Emily and the Battle of the Veil - Preview Chapter 1

Emily was scared, but she didn’t know why.

After spending most of the afternoon with her head buried in a book, she stretched her arms above her head, rippling her back straight. Emily loved reading because she could escape into worlds unknown, and exciting; a definite need in the small seaside town she lived in.
Emily looked around at the library as she stood up, pushing her books into her huge floppy carry-all bag. The library was like a small hall, slightly bigger than a room in a house, but not by much, with shelving all the way around the outside groaning at the weight of old books. Some shelves jutted into the middle of the floor, trying to make crevices and hiding places for people, to cosy them into staying. Not many did, but Emily supposed in a town of about a hundred people (sixty of them children), what did they expect? She seemed to be the library’s most regular visitor.

Emily flicked her long, thick, brown plait out of the way, as she swung her bag onto her shoulder. Walking towards the door she waved goodbye voicelessly, heard the librarian’s, "Come again soon Em," opened the screen door, and winced as it sprang shut behind her with a bang.
I must remember to hold on to that stupid thing, Emily thought for the thousandth time, spying Sam on the swings to her left.

She and Sam, her best-friend who hated being called Samantha, were a little old to use the swings, but it had become their regular meeting place. Sam wasn’t into books like she was, preferring the live company of other girls and boys. Almost as much as I like reading, thought Em.

They made an unlikely pair, so the older folk in the village said, but they didn’t care what other people thought anymore. They liked each other and that was that. Emily often thought they brought out the best in each other.

"Hiya Em," said Sam, "I’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting for you. What took you so long today?"
Emily hurried over, dropping her book bag at the corner of the outside face brick library wall, "Sorry Sam, I got stuck. You know I lose time when I read, so come fetch me if you want to. You know you can."

Emily sat on the swing next to Sam, and started pushing her legs in and out to speed up. In front of them lay the ocean. The tar road to their right ran down all the way to the local tea-room, the only ‘real’ shop in the village. The tea room sat on the edge of the sea with the only parking lot in town. They got day visitors coming to the village in the summer months, so the town council had decided to make sure there was enough parking for them.

The two girls swung up and down, in easy company. The houses in the village were made up of different material, depending on when they’d been built. Across the tar road from the swings, there was a corrugated iron house, with the main toilet still outside. The locals called it a long drop even though the owners had converted it to a soak away tank system in the last year. Some houses were made of bricks and cement, some wood, but almost all had the soak away tanks that came with living far away from mainstream cities and towns.

Emily looked over at Sam as she shouted to some of the boys riding past on their bicycles, "I’ll see you guys at the tennis courts now. Don’t wait, okay. I won’t be long." Sam was blonde, beautiful and part of the in crowd. She was tall, slim, athletic and confident. Emily wondered when she’d gain some confidence.

Emily wondered when she would find her place in the world, when she would be as comfortable as Sam was, in and out of company. She always felt like she was separate from things somehow. But she was glad for Sam.

They had been friends from birth, or so her Gran said, often repeating, "You’re meant to be with each other, there for each other," in a weird sort of way. Her gran was like that, full of weird words and general craziness.

Emily looked over at Sam’s thumb, wondering if it was their physical abnormalities that made them stick together. They didn’t have the same one, but the oldies in the village would still go around whispering about those two. Sam was born with a bum-thumb, or that's what Sam called it. She'd had a double digit on the end of her finter, a double thumb with two nails from the last joint up. Her parents had taken her to hospital when she was two years old ot have it fixed, so Sam could be normal, but Sam still had the scar on her right thumb. Emily felt her abnormality, her eight, suddenly scream hotly. Her gran told her that she’d had the birthmark at the base of her neck since she’d been born. It looked like a sideways eight, or infinity symbol, but since she’d been too small to say Infinity, they’d simply called it her eight as soon as she could talk.

Shrugging her head sideways she said, "That’s weird!" not realising she’d said it aloud until Sam answered, "What’s weird?"
"I was thinking about your thumb and my eight suddenly got really hot," said Emily twisting and turning.
"You’re weird is what," replied Sam, teasing her like she always did when Emily mentioned her eight.
"Ouch! No really, it’s hot!" Emily said, dragging her feet on the ground to slow the swing down as she grabbed the back of her neck with her right hand.

Stopping quickly, holding onto her neck and twisting around, Emily saw a puff of smoke out the corner of her eye, near her book bag resting against the library wall.

Squinting, she looked harder. Something appeared to shimmer, like the heat coming off the tar road on a hot day, then materialised into focus. An ugly beak-faced-monkey stared back at Emily.

She ignored her eight screaming at her and rubbed her eyes. No way was that thing there, she thought.

"Sam, Sam, can you see it? There at the library, near my bag?" screetched Emily, as the beast remained where it was, staring at her, a grin slowly stretching across its hideously formed face.
"What crazy chick? Are you dreaming again? There’s nothing there," said Sam, swinging high.Emily rubbed her eyes again, thinking she must be dreaming, pointing at the exact place the ugly beak faced monkey was. "There. Can't you see it?" she asked, turning back to Sam.
A puff of smoke and a spritz like noise caught her attention next to her book bag, and the ugly beast had gone. It had vanished, as if it had never been there.

"You really didn’t see anything?" Emily asked, turning to look at Sam.
"You mean like tokoloshies, like Mamasita?" Sam teased her.

Emily looked at Sam wide eyed, holding on to her eight at the back of her neck which seemed to be cooling down now. She wasn’t sure why it had grown hot or cold, but she was starting to believe it had something to do with her dreams or seeing things. Emily wasn’t sure she wanted to know what was going on. Sometimes it scared her.

"No, maybe, no, yes," Emily said, no longer sure of what she’d seen or even if she believed herself anymore.
"Em. Em. You’re becoming just like your gran. Weird. Weirder each day, with your stories of dreams, and what do you call them, oh Shimmers, and your eight getting hot and cold. You know that?"
"Emily. Em," said Sam, trying to get Emily’s full attention, "you really need to start figuring out what this is all about and make sure you don’t say anything to anyone otherwise they’ll throw you in the nuthouse."
"Actually," Sam said, slowing the swing down to rest next to Emily, "I’m surprised they haven’t locked all of you, your Gran, Mamasita or you, up already!"

Sam jumped up to set off on her next mission at the tennis club. She threw the comment, "beak faced monkey thing indeed," behind her at Emily, blowing her a fake kiss, "You know I love you kid, but you gotta chill out!"

Emily sat dead still and smiled at her friend. Perhaps she was going crazy, like her Gran, like Mamasita and her tokoloshies.

There was only one way to find out and that was to talk to Gran. Her Gran might be cuckoo but she could be wise.

Emily stood up in a daze and stepped gingerly towards her bag, waiting for the ugly beast to reappear. She leaned forward, grabbed her book bag, and lept quickly away, her heart hammering in fear.

Maybe Sam was right. Maybe they did all belong in the nuthouse, Emily thought as she walked over the grass, past the library, over the main tar road, down the side street towards the little white house where she lived with her Gran and Mamasita.