Today I'd like to share an excerpt from
Emlyn Chand's hot new paranormal novel. Before diving in, check out this teaser for the book:
Alex Kosmitoras may be blind, but he can
still “see” things others can’t. When his unwanted visions of the future
begin to suggest that the girl he likes could be in danger, he has no choice
but to take on destiny and demand it reconsider.
Okay, now that you're caught up, on to the
excerpt! I hope you'll enjoy it.
Our hero is about to embark on a journey.
Life as he knows it is quiet, boring, and predictable, but it’s also comforting
and familiar. That will soon change.
Today is the last day of summer, but I’m
not doing anything even remotely close to fun. I’m just lying here in Mom’s
garden, running my hands over the spiky blades of grass—back and forth, back
and forth until my fingertips go numb. Until everything goes numb. I sigh, but
no one’s around to hear.
“Alex,” Dad yells from the kitchen window.
“Dinner.”
Already? How long have I been out here? I
spring up from the ground and the grass springs up with me, one blade at a time
– boing, boink, boint. The sounds would be imperceptible to any normal person,
but they roar inside my ears. I picture an army of earthworms raising the
blades as spears in their turf wars and smile to myself.
Dad opens the back door and calls out to me
again. “C’mon, Alex. What’s taking you so long?”
Grabbing my cane, I shuffle over to the
house, brushing past him as I squeeze inside. The kitchen reeks of fast food
restaurants and movie theaters—butter and grease. That means it’s breakfast for
dinner. We do this every Sunday night, because Mom goes out to garden club and
Dad doesn’t know how to cook anything else. Plus it’s cheap.
Breathing heavily, Dad plunks some food
onto both our plates and collapses into his chair. He groans and asks me to
pass the butter, or rather the “bud-dah.” He grew up in Boston and every once
in a while the accent works itself into his speech.
I slide the tub to dad; he reaches out and
stops it before it can glide clear off the table.
“What’s this?” Dad asks.
“Uh, the butter. Obviously.”
Dad’s voice raises an octave. “I know it’s
the butter, so don’t get smart. Why’d you give it to me?”
“Uh, because you asked me to.”
“No, I didn’t.” He exhales as if the wind
has been knocked out of him by an ill-timed punch to the stomach. “Guess you
must’ve read my mind.” He chuckles to himself and slides the cool metal knife
into the butter and scrapes it across his toast.
Dad and I don’t usually talk to each other
unless Mom is around, asking about our days, chatting on, working hard to
create those warm and fuzzy family moments we don’t seem to create naturally.
And even though Mom has reassured me a million times, I know that Dad resents
me for being born blind.
I can tell he would have much rather had a
son like Brady—the same guy who insists on making my high school experience as
difficult as possible. <em>Nothing’s</em> worse than knowing that
your own father thinks you’re a loser.
Dad and I finish our meal in silence and my
mind wanders.
He rises suddenly from his chair, breaking
apart my thoughts. “Let’s get this table cleared before your mother comes
home,” he says, without pronouncing the in cleared.
I stand too and pick up my plate and glass.
Guess I’ll pass on that fifth biscuit.
“Your mother has a surprise for you.”
I smile for my dad’s benefit. My parents
are horrible at keeping secrets. Last night, I overheard them talking in their
room. Mom was bragging about how she found some “cute” new shades on Wal-Mart’s
clearance rack.
About ten minutes later, the tires of Mom’s
van crunch on the gravel in our driveway with lots of little pings and a big
<em>cuh-clunk</em>. As usual, she steers directly into the pothole
we don’t have the money to repair. Sometimes I wonder if she does it on
purpose.
The door creaks open, inviting a comforting
floral fragrance into the house. Mom always smells like flowers—today it’s
tulips and jasmine. She steps lightly across the floor and places a wet kiss on
my cheek. When she turns to greet Dad, I wipe at the left-over moistness with
my shirt sleeve. I’m getting too old for this kind of thing—been too old for a
while now actually, but this doesn’t seem to matter to her.
“How was your day, my little sapling?” she
asks. I <em>really</em> wish she would stop calling me her “little
sapling.”
“Hi, Mom.” I hug her, because it makes her
happy.
“Are you excited for tomorrow?”
I snap my fingers, which is how I say “yes”
without actually saying it, kind of how most people nod their heads. I’m
excited to learn, to have something to do other than lie in the grass, to
possibly make a friend. More than likely though, things won’t change. I’ll
still be an outcast. I’ll still be all by myself, but at least I’ll know where
I stand. No more wondering.
“A sophomore already! I hope I can keep up
enough to help you with your homework,” Dad says, acting like a completely different
person than he was just a few minutes ago. He has this way of being nicer to me
whenever Mom is around. I know it’s for show, and it pisses me off.
Ignoring him, I turn toward Mom. “So, Dad
told me you’ve got a surprise for me?” I’d rather get this over with quickly
before they try too hard to build up the suspense.
“Oh, yes,” she chirps, fluttering over to
the other side of the living room, pulling out the drawer of the small table in
the corner, and rustling the unpaid bills inside. She comes back over to me and
places a small bag in my lap.
“Wait,” Dad says as my hand is about to
reach inside the bag. “Before you open that, I just want to say that I know we
haven’t been able to give you as many back-to-school supplies as you need this
year. Your backpack is starting to tear and your boots are scuffed…”
I had no idea my boots were scuffed, but
now that he’s pointed it out, it’s all I can think about.
“And all of this is my fault,” Dad
continues as I wonder how badly my boots are scuffed. Where? On the heel? On
the toe?
Mom clicks her tongue and rubs Dad’s
shoulder sympathetically, dragging her fingernails across his thick shirt. The
scratching sound draws my attention back to his melodramatic speech.
“I want to make you a promise, as soon as I
get a job we’re going to buy all of those things for you. Okay?”
“It’s okay, Dad. I don’t
<em>need</em> anything.” Except for you to be nice to me even when
Mom isn’t around, and, oh yeah, a friend or two.
“That’s my brave little oak tree,” Mom
says, giving me another hug. I swear, sometimes I think she’s from another
planet, or at least another time period. But still, she loves me, even if she’s
constantly saying stupid things like that.
When they seem to have nothing more to say,
my left hand reaches into the bag and brings a pair of sunglasses up into the
palm. I run my right hand over them, trying to make out their shape. They’ve
got hard plastic frames and cushiony rubber ends for where they sit on top of
the ears. They’re broad in front; the rim goes in a straight line all the way
across about a half an inch above the nosepiece. These aren’t the normal
bookworm glasses. They’re cool guy glasses.
“We thought you deserved a new pair of cool
guy glasses since you’re practically sixteen,” Mom says.
Ugh, I hate when she uses the same words as
me. I make a mental note never to say, or think, the words “cool guy glasses”
again.
“And they’re even your favorite color!” Mom
shouts, unable to contain herself.
Then they’re green. I “see” color through
my nose and like green best because so many of the best-smelling things are
that hue, like grass and leaves and vegetables and limes. But with green
glasses, I’m afraid I’m going to stick out like a sore thumb—a sore green
thumb. I smile and reach out my arms. Both my parents come in for a hug. I
whisper a quick prayer for tomorrow and head to bed.
The next morning, my alarm starts yelling
at six o’clock. Is it excited or trying to give me a warning? Well, time to get
this over with, time to see if this year will be any different from all the
crappy ones before. I reach over and flip the off-switch and stumble about in a
sleepy haze, getting ready for the first day of the new school year.
On the way to the bathroom, I stub my toe
on some bulky object that’s just sitting in the middle of the hallway, not even
pushed up against the wall. I kick it to the side—<em>clunk</em>,
straight into the wall—and continue to the bathroom. I shouldn’t need my cane
to get around my own house. That had to be something of Dad’s. What, is he
actually trying to kill me now?
I turn the shower knob and wait for the
water to get warm. It’s taking forever since I’m the first one up today.
Aggravated by the wait, I go back into the hall to find that object again.
Stooping down, I attempt to work out the shape. Rectangular, with a handle,
made of leather or something leather-like, with little metal clasps. A
briefcase, I guess. But Dad’s a contractor, why would he need a briefcase? Why
now? I flip the clasp, eager to find out what’s inside. But the case doesn’t
open. Brushing my fingers across the top again, I find a twisty-turny thing on
either side. A combination lock. If it’s so important, why’s it laying here in
the middle of the hall like a discarded sock?
A wall of steam pushes into my back,
returning my attention to the running shower. I return the case to its original
position in the middle of the hall and go to wash up for school. Afterward, I
towel off and put on my favorite shirt, which is soft and made of flannel. I
wear my favorite pants too—they’re baggy with big pockets on the sides. As I’m
pulling them on, I feel a tickle at my ankles where the hem now rests two full
inches above where it should be. I groan, realizing I must’ve grown over the
summer. How much taller can I get? I’m really tall now, at least a couple of
inches over six feet, but we just don’t have the money to keep buying me new
clothes every time I grow another inch.
To add the finishing touch to my
first-day-of-school look, I slip my new cool guy glasses—er, sunglasses—on over
my nose. The lenses are extra thick. Probably, if I wanted, I could sleep in
class and no teacher would ever notice. But I’m not like that; I like to learn.
“Honey?” Mom calls from the end of the
hallway. “Are you ready?”
“Yeah, I’m coming,” I yell back. “Just a
sec.” I fiddle with my boots, trying to stuff my pants into them, so no one at
school sees they’re too short. I’m sure this makes me look even more like a
teenage Paul Bunyan than usual, but I don’t care. The boots are comfortable and
help to support my ankles. Anyway I could probably wear nothing but expensive
designer clothes and still be considered a freak.
Before standing, I run my hands over my
feet. The right boot has a long narrow indentation across the toe. They
<em>are</em> scuffed. Great. With a drawn-out sigh, I pick up my
backpack and walk over to the kitchen where Mom is waiting. She has way too
much energy for this early in the day.
“Yogurt with berries fresh from the
garden,” she says, placing a glass in my hand. “You can eat in the car.”
“Thanks, Mom.” I jab a heaping spoonful
into my mouth and finish it in five huge bites, then grab my cane from the hook
near the front door, loop the cord around my wrist, and follow Mom out to the
driveway where the rattly old family van is parked. As she shifts the car into
drive, sadness washes over me. I’m almost sixteen, but I’ll never be able to
drive. I’ll always be forced to rely on my parents for everything, my entire
life.
We drive the twelve minutes to school,
while Mom talks non-stop about new beginnings and the “carefree happiness of
youth.” When the van stops, I take a deep breath, and wrap my fingers around
the door handle, ready to find out what’s in store for me this year at Grandon
High.
“Hey, Alex?” Mom stops me just as I’m about
to step out onto the curb. I pause and wait. “Have a good day at school.”
“I will.”
“Dad’ll pick you up and bring you to the
shop in the afternoon, okay?”
“Okay. Bye, Mom.” The longer we draw this
scene out, the higher the chances of her kissing me on the head or calling me
her “little sapling.” I just can’t risk starting out the year on such an
embarrassing note.
I get out of the car and head straight
inside the building. A bunch of kids are hanging around outside, chatting away
about their summers, getting back into the swing of things. They don’t notice
me as I slink by and make my way to my first hour, English—I memorized the
location of all of my classes during the summer, so I wouldn’t embarrass myself
by getting lost or arriving after the bell rings.
Entering the classroom, I drop my backpack
on the floor, and prop my cane between the seat and the desk; that way it’s
near at hand and easy to get later. Nobody else is here yet, not even the
teacher. Bored already, I decide to go get a drink of water from the fountain.
As I’m rounding the corner of the familiar hall, the air gets heavy like it
does after a rainstorm. The aroma of wet grass and asphalt overpowers my
senses. This definitely seems out of place for a high school hallway.
“Hey, Alex, how was it today?” Dad asks in
a much better mood than usual.
I turn around in shock. What is my Dad
doing here? Mom <em>just</em> dropped me off. Dad should be in bed
still, not here at school embarrassing me.
“Dad?” I ask tentatively. “Dad, what are
you doing here?”
“I’m not your daddy, you no-eyed freak!”
comes the voice of Brady Evans, the running-back of the school’s Junior Varsity
football team—my biggest enemy.
The air becomes lighter all of a sudden, as
if a vacuum cleaner has sucked up all the humidity. The fragrance of sweat and
Axe deodorant spray fills my nostrils. I’m totally confused now.
“Brady?”
“No, it’s your daddy. Loser…” Laughter
comes from at least six different people, most of them girls.
“Sorry,” I mumble and head back to English
class, forgetting to get my drink of water. Brady and his entourage follow me
in, making jokes at my expense.
I put my head down on my desk, wishing I
was a chameleon, so I could become one with the desk and fade out of view—being
a reptile couldn’t be that much worse than having to endure high school.
“Mr. Kosmitoras, could you please come
here?” the teacher calls, butchering the pronunciation of my name.
“Um, it’s
<em>Caas-me-toe-rh-aas</em> actually,” I respond, getting up and
walking over to the teacher’s desk at the front of the room. Brady and his
friends are still laughing. I hope they’ve moved onto a new topic.
“Here are your textbooks for the year.
We’re starting out with this basic reader,” she says, plopping a thick book
into my hands. “Then we’ll be moving on to <em>The Odyssey </em>and
finally<em> Romeo and Juliet</em>.” She places these into my
outstretched palms as well.
“Thanks,” I mutter and head back to my
seat. I begin skimming the basic reader, flipping through several pages at
once, randomly trailing my finger over little snippets of text. Since no school
around here caters specifically to visually impaired kids, my teachers
special-order textbooks in braille for me. That’s all I need to get by, really.
With very few exceptions, I can do anything other kids my age do. I’ve been
this way my whole life; I know how to make it work.
Bit by bit, the other students trickle into
the class. Someone who smells like cherry candy sits down across the room. Then,
a series of loud thuds comes from that direction—she must’ve dropped her books.
“Simmi! Simmi, Jeez! Don’t make so much
noise!” says some boy, who sounds a bit like Brady, but I don’t think is Brady.
I don’t know anybody named Simmi, so this girl must be a new student. Why’s
this boy being so mean to her already? Hope rises within me. Maybe she’ll be an
outcast too; the two of us could team up.
The bell rings, taking away the cherries. I
don’t pay any attention to the teacher as she introduces herself to the class.
Instead, I think about the strange things that have been happening today. What
was in that briefcase in the hall this morning, and why couldn’t I open it? Why
did I think Brady Evans was my dad? Why do we have to read Romeo and
Juliet this year in English class? We’re less than five minutes into
first period, and my hopes for the new year are pretty much dashed.
Blog
Tour Notes
THE
BOOK Alex Kosmitoras may be blind, but he can still
“see” things others can’t. When his unwanted visions of the future
begin to suggest that the girl he likes could be in danger, he has no choice
but to take on destiny and demand it reconsider. The paperback edition will be available on November 24
(for the author’s birthday).
THE
GIVEAWAYS Win 1 of 10 autographed copies of Farsighted before its paperback release by entering http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12368215-farsighted the giveaway on GoodReads. Perhaps you’d
like http://www.emlynchand.com/postcard/ an autographed postcard from the author, you can request one on her site.
THE
AUTHOR Emlyn Chand has always loved to hear and tell
stories, having emerged from the womb with a fountain pen grasped firmly in her
left hand (true story). When she’s not writing, she runs a large book club in
Ann Arbor and is the president of author PR firm, Novel Publicity. Emlyn loves
to connect with readers and is available throughout the social media interweb.
Visit http://www.emlynchand.com for more info. Don’t
forget to say “hi” to her sun conure Ducky!
MORE FUN There's more fun below. Watch the live action Farsighted book trailer and take
the quiz to find out which character is most like you!
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