DDsE, Book 4

By Sue Perry

Being sixteen is Tupac Eminem. Ella has no one to talk to except her new diary, which she has to hide from Ma and Pa Warden, the foster parents she’s stuck with since her family got flattened in a car accident. Now that she lives with the wardens, she has to switch to a new school, where people act like her tragedy is contagious. Her new suburb is just as boring as the last, and offers no hope of secret passageways or magic. But life is not all bad. There’s an interesting boy at the new school – although his family turns out to be impossibly dangerous. And there’s a feral cat, living in the suburb’s only open space, a pitiful excuse for woods. Sometimes the cat invades Ella’s mind. She tells her diary, ‘I’ve gone a special kind of crazy, a split personality. And my other personality is a cat, not a person.’

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sue Perry
• Release date: Jun 3, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370882663

Sue Perry

... Concert stage, dark except for a deep blue spotlight. Singer drops to one knee and his narration evolves from murmur to rant. "This is the story of a man who got what he wanted but he lost what he had. He got what he wanted but he lost what he had. He got –" ...It goes on forever. It's mesmerizing. Uncomfortable. Confessional.Pretty sure this memory is from the time I saw James Brown, decades ago, but the lost identity of the singer isn't the point.I've spent my life gazing across some fence or other, admiring greener grass over yonder. I've acted on so many impulses to jump the fence. No complaints, but it has sure taken me a long time to appreciate where I'm standing right now. And nowadays that blue spotlight chant fills my head whenever I contemplate a new jump.Sometimes I jump back.I was a low–budget television producer until I wrote a psychological thriller, "Was It A Rat I Saw", which Bantam–Doubleday–Dell published in hardcover in 1992. Soon after that I became the mother of twins, jumped into graduate school, and became a disaster scientist. I dabbled in academia, government research, and consulting.I stopped writing fiction for nearly two decades, until I noticed how much I missed it. I resumed writing novels with the literary fiction "Scar Jewelry" about a family with secrets that started in the era of Los Angeles punk and persist for decades. I'm in the midst of a speculative detective series FRAMES, with "Nica of Los Angeles", "Nica of the New Yorks", and "Boredom Fighter" so far. I've just completed a nine-novella series, the young adult paranormal horror romance, "DDsE".Funny. Back in the day, I had a single book idea at a time. Now I'm flooded with them, can't keep up with them, though I write just about every day.I live in southern California. I had to leave for five years to confirm this is where I belong. I live with multiple cats, comfortably close to my twins and granddaughter. Like my life paths, my friends and family are all over the damn place. I like to visit them, spend time at the ocean, explore cities, and go out to hear live music.

Book preview

DDsE

Book 4

Sue Perry

Copyright 2017 Sue Perry

Published by Sue Perry at Smashwords

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Book 4 Table of Contents

Ella's Diary, Entries 131.-177.

Acknowledgements

About Sue Perry and her Novels

Dedication

For Leo.

131.

DD – If all my teachers were like Aunt Axi, school would have been okay. She is patient and clear. I'm still Tupac confused, though.

Some of her info I already knew. There are three basic groups of people – humans (like my family), Everweer (like Paul's family), and hunters (like Chrissie and maybe her two sidekicks, the satellite girls). Humans and hunters divide into many different races and cultures. Everweer are all one race and culture but seem divided because they disagree about everything.

Hunters and Everweer know the three basic groups exist. They are dire enemies and different races of hunters are also enemies. Hunters have anger management issues. Anyway, hunters and Everweer would probably be in wars all the time if it weren't for hiding reality from the humans.

Around the earth there are maybe a million hunters, thousands of Everweer. But billions of humans, who are like, la la la, we run this planet, we control all these animals and plants. Clueless. Sometimes humans have found out about the other groups of people. They've never said, 'oh good, let's share'.

Aunt Axi and I sat on the patio sipping fresh lemonade like we were talking about hairstyles.

Why are they called hunters? Who – what do they hunt?

Despite the name, they don't all hunt. In fact, some hunters are surely vegan. Rather, the hunting is a frame of mind, an approach to life.

They sound super creepy.

I'd call that a fair assessment of hunters I've met.

I'm glad I didn't know about hunters when I was around Chrissie, I might have wimped when she harassed me.

But perhaps I simply don't understand them. Have you encountered hunters? Aunt Axi asked.

I'd gone several days without re–living the end of Chrissie, the burning on the beach. Now the memory came back and Aunt Axi saw it in my face.

Best answer some other time, she said.

Which saved me from deciding what to say. I'm pretty sure Paul should be the one to tell her what happened to the book of the Everweer, Trigg family edition.

I don't want to keep secrets from her but there is so much that I don't think I should say. So many thoughts I don't dare release into the world.

Now that Paul and Grayfast are gone, I'm realizing how much scary stuff we went through together. – sE

132.

DD – Heartache is an actual thing. I miss Grayfast and Paul so much my entire body hurts. Everything seems too hard to do, even climbing down the ladder into the kitchen. I'm just laying around on the pillows, pretending I'm Grayfast watching the little birds hop on the branches outside. They have extra energy in the morning.

Matty was like that too.

The way I miss Matty, that's not heartache that's heartscream.

May I come up? Aunt Axi called from the bottom of the ladder.

It's your house, I said then hated myself. She's not acting like a grownup so don't treat her like one.

She joined me on the pillows watching the birds, giving me privacy even though next to me.

I shouldn't have asked to sleep here in the loft last night. I asked because I could feel a lot of crying coming on and I didn't want to lay in her room biting my fingers to keep quiet. In the loft I cried as much as I wanted to. Well. Wanted? But she probably heard me anyway and crying in a dark new room left me full of holes.

People say crying makes you feel better but some kinds of crying don't. Correction. Humans say. No clue what makes you feel better, Everweer. No clue for you either, hunters.

Of course, I'm not exactly a human if I'm a changeling. Whatever the Tupac that is. Figures I wouldn't belong in any of the normal groups.

If Dad were here he'd blow his stupid green plastic horn and announce me as the grand winner in the sorry–for–yourself sweepstakes.

A little choke of a laugh popped out.

Aunt Axi glanced at me to check was I okay, then looked back at the birds. She has golden brown eyes that remind me of a lion. She sank deeper into the pillows and looked around. This was my sister's favorite room. After we lost her, it was years before I could come in here again.

What happened to her? But I knew the answer before I heard it.

She was late to turn and she disappeared. Now I suspect that Alcatur – She didn't need to finish the sentence. Back then we had no notion of his nature.

Everweer make zero sense! Suddenly I was so angry.

You may be right.

After that we talked about the hopping birds. – sE

133.

DD – Thanks to Aunt Axi, I stopped hurting so much about Paul and Grayfast. Usually when a grownup tries to distract me they're obviously sneaky and I feel tricked. But her obviously was wanting to help me feel better, so I could accept the help.

She served lunch on a balcony overlooking the woodsy trees behind the house. Pretty sure those were the woods Grayfast hid in, before he interrupted my first dinner with the Triggs. "We can't leave the building – the grounds are not under my protection – but we can enjoy views