Celestial

By Jamie Campbell, Anya Allyn, Marijon Braden and 7 more

From the beginning of time, the mysteries of the night sky have captivated humanity. Our ancestors foretold the future through the phases of the moon, worshiped the countless stars, and feared the comets that streaked across the sky before disappearing back into darkness.

Now, ten YA authors have come together to explore the impact the appearance of a comet can have on a life, a relationship... or an entire world.

Anthology Includes:

'Shadow' by Sarah Dalton. When Mary visits her Aunt Izzy's remote seaside bungalow, past and present collide. She soon realises a dark shadow hangs over her childhood memories, leaving her a task she would rather not complete... A haunting ghost story that explores the delicate relationships between women. Part of the 'Mary Hades' series.

‘The Sleeping Goddess’ by Zoe Cannon. On the eve of a once-in-a-thousand-years celestial event, the last surviving priestess must decide whether to obey her goddess and destroy an entire race... or follow her heart and let her own people die.

‘Before the Pageant’ by Susan Fodor. In a dystopian city where appearances are everything, Ambrose Addams spends all her time striving to be number one. With classical beauty, the hottest boyfriend in Tealé, and the most sought after position in the city, Ambrose should be happy; things rarely go the way they should. One fortuitous exchange will not only change her priorities, but the whole course of her life.

‘Comet Cotillion (A Celestial Mini-Wave)’ by Sutton Shields. Marina Valentine spends her days in The Helena Hambourg House for Maladies, where each hour presents a new fight for survival. Life in an institution isn’t exactly ideal, but for Marina, nothing could be more dangerous than being caught in the middle of a vicious scheme cooked up by the evil Head Hoodooess, Madame Helena. Now, Marina and her quirky friends must find a way to escape before everything that makes them special is taken away forever. ‘Comet Cotillion’ is a short, fun-filled prequel to the events occurring in The Merworld Water Wars series by Sutton Shields.

‘The Shadow Keepers’ by Anya Allyn. At the terrifying moment that seven-year-old Molly discovers her mother dead, she sees a stranger standing in the room: a teenage girl. The girl holds a shocking secret. A new story from The Dark Carousel series.

‘Tragic Magic’ by Jamie Campbell. A stalking ex-boyfriend is one thing. When he is a demon, it’s a whole new ballgame. Lacey would like to think she is an average teenager, except the witch is anything but. In order to get rid of her crazed ex, she must draw on all her powers to vanquish him forever.

‘The Greenhouse Gas’ by Ariele Sieling. Galya wakes up to the flash of a falling comet, and discovers that her escape pod is floating in a graveyard of spaceships. Confused and scared, she and her brother set out to search the destroyed ships for signs of their father... or any life at all. This story retells Hansel and Gretel is set in outer space.

‘Project #45’ by Marijon Braden. The Brightness wasn’t the end of the world, but it might as well have been. Now, Amy and her family are trying to rebuild their lives, trying to return to some kind of normalcy, all the time wondering...why did it happen? How? And when will it happen again? And a million years (Miles? Worlds?) away, the answer is so simple...

‘Moon Warrior’ by H.S. Stone. Separated from her tribe after a sand dragon attack, Luna finds herself alone with no food or shelter. She must cross a desert wasteland to find her people again, but when she loses their trail, she discovers that her warrior instincts may not be enough to save her.

‘Love Me or Love Me Not’ by Katie Hayoz. Six months ago, Star’s parents left her with a disturbing secret, one she's guarded despite everything. But as the comet she’s been observing grows brighter and brighter in the sky, the consequences of keeping that secret come to light. A tragic stor

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jamie Campbell
• Release date: Sep 5, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311195562

Jamie Campbell

Jamie was born into a big, crazy family of 6 children. Being the youngest, she always got away with anything and would never shut up. Constantly letting her imagination run wild, her teachers were often frustrated when her 'What I did on the weekend' stories contained bunyips and princesses.Growing up, Jamie did the sensible things and obtained a Bachelor of Business degree from Southern Cross University and worked hard to gain her membership with the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia.Yet nothing compared to writing. Quiting the rat race to spend quality time with her laptop named Lily, Jamie has written several novels and screenplays. Spanning a number of genres and mediums, Jamie writes whatever inspires her from ghost stories to teenage love stories to tantalising murder mysteries. Nothing is off limits.A self-confessed television addict, dog lover, Taylor Swift fan, and ghost hunter, Jamie loves nothing more than the thrill of sharing her stories.

Book preview

Shadow

A Mary Hades story

Sarah Dalton

I was born five months after Lila. The second grandchild. In my psychology class, theorists teach us that the order in which children are born affects our psychological health. As the second grandchild I should always be seeking approval, made self-conscious by the fact that my older cousin gets all the attention. It’s true that Lila was more outgoing as a child. She was chattier and funnier. At Christmas she would sing songs in front of the television and make my Grandma giggle. But as the first, second, and last grandchildren amongst the Quirkes, and the only children in our respective families, we were able to seal an almost sisterly bond that could never be broken by petty rivalries or pseudo-psychology.

It was a prickly beginning to a beautiful friendship. One blue truck in a pile of red and we both wanted it. Lila won, and that set the precedent for us both. After the loss of the blue truck, followed by an afternoon tantrum, Lila brought me her last gummy bear, and all was forgiven.

The blue truck is my earliest memory. A few years ago I asked Lila if it was her earliest memory, too, but she said hers was us playing on Scarborough beach with a bucket and spade. This was after the truck incident. I remember it because our mothers had a row and I cried when Lila had to go home early. Lila told me not to be sad and hugged me, our chubby, childish arms grasping each other.

Mum is always arguing with Aunt Izzy. That’s why I visit her alone now. They would make up for a few months each year, and Lila and I would spend blissful weekends on the beach, exploring coves and squealing at the sight of a jellyfish washed up by the sea.

I loved those weekends, but for some reason, when I think back to them, there is the itch of a memory, like a half-formed scab. I feel as though if I scratch the scab and let the memory pour out like blood, there will be something unpleasant lurking beneath. I shake the thought away.

It hardly ever rains when I am with Lila, as though the force of her personality can hold the weather at bay.

It’s sunny now as I pack my belongings into the car. I don’t need many; I’ll only be staying the one night. Aunt Izzy will have most of the things I need.

I suppose I’ll be staying in the guest room again, the one that’s so much colder than the rest of the house. The one with the old fireplace that whistles when the wind runs through it. I never have liked that room.

Mum’s face has hardly moved from the kitchen window. Her long black hair, as unruly as my own, is even more tousled than usual, and the circles under her eyes give her a slightly unhinged look. Seeing me leave for Izzy’s, even for a night, is painful for her. She wrings the tea towel in her hands and looks away every time I glance in her direction. Each time a weight pulls down on my heart, but I lack the means to comfort her. We’ve never been good at comforting each other.

In frustration at our mutual stubbornness, and the same between Mum and Izzy, I slam the boot of the car harder than I intended. That has Mum rushing out from the kitchen.

Do you have the maps Dad bought from the service station? she asks. She is barefoot, and the bottoms of her jeans are torn. It’s odd to see Mum like this. She’s usually so pristine.

And the sandwiches, and my mobile is charged, and I have that baseball bat hidden under the seat, although I still think it’s ridiculous to take it, I reply.

People these days, she says between tight, straight lips. They’ll kill for a packet of crisps. She pauses to look at me and her eyes become glassy. I keep forgetting how tall you are. Look, you’re as tall as me now.

I fold my arms and try to give her a reassuring smile. I’m going to be fine, Mum. It’s only a couple of hours and I’ve been on the motorway with Dad tons of times.

You have packed your pills, haven’t you? she asks.

It takes willpower to stop myself rolling my eyes. Of course.

What are you going there to do, anyway?

We’re going to watch the comet, I reply. There should be clear skies over Scarborough tonight. It’ll be lovely.

You could watch it here, Mum says. Her eyes are so wide and pleading that those weights pull down on my heart again.

No, Mum, you know why I’m going.

She drops her gaze and I think I hear her sniff, but I’m not sure. Well, all right. You should get going to miss the traffic.

Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow. Say hi to Dad when he gets back. Tell him I said bye.

I will, she says.

I turn around to open the car door, and Mum catches my arm. Mary, you are still taking your pills, aren’t you?

I swallow, preparing myself to answer. Yes, of course I am.

Her eyes narrow just a fraction as she tries to suss me out. All her seventeen years of knowledge about me seem to be at work in that one glance. For a second I feel like we both know I’m lying, and we both know the other one knows it. But then I catch her off guard with a hug.

She squeezes me tight, and this time I do hear her sniff loudly. Take care, sweetheart. Drive safe. Don’t go over the speed limit.

I won’t, I say.

She lets me go and she backs away as I open the car door. The engine starts smoothly. It’s a good little car, reliable and unfussy. What my dad calls a good starter.

We wave to each other one more time as I put the vehicle in first gear. The pressure builds to not stall the car, and as I find the biting point with the clutch, there’s a moment where I think I might. But I overcome it, and release the handbrake.

Mum stands and waves as I pull out of the driveway and onto the road, most likely watching the green L plates disappear into the distance. When I’m out of sight of the house, I let out a long sigh of relief. In some ways, saying goodbye to Mum is the hardest part of the journey. In other ways, what comes next will be much, much harder.

* * *

Lila was the first to learn to drive, but then, she was the first to do most things.

We were fourteen and I had gone to Aunt Izzy’s for the night. My aunt is a nurse, and sometimes she’s called away for an emergency night shift. When this happens, Lila almost always has a number of friends on call to make the most of the lack of parental supervision. During our mid-teens she was the master of sneaking out of windows and keeping boyfriends a secret from my aunt.

That night we were picked up by Lila’s then boyfriend and his older brother. The older brother wore a baseball cap and drove with one hand on the wheel, changing gears with loud revs of the engine.

Wheredjer wannago? he asked us. His slurred speech and the way his eyes lingered on me gave me the creeps.

Lila sipped on a bottle of beer and looped an arm around her boyfriend. To the stars!

’Ow much as she ’ad?

Can I drive? Lila asked, leaning forward and pressing her cheek against the driver’s seat.

Only if yer sit on me knee.

As Lila climbed over into the front seat, I gripped the arm rest harder than I’d gripped anything before, so tight that my knuckle bones shone through my skin, and my fingernails left half-moon marks on the leather. I remember her high-pitched laugh as she took the steering wheel, and the screeching of brakes as she worked the pedals, all the time with my stomach churning and Lila’s boyfriend’s hand on my knee.

Somehow we made it home safely that night, but we never went to the stars.

* * *

There was a comet in the sky the night Lila was born. Aunt Izzy always told us the story when we went for fish and chips on the seafront.

Oh, Mum, not this story again! Lila would roll her eyes.

I saw it, you know. I saw it moving through the sky, and I knew that the person inside me wanted to come out, and I knew that the person I’d created was going to be worth it all. And you are.

And as the two of them laughed together, their giggles infectious, I thought about how there are some people born for whom the world seems to stop. They are such a presence that they create a marker. They are a trail blazing through the sky. Izzy and Lila Quirke are those people. I’ve always been the girl grasping onto their tails, clinging to their particles with my fingertips, and by allowing myself to be dragged along with them, I bring light into my own life. Perhaps their brightness rubs off onto me sometimes, too.

And because they are such vibrant creatures, we forget to look deeper.

I’ve always thought this about the situation with my mum and Izzy.

Mum is the oldest, by seven years. She went to school every day. She did her homework. She went to university and studied maths, which was where she met Dad and the two of them fell in love. Mum has always lived her life like you’re supposed to, by being good, working hard, finding the right man, and settling down.

It was Izzy who told me about Mum’s troubles to conceive me. Right after University ended for my parents they were married, and Mum wanted to begin her family. She’d spent time looking after her young sister, and she’d always wanted to have a baby.

So when Izzy fell pregnant at sixteen years old, it was a dagger to Mum’s heart.

It seems so trivial now. I am only five months younger than Lila, but for my mum it was a betrayal. Izzy had the baby first. Her irresponsible, spirited sister ended up with the responsibility first, and Mum was jealous. Those five months were fraught with tension. My highly-strung mother still lived with her parents, and Dad lived with them too. She refused to speak to my poor knocked up aunt.

When I imagine what it must have been like for them all, I can’t help but wonder if neither of the two sisters could see the pain beneath the surface of the other person. A sixteen-year-old Izzy could never understand what it feels like to feel inferior. A twenty-three-year-old could not see how her naïve sister was afraid.

And when Lila was born, she had all the firsts Mum wanted for me. She breathed, walked, and talked first. She captivated my grandparents before me. I’ve never cared, but Mum did, and that tension has never gone from the two women.

And what an entrance my cousin had into this world! Izzy’s labour was as unconventional as her conception. Drawn out under the night sky by the comet, a young and inexperienced Izzy had mistaken labour pains for Braxton Hicks all day and didn’t think much of it. When her waters broke an hour after twilight on a hot summer’s eve, she had only one choice—to try and walk home as fast as she could.

Lila was faster.

Izzy pulled her own baby out from between her legs on a grassy knoll under the trail of a comet. Back at home, Mum watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer on the lap of her husband, sipping a hot chocolate, with me snuggled and content in her womb.

So you would think it would be she who would grow up to be special. You would think Lila would have been granted the strange abilities I’ve been offered by the Universe, or the Powers-That-Be, or embedded in my genetics, whichever it may be. But no, that responsibility landed on my shoulders instead.

I told Lila all about it one day. It was over the phone. I called her out of the blue.

Mary, she said. She always sounds so excited to hear your voice, and she speaks as though you are the most important person in the world. She’s always shunned modern slang in favour of the way people spoke in old movies. I’m so glad you called, I was just thinking of you.

You were?

Of course! You’re always two thoughts from my mind, you know that.

Something weird happened to me today.

Honey, you sound frightened. What’s the matter? I imagined her talking to me with the phone in the crook of her neck as she did something else with her hands, probably something glamorous like flicking through Vogue or painting her toenails.

You’ll think I’m crazy.

Well, I should hope so, she said. I like crazy.

I had some sort of vision, I replied. I saw something, and I think it was dead.

She didn’t even skip a beat. Dead like how? Zombie dead? Or ghost dead?

"Zombie, I think. But the thing is, no one else saw it."

I knew it! Her voice raised as though she had just had amazing news. I knew you had something like this inside you.

You did?

Of course, honey. Remember when we were little and we walked through the graveyard of the church on Castle Road?

Yeah I remember that place. It was creepy.

"You just looked so at home, darling," she said.

But, I was just scared.

No, you weren’t. You held my hand, remember? And you said, ‘it’s all right, they’re only sleeping’.

I remembered it the other way, but there was something about the way Lila spoke that made you want to believe everything she said.

So you think this is something special?

"Are you kidding? I think this is the best thing that has ever happened to you. Big things are going to happen for you. I can feel it, and my instincts are never wrong," she said.

As if. I’m nothing special, it’s you with the bright future, I said, and I remember laughing, too.

No, I see something very different for my future, she replied. There was something about her tone that stopped the laughter.

My head is full of Lila on the drive to Izzy’s. Every song on the radio reminds me of her. Every flash of a smile from neighbouring cars makes me think it’s her. Only when the motorway has me sweating with nerves do I begin to calm and concentrate.

That day when she told me that I would have an important future, she’d talked me back from the brink of fear. There had been a storm brewing inside me and she helped to calm it. I just wish she had been around to help me through a few other crises.

A sudden prick of tears fills my eyes as an angry driver beeps at me whilst overtaking in the centre lane. I hadn’t realised how slow I was driving. Perhaps I am nervous to see them, and my subconscious has me slowing down the inevitable.

I shake it off and carry on towards Aunt Izzy’s.

There was one thing Lila was right about when we discussed the Things I see. They are special to me now. They have progressed, too. It’s not just visions of zombies. I can speak to the dead. Ghosts talk to me. Sometimes I help them, too.

The problem is: people think I’m crazy.

When I had a month-long stay in a mental institute, Lila would have really helped me. Instead, I had to deal with it alone.

But then there are times when Lila has had to deal with things alone, too. The thought makes my stomach squirm. I should have been there for her.

We don’t always look deep enough.

I’m as guilty as Mum was all those years ago.

It doesn’t matter now. All that matters is getting to Izzy’s without creating a pile-up on the motorway.

With my foot more confidently on the accelerator, the countryside whizzes past me in a blur. I was going to stop and eat Mum’s sandwiches for dinner, but I decide to press on instead. The air is warm enough for me to have the window open, and the smell from the fumes spoils the summer afternoon. I should get to Izzy’s for early evening.

Her house is isolated on the hills leading up to the cliffs. It’s a small house, a three bedroom bungalow, with a long-reaching garden that seems to disappear into the surrounding countryside. It’s hard to believe that once my grandparents, my parents and my Aunt Izzy all crammed into the house, all those years ago.

When we were children, Lila and I would run and run down the hill towards the neighbouring field, pretending we were the last remaining humans on the Earth as Izzy’s cottage disappeared behind us. I wonder if Izzy and Lila still feel that way.

Only once do I have to consult the map, even though I have never driven to Izzy’s before. I’ve come many times, but what child ever remembers the exact roads and turnings? They only stare out of the windows, making up stories in their minds, staring at the faces that go by in a blur, wondering what stories there are amongst them. At least I always did.

The narrow lane that leads up to Aunt Izzy’s is one I remember with total clarity. I remember the shape of a strange tree that arches over the road, its trunk covered in creeping ivy. It always looked like a crooked Y shape, with a split trunk and two long branches extending out like spread fingers.

Once, Lila climbed that tree and hung from it like a monkey, her legs dangling over the road. I screamed and screamed at her, terrified that a lorry would come careening around the corner and kill her instantly. I remember how the image of her battered body popped into my mind and how my blood ran cold. But then Lila pulled herself up and climbed back down the tree, giggling the entire way. I’d joined in with her laughter, but it wasn’t genuine. She was the only one who found that funny.

I shake my head now, as I think about it. She had no fear whatsoever. Dad always says that a little fear does us good, and I think he’s right.

Is it better that I’m a little afraid now? I’m not sure which it is I’m afraid of, though, the past or the present.

* * *

They are both waiting for me as I pull up. Lila wears her favourite shorts, cut dangerously high up her thighs. As far as I know, she’s never had a haircut. She doesn’t need one. Her hair hangs loose and lovely, almost to her waist, so much glossier than the unruly hair Mum and I inherited. Izzy always said it was from her Brazilian father, who had come to Scarborough as a child prodigy football player and left the season after. But then sometimes she told us that Lila’s father had been the son of a Russian immigrant who was killed by the Bratva. Either way, Lila has managed to skip our dark mess of hair, and has a brown curtain of loveliness instead.

One thing we do share are our dark eyes. We both have taupe eyes with chestnut flecks.

Izzy is like Mum, but with softer features. Her hair is long and wild, too, but not quite as thick as mine or Mum’s. She always wears skinny jeans and loose vest tops, and at thirty-four years old she is as beautiful as she was at sixteen. I’ve seen the photographs. Her smile comes easily, and she’s never still, but she moves in languid motions with her arms: a flick of the wrist to remove a stray hair, a sweep of her hand to get a crumb from her top, a stroke of her fingertips as she greets you.

Lila waves, but not just with her hand, with her entire arm, like a person lost at sea. Her eyes are bright in the evening sunshine. Izzy leans on one hip, a crooked smile on her face.

Mary! Lila shouts as I exit the car. I smile to her.

What’s cookin’, good lookin’? Don’t ask me why, but that’s been my Aunt Izzy’s greeting for