Kind

11. Flight or Fight

12. Enemies

13. Home

14. The Witch and the Devil

15. All In

16. A Castle for a Queen

17. Have A Little Faith In Me

18. Leap

Part III


19. A Path To Where I First Began

20. Selection

21. I Choose Spera

22. Scars

23. Freedom

24. Revelation

25. Honor

26. Sing For Me

27. Chains and Crowns

28. An Offer

29. Burned

30. Ashes to Ashes

31. Wide Awake

32. The Calm Before the Storm

33. Red In The Morning

34. Love and Lies

35. Surrounded

36. Collide

About the Author


Tanzy Needs You


The Parliament House
Prologue

Virginia’s trees look like they’re burning. Most of them blaze crimson or gold, but some still have a chokehold on their green. I wish they’d give it up already. Leaves are more beautiful when they’re dying.
Part One
Traditions

The sweet scent of coconut pancakes draws me from the edge of sleep. I smile, knowing my mother is standing in the kitchen downstairs mixing batter, no doubt wearing a few clumps of it in her coal black hair. I toss my denim quilt aside, cool air whisking across my skin, and blink against the warm light of dawn that filters through the old lace curtain panel covering my window and sets the worn wood floor of my room aglow. The constant autumn rain must have finely offered a reprieve. My mother will be happy to see it; she’s convinced a clear sunrise on a person’s birthday is a sign of good things to come.
As I pull on jeans and a shirt, Dad’s laughter rumbles up the stairs, and then the fire alarm chirps. Mom has probably burned a pancake on the griddle.
In the kitchen, Dad is opening the window behind the sink, and Mom is perched on one foot in a wooden chair with her back to me, stretching to fan the smoke away from the alarm.
“I swear this thing is too sensitive,” she mutters. There’s a streak of flour on her hip and a glob of batter on the sleeve of her t-shirt. My mother can forecast rain better than any meteorologist, she can predict the approach of a gust of wind a few minutes before it roars across the Shenandoah Valley, but she can’t cook to save her life.
There are three plates on the table. Two of them are still empty. Mine has a short stack of blobby pancakes and a streak of runaway butter. A couple charred pancakes are tossed on the counter, and one more is on the floor at the foot of the trash can.
My dad grins at her over his shoulder and catches sight of me standing in the door.
“Happy birthday, Tanzy!” he says. “It’s the big eighteen. You know, Hope, Tanzy’s an adult now. You should make her do the cooking,” he teases, and snaps a wash cloth in my direction. His smile is all teeth, and his amber eyes glitter. It’s the one physical trait we share. Otherwise, I don’t look much like either of my parents.
“I’ve made her coconut pancakes for her birthday every birthday since she was six. She may not be home for her birthday next year.” Mom’s chin quivers. She presses her lips together.
“I’ll come home for my birthday, Mom.” I slide into my seat and shovel in a bite. It isn’t cooked all the way through, but it’s warm, and sweet enough to chew and swallow without making too much of a face.
“Thank you, Tanzy,” she says, casting a mock glare at my dad. He winks at me before disappearing through the door that leads to the back porch. He reappears less than a minute later with two mason jars full of wild flowers.
“For my girls,” he says, and places one on the window sill and the other in the middle of the kitchen table. “Birthdays are big days for moms, too.”
“Travis, when did you pick these? Did you leave any flowers in the garden?” Mom arranges the blossoms with her nimble fingers, and then leans into them, breathing deep.
“Why do you think I got up early this morning? It’s freezing out there,” he says, watching her. “Weatherman said the temp is going to drop overnight and the whole valley will be covered in frost tomorrow morning. They’ll all be dead in twenty-four hours anyway.”
“Weatherman is wrong,” she replies, one corner of her mouth curling up.
Dad snorts. “We’ll see.” He rolls his eyes, but I know he believes her. “Eat up, Tanzy. We have a lot to do today.”
“Tanzy has school today,” Mom replies.
“You cook her coconut pancakes, and then she comes with me to the farm. You have your tradition, we have ours.” He winks at me. “Besides, she’s a senior. Isn’t the rest of this school year just for show? And who says she’s going to college? What if she decides to ride professionally?”
“Travis Hightower,” Mom scolds. “We’ll argue about this tomorrow. As for today, stick to tradition.” She wipes her hands on the front of her pants. “But make sure you pick up any homework assignments while you’re out. And please get home before dark. I made a dinner reservation for six p.m.”
Dad makes a face. “Isn’t that a little early?”
“I’m pretty sure that’s when normal people eat dinner,” I say, and then choke down a sticky clump of semi-cooked batter.
“We are as normal as normal gets,” Dad replies. “We’ll do our best, honey. Let’s get a move on, Tee. I’ll take my breakfast to go.” Dad kisses mom on the cheek, scoops a fresh stack of pancakes onto a paper towel with one hand and picks up his metal coffee mug with the other, and then heads through the back door toward the truck.
“Have fun,” Mom concedes, “and please be careful.” She glances out the window at the streaked sky and gnaws on her bottom lip. Her finger nails tap a quick rhythm on the countertop. I take my plate to the kitchen sink and follow her gaze to the glowing dawn. I wonder what she sees in it, and why she seems to hunt it for answers every morning.
“We’ll be fine, Mom,” I offer.
“I know.”
“Thanks for breakfast,” I say. “I really will come back every year, no matter where I go after graduation. Nobody does coconut pancakes like you do.”
“Thank you, sweetheart.” She looks at me, blinking rapidly. “Now go, the day’s wasting,” she says, and then turns back to the sun. I steal one more glimpse of her, and then follow Dad to the truck.
We ride in silence for the first few minutes. Dad rolls up the pancakes with one hand so he can eat them like a burrito while he drives. Once he finishes, he wipes his mouth with the paper towel and then tucks it into the pocket of his flannel shirt.
“I don’t know why you like those,” he says, and sucks at his teeth.
“I haven’t liked them since I was about ten,” I admit.
Dad lets out a honk of a laugh. “You’re a good girl, Tanzy,” he says. He turns up the volume on his favorite radio station to listen to the morning show. The voices fade in and out for the first few minutes as we make our way to the main road. The radio host’s voice becomes audible, announcing the beginning of the routine Science Fact or Fiction Friday segment.
“With us today is Dr. Andrews, who has a rather extraordinary theory about light and lightning, and some compelling studies to back up her claims. Dr. Andrews, thank you for joining us.”
“Thank you for having me,” she answers.
“So Dr. Andrews, give us your science fact.”
“Did you know that the human eye sees less than one percent of the color spectrum, and our ears hear less than one percent of the sound spectrum?”
“No, I did not.”
“What do you think is in all that clear, all that quiet?”
Dad glances at the radio dial as if checking the station.
“I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it,” the host answers.
“What if I was to tell you that there’s an entirely separate world in the clear, undetectable by human senses.”
“A world?” the host repeats. I shift in my seat.
“Yes, a world,” the woman continues. “A world happening around us all the time. It has been operating alongside ours like two plays on one stage.”
“Do you have proof of this world?”
“None that you’d believe,” she replies. A chill of interest conjures goosebumps from my elbows to my wrist. I pull the sleeves on my jacket down to cover my knuckles.
“Well it’s pretty safe to invent something that you claim you can’t prove.”
“There’s nothing safe abou