My New Years gift to you!
Hello Black Wing Readers
While you will be busy dipping your cookies in milk and unwrapping your holiday gifts this week, I have one prepared just for you.
In celebration of the upcoming 2020 year, I will be giving away an advance free copy of The Conflict on January 1st, 2020, all you have to do is join my newsletter! You can unsubscribe afterward or stick with me for the entire journey of The Black Wing series!
We are close to the end of 2019 and what a journey! I reached new readers from Australia, and Pakistan this year, and finally settled on a book cover for The Birth (I obsess over my book covers a little too much.)
The Epic High Fantasy series continues to mend friendships, overcome unrequited love, but can they confront the conflicts in Eden Boarding School?
Jack makes the front cover in The Conflict.
Sneak peak from The Conflict
Chapter 10: Jack
“Hello.”
The second-grader turns quicker this time in hopes she will find a boy hiding from the bushes. She wondered if she was being teased once again by Timothy, but this voice was softer and childlike.
“Up here,” the voice said.
But there is nothing out of the ordinary, except a rustle in the branches, the second-grader leans over the rail to look at them thoroughly. One of the branches from the coniferous is swaying up, and from the weight it carried.
“I can’t see you,” said Merla. “Where are you?”
“I’ll show myself if you promise not to hurt me. ‘They’ said you’d hurt me, but you won’t hurt me, would you?”
“I couldn’t hurt anybody,” admitted Merla. Sure, Timothy has upset her long enough to enjoy the idea of pulling his hair or biting him like she bit the guards, but she was afraid of trying out of fear she wouldn’t be allowed to stay in Eden.
After another long pause, another rustle in the branches shakes near until it stops. Merla inches further from the rail, she uses the bench to get a closer look until a black bird flutters to her face that causes her to step off and fall into the ground. The black bird stands on the wooden rail and caws in response to her fall.
“I scared you!” The bird drops his neck towards his talons to release a long cackle.
Merla rises to her feet with her heart pounding from the fright, she leans towards the bird to see if he can really talk, but the crow flutters to the opposite rail.
He wanted her to respect their distance, even if Jack had little privacy to give to others. The seven-year-old didn’t know he watched her bask in the sun in the morning before flying to the city.
“I’m Jack,” said the young crow who started twirling in and out of the gazebo.
“My name is Merla.”
The bird now hops around the rail like he was marching in circles. His attention towards the black-haired girl remains in one eye, and the other at his surroundings, for his parents are unaware he crossed the bricked wall.
“I didn’t know birds could talk.”
“I certainly can, but this is my first time talking to a human crow.”
“A crow?” repeated Merla. “I’m not a crow.”
“Really?” said Jack, who cocks his head sideways. “You smell like a crow to me.”
“That must be it,” said Merla. “Am I a crow because I have wings?”
Her best-kept secret is also her worst, not once can she control the jet-black wings, except that she had to embrace herself. The bones as like a knife under fire, it melted her flesh to tear open. Merla inches her chin over her shoulder to look at her back, not a single feather has sprouted — not since her fall into Chela Island.
