DDsE, Book 9

By Sue Perry

Being sixteen is Tupac Eminem. Ella has no one to talk to except her new diary, which she has to hide from Ma and Pa Warden, the foster parents she’s stuck with since her family got flattened in a car accident. Now that she lives with the wardens, she has to switch to a new school, where people act like her tragedy is contagious. Her new suburb is just as boring as the last, and offers no hope of secret passageways or magic. But life is not all bad. There’s an interesting boy at the new school – although his family turns out to be impossibly dangerous. And there’s a feral cat, living in the suburb’s only open space, a pitiful excuse for woods. Sometimes the cat invades Ella’s mind. She tells her diary, ‘I’ve gone a special kind of crazy, a split personality. And my other personality is a cat, not a person.’

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sue Perry
• Release date: Nov 20, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463461105

Sue Perry

... Concert stage, dark except for a deep blue spotlight. Singer drops to one knee and his narration evolves from murmur to rant. "This is the story of a man who got what he wanted but he lost what he had. He got what he wanted but he lost what he had. He got –" ...It goes on forever. It's mesmerizing. Uncomfortable. Confessional.Pretty sure this memory is from the time I saw James Brown, decades ago, but the lost identity of the singer isn't the point.I've spent my life gazing across some fence or other, admiring greener grass over yonder. I've acted on so many impulses to jump the fence. No complaints, but it has sure taken me a long time to appreciate where I'm standing right now. And nowadays that blue spotlight chant fills my head whenever I contemplate a new jump.Sometimes I jump back.I was a low–budget television producer until I wrote a psychological thriller, "Was It A Rat I Saw", which Bantam–Doubleday–Dell published in hardcover in 1992. Soon after that I became the mother of twins, jumped into graduate school, and became a disaster scientist. I dabbled in academia, government research, and consulting.I stopped writing fiction for nearly two decades, until I noticed how much I missed it. I resumed writing novels with the literary fiction "Scar Jewelry" about a family with secrets that started in the era of Los Angeles punk and persist for decades. I'm in the midst of a speculative detective series FRAMES, with "Nica of Los Angeles", "Nica of the New Yorks", and "Boredom Fighter" so far. I've just completed a nine-novella series, the young adult paranormal horror romance, "DDsE".Funny. Back in the day, I had a single book idea at a time. Now I'm flooded with them, can't keep up with them, though I write just about every day.I live in southern California. I had to leave for five years to confirm this is where I belong. I live with multiple cats, comfortably close to my twins and granddaughter. Like my life paths, my friends and family are all over the damn place. I like to visit them, spend time at the ocean, explore cities, and go out to hear live music.

Book preview

DDsE

Book 9

Sue Perry

Copyright 2019 Sue Perry

Published by Sue Perry at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition License Notes: This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re–sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Book 9 Table of Contents

Ella's Diary, Entries 346. – 412.

Acknowledgements

About Sue Perry

Dedication

For Luna.

346.

DD – For hours, I hid in the woods outside the Trigg family home, happy for every blast of headache as Grayfast circled and prowled and showed me what he was seeing.

Definitely, someone had been here since last time we were there. No sign of the warning Paul wrote on the front door or of sirene damage inside. Someone had cleaned up. Someone who had the house's permission to enter. Paul, Aunt Axi, Bruce.

Or Alcatur.

Would Alcatur care about cleaning up the sirene mess? I didn't know much about him. Maybe his war to eliminate all people who aren't Everweer, maybe that was a clean freak problem.

Grayfast gave me a weird look when I laughed but he never seems to like anybody laughing.

I went back to staring at the hidden patio. So much had happened to me there, starting way back on the night Alcatur served me bloody meat. I stared so hard the wall turned wavery. I rolled on my back and closed my eyes. The sun felt good on my face. It was quiet here. Peaceful. No. Way in the distance, sirens reminded me.

Was anybody inside the Trigg house now? Maybe after dark I'd see a light on. Which would mean I was still laying in the woods after dark. A measly skimpy patch of woods but still. I made a plan. Wait until sunset. If no lights on, go in the house. If lights on, go back to the van and wait until morning to see if anyone emerges.

The van was parked where Lewis and Lourdes and Paul and I had been hiding one night in these woods long ago. Why were we hiding that time? I can't even remember. Too much hiding, D.

I called myself a chicken but I still couldn't get my feet to stand me up and walk me closer to that house. My only comfort was that Grayfast was acting cautious too, keeping inside bushes while he studied the house from different locations. Grayfast is never a chicken. You know. Because he's a cat.

That's a joke Lewis would make. Something was definitely wrong with me.

The sun had at least another hour in the sky. I flopped down then popped up again. Wait. Were those coyote howls? Here in the sub? In daylight?

Grayfast's ears twitched and he trotted across the field.

We'll be back for you, I called to Sariah and Fastidious although no doubt Grayfast already told them.

At the bottom of the steps to the Trigg front porch, Grayfast turned and looked back at me. Okay. Here we go. – sE

347.

DD – The Trigg house was almost back to normal. A demolished couch was missing and the stairs had scraped wood from when the sirene trashed everything. I was surprised to notice how much the lack of damage pleased me. This house has become important to me.

Grayfast stayed close as we went from room to room. Everywhere, signs that somebody had been there since our last visit. Books open on tables, pillows lumpy from recent bodies. None were still warm, though. I actually touched pillows to check.

In the kitchen, soft damp air like water had boiled recently. Six plates, six bowls drying in the dish rack by the sink. So. If that was from one meal, who might have eaten here. Paul. Lourdes. Aunt Axi. Franklin? Some coyote kids?

Or. Alcatur. Natalie. Plus four other bad guys.

Bad guys were hard to imagine. The house had a peaceful feeling. With one big exception. When we went in the secret library, Grayfast puffed up and started hissing. Legitimately hissing! At the secret room with the screen. That room was like a dark wound. The entrance was blocked with nailed pieces of wood, a thick wide black sticky tape, and see–through cloth that shimmered like changeling armor.

The instant I looked into that wound, changeling armor shot up around me without my bringing it.

For sure not going in there! But with my armor up I could feel the sharp boundary where the danger stopped. Whatever was in there was staying put.

My changeling armor shimmered away and Grayfast unpuffed. He rubbed against my legs, I scritched his head. We backed out of the Everweer library and resumed checking rooms.

At first I tiptoed around and used only window light to investigate. But pretty soon I was walking normally and after I checked a room I'd leave its lights on to keep track of where I'd been.

At last we were back to the front room. All the rooms halls closets were empty.

But the house didn't feel empty.

The windows glowed with sunset then went black. I kept every light on. Long ago, Paul and I had wondered whether lights would show outside. I could have solved that mystery but no way was I going outside to check. The coyote howls got more intense every time they circled the house.

They didn't circle the van though.

How to get Fastidious and Sariah into the house safely.

Really only one thing I could succeed at right now. Go make dinner. – sE

348.

DD – The refrigerator was packed with vegetable leftovers, some of them delicious enough to qualify as Franklin–made. No sign of bloody meat. That reassured me that the presences I felt in the house were friend not foe. Definitely not Alcatur, who even ate bloody meat for breakfast.

In the weirdo world I lived in nowadays, when I felt invisible presences I assumed they were in secret rooms. According to Aunt Axi, the house had six other secret rooms besides the ones I'd been in. But I hadn't found them when I searched for them back when she first told me about them.

But I knew so much more now. Maybe I could – Um. What? Um.

Would be a lot easier to think without all those coyote howls outside.

Aha. When I had to choose between directions on my quest, a faint changeling shimmer showed me the road to take. When I needed to find books in a changeling library, a faint shimmer showed me the shelves to try.

Where should I look for the secret rooms? I asked the air. Hearing the words helped me focus on my goal. To see shimmer that would reveal secret rooms.

OK. That made a plan. I would do a new search through the house but this time make slow moves, watching for shimmer. I started in the front room. I circled in one corner, moved to another corner. I made sure my eyes brushed every surface and item. Everweer were sneaky, a room entrance could be anywhere!

I had to be thorough and careful while focusing on nothing. The shimmers were always most noticeable off the edges of wherever I was looking.

Slow, thorough, careful. Not my favorites! Especially with coyote howls making me breathe so fast. With Sariah and Fastidious still in the car. With every minute that nobody stopped Alcatur, more people would die.

I finished slow circles in the front room, moved into the hall. As I went along, I realized two reasons to enjoy moving slowly. 1, if I stalled maybe somebody I was looking for would just Tupac show up. And 2, if this didn't work, I had nothing else to try.

I finished the kitchen. My heart jumped. What was that?!

Blood pounded so hard in my ears, I couldn't hear it. Whatever had startled me. The night was so quiet. No noises inside or out.

Oh. What startled me was Q:U:I:E:T. The coyote howls had stopped. The crashing through bushes had stopped.

I finished my search of the hallway, the dining room. No shimmer inside. No howls outside.

Maybe I can risk it. Getting the other animals out of the van. – sE

349.

DD – Fastidious moved down the ramp even slower than he'd gone up it. Or, minutes tick by differently when it's black outside and howls could jump you at any moment.

I kept one hand on Fastidious, who teetered closer farther closer to the ramp edge as he scraped his way out of the van. Both ears on the night air, straining for any hint of coyote return.

I figured that, as soon as Fastidious was down the ramp, Sariah would fly him over to the front porch. But she stayed in the van, laying on her side. Grayfast started grooming her, licking one area. Wait, wasn't that was where her injury was?

Gravel scraped. Fastidious was moving across the driveway His bulky silhouette blocked the orange light from the open front door. I dragged the ramp to the front steps and had plenty of time to set it up before he was ready to climb to the porch.

Inside! Yes!

Sariah was still on her side in the van, a huge lump with the small shadow of Grayfast beside her. I put