Novel Excerpt - Prologue of Outside the Crystal

Note: These are the first pages of the first book.

Before the Nembath Incident, when Raychel still could walk around in broad daylight, she and Braden used to sneak out of school from time to time and explore the nearby forest. Together they discovered a pond as wide as their school building, a place they thought belonged only to them until they found a can clumsily wedged in the mud, sloppy shoe tread surrounding the spot. Even so, they never saw another person at the pond, so it was theirs. They named it Frog Pond, after the nice-sized green creatures that lived there. They loved to show off the power of their legs; Raychel and Braden had never managed to catch one.

A small mound near the south bank overlooked Frog Pond. It wasn’t much of a mound, but it was just high enough to see the snowy tips of the twin peaks, Pilorite and Silorite, if Raychel stood on the tips of her toes and the sky was clear. The only place she could see all of Frog pond was on top of that mound, all except a small gulf that protruded eastward, ducking out of sight behind the everglades. The mound was Raychel’s favorite place around Frog Pond. Being able to see everything, from the extremities of the water to the tops of the mountains, Raychel felt more confident in herself than she ever could in the classroom, drilled with Geography.

“No, Port Youl is here,” her teacher had said to her earlier, pointing to the map. “Close to the Northern Islands.”

Raychel muttered, “Whatever.” The teacher heard it.

“Port Youl is a beautiful city, Raychel,” he said. “Don’t you want to visit sometime? You’ll have to know where it is first.”

Raychel despised her teacher’s voice. He pronounced her name as if it were missing the Y, a two-syllable word like the Oriathian name. “I don’t ever want to leave Brodaw,” she said with conviction.

“Now you’re just being stubborn. Not even to Nembath, the magnificent Lightning City?” He spread his arms and salesman smile wide.

“Lightning City,” said Raychel flatly. “That sounds safe.”

Note in her hand, she was sent to visit the school counselor, again. She threw the note away and slipped away to the forest. Braden found her on the top of the hill, meditating with her legs crossed. “I told the teacher I had to go to the bathroom,” he said.

Braden’s favorite place around Frog Pond was not the mound but in the everglades, on the bank. He said he liked the mud and the feeling that he couldn’t be seen. Raychel always felt like resisting when he wanted to crouch down in the frigid murk. They would dirty their clothes and return home wet and shivering, their shoes making nauseating squishing noises, to parents who would surely guess where they had been instead of class. He didn’t think about that, it seemed, as much as she did. He felt more in touch with nature when he waded knee-deep along the pond’s swampy bank. There was no resisting Braden, and as much as she preferred the mound she preferred him more.

Braden undid the strings on his dirt and grass stained bag. “I brought something from home,” he said, shuffling his hand around inside. “Dad let me borrow to help catch a frog.” His fingers scraped against the canvass sides until he found what he was looking for and eagerly withdrew it. His fist was wrapped around a small cable, a miniature fan dangling at the end. Opening his fist and bending over, he showed her a small, wooden, banana-shaped object with a rectangular hole carved into the center, inside of which was a tangle of mesh. Raychel leaned over with curiosity, and her scalp nearly brushed against his.

“What is it?” asked Raychel.

“It’s a boat,” said Braden. “The fan moves it forward, and I control it with the remote control. Here, hold this.” Before Raychel could say anything she was holding the boat and the sound of Braden’s hand clawing against the canvas resumed. Raychel lifted a fragment of the mesh with her index finger, cautiously contemplating its shape.

“Is this a net?” she said.

“Yep,” said Braden. “Got it!” He extracted a compact black box that looked like a child’s building block but with a small joystick planted in the middle. “It’s pretty simple,” he said, flipping a switch with an assured click. The fan struggled against Raychel’s steadying hand, and she politely dropped it as if startled by bumping into a person’s shoulder on the street. Braden caught it with his free hand. “Be careful, Raychel!” he exclaimed not giving the impression that he was upset or worried that the machine would break, not for a minute. He pronounced her name like it was supposed to be pronounced.

“What does your dad use it for?” said Raychel. “Catching frogs?”

“Hm,” Braden considered. “I’m not sure, actually. I know there’s a camera on the bottom, so he can take remote pictures in dangerous waters, from a safe distance. I’m not sure what the net’s for, though. I’m not really into that Hero Team thing, you know.”

In the middle of Frog Pond, closest to the east side near the mountains, there was a small island where the frogs liked to spend their time. The only other times Raychel and Braden had tried to capture a frog was when it ventured to the far shore, an irregular occurrence. Braden promised that when the mountain winds died down and the air warmed up again, they would swim together to the island, where they would surely be able to catch a frog. Raychel hated swimming, but she nodded anyway.

Braden and Raychel crouched together in the everglades, watching the island in the middle of Frog Pond, their backs to the mound. Braden held the boat steady in his hand, pinching the motor’s blades to keep it still but ready. Raychel’s butt was getting moist in the mud. She could feel the water spreading through the fabric of her school clothes. She tried not to think about how her parents would react, not because of their reluctance to send them through the wash again but because she would have to admit she skipped class. She felt the dirty water bleeding through her underwear, cold and itchy, and she had to bite her tongue not to squirm. She glanced at Braden. His blue eyes were locked on the island, his eyebrows down in deep concentration, making blubbery lines in his young forehead.

“Isn’t there a better way to catch a frog?” Raychel whispered. “Isn’t using the net kind of cruel?”

“We’re catching it either way,” said Braden just as softly, not changing his expression. There were still no frogs, as if they knew the two kids were up to something.

Eventually Raychel’s clothes reached their peak of saturation, or she had stopped noticing its spread. The water was cold and her feet were numb. She and Braden had spent many days together here on the banks of the pond before, but never before had they waited in one place for so long. Usually they walked the circumference of the pond, taking large steps that lifted their knees to their chests, eyes darting about at the slightest peripheral movement. Now it felt that they were preparing for an ambush. Raychel couldn’t help but feel the fear of the unseen frog that was to be Braden’s first victim. While Raychel’s interest in frog-catching stemmed from a mild excitement about having a pet – there was a jar with holes punched in the lid in her bag – Raychel knew Braden wanted something different. He wanted to beat the frog in a physical and mental competition, to test his own ability to plan ahead and outsmart another living, thinking creature. He was more like his father than he was willing to admit.

Suddenly Braden leaned forward anxiously, pursing his lips tightly together, and released the boat’s motor to purr noiselessly underwater. Raychel looked out towards the island, following Braden’s eyes. There, on the end of the island, squatted a fat frog, facing the opposite direction, its skin glistening in the sun almost like plastic. It looked like a plastic windup toy until it took a deep breath and Raychel heard it croak. It was the perfect target for Braden: facing away, lethargically motionless in a patch of reviving sun, slowed by obesity. The frog didn’t stand a chance, Raychel knew as the boat inched closer along the surface of the water, the mesh inside poised to launch. Soon the net would wrap around the creature and it would flop around, kicking wildly with its uselessly muscular legs, hurling itself without direction in a blind, desperate panic.

Raychel knew she had to warn the frog. Surreptitiously reaching her hand out, watching Braden’s eyes to make sure he didn’t notice, she felt her fingertips glide invisibly through the barrier of air between her and a pebble on the faraway island’s edge. She felt the tips of her fingers achieve distance, and she knew that if she were to wave she would have seen stony fingers oscillating twenty meters away. But the shape of her fingers had become gray, rounded, and small. She felt the cold, steady will of the stone in the tips of her fingers, and with it the instinctual tingle to freeze in her place and remain stoically still, forever. But the urge was small and easy to resist. She moved her hand to the side, watching the distant pebbly fingertip hover above the pond’s surface with the rest of her hand. She took another quick glance at Braden; he was too concentrated on the frog to notice the floating stone. Raychel released the pebble from her influence, feeling the relief of warm blood pulsing through her digits, and dropping it into the water. It made no sound Raychel could hear, but it was enough for the frog to dive into the pond with alarm.

“Ah!” cried Braden with frustration. “We were so close!”

“Close is good,” said Raychel sarcastically. “Braden, I’m cold. Let’s go back to the mound.”

Braden began to reel the boat back in, his eyes still fixed on the spot where the frog had been, disappointed longing replacing the frenzied concentration of moments before. “Fine,” he said.

On the way back to the mound Raychel couldn’t help but shiver, and Braden wrapped his arm around her shoulder. He wasn’t cold at all. He was so warm.

It was this practice of sneaking away from school that, by a stroke of dumb luck, saved Raychel’s life.