Falling Under

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  FALLING UNDER

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  UP IS DOWN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  DOWN IS UP . . . AGAIN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  “Are you afraid of me?”

  “Absolutely not, and yes, with everything in my heart and soul,” I blurted without thought.

  He chuckled, and looked directly at me for the first time in several minutes. “I’m not sure that qualifies as an answer—it’s more like a contradiction.”

  “Up is down, remember? Besides, everything about you is a contradiction.” Pondering my word choice a little more carefully, I added, “You won’t hurt me. How I know that, I can’t say. But the ways you make me feel, Haden—that’s what frightens me. I know you’ll be my undoing.” I stepped towards him but he stepped back.

  “Who was your first kiss?”

  Heat rushed into my face. I flattered myself by thinking maybe he wanted to kiss me. I wished he wanted to kiss me. “I haven’t . . .” Squeezing my eyes closed, I began again. “I haven’t been kissed. Yet.”

  “Why?”

  I rolled my eyes at his innocence. “You obviously know I’m not like other girls. I’m shy and I don’t spend time with boys. My father is strict and—”

  “That’s not why.”

  He thought he knew me so well. “Fine. You tell me why I haven’t been kissed.”

  I regretted the words and my tone instantly. What if he told me what I already knew? That I was lacking. Not interesting or pretty enough.

  “You were waiting.”

  NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY

  Published by New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA • Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) • Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee

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  First published by New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First Printing, March 2011

  Copyright © Gwen Hayes, 2011

  All rights reserved

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:

  Hayes, Gwen.

  Falling under/Gwen Hayes.

  p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-47916-2

  1. Demonology—Fiction. 2. Supernatural—Fiction. 3. Dreams—Fiction. 4. High schools—Fiction. 5. Schools—Fiction. I. Title.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  To Hayley Nicole, who will always be the little girl I love

  and who is becoming the young woman I so admire

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I’d like to thank my Sequim Middle School librarian, Jo Chinn, for nurturing my love of YA books. It was her passion for reading and her sense of humor and fun that got me through a few of those “iffy” years.

  Thanks also to my critique partner, Ciar Cullen, for encouraging me to carry on when I had no idea what this story was, only that it scared me to write it. Also responsible for the mayhem are Bria Quinlan and Jodi Meadows, who understand about cheese and other necessary things.

  My cover, my extraordinary cover, is a testament to the genius of the art department at NAL. A million thanks to Oceana Gottlieb and her crew, to Dana France, and to model Tara.

  A special shout-out to Kat Sherbo, who makes all things possible, and to Jan McInroy, for her superhero copyediting skills. My undying gratitude goes to my phenomeliscious agent, Jessica Sinsheimer, who does all kinds of important things for me, but tells me about only the fun ones, and to Anne Sowards, who is so cool she makes me want to write things just to impress her. Seriously.

  And, of course, thank you to my family. Their support made this dream a reality for me, and I am blessed beyond all reason to be surrounded with so much love. Also, thank you, Travis, for holding my hand through it all. I love you more.

  FALLING UNDER

  CHAPTER ONE

  Everything changed the night I saw the burning man fall from the sky.

  I’d been reading well past a reasonable hour, the white eyelet quilt tented over my iPhone to block any escaping light even though my father was already tucked away in bed dreaming of new ways to make me safer.

  The cell phone was a compromise—I added extra music lessons to my scarce free time in exchange for a phone. It was win-win for Father; the few hours a day I wasn’t with him or sheltered in the safety of my pink and ivory room, decorated by a prestigious designer to gild my cage, I was now instantly accessible. In addition, there were now even fewer hours in which I might find trouble. He didn’t know I could read e-books on the phone; he didn’t even know what e-books were. Father just thought he’d finally broken me of reading by flashlight.

  It would never have occurred to him that I hadn’t been broken—I’d graduated. Every night I went somewhere new and pretended to be someone else—someone interesting—on the device he’d purchased to control me more than he already did. A priceless freedom to a girl with a strange British accent living in the small town of Serendipity Falls, California, under her watchful father’s thumb.


  But the burning man falling from the sky pulled me from my faraway world. My gaze wandered to the window an instant before he appeared. And then, slowly, like a feather caught on a light breeze, he willowed past my window, turning his grotesque head towards me, his mouth open in a silent scream. He was more than on fire. He was fire.

  Orange and red flames braided together in the shape of a man, but it was his eyes that caused me to suck in my breath and hold it as I ran to the window. His eyes, scared and imploring, told of a darkness and agony I couldn’t begin to understand.

  I leaned farther into the window, the glass surprisingly warm from his brush past it. Like I touched a trace of him. As he completed his unhurried, torturous descent to the lawn, he kept his gaze locked on mine. Beseeching me for something I couldn’t give as the flames consumed him. So many things I should have felt, wondered, or worried about, yet I just watched, fascinated and compelled to see him to the end.

  He landed in the yard, still burning alive. My father’s pristine lawn would be scorched.

  He’d be so disappointed.

  Afraid to leave my perch, I was unsure what to do next. Surely what I was seeing was a figment of my overactive imagination. A dream caused by too much reading and not enough sleeping. But what if he suffered while I did nothing?

  I turned and ran, as quietly as I could, through my room, down the stairs, and finally out the back door. The dewcovered grass beneath my feet reminded me of my state of undress. The nightgown felt thinner and more revealing than what my father had intended when he approved its purchase.

  I shivered, not with cold but with nerves. The flames of the burning man sputtered and cooled, revealing charred bones and hunks of flesh. Yet he moved and groaned.

  I sank to my knees, horrified that God would be so merciless as to let this poor human being endure such misery. The scent of cooked meat triggered my gag reflex. Strips of bumpy, burned flesh covered his bones here and there, but . . . his eyes . . . his eyes remained whole and lucid, giving him the garish appearance of a Halloween corpse.

  The smell of sulfur stung my nose, making it hard to breathe. Yet the burning man continued to rasp and sputter.

  How could he? His lungs had been incinerated.

  For the first time, I noticed I still held the phone. Stupid girl. I should have dialed 911 a long time ago. I’d just pressed the 9 when he spoke.

  “Don’t bother.”

  I whimpered at the sound of his raspy, inhuman voice. “You need an ambulance.”

  The skeleton gurgled a bit, the sound grating and raw. “Too . . . late. I don’t have much time.”

  He shouldn’t have had any time. I looked to the sky, but there was no sign of smoke or anything else falling. He groaned again.

  “I . . . I’m sorry.” Lame, stupid girl. “I don’t know what to do. I . . . wish I could make you more comfortable.”

  “You must be so frightened.” He whispered now, slowly yet with a carefully measured cadence. “I’m sorry you had to see this.”

  How could he worry about my comfort right now? “Do you want to . . . um . . . pray or something?”

  “No.”

  His answer came too quickly, too vehemently.

  “You’ll stay?” he asked—no, implored. “I have no right to ask it of you, but . . . I’m afraid to be alone right now. Will you stay . . . until . . .”

  “Of course.”

  Moisture from the cold, wet grass seeped into the material of my nightgown, promising ugly stains in the virginal white shroud. I already felt the weight of yet another of Father’s disappointments.

  “Do you want me to ring anyone for you? To say good-bye?”

  “There . . . is . . . no . . . one.” His whisper weakened with each word.

  No one to mourn him? I forced myself to look him, death, in the eyes, and leaned closer, blocking out the revulsion of his grotesque appearance. His last vision should be of someone caring that he died. Someone mourning him. He raised his bony fingers as if to touch me and I steeled myself not to flinch as his hand, still smoldering, neared my face.

  He rattled and spoke his last words. “Worth . . . the . . . fall.”

  His hand dropped, and the grass sizzled beneath it.

  Then his body turned to dust, leaving only a blackened scorch mark on my father’s lawn.

  I rolled away from the sunlight streaming through my lace curtains and burrowed my head under the pillow. It was a dream. It must have been. Burning men don’t fall from the sky. Skeletons don’t speak one minute and turn to dust the next.

  I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and stared at the ceiling. I was going to have to look. Resigned, I walked the distance from my bed to the window, and it seemed to stretch farther and farther away, the way things do in nightmares. I touched the glass first—it was cool, of course. My fingers splayed on the window and I leaned into it, looking down, hoping to find the perfectly manicured lawn I’d known just yesterday. But the perfection was marred and the grass seared where he’d lain. The burning man.

  My heartbeat sputtered and restarted, thumping wildly and faltering with its own rhythm. My mind raced to find an explanation that didn’t include a fiery cadaver with scary eyes and a lonely soul.

  What kind of . . . people . . . fell from the sky? Aliens? Fallen angels? Skydivers?

  Maybe his plane crashed. But none of that explained his ability to talk with no lungs . . . or skin, or organs, or . . . No. I must have dreamt it. There was no other explanation. Best to put it out of my mind. Nightmares had no control over me and there was nothing to fear.

  Besides, nothing happens in sleepy towns like Serendipity Falls. That’s why Father bought a house here. His commute to the city wasn’t bad, a half hour unless the fog blanketed us in. He did whatever it was barristers do in their offices all day and made it home for supper almost every evening.

  He’d chosen this town precisely for its lack of drama, I reassured myself as I grabbed my pink robe off the hook. What devilry ever befell a girl in a counterfeitly cheerful Victorian house? Surely the heavy cornices and gingerbread trim were wards against all things evil.

  It wasn’t until I turned on the bathroom light that I remembered what day it was.

  The familiar numbness that got me through this day every year painted itself over me. One foot in front of the other, one routine, then the next, lather, rinse, repeat. I’d go downstairs, drink my orange juice, take a vitamin, walk to school. It was just a day, after all.

  Father would already be gone to his San Francisco office. It was easier that way, at least in the morning. Not having to face each other meant not having to acknowledge the significance of the day, this day.

  The anniversary of my mother’s death.

  I struggled with my hair. The wild curls preferred to be loose and resisted the taming of elastic bands or clips. The wildness of my mane—a curse, according to my father, who’d tried unsuccessfully to convince me that I should style it shorter and sleeker—was a gift from my mother. The wildness of my heart was yet another unwanted motherly inheritance. Father tried to convince me that I should live carefully, and the struggle to rein in my spirit, as well as my hair, kept me battle-weary day after day.

  Wanting to please Father, I always pushed back my impulses. He needed me. Sure, he could be gruff and impossibly strict, but I was all he had. Things would have been different if my mother hadn’t died, but there was no sense going down that road. Especially today.

  I sprinted down the stairs and then chastised myself for the recklessness since Father wasn’t there to do it for me. I took the vitamin he’d left out, drank the juice he’d poured, and ate the biscuit—I mean cookie—only after I’d first doublechecked that he’d actually left, and then made sure no stray crumbs would give me away. I avoided the greeting card left on the center of the polished table for as long as I could.

  My hands shook as I opened our one exception to completely ignoring that this day existed.

  Happy 17th Birthday, Theia.<
br />
  Love, Father

  I put the card in my pack, grabbed a sweater, and walked to school.

  Nobody at Serendipity High extended me birthday wishes because that was the way I wanted it. My friends, now that I had them, shot surreptitious glances at me all day, but respected my request. I was lucky for their friendship; my life had been so different only four years ago, when we had first moved to the States.

  Life in London had been even lonelier. Our estate had been a cold place, steeped in Alderson history but not love, not laughter.

  After all the years of homeschooling with a stodgy tutor, I had been surprised that Father had given in and allowed me to attend a public school when we moved to America. Surprised and grateful, until I realized that the strange girl with a funny accent was not going to be welcomed easily into a small school with cliques already firmly in place.

  Everything about me was different from my American peers, starting, but certainly not ending, with my accent. Not having spent much time with my British peers either, I was as awkward as a foal taking its first steps when it came to interacting.

  “Earth to Thei.”

  I blinked at Donny across the cafeteria table. “Sorry. What were you saying?”

  Donny—Donnatella to those who dared call her that—rolled her eyes and stole another Tater Tot from my lunch tray. “I asked if you had figured out your prison-break plans for this weekend.”

  Father preferred I not spend much time with Donny. Which, when I was being honest with myself, I realized was part of the appeal. Donny was irreverent and maybe a little wild.

  Okay, make that a lot wild. Why she wanted to be friends with me, a girl who worked so hard at being completely boring, was a mystery. Whenever I asked, she would reply with a comment about liking my hoity-toity accent, and then she’d wink at me mischievously. She’d taken me under her wing during a particularly bad experience in my PE class that first year, and I would do anything for her.