This is what you’ll see now if you click on the ‘Beyond Hope’ link in the sidebar:

“Beyond Hope’ is my fantasy novel-in-progress, about a young girl’s journey from a northern BC town to strange otherworlds in Vancouver. The archives have gotten garbled, likely due to a wordpress upgrade (can’t think what else to blame), but if you would like to read the book as it exists so far all in one file, please let me know and I’ll send it to you. I’m on the lookout for readers and would love to be critiqued.

Here’s an excerpt to pique your interest:

“Boy, you missed some fun last night,” Scotty had laughed. “Slept like a rock, hey, rockhead?”

“What are you talking about?” Sylvie snapped. She was never at her best in the mornings, and something about this one made her feel on edge.

“Your precious big baby of a brother is gone, and good riddance, too. Dad turfed him out on his fat ass.”

“What? Carl? Scotty, don’t be a creep, please? Tell me what happened!”

“If you missed the fight, then you missed it. But he’s gone and he’s not coming back. You’re mine now, kid sister! No more knight in shining armour to protect you from my evil attacks! Mwah-hah-hah!” He laughed, pretending to be teasing but the nasty tone in his voice made her shiver.

“Mom, where’s Carl?” she had asked first chance she had. Her mother averted her eyes. Right away she knew something was deeply wrong. That was when the ground fell out from under her life. She hadn’t really believed Scotty. He would say anything to hurt her. But this was real.

“Carl has gone to Vancouver, and your father is very disappointed in him,” her mother said, too carefully.

“What? The city? Carl hates the city! Why would he go there?”

“I’m sure I don’t know, Sylvie. Eat your cereal like a good girl.”

“Mom! Why didn’t he say goodbye to me? Why would he do that?” She was very close to tears.

“Sylvie, please, eat your breakfast. You’ll be late for school.”

Her mother didn’t look at her once. And her father was worse. When she ran crying to him, sobbing for her brother, he slapped her hard across the face, shocking her utterly.

“Daddy! Nooo!!” She ran to her room and locked herself in for the day. She refused to go to school or to come out for dinner, and the following morning nothing was said. After the slap, there was no way she could ask her father about Carl, while her mother simply ignored her questions with tightened lips, no matter how hard she begged for information.

Scotty acted like he knew everything and was choosing not to tell her out of meanness, but she suspected he didn’t really know much more than she did. That would be just like him. It was a way of holding power over her but she didn’t buy it. She withdrew from her family, turning to her friends for support and information.

Carl’s former friends wouldn’t talk to her either. They acted like he hadn’t existed. It was the weirdest thing. Her first real clue was from her best friend Tracy.

“Syl, I think I know what it was,” Tracy said hesitantly, with the reluctant air of one sharing truly dreadful news. “I heard my cousin talking with his friends. It’s… they say Carl is gay, and that’s why your Dad threw him out.”

“That’s crazy!” she said automatically, but she didn’t really know if it was. What was gay, anyhow? It was just a word, a nasty thing to call boys who nobody liked. Even if it was true, somehow it didn’t satisfy her. It didn’t mean anything real.

Scotty, of course, soon picked up on this bit of news and lost no time in calling Carl every nasty word he could come up with that stood for homosexual. He hinted that Carl did horrible things to little boys. But Sylvie didn’t care. Carl was Carl. He was her brother, he was good, and she needed him. All the heart and life in her world had vanished with him.

Then, two nights ago, something snapped at that party. Suddenly it seemed clear and obvious what she must do. Carl would have called it an epiphany. She recognized with absolute certainty that life with her family without her brother was more death than life. She had to leave, and it had to be right then, that minute, with no time taken to plan or prepare. She told Tracy where she was going, and Tracy tried to talk her out of it. Of course she would; it was her duty as her best friend. But Sylvie had gone, propelled by a force beyond her capacity to resist, and Tracy had then covered for her. That was also her duty as best friend.

And now she was here.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 30th, 2007 at 8:51 pm and is filed under blog biz. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.