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Archway Publishing - Tina Lear

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187 pages

English

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Millie leaves her homeland to live amidst the prestige of the Preservation Precinct, but has no idea what it will cost her, or whether she’ll even come out alive.

Millie, a Ddrymmian Sting baby, has always dreamt of exploring the realms of StoryEarth beyond her homeland. Fed up with her community, with all its superstitions and endless ceremonies, she craves the glamour and prestige of the Preservation Precinct.
Naïve about what that glamour conceals, and disobeying her family, Millie moves to the Preservation Precinct and proves herself worthy—until the unthinkable happens. Millie is ambitious in a land that favors humility. When she rises, she ruins everything. By the time she finally understands what’s important, will she survive to do something about it?

Sujets

Fantasy

Fiction

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Publié par	Archway Publishing
Date de parution	26 juin 2023
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781665740258
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0200€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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StoryEarth Chronicles
The Sting Baby

TINA LEAR

Copyright © 2023 Tina Lear.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Archway Publishing
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.archwaypublishing.com
844-669-3957

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-6657-4026-5 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6657-4024-1 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-6657-4025-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023904555

Archway Publishing rev. date: 6/21/2023
Contents
THE NETHERJUNCTURES OF DDRYM
Prologue The Sting Baby
Chapter 1 The Trouble with Millie
Chapter 2 Paulie’s Distress
Chapter 3 Bordercheat Fever
Chapter 4 The Long Solitary
Chapter 5 Shadow Woman
Chapter 6 A Year of Penance
Chapter 7 A Secret in the House
Chapter 8 The New Idea
Chapter 9 The Fight
Chapter 10 Ddrym Weighs In
Chapter 11 Preparing for School
Chapter 12 The Ddrymmian Student
Chapter 13 Frank’s Friends
Chapter 14 Millie Takes Over
Chapter 15 The Decision
Chapter 16 Leaving Ddrym
THE PRESERVATION PRECINCT
Chapter 17 Millie’s High Home
Chapter 18 Making Precinct Friends
Chapter 19 The Seed of the Switch
Chapter 20 Agnes Approaches Mix
Chapter 21 The Secret Summit
Chapter 22 Agent Four Seven’s Challenge
Chapter 23 The Annual StoryEarth Goodwill Ball
Chapter 24 Linn’s Collapse
Chapter 25 The Big Switch
Chapter 26 Monitor Room Shenanigans
Chapter 27 The Breach
Chapter 28 Crisis in the Monitor Room
Chapter 29 Agent Four Seven Makes an Arrest
Chapter 30 Chaos in the Precinct
THE NOTHING
Chapter 31 Zargamom
Chapter 32 The Stenfar Interrogation
Chapter 33 The Scaredy-Pair
Chapter 34 The Grath Interrogation
Chapter 35 Millie’s Un-Meals
Chapter 36 Agent Four Seven’s Hail Mary Pass
HERE
Chapter 37 The True Nothing
Chapter 38 The Deep
Chapter 39 What Millie Sees
Chapter 40 The Decision to See
Chapter 41 A Surprise for Agent Four Seven
THE ROAD BACK
Chapter 42 Agent Four Seven Collapses
Chapter 43 A Compromise
Chapter 44 Millie Struggles
Chapter 45 Stillwell Delivers
Chapter 46 Millie Goes Back to Work
Chapter 47 News Reaches Ddrym
Chapter 48 Levit Finds Frank
Chapter 49 Breaking News
Chapter 50 A Hero’s Welcome
Chapter 51 The Funeral
Chapter 52 The Unraveling
Chapter 53 Insubordination
Chapter 54 Uninvited Guests

FOR WILLIAM JAMES MCAULEY IV
The roads are many.
All begin and end in Oneness.
May every route bring you home to yourself.

Part One
The Netherjunctures of Ddrym
Prologue
The Sting Baby
T hey argued until they were raw. It was Sting season, and Linn wanted another child. Bette did not. They’d been going at it for days.
Linn kept shifting how far the forks were from the plates, moving the cups. She blew her nose.
“Time isn’t fallin’ out our pockets, Linn! Remember, it was two whole years we gave so Wrem could come.” She swiveled to face Linn standing in the kitchen. “Two years of service—for the elders, then for the children. And all the offerings we made of breath and blood, and the oaths we gave. And, Linn, even so, only one in every hundred Welcoming ceremonies bear the fruit of a newborn. That was the only time I ever wished we were a Primal couple. They sneeze and Oops! Look! A baby .” Bette went on, “But all those offerings weren’t for naught. Wrem’s here, and he’s more than enough.”
Finally, she said, “Linn, give me your eyes.”
Her wife turned to face her.
Bette whispered, “A Ceremonial baby like Wrem doesn’t come twice in a lifetime.”
Linn stopped moving, looked down, and took a breath. Then she stumbled through the whole truth as a last resort. “It’s…it’s the Gathering…and…I thought maybe…”
Bette blanched. “What?!”
“No one would know. I mean, who’s to say I didn’t feel the pull—” Linn flinched as Bette flicked salt at her and hissed a protection spell.
“Take it back right now, woman,” Bette said, slamming her hands on the table. “You’re not smarter than the forest, Linn. The Sting baby pulls you. You Precinct idiots, you think the laws are just ‘nice ideas.’ This is Sting season we’re talking about—”
“Yes, but—”
“These laws hold our world together. They are real, energetic forces. No one would know? If no one knew you jumped off a cliff, do you think gravity wouldn’t smash you to the ground anyway?”
“Oh, Words, Bette. Why can’t you just—I just want this. I want Wremmy to have a little sister or brother. For me it’s just as real as gravity, and…” Linn’s shoulders shook as she wept into her hands.
Bette turned away from her and looked out the window at their garden. “It’s too bad your heart is sore,” she said. “But I can’t do this.”
During Sting season, random beings were drawn into the forest by an unseen, unknown force where they coupled in twos and threes in all kinds of configurations. Normally, faithfulness between couples was held sacred. But for the eleven days of Sting season, it was a time to honor pleasure for its own sake, and anyone could join with anyone. There were no repercussions, jealousies, or hurt feelings because the same force that drew them into the forest was the one that erased all memory of what happened there once the season was over.
Another distinctive element of Sting season was its fruit. During the deepest dark of the eleventh night, a small number of Sting babies would come into being, usually at the base of older trees. A Sting baby was a newborn just like any other in StoryEarth, but they were only ever born on that one night each year. To this day, no one knows how, why, or to whom.
The next morning, Linn got up to wake Wrem. “Hey, sleepyhead.” She stroked his hair as he burrowed further down into the covers. “Come on, sweetlight. Mama Bette is putting out the offerings for the faeries. When she gets back, we’ll be ready for breakfast. Let’s go. Up.” She drew his limp, little frame into her lap for a hug.
“Okay,” he mumbled.
She whispered into his hair, “I’ll make us some story time tea, OK? And some gigglecakes. Would you like that?”
“Yeah,” he said, yawning. “But I getta go first.”
“All right, you can go first.”
But Bette didn’t come back for breakfast—or lunch. As the morning stretched itself into late afternoon, Linn lost patience. You made your point, Bette . Come on home now.
Dusk came on. Linn took Wrem next door, where he ran into the house like it was his own.
“Scamp!” Celeste playfully flicked her kitchen towel at him as he sped by, then she turned to Linn. “What’s up?”
“Bette left this morning. We fought, and she’s still not back. And I…I—”
Celeste hugged her. “Go. I’ve got him.”
Linn trotted down the lane, throwing Bette’s name into the air. She’d stop every now and then to listen hard. In her panic, she’d forgotten the simplest idea. She found a soft place in the earth and took her stance, stood still, and tried to calm herself, remembering when Bette had taught her how to do this just after she’d left her Precinct life–so many years ago. She aligned her spinal energies with her clear message to everyone. I’m looking for Bette. She’s been gone all day. Please send her home if you see her. The message went down her spine, through her feet, and into the earth—where anyone connected to her would receive it into their own knowing.
She had almost reached Blimmer’s house. If Bette had gone anywhere to vent, it would be to her best friend. But just before she touched Blimmer’s garden gate, something flickered in the corner of her eye. It was too far away to tell for sure. A person? A spirit? It glowed with a greeting light, so she knew it was safe. She walked toward it, then stopped abruptly. She closed her eyes and opened them again, to be sure. She felt faint.
It was Bette, weeping with joy. She held a tiny newborn Sting baby, lit from within. The two women swam in each other’s eyes for a moment.
“How?” Linn whispered as she approached what was almost holy ground.
“I left angry this morning. I walked and walked. And then I started feeling off, something like a whole mess of bees stinging me from the inside out. They say that’s the pull. The closer to the trees I got, the better I felt, just like they say. And then I seen her, so beautiful, just waitin’ for me with those big eyes. And look at her light,” she said, cooing to the baby, “Look at that wee happylight. And the faerie cloth, feel this, feel it—how soft.” She was completely besott