Forgotten Memories of Vera Glass , livre ebook

ABRAMS BOOKS - Priemaza Anna Priemaza

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101 pages

English

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A mind-bending YA novel about a world where everyone has a bit of magic in them-but some magic is being used to change the world in unspeakable ways Vera has a nagging feeling that she's forgetting something. Not her keys or her homework-something bigger. Or someone. When she discovers her best friend Riven is experiencing the same strange feeling, they set out on a mission to uncover what's going on. Everyone in Vera's world has a special ability-a little bit of magic that helps them through the day. Perhaps someone's ability is interfering with their memory? Or is something altering their very reality? Vera and Riven intend to fix it and get back whatever or whomever they've lost. But how do you find the truth when you can't even remember what you're looking for in the first place? The Forgotten Memories of Vera Glass is a cleverly constructed, heartbreaking, and compelling contemporary YA novel with a slight fantasy twist about memory, love, grief, and the invisible bonds that tie us to each other.

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Publié par	ABRAMS BOOKS
Date de parution	16 novembre 2021
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781647002091
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0777€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

PUBLISHER S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for and may be obtained from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-1-4197-5259-9
eISBN 978-1-6470-0209-1
Text copyright 2021 Anna Priemaza
Book design by Hana Anouk Nakamura
Published in 2021 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.
Amulet Books are available at special discounts when purchased in quantity for premiums and promotions as well as fundraising or educational use. Special editions can also be created to specification. For details, contact specialsales@abramsbooks.com or the address below.
Amulet Books is a registered trademark of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
ABRAMS The Art of Books 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007 abramsbooks.com
To Katelyn Larson.
And to Laura Geddes.
Without you, the emptiness in my heart would weigh more than a thousand stars.
CHAPTER ONE
Sometimes I wonder how much better life would be without siblings. Well, maybe not better, but certainly quieter.
All four of us are in the dining room after school, plus Riven-who isn t my sibling, but who comes home with me after school so often that she might as well be.
And so I told him that obviously the day structure in the creation story in the Bible is metaphorical because God didn t even make the sun until the fourth day, so how could days like we understand them now even exist before that, so believing in the Bible doesn t mean you can t also believe in the big bang theory and evolution and all that good stuff, says Al, who is standing at the head of the table, relating an argument he got in with his biology teacher.
Just one game. Pwease, Isaac begs Riven as he climbs into her lap and reaches for her phone.
Around us all skips Gertie, who is singing some song about ghosts and pumpkins that ends each verse with an ear-splitting Boo!
As a particularly loud Boo! reverberates right in my ear and I stare down at my nowhere-near-done math homework, I wish for one brief moment that I was an only child. I wish the quiet house Riven and I walked into before Al got home with Gertie and Isaac-it was his turn to pick them up after school-could have stayed quiet for hours, and we could have gotten lost in our books, the ticking of the kitchen clock and the steady rhythm of our breathing the only noise.
But then Gertie skips over and throws her arms around me in a hug, and Al suggests we surprise Mom and Dad by making pasta for supper, and Riven compromises with Isaac by taking silly selfies of the two of them, and I swear that Isaac s giggles could cure cancer. And all my wishing flies out the window.
Riven offers to watch Gertie and Isaac while Al and I make pasta, so as she chases them around pretending to be an evil mutant rabbit from their favorite video game, Legends of the Stone , Al grabs two jars from the pantry and holds them up. Alfredo or marinara?
I choose marinara, since in my opinion it goes better with the zucchini, mushrooms, and peppers we re planning to chop up. From the dining room comes the sound of Gertie s and Isaac s giggles and screeches and Riven s roars.
I grab the zucchini and peppers-organic, of course-from the fridge, but before setting them down, I duck my head into the dining room. It s dark in there; Riven s flicked off the light to enhance the pseudo-scary atmosphere. Hey, Riven, I say, you re on the island, and you come across Bob and Fred. Bob says, We re both knaves. Who s what?
Riven stops chasing Gertie and Isaac around like a monster for a moment and throws her hand toward the ceiling to send all four bulbs of the rectangular, hanging light fixture to life. She looks at me in the now-illuminated room. That s it? That s all I get for clues? Only one of them says something?
Riven is used to me tossing these questions at her. I love logic problems, especially the knights and knaves problems. In them, you re on an island filled with knaves, who can only lie, and knights, who can only tell the truth. You come across groups of people, and based on what they say, you have to figure out who s a knight and/ or who s a knave. I love problems that rely only on logic and deduction to solve them.
Bob s a knave and Fred s a knight! Al calls from the kitchen behind me.
Hey! Riven calls back. You didn t give me time to answer!
You want another one? I ask her.
Oh no. I m much too busy being a monster to think about things like knights and knaves. She makes her fingers into claws and lunges at Gertie and Isaac, who squeal and dive under the table. Rather than chase after them, though, Riven pauses like she s still trying to think through the problem.
If Bob was a knight, he d say so, I explain. Which means he has to be a knave. Which means the both part of his statement has to be a lie. Which means-
That Fred s a knight. Yeah, yeah, I got it. She scrunches up her nose at me, grins, and says, Hey, can you flick the lights back off on your way out? Then she roars like a dinosaur and dives under the table.
I shake my head and return to the kitchen, flicking the light switch on the way and undoing Riven s small burst of magic. Riven thinks that the sort of one-way-ness of magic makes her light aptitude a pain in the butt, but I d much rather have that than my mostly useless unlocking aptitude. (Useless unless you want to be a criminal, that is, which isn t exactly my life goal.)
Al has started chopping the mushrooms, so I pull out a second cutting board and settle in beside him, slicing open the peppers and putting the stems and innards in our compost bucket.
How was your day? Al asks as we chop. How s your new science partner? Al and I fight a lot-usually over whose turn it is to use the laptop we share-but we talk a lot, too. And my favorite thing about my big brother is that he always remembers the things that I tell him. He genuinely listens.
She seems all right. Quiet. But she does what I tell her to. We got an A on our first lab assignment.
That s a relief, Al says. We both know the fear of group projects, of slacker partners who threaten to bring down our straight-A averages, turning us into the underachievers of our family. Mom and Dad would understand if our grades dipped, of course; Al and I are harder on ourselves than they are. Hey, I need the laptop later, he adds. For a history project.
No way! Al! I ve been telling you all week that I need it tonight to write up my English paper! You can t- I break off as I notice Al s grin. You jerkface! Don t joke about things like that!
Sorry, Vera, Al says, though the smirk on his face says he s not actually sorry at all.
You re such a jerk sometimes, I say, shaking my head. And then we go back to chopping vegetables.
Once the veggies are in the frying pan, Al asks, Hey, can you keep a secret?
Of course.
He twists his hands together. I m dating Cecily.
Cecily Murphy?!
A crook of a smile slips onto his face as if he s trying to hold it back but can t. He nods.
Cecily s in tenth grade with me, though that s not the shocking part, since Al s only a year older than me. Mom and Dad are going to find out, you know.
His eyebrows furrow. You swore-
Not from me! You re just not exactly invisible at school. Al s the kind of guy that everyone likes and everyone knows. There s probably a dozen girls jealous of Cecily already.
Al s pale cheeks flush pink as he pushes around the veggies in the pan with a wooden spoon. No way.
I raise a single eyebrow at him. Well, you keep telling yourself that. Just know that one way or another it s going to get back to Mom and Dad that you re dating a girl who thinks she s a witch.
She doesn t think she s a witch.
They call themselves the Witches.
It s facetious!
I could say more. I could remind him that while some people call the single aptitude everyone has magic, like my unlocking magic or Al s heat magic or Riven s light magic, all magic is explainable by science-or at least it will be once science expands far enough. Anyone who thinks magic is mystical is silly. I could remind him that there s only one God, and anyone who thinks magic comes from spirits or gods or dead souls is blaspheming. I could tell him she s not good enough for him.
Instead, I say, Are you happy?
The smile that s been flirting with his face blooms in full. Very.
Then I m happy for you. I knock his shoulder with mine. Congratulations, Einstein, I say, after his namesake.
He knocks my shoulder back. Thanks, Rubin, he says, after mine.
When Mom and Dad get home, we re just pouring the finished spaghetti into a strainer. Abandoning Al, I pop into the hallway where they re taking off their coats and shoes. Mom leans against Dad s shoulder to steady herself as she pulls off her flats. Good shoes mean happy feet means a happy body means a happy mind, she s told me numerous times.
They re both white with brown hair, but Mom s hair is big and messy, even when it s up in a bun, while Dad s is shaved as neatly as his goatee. Mom is short-shorter than both me and Al, who clearly got Dad s genes in that department-coming to just above Dad s shoulder. But that doesn t stop her from standing on her tiptoes, tugging his tie so he comes down to meet her, and kissing him right on the lips.
Ew, gross! I say loudly, though I don t truly mind. My parents have the type of relationship I can only hope for someday. I ve never heard them yell at each other, and the only thing they fight about is science-and then it s less fighting, and more spirited, respectful deb