Lang's Labyrinth

By K. Kibbee

Since unraveling the century-old secret behind an eerie ghost town in rural Washington State, life has been anything but ordinary for 13-year-old Anne. Now, she and her companion Grace, find themselves tangled between two worlds-that of the Fae creatures, whose bloodlust for human hosts has led them to empty entire cities of their children, and

• Language: English
• Publisher: Incorgnito Publishing Press
• Release date: Dec 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9781944589639

Book preview

DEVLIN’S DOOR — Book One Synopsis

When 13-year-old Anne finds herself alone on an Amtrak train, speeding towards a small town in Washington for an extended stay with her dreadful relatives, the coming months seem anything but intriguing. Yet when a fellow passenger regales her with the tale of an abandoned Victorian ghost town nestled in the woods near her destination, the approaching skyline is suddenly mysterious and alluring. While riding the rails, Anne learns of the town’s checkered past and the unexplained mass disappearance of its inhabitants in the early 1920s. The town, now an overgrown relic filled with dilapidated homes, is rumored to lead to nowhere and as such, is avoided by the locals. The train’s engine churns along with Anne’s imagination and by the time her stop arrives, she’s hooked.

Upon arrival at the train station, Anne’s attempts to glean more information about the town are abruptly thwarted by her cold Aunt and bearish Uncle. Paired with her snippy 15-year-old cousin Lexie, the trio offers her a curt welcome and subsequently warns her against any further investigation into the origins of the town. But Anne can’t help herself.

Wooed by an uncharacteristically gracious invitation from her cousin, Anne soon finds herself on the edge of the notorious town, where a peculiar ring of rocks divides it from the outlying world. The rocks stick as though married in concrete and Lexie tells Anne they’re magic before leading her down a velveteen runner of grass saddled by a dozen once-grand Victorian beauties, now climbing with vegetation and filth. But Lexie’s intentions soon become clear as she and her gaggle of rowdy friends trap Anne in one of the most ominous of the houses and proceed to abandon her there. In a frantic effort to escape, Anne races towards a broken window on the home’s upper story and, losing her footing, crashes through a catwalk banister and plummets to the floor below.

              When Anne awakens, she finds that she’s fallen through the first floor and into a cellar. Unlike the other rooms of the home, this one has not yet been ravaged by looters and several personal possessions reveal themselves in the darkness. Amongst them is a curious trunk bearing elfish carvings that seem to come to life before Anne’s eyes. Frightened but intrigued, Anne fishes a weathered journal from the recesses of the trunk and begins reading. The journal, once the prized possession of a young girl who lived in the town circa 1920, tells of various happenings in the town and as Anne continues to read about them, she finds the town coming alive all around her. But it isn’t until she begins to recite an incantation in the journal that its young author appears, as if by magic.

                Grace, as she introduces herself to Anne, claims that she isn’t a ghost and yet by all accounts is over 100 years old. The girl weeps as she struggles to unearth her memories over the past century of darkness. She recalls only that the Faerie folk took her friends and family after her father refused to surrender Grace as the yearly changeling offering, which granted the town bounteous crops in return. Freed from the journal’s pages by Anne’s lips, Grace now desires to enter this Fae realm, which lies at the town’s outskirts, and retrieve her loved ones.

              While leery, Anne has not known friendship such as Grace’s in all her years and thus, agrees to join in the quest. The two girls embark upon a pilgrimage to save the raptured townsfolk but once inside the Fae realm, they find that unlike Grace, all of her friends and family have aged naturally, and since perished; save one. Grace’s brother Jacob, who was an infant at the time of the mass abduction, remains the town’s lone survivor. He is hard and animalistic from his long stay in the The Brown, one of the twelve Fae forests. Through the decades he’s made use of underground tunnels and hovels to hide from the Faeries, whose greatest desire is to become human. With their lithe, dirty bodies and expressionless eyes of pitch, these Faeries more closely resemble a discarded Roswell experiment than Mr. Disney’s renditions. They exist in cold, dank forests, immolating humans and dreaming of the day when they will change bodies with one and assume their place amongst us. They are ruthless and cunning and as they scheme for a way free of the Forests, their actions and tempers grow increasingly intense.

              A magic talisman, set on an inaccessible island and guarded by a horde of Faeries, is the key to get out of the Fae realm and following a treacherous journey into The Black forest, Anne and Grace manage to retrieve it. But when they finally make their way back out and into the human realm, something about Grace has changed. Her eyes, they’re expressionless and black as pitch!

THE RAVEN QUEEN — Book Two Synopsis

No sooner have they escaped the Forests of the Fae than Anne notes a change in Grace. The once light, comely girl seems to carry a darkness with her—a sinister undertone that makes Anne’s skin crawl. And when Grace is awakened from a dream-addled sleep and her eyes gleam with the blackness of the Fae, Anne’s worst suspicions are confirmed—her dearest friend is no longer her friend at all, but rather a ruthless changeling creature.

This new, changed Grace soon infiltrates Anne’s family, and by use of her Faerie glamour, easily charms and manipulates them to do her bidding.  When Anne’s suspicious about the metamorphosed girl come to light, she becomes a threat and thus, a target, of the wicked changeling. So while Anne sets about trying to get rescue the real Grace, who remains trapped in the Fae Forests, the beast marauding as Grace in the human realm sets its sights on eliminating Anne from the picture.

Meanwhile, Grace is afraid and adrift in the Forests of the Fae, with only her raven companion, Onyx, as an ally. She fears she will most certainly perish in the dismal dystopia, but an encounter with a tribe of Faeries who covet her faithful feathered friend turns the tables. Her mastery of an animal companion leaves the Fae awestruck, and she is anointed as their Queen—The Raven Queen.

Just as Grace is crowned as The Raven Queen in the Fae world, her counterpart earns a similar title in the human realm. The changeling Grace, to whom ravens are inexplicably drawn, becomes High School royalty of Anne’s unsuspecting classmates . . . and while her Faerie charms leave the general populous in awe, Anne isn’t so easily fooled. She sets about investigating this curious connection and soon learns that ravens have a genetic imprint that instills them with a hatred of the Fae—a hatred that Anne finds growing in herself. The more diligently she tries to get to the real Grace, the more precarious her relationship with Grace’s inhuman substitute becomes. Soon Anne finds herself thrust into a mental institution at the behest of her brainwashed family, who is helplessly dangling on the changeling’s marionette strings.

With her family in imminent danger, a straight-jacket looming over her shoulder, and Grace rapidly losing her humanity in the Forests, Anne thinks circumstances can’t get much worse. Then she meets her loony-bin roomy, Vanessa Darling, and realizes they can get worse—much worse. While Vanessa’s reputation as, "the crazy girl," seems like Anne’s latest and greatest setback, she soon learns that Vanessa may be the only sane person at Transformations Treatment Center. Vanessa, whose brother befell the same fate as Grace, has taken note of the seemingly effortless way in which the sinister staff at Transformations manipulates its residents. She’s also noted their smoky, mind-bending stares, hushed conversations, and suspicious activities. And when Anne meets the malevolent Doctor Mayers, who manages the Center, and sees that same inky stare that befell her dear friend Grace staring back—she realizes she’s landed in a den of changeling who are all bent on covering the tracks of the Fae’s many abductions, and perhaps even more disturbingly—orchestrating new ones.

Suddenly, the race to rescue Grace becomes something greater—a race to rescue not only her best friend, and her hostage-held family, but also all of the other innocent children that the Fae have set their sights on. Anne rallies her courage, her wits, and some major moxie before engaging Vanessa’s help and finally escaping from the center before the good Doctor Mayers manages to steal her mind and cast her into oblivion with all of the other forgotten girls.

Now vigilantes on the run, Anne and Vanessa are pursed by the Fae with feverish tenacity, and before Anne makes it to the portal that will lead her to Grace, Vanessa is captured as Anne narrowly escapes.

Alone once again, Anne summons her last remaining dregs of courage and energy to make it to Grace’s side—only to find that her friend has perished. Or has she?

LANG’S LABYRINTH - Book Three

Chapter One

Anne stared hard at the phrase etched upon the parched earth, reading those three seemingly inconsequential words—I AM GRACE—over and over again, their combined impact mounting with each repetition. Stunned to silence, she didn’t even interject as the raven walked over top of them and its claws raked most of the letters away, as might a passing wave. The bird continued on towards her, hopping at first, but then slowed to an amble as it approached the place where she’d collapsed, near the changeling body.

The motion from the raven’s approach caught Anne’s attention and she looked up abruptly enough to spook them both. In turn, the bird froze and then studied her with bright, shiny eyes. After a few silent moments, Anne asked, Grace? Is that really you? with a notable rattle to her tone.

The raven replied only with a tick of its head, after which it restarted its waddle and continued on towards Anne. She recoiled slightly, drawing a sharp breath just as it arrived at the knees she’d unwittingly been clawing at for the past several minutes. Sun was streaming downward from an opening in the tree canopy just above them and as the raven entered its path, the bird’s rich, black feathers lit with little flashes of violet, and its gaze warmed.

Anne’s previously tense shoulders sagged as she leaned over. She softly repeated only the word, Grace? before the bird began bobbing up and down in perfect rhythm— the sight of which caused her to giggle. In response, the bouncing grew more rapid and Anne soon found that she was laughing uncontrollably. Happy tears trailed her cheeks as Grace bounced on, but the mirth departed too quickly, and left worry in its wake.

Wiping her tears away with one swift, fevered motion, Anne stuttered, But—but you’re still trapped! I screwed it all up—I still didn’t save you! You may not be in that nasty-ass Faerie body, she railed, shooting a sideways glare at the lifeless sack of bones just feet away, "But you’re still not you. You’re Onyx!"

Grace, who’d stopped her animated bobbing when Anne’s cheeks had been rubbed clean, only looked at her friend and dipped her head a notch.

Anne too stared on, briefly wanting for words, and then asked, Why’d you do it? Why’d you switch with him?

Grace turned from her friend with a slow, heavy gate that no living bird could possibly duplicate, and returned to the spot where she’d scratched her first message in the dirt. Only the C and E of her name remained distinguishable beneath her earlier claw marks, and she wiped them away with her fragile foot before etching HE MADE ME. I WAS DYING, over top. 

A choke caught in Anne’s throat. The corners of her mouth drooped as she watched Grace smooth the earth a second time and then replace her words with the sentence, THE OTHER ANIMALS WON’T COME NEAR THE PORTAL SO IT WAS THE ONLY WAY.

Grace didn’t turn around after completing her tale, but instead looked out onto the forest and let her head sink even lower. Her small body quaked and as Anne watched the bird’s silhouette vibrate against a mammoth tree in the background, she was struck by how very fragile it was. Onyx has always seemed such a robust, capable creature, but under Grace’s charge, his body was suddenly weak.

Anne rose and walked towards her friend. She expected it to feel unnatural as she knelt down and took the raven up in her arms, but it really didn’t. Grace’s new body relaxed as Anne embraced her, as might a trusting pet’s. Just a few short seconds into the hug, Anne’s waterworks restarted and as she clutched Grace close to her chest, she blubbered, You’re here—you’re alive—that’s all that matters. Following another progression of sobs, she added, I’m gonna fix this, Grace. I’m gonna make it right, and then stopped her crying in that same instant. As she pulled Grace’s tear-soaked body away from her chest and examined the mass of mangled feathers that all of her weeping had produced, she projected a smile and exalted, And I know just how to do it!

Grace rocked slightly as she was set back on firm ground, but gave Anne her full attention as the suddenly jubilant girl explained, "That Lang guy—that spell or whatever he told you about—the one that the Faerie King hid in the books—we could totally use that to make that thing give you your body back!"

Anne’s liveliness grew as she spoke and before long she was pacing back and forth in front of Grace while motioning excitedly with her arms. Her eyes shined as she decided, Yeah, it could totally work! We just gotta get that spell and then read it and then that nasty thing won’t have a choice—it’ll have to give you your body back! Making her tenth or so pass of the same worn trail, Anne’s eyes lit with an even greater epiphany. Heck, we could use that spell on lots of Changelings—make the whole, cruddy bunch of ‘em go back to where they came from! We could be like Van Helsing or Kate Beckinsale, but like with Faeries instead of vampires! She smiled to herself, made another two or three runs and realized, I could even help Vanessa save her brother!

At the mention of Vanessa’s name, Anne’s demeanor quieted and her face fell. I totally abandoned her—the girl who helped me get to you, she explained as Grace came to a standstill. She totally saved my butt, and I just let them take her.

Grace scuttled towards the spot where Anne had stopped and lifted her little claw up before clamping it around her friend’s tennis-shoe. The action produced a faint scratching sound that called Anne’s attention and as she looked downward, a single tear fell from her eye, landed on the raven’s back, and melted away. Anne smiled and her eyes scrunched up, squeezing a few more tears to their outer edges, but those only trailed down the sides of her face and then hooked around and under her chin as she parted her lips again. But I can fix that too, she realized aloud as she beamed at Grace.

Anne inhaled deeply, wiped the last of the tears from the rim of her chin, and began canvassing the area around her. She quickly located the backpack she’d absentmindedly discarded earlier, along with The Brown Fairy Book that sat just beside it. The World’s Fair glasses were just a few feet beyond and as she fished them from a bed of fallen leaves, she brushed elbows with the dead Faerie that still lay slumped against a nearby tree. The body shifted at her touch, and Anne flinched and drew her hand back as an expression of revulsion overtook her features. After stumbling backward a couple of feet, she paused to observe the being, and her blatant distaste only grew. The creature’s flesh had begun to decompose and hunks of grey rot, very like bits of meaty squid that she’d once seen at an exotic seafood restaurant, dripped from its bones. Its sunken eyes were shut but the thin lids that covered them were as transparent as rotten leaves, so that Anne could see their blackness shining through. She felt certain a time or two that the eyes tracked with her movements, so as she reached towards the creature and the talisman around its neck, she did so with trembling hands. So near to the corpse, its odor of decay was intensified, and Anne gagged as she came within arm’s reach. With her right hand cupped over her mouth, she reached towards the gem with her left.

This is it, right Grace? was muffled as it pushed through Anne’s clamped fingers and, This is the talisman you got from The Brown, right? was barely audible.

An excited crow burst from the foreground as Grace leapt into view and began bobbing up and down. Observing the little jig, Anne let out a small whimper, and then clamped her hand a little tighter over her mouth and leaned in close to the creature. She closed her eyes when she felt the cool surface of the gem brush against