Chapter 1
Addy Less crouched beneath a picnic table at the center of the old snack shop porch. The sky flashed brilliant violet. Thunder shook the ground almost immediately afterward. The main issue was that it was a cloudless night.
“It’s coming from the Mound itself!” she whispered into her phone.
The air smelled sharp and acrid, like ozone.
“That is so creepy. Brogan chose tonight for the dare!” came Olivia’s voice over the phone.
“I hope it’s worth it,” sighed Addy, tucking her long legs under her Robotics Camp T-shirt. The damp was creeping into her bones from the cold pavement, even though the late summer air was still humid and hot. She was cold, and her hair was getting frizzy.
She considered making a run for the Marble Pavilion, the renovated shell of an old church, which was about fifty yards in front of her. It had a proper roof, even if it had no side walls and it was farther from the Mound. But as long as the park’s latest massive earthworks project was emitting lightning, she didn’t dare.
“Hold on. I’m going to text an expert,” Olivia said. Tapping followed.
Addy waited in silence while goosebumps formed on her arms and neck. The air itself whispered and cracked with energy. Addy thought there might be voices buried in the static.
“I think the Mound is sparking because . . . well, umm . . . It’s blocking something,” came Olivia’s voice, finally.
“What?”
“Emily says it’s blocking the Bear-den ley line.”
“Emily? Your weird neighbor girl? What’s a ley line?” Addy shot back, her eye roll almost audible.
“She’s not weird,” Olivia said quickly. “She just… notices everything.”
Addy clung to her irritation, using it to push down the fear rising in her gut. “Well? What is it?!”
The static whispers were almost a hum now, and purple sparks were drifting over from the Mound. The hair on Addy’s arms stood up just before the Mound launched another purple bolt into the river with a deafening roar of thunder. Then the air was quiet for an instant before the charge began building again.
Olivia’s reply came back through the speaker, broken with static. Something . . . earth energy. Something about the Mound being in the way.
Addy stared at the colossal dark shape beside her. Another flash lit it up and for a moment, it looked wrong. Too sharp and still. There was no thunder with this one.
Addy swallowed hard.
“Ask her how to appease it.”
The phone call went dead. The air changed—cold and oddly clean. Addy slipped out from under the picnic table to investigate.
The floodplain looked too empty. She blinked hard in the colder air.
The Mound was gone.
She lifted her phone to text Olivia, but there was no signal. She felt the involuntary muscles in her face tighten as panic rose.
“I’m Addy Less. I’m all that. I’ve got this,” she said aloud.
She took a deep breath and looked up. The old snack shop was now at the edge of a small village. Something soft and cold landed on Addy’s cheek.
It was snowing.
Where had summer gone?
Her gaze fixed on the one thing that was still familiar, the Marble Pavilion. It wasn’t quite right either. First of all, it had all four solid walls. Second of all, it was well-lit and warm-looking. Its round stained-glass window was casting ruby and turquoise light into the falling snow.
Addy trembled in the cold. The open porch of the snack shop offered nothing.
The church glowed.
She ran.
Its large oak doors swung open. Radiators clicked above her head, and Addy was embraced by the heat and the smell of hot dust and pine trees. Twenty pairs of eyes swung back toward her, and O Little Town of Bethlehem faltered mid-verse, the piano at the front striking an off chord.
Addy noticed with a shock that all the parishioners were wearing something like a uniform. She quickly took a seat in one of the back pews. The piano picked up, with voices finally returning to full volume for “. . . above thy deep and dreamless sleep. . .”
Next was O Come All Ye Faithful. The voices rose full and gentle, though not all perfectly in key.
I must have been struck. I’m dead and this is the waiting room, thought Addy.
Tears began streaming down her face.
A young girl in a white sweater over a red plaid dress with matching gloves slid into the seat next to her and handed her a neatly pressed white handkerchief. She looked close to Addy’s age. The soft lighting of the church reflected in her large brown eyes, set in a caring ebony face. A fancy little red hat sat over her well-groomed curls.
The girl studied her with wide eyes for a few heartbeats and then whispered, “Did you come from the Pines?”
“What? No, I was by the Mound, but then it wasn’t there,” stammered Addy, a bit too loudly. Again, twenty pairs of eyes swiveled to the back, and the piano faltered.
The girl stood and waved for the congregation to continue. A man at the front, wearing a white lab coat over his Christmas best, broke out with “O come let us adore him!” in a rich, resonant baritone that pulled the attention and the voices of the congregation back on track.
“That’s my father!” said the girl, smiling. “He’s the head doctor in the village.”
Addy just shivered at the girl.
The girl took off her sweater and helped Addy into it.
“I’ve seen the Mound. I suppose it could be a gate. It flickers here sometimes . . . like when I was a little girl,” said the girl, looking seriously at Addy.
Addy took several seconds to find her voice before she asked, “Gate? Who are you? Where are we?”
“Ah, sorry. I am Violet Green, and we are right where you started, just not when you started,” said the girl with a wink.
Addy stared at her for several seconds, but Violet only patted her hand. The smell of burning dust and the heat from the radiators were making Addy’s head swim. The large vintage Christmas lights on the many live trees made the light in the little chapel warm but very flickery. Sometimes the room seemed to go fully dark.
Next was Silent Night. Violet began to sing softly. As the song rose, Addy could not help adding her voice to it.
The lights flickered off again, but the song remained. It wrapped around Addy like a soft blanket woven of her own voice. The next thing Addy knew, she was alone on the pews in the Marble Pavilion. Its side walls were gone with the strange village.
She yawned and shook herself. I’ve been granted a reprieve, she thought with relief. Headlights from a car blinded her as it pulled into the parking lot.
“Addy?” called Olivia’s voice from the car window.
“Over here!”
Addy stumbled up and ran toward the car.
Brogan’s brawny buzzcut form hopped out and held the door open for her. He seemed totally unaware of the lightning or the stakes. Addy cursed the humidity creeping into her hair. Her long blond ponytail had gone fully curly. Brogan should not be subjected to her natural hair texture.
“Nice curls!” he said, grinning at her as she hopped in.
“Get in the car and drive!” Addy said.
“Okay, okay!” said Brogan, taking his time walking back to the driver’s seat.
The car was warm and overfilled with her friends and Brogan’s cologne.
“What color was the lightning? What did it smell like?” said Emily intently.
Emily’s older brother Mark, sitting tall in the front, turned around and shushed Emily, making a sharp cutting gesture with his lanky arm. Addy remembered that Brogan had no tolerance for the supernatural. Emily crossed her arms over her chest and sank back with an angry expression on her small, pale face.
“Are you all right?” asked Olivia, searching Addy’s face.
“Yes, I went to the Pavilion and fell asleep until you got here,” said Addy nonchalantly.
“Can sleep through a lightning storm with ease! But you lost the bet!” laughed Brogan, turning to wink at her.
“I’ll make good on our bet another night,” said Addy, blanching.
“Nah, you made it long enough. I’ll take you to Homecoming anyway,” he said without turning back.
Addy and Olivia exchanged excited glances, while Emily, who was still in her last year of middle school, made a retching noise. Mark and Brogan exchanged a high five in the front seat.
“I think that fancy vintage sweater you have on would work nicely for the dance,” said Olivia.
Addy froze. She looked back toward the Marble Pavilion as it retreated in the back window. Indeed, she was still wearing Violet’s sweater. It smelled like pine and overheated dust.
