Echoes of Azure: Guardian, #1

By Maree Brittenford

I was fourteen, almost fifteen, the first time I saw him die.

Amy never wanted to be a hero. But when the terrifying nightmare that has been plaguing her for weeks starts playing out right in front of her, she does what anyone would do— she saves the boy from her dreams, Sam Perez.
Except Sam isn’t safe for long, and Amy finds herself racing against time. She must learn to handle her strange ability and protect Sam from something she hasn’t even begun to understand. Before it's too late for both of them.
Echoes of Azure is the first book in the Guardian trilogy, a world-bending science fiction adventure series that challenges the limits of reality and questions how far a person will go to save someone they love.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Maree Brittenford
• Release date: Sep 23, 2016
• ISBN: 9781533793911

Book preview

Contents

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty One

Twenty Two

Twenty Three

Twenty Four

Twenty Five

Twenty Six

Twenty Seven

Twenty Eight

Twenty Nine

Thirty

Thirty One

Thirty Two

Thirty Three

Acknowledgements

One

I was fourteen, almost fifteen, the first time I saw him die.

The boy, the one with a pinwheel cowlick on the back of his head, stepped out into the street, ahead of the group, and a car came around the corner, fast.

He never stood a chance

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School always lets out in a rush. Like we’re caged beasts afraid we’ll be recaptured if we don’t make our escape quickly. I usually avoid the crush, linger a few minutes at my locker, wait for the press to even out. But today I’m tired and cold, and I just want to go home and get in bed, be warm. So I let the tide of students carry me with them out the front gate, toward the street.

I was fooled this morning by the early spring sunshine and left my jacket at home, so I’m grumpy and shivering, pulling my cardigan more tightly around myself, and I don’t notice that I’ve been jostled to the very edge of the curb. I almost don’t notice it when it happens.

When a boy with a cowlicked head enters the crosswalk ahead of the group.

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I saw it coming, as I always see it coming, and reached for him, but I was too slow, my arm too heavy, like pushing through syrup. My fingers brushed his backpack, and then he was gone. Lying in the street, a broken thing, like rags and meat. Not a person anymore. The sight muting the screaming voices surrounding me.

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I react, reaching for him, and my fingers catch a loop of his backpack. I almost pause, confused. This isn’t how it happens!

My muscles follow through without my brain’s help, yanking him back so hard he stumbles into me.

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The car barely slowed down.

That’s how it always happens, and I can never save him.

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The car passes inches from him.

He turns, steadying himself against me, his scared eyes meeting mine, and I see his face for the first time ever. 

I expected the boy of my dreams to be special. Important. Hot.

I didn’t expect him to be Sam Perez.

No one else seems to have noticed what happened. A few kids gasped at how close the car cut it, but no one except me, and this boy, know how close he came to death.

We stare at each other as the crowd parts around us, and I’m bumped by kids as they surge past. They cross the street laughing and talking, free and joyful on a Friday afternoon. Like the world didn’t just change in an instant. Strange how everything is different for me, and maybe him, and for them nothing is.

What now? What do I do with this still-alive boy staring at me with bottomless eyes? He starts to say something, but it’s all too crazy, and I can’t deal with talking to him. So while he stands there opening and closing his mouth, I duck around him and hurry to catch up with the stragglers on the crossing.

I glance back when I get to the other side, and he’s still standing in the same spot, staring at me like I’m some sort of alien creature. Why is he freaked? He didn’t just act out a sequence from his nightmares.

And he didn’t just find out that the guy he’s been dreaming of for months is no one special. It’s stupid that it’s bothering me, but Sam Perez! He’s boringly average. Brown hair, brown eyes, brown skin. Not tall, not smart, not athletic, not hot. Not anything interesting, as far as I know. The only thing I can remember about him is that he’s always on a skateboard. I probably only think of that because it’s clutched in his hands.

That, and the stupid pinwheel cowlick. I’ve been seeing that in my dreams for months. I can recognize the back of his head faster than the front at this point.

There’s a pressure in my chest, and he’s not looking away, and I can’t stand it, so I run.

I don’t think about where I’m going, but I have to run—to move and breathe— and leave him behind. I didn’t plan to end up in front of the library, but it feels like the right place to stop. The bland box, with its tan stucco and 1970s-styling, isn’t exactly one of the town’s treasured historic buildings. But seeing it makes my fists unclench.

My breath is coming in huge gasps, and I lean forward and rest my hands on my knees, forcing myself to breathe evenly. I can’t rush inside the building a loud, panting mess. No one looks up, or even seems to notice me as I enter, so I must do a decent job of it.

The calming smell of old books washes over me and sinks in. The library is a safe place. A quiet, peaceful place.

The front desk is empty, so I walk back into the stacks, looking for Jill.

She’s shelving. I pick up a book and check the spine for the reference number, carefully sliding it into its correct position. I’ve been volunteering here since last year, and I know this routine well. As I align it with its neighbors, I let my eyes drift across the nearby books, checking to see if they all belong. There’s nothing worse than not being able to find a book because it’s been carelessly misshelved.

We work silently together, efficiently emptying the cart. I try to focus and not think about the boy, the dreams, and the almost. I might have slowed down my breathing, but my mind is still racing. It’s difficult to block him out.

Jill gives me a few sidelong looks, but she doesn’t break the silence. She is a librarian, after all. She’s good at not talking. When the bell at the circulation desk rings, she quietly moves back to the front of the building, and I trail along behind her.

An elderly woman waits with a stack of books. Our library doesn’t have the fancy self-checkout machines that I’ve seen at the regional branch, but Jill does have a barcode scanner that she runs across the tags attached to the books. When the old lady sees me, she smiles. I try to smile back politely, but it’s hard to be social when your thoughts are screaming. I should’ve stayed at the back.

Is this your daughter visiting with you, Jill? she asks, and I try not to roll my eyes. 

We get this a lot, although usually people think we’re sisters. We do look a lot alike— same navy blue eyes, pointy chins, and pasty pale skin. And, although Jill’s hair is a rich brown and always beautifully styled, while mine is a blah, indifferent, used-to-be-blonde shade pulled into a boring ponytail (Jill assures me it will darken up in time and that hers was the same at my age), I could pass as her daughter. If she’d birthed me at age twelve or thirteen, that is.

Oh no, this is my cousin Amy, Jill tells her, giving no sign she is offended that someone assumed her to be at least a decade older than what she is.

I hope I have it together like Jill when I’m older. She never seems to let people get to her. Of course, at the end of the day, she gets to go home to her quiet little house and do whatever she wants. I go home to a house that never seems to have fewer than ten people in it, even though only five of us officially live there.

Perhaps Jill is calm because she has a calm life.

Are you okay? she asks, leading me back into the office behind the front desk. She fills up the electric kettle at the sink in her tiny bathroom, and clicks it on, getting the tea things down from the shelf.

I sit down and try to organize my thoughts. I know I can trust Jill, but with this?  I don’t know what this is yet. Am I psychic or something? I never told her about the dreams. I haven’t told anyone. Something about them has made me anxious about sharing.

I’m glad of that now. I don’t want anyone pawing over my strangeness until I can get a handle on it myself.

A boy almost died today, I say, and she drops a mug. It bounces harmlessly on the carpet, and she scoops it up, muttering about her clumsiness. He’s okay, I rush to add. He wasn’t actually hurt. But it was still scary.

Jill turns around, looking even paler than normal. What happened?

I shrug, trying to look calm. When we were at the crosswalk in front of the school, a car came out of nowhere, and this one boy almost got hit. But, you know, it was fine... someone pulled him back.

If I say it was me that saved him, all the stuff about the dreams will tumble out behind. Jill turns back to the mugs, but she doesn’t do anything, just stands there. The kettle clicks off, and she jolts, startled. She pours the water, a citrusy scent filling the air. She passes me a cup, and I hold it in both hands, letting the heat seep into me, breathing in the steam as I wait for it to cool.

That crossing is dangerous. It needs a signal, Jill says, focusing her eyes on her own cup. Drivers get too impatient waiting for the street to clear, particularly when school lets out. Sooner or later it’s not going to be almost. A child will be seriously hurt. I think I’ll bring this up at the next town meeting.

I sip my tea slowly, the chilled feeling inside me starting to fade. Jill eventually shoos me out, saying she has work to do, and she gives me a half-hug as I leave. I must not be quite pulling off the unfreaked out thing.

Jill has a point about that crossing being dangerous. Many times I’ve seen kids dash out without looking, and cars zip through without waiting for the street to fully clear.

Maybe I’ve been nervous about it, and these dreams are my subconscious dealing with that. It’s not a bad thing— I did end up saving Sam Perez. But that’s all it is. No heavy portentousness, just normal fears and the mixing bowl of dreams.

I shiver and walk faster, doing my best to ignore the clear image I have of a pinwheel cowlick in dark brown hair.

Two

Loud voices drift out of my house. I can hear them from the street— my grandparents aren’t fond of their hearing aids. I go in through the front door, hoping to avoid the whole family. No luck.

Amelia, my grandfather booms, coming to hug me, too tightly, as always.

Hey, Papa, I say, and he gives me a smacking kiss on my cheek before letting me go. I trail after him into the kitchen. Our house is open plan, meaning that everyone is with everyone else all the time. You’d think with all the space they’d spread out, but the entire family still crams around the big kitchen island. Food trumps personal space, apparently. 

You grow every time I look away, my grandmother calls from the table. My Aunt Louise laughs loudly.

You saw her a week ago, Mom. I doubt she’s grown much since then. I haven’t grown in a year. I think I’ve stopped permanently at 5’4". I’m never going to be a supermodel, I guess.

A pack of screaming kids rushes past— my brothers and some smaller cousins, winding each other up. Hiding out in my room is seeming more attractive by the moment.

Did you have a good day, sweetie? my mom asks, her attention fixed on the stack of salad vegetables she’s chopping.

Fine. Oh well, you know, I saved a boy from a horrible death because I’ve watched it happen a hundred times in my dreams, but besides that, yeah, good day.

Great, she says, giving me a quick smile.

I have homework, so... I start to edge toward the hall, but my grandma is shaking her head at me.

You study too much. Sit down, spend some time with your family. I get a snack and sit beside her, and she puts her arm around me and pulls me in closer. She smells like rose perfume and talc, and it’s comforting to lean against her for a minute.

She starts telling a story we’ve all heard before, and Papa grins and nods as if it’s all new to him.

When she turns to ask my mother for some detail, I’m released from her grip. I straighten and roll my shoulders. My grandmother never seems to know when to end a hug, and she gives me a stiff neck with her extended embraces.

After a few more minutes, I am mostly forgotten, and I slip toward the hallway again. When I close my bedroom door, muting the sounds of loud conversation and squealing kids, I breathe out slowly.

It’s a relief to be alone. But now I don’t have anything to stop me from thinking about that boy. Focus on the positive: I saved him. He gets to go home and see his family because of a thing I did. Taking away all the other stuff, that is awesome.

I don’t really have homework because the teachers don’t assign much over the weekend to ninth graders, but I do have a history assignment due in a few weeks. History doesn’t interest me much, so it’s not the most gripping of distractions. Focusing on the boring book, and not Sam Perez, is harder than it seems.

I’m glad to see my older cousin Penny when she bursts in. Perhaps she can take my mind off things. Of course then she doesn’t say anything, just sits cross-legged on the bed, tucking her bare feet up under her, and stares at me.

We look enough alike that it’s obvious we’re related, but she’s beautiful, the genetically unavoidable pale skin looking striking with her dark hair and eyes. Not that I’m hideous or anything, but guys don’t turn to get a second look when I pass them. Not that I’d know what to do if they did— averageness has definite advantages.

What? I finally ask.

Why are you doing school work? It’s Friday night. You’ve got the whole weekend to do that. Let’s do something fun.

Like what?

Scott Mallory is having a party— I’m shaking my head before she finishes the sentence. I know she enjoys being crammed into chaotic, dimly-lit spaces, with loud music and even louder kids. I don’t. You’re so boring! Alright, well, I’m going over to Amber’s place, go with her.

I watch with amusement as she jumps up and goes to rummage in the closet. She isn’t good at being bored, or even staying focused. I think that’s why she stays here so often. She needs a constant diversion.

I love you, she calls as she bounces out the door.

Love you too, and be careful, I reply, but I’m talking to an empty room. I force myself to read a few more chapters before dinner. I will make myself forget about that boy.

I sit next to Great Aunt Brenda at dinner. I ask her some questions about my assignment. Maybe she can make it more interesting. Unlike me, she loves history. She taught it until she retired a few years ago, and now she spends her time harassing people for their family history for the local historical society.

She’s researched our family tree back who knows how many generations. It’s sort of gross, but my grandparents turned out to be distantly related, fifth cousins or something. It’s what happens when your family has lived in the same area for about one hundred and fifty years. I think I’m related to about a quarter of our town’s population.

There’s no way that I’m going to be getting together with a guy from around here, because I don’t care how distant it is— cousins? Eww. Aunt Brenda tells me to introduce any boy to her, she’ll check to see if he’s related. It hasn’t come up so far.

After dinner, most of the family settles into their usual activities. The noise level grows extreme as the younger kids get out the game system in the TV alcove. Since I’m the only boring, no-social-life teen still here, I can easily make my escape.

I take a blanket and go out to the backyard. We live at the edge of town, and behind my house there’s nothing but farm fields. On a clear night, like tonight, the stars are brilliant. My dog Jess comes over and lies beside me on the grass.

When I was younger I wanted to be an astronomer. Until I found out that they don’t, in fact, spend all their time stargazing. Not like this anyway. Telescopes are cool, but they are the definition of tunnel vision. Looking at the sky is a different experience, the vastness is what makes it amazing.

Still, it was on the list of options when I got my Occupational Placement results back. It’s a standardized test we took at the beginning of the year— it’s supposed to test our aptitudes and IQ and help us find an optimal career path. There’s a whole new curriculum to go with it. It’s supposed to be helping us all Be the Best We Can Be, according to the posters they put up around school. I don’t know if I agree, but I don’t get much choice.

Almost everyone else in my grade has already chosen their future careers. It happened shockingly quickly. I guess it simplifies things when you’re handed a list of five options. I’m still listed as undecided. It’s embarrassing, but it feels like the more I learn about a career, the less appealing it becomes.

Everyone tells me that it’s just how things are. But most of them are doing jobs that they mostly don’t enjoy. My dad is an attorney. He says he chose that because he wanted to help people. That when something bad happens in a person’s life, a good lawyer can make all the difference. But what he really does is write contracts all day— when he’s not reading contracts that other lawyers have written.

Then there’s my mother. She was a teacher, but decided to stay at home with us kids because she wanted to be able to spend time with us. Mostly she does housework, drives my little brothers around to activities, and babysits random cousins. I think she’s raised Penny more than her own mother has. Yet she barely has time to talk to me.

I might become a librarian. It wasn’t one of the top listed options, but Jill seems to like it. And if she’s not exactly happy, that probably has to do with things besides her job. She says the worst thing about being a librarian is constantly picking up interesting-looking books and not being able to sit down and read them.

None of that changes how much I love looking at the stars. It makes me feel small and at the same time part of something all- encompassing. It is the universe, after all.

The stress of the day catches up to me and I lie back, closing my eyes and letting myself drift. I’ve been falling asleep out here for years, and the dark doesn’t frighten me. I can see for miles across the fields— the wide, dark spaces are calm and quiet- and safe.

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My hand reaches for him and I miss, I always miss, it wasn’t true, it was a fluke, he’s not safe, not ever, he’s going to die again. Somehow I am pulling him back, but it pounds at me. Not safe, not safe, not safe.

His eyes are made of shadows, and his face is full of fear, and he begs— he demands— that I save him, and I cannot lie, I can’t tell him he’s safe. He’s not, and his voice gets louder and more insistent. He is never safe. I can never make him safe. He’s drifting away from me even as I reach out my hands, yelling for him. He steps back into the street, and the car is there again- coming up behind him...

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Something touches me, making me jolt, and for a second I think it’s Sam leaning over me, come to demand his safety in person, but it’s a different face that stares down at me.

Apparently satisfied that she’s woken me up, Penny flops down beside me.

Who’s Sam? You seemed to be having a pretty exciting dream about them.

I wince, my sleepy brain struggling to cycle up to speed. I can try to lie, but I can’t think clearly enough to figure out anything plausible.

A boy in my grade.

"Oh, do tell!"

I’m so muzzy it takes me a minute to get what I’ve unwittingly implied. Not like that. He stepped in front of a car and nearly got run over today. I pulled him back. I guess my dream brain still thinks he’s in danger.

Penny pouts a little— she’s a bit too invested in my love life, or, rather, in me getting a love life in the first place.

I’m surprised I didn’t hear about that at the party. If it’s over it must be late. I sit up,