The Dark Rises: The Edgewater Chronicles, #1

By Greg Cmiel

Twelve year old Nikola stood in front of an open grave. His grandma was dead and gone.

 

With her death, a door was kicked open, and an ancestral curse—a mark on Nikola's bloodline and rooted in the very bones of the earth—lay revealed.

Change is hard. Being the new kid at school is harder, especially with a sinister Vice Principal like William Weaver.

 

Nikola meets a girl named Lizzy. The shocking things happening to him were happening to her as well. She lived on a nearby lake, in a cabin her grandpa had built long ago. Spook Central, she called it. 

 

They meet Dmitry, ancient and mysterious—with secrets of his own. Nikola is forced to choose—unravel the mystery of his dark lineage and bring the fight to the enemy, or face a lifetime of running.

 

Buy The Dark Rises to discover Nikola's choice today!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Greg Cmiel
• Release date: May 4, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393933564

Book preview

1

Infinity of Midnight

The wake for Grandma had been going on for hours.

Nikola needed a break from the boisterous crowd in the small chapel. Before heading outside, he took one last look at his grandmother. She lay in her coffin, her eyes were closed; a gold cross hung around her neck, clutched tight in ashen fingers folded against her chest. Her pale cheeks were colored an unnatural, rosy pink, in stark contrast to her bloodless hands. Nikola's lower lip began to quiver as he looked around at the sea of faces. Time slowed. The walls were closing in. He fled.

Thunder rumbled softly, somewhere in the distance. A long line of silhouetted tree branches held up the leaden sky. Nikola stood silently in front of an open grave, with an infinity of midnight laid out before him. A pile of black dirt beside the opening smelled of earth, clay, and decay.

Nikola's eyes fluttered, and he struggled to stay awake—but the smell of the soil, the misty rain, and the darkness conspired against him. He just wanted to lie down and rest. He imagined Grandma's face as he drifted in and out of wakefulness. She was speaking to him, but there was no sound. Danger, he thought he heard her whisper. She was warning him of something.

The black grave seemed to expand. It filled his vision and forced Grandma away. Nikola cried out as his knees buckled under him. The midnight welcomed him in. To sleep. To sleep.

Nikola! Uncle Marko's voice rang out like a thunderclap. He caught Nikola before he could fall face first into the open grave.

Uncle Marko hauled Nikola back by his shirt and spun him around.

What are you doing out here? Uncle Marko asked Nikola.

Nikola stared at his uncle, wide-eyed and confused.

Needed some air, Nikola said. Tired of that. He pointed in the direction of the wake.

Uncle Marko nodded once. Me too, he said. Is almost over. His voice rumbled deep in his chest. He put an arm around his nephew, and together they made their way back to the gathering.

After a while, the crowd of mourners inside the church began to thin out until there was no one left but Nikola, his papa Alek, and Uncle Marko. They stood there awkwardly in their ill-fitting suits. Nikola's pants were a good three inches short of his battered Vans. Papa's suit had already been out of fashion the last time he wore it—at another funeral, eight long years ago.

They walked outside. Uncle Marko gave Nikola and Papa great bear hugs and waved goodbye as they slid inside the old pickup. Papa turned the key. The engine sputtered a few times and then roared to life; the old Ford ran rough, but it ran. Papa dropped the truck into gear, and off they went. No words were spoken on the drive home. Nikola leaned his head against the window as fatigue courted once again. He thought about his grandma, lying so still in her casket.

She had died unexpectedly—victim of a massive stroke. Papa was stoic, as usual. The wake and the funeral were delayed a week to allow for distant relatives to arrive—Grandma had a big family, but many lived outside the United States. A handful of relatives made the trip from Montenegro. Nikola remembered how Papa had huddled with his many bratic, (cousins), teta (aunts), and ujak, (uncles), drinking Serbian brandy that a cunning cousin had snuck into the church. The cousin poured the brandy into coffee cups from a sheepskin flask decorated with a horse and some strange Cyrillic lettering on the side.

The brandy was shared, and all the songs had been sung.

Nikola felt a hand on his shoulder.

We are home, Papa said, as he took the key from the ignition.

Nikola removed his suit coat and hung it over the chair in the dining room. He brushed his teeth in the hallway outside the bathroom. As he brushed, Nikola stared at himself in the full-length mirror attached to the door of the linen closet. For the first time, he really took note of the too-short pants he wore. He scoffed. I look ridiculous, he thought. As he brushed, Nikola tilted his head, wondering if he looked more like his papa or his mama. He leaned in very close, and realized with a start that he couldn't picture his mother’s face. Nikola tried again. Nothing. With false bravado, he shrugged and closed the closet door.

It was Nikola’s birthday. He didn't bother to remind Papa, even though they had planned to go to the movies—maybe even stop for pizza on the way. It was his golden birthday, but it suddenly seemed unimportant. Instead, he ended up going to bed.

They buried Grandma the next morning. A soft drizzle began during the ceremony. Nikola was transfixed by the prayers in Latin; the Orthodox liturgy; the incense, and the rotund, bearded priest. It was a smaller crowd than the night before, somber and dark. An old man, slight and bent with age, stood under a tree far away from the other mourners. Nikola wondered who he was. The old man had his chin tucked in tight. His collar was flipped against the wind, and he wore a black fedora pulled down low over his face. Only his nose, which jutted out like a rudder, was visible. Nikola was sure he had seen him before … but where?

They lowered Grandma's casket down into the grave. Uncle Marko and Papa each took a shovelful of dirt and dropped it on top of the coffin with a small thump. A crow, startled by the sound, swooped in low. Nikola flinched as the bird soared over the mourners. Papa drove the shovel into the ground. A frown creased his face as he leaned onto the handle, staring at the man beneath the tree.

The priest cleared his throat, and spoke a few words. And that was that.

The old man under the tree tipped his hat toward Grandma in her grave, then wandered away across the cemetery.

The heartbroken crowd gathered around the brothers; hands were shook, and hugs exchanged. The rain began in earnest as the mourners began to disperse, scurrying toward parked cars along the winding road that circled the cemetery. The priest nodded solemnly at the departing friends and relatives, his hands hidden inside the folds of his voluminous robe. One of the altar boys that stood behind the priest stepped forward, black umbrella in hand. He struggled to work the opening mechanism. The priest snatched it from his hand and popped it open. He passed it back to the boy, who held it high above his head as they made their way back to the church.

2

A Powerful Talisman

It’s happening again. Papa sighed.

The appearance of the old man at Mama’s funeral kept Papa up most of the night. The old man had been absent for so long, Papa had begun to wonder if maybe he had died. He wished it were true.

As he lay in bed, Papa squeezed a silver cross, the chain threaded through his fingers. His mama had given the cross to him at Aleksandra’s funeral. She had stood behind him and wrapped it round his neck, fixing the clasp with her shaking hands. She had told him then that it was a reliquary cross, made by his father long ago—and that it held a powerful talisman against the evil eye. The cross opened like a tiny book, but it had been soldered shut to protect the ancient relic inside.

Papa drew his thumb across the rounded edges. Even though his eyes were closed, he could still picture the illustrated and inscribed cover to the cross. Papa traced the odd lettering that wrapped the twisting branches of the tree top, then followed the trunk down to the ground. He had never asked Mama the meaning of the words on the cross. He feared them.

Papa closed his hands over the cross and imagined the old man from his village—the one whispered about in the dark, quiet places. They called him Bagrem carobnjak—the Black Wizard—because they had forgotten his true name.

For as long as he could recall, the appearances by the old man had followed in the wake of personal tragedy and loss.

A shepherd boy had gone missing. The boy went out to tend his father’s small flock and never returned. Nothing was found but his shepherds staff and the shapeless cap he wore to ward against the cold mountain air. Papa sighed, remembering another loss—a young woman from their village who had also disappeared. She was last seen near a small lake at the foothills of the Black Mountains. No evidence of the woman was ever recovered. Wolves, they said.

Papa unwound the cross from his hand, placed it carefully under his pillow and stared up at the ceiling. The glow from the streetlight passing through windswept branches created flickering shadows that stalked across the ceiling. He closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep, dreaming of wolves hunting the accursed through dark mountain passes.

3

A Shadow-Filled Doorway

Nikola didn't sleep well that night—the rolling thunder and the patter of rain against the window kept him up. When dawn finally arrived, he dragged himself out of bed and padded down the hallway. Papa was seated at the dining room table. His salt-and-pepper hair was disheveled. He had a half-eaten plate of scrambled eggs before him, and a laptop opened up to a jobs board.

Papa nodded at Nikola over the top of his coffee cup, then went back to his search.

Nikola headed into the kitchen. Another plate piled with cold, scrambled eggs sat on the counter. He wrinkled his nose at it. No way was he gonna even try and eat that—the smell made him gag. He quietly scraped the eggs into the trash can and covered the evidence with a paper towel. Nikola grabbed an apple from a bowl on the counter instead and turned back toward Papa.

I'm gonna go out for a while, Nikola said.

With his mouth full, Papa mumbled a reply that Nikola took to mean: don't go far.

Nikola remembered that Papa had several job interviews and would probably be dragging him along. With Grandma gone, there was no one to watch him. Nikola's mother, Aleksandra, had died when he was just four years old. Something terrible had happened to her, he knew, but Papa wouldn’t talk about it.

Nikola brought his mother’s death up every now and again, but Papa just looked away. Car accident, he would mutter. Nikola suspected Papa had never told him the true story.

Papa. Nikola cleared his throat. Is it okay if I stay home today? I am twelve.

Papa raised his eyes from the computer screen, gazing over the top of his reading glasses.

I'm sorry, Nikola, Papa sighed. Your birthday.

Nikola just shrugged.

I will be going for long time today, Papa told him in his mixed up Serbian/English accent. For once, Nikola didn't correct him. Nobody to make lunch. You won't starve, will you?

Nikola swallowed hard at the mention of lunch; Grandma would normally make him his favorite sandwich for lunch. He showed Papa the apple behind his back.

Papa nodded. "Be good, dijete," he said from behind the screen.

Before Papa could change his mind, Nikola jammed his phone into his back pocket, snatched the spare key off the hook by the door, and burst outside.

The storm door slammed behind him as he headed toward the street. Nikola cut across the front yard; the grass was wet and the air heavy. A foggy mist enveloped the whole block. The morning sun peeked through thickening clouds, promising muggy heat before more storms. He grabbed his skateboard and skimmed down the sidewalk.

Nikola pushed slowly along past Dewey's house. Dewey had moved to South Dakota years ago, and Nikola often wondered if he would ever see him again. Though it had been a long time since they had lost touch, he blinked away fresh tears at the loss of his only friend.

Nikola headed to the small wooded area behind the gas station, where he and Dewey had built a fort there a few summers back. It was really just a few old boards across some low-lying branches—but they had a secret cache of comics hidden in an old ammo box covered by a dried up piece of sod. Both Dewey and Nikola loved comics, and they’d spent a lot of time together reading and discussing them. Nikola climbed onto the rough boards and settled in with the opened ammo box by his side.

After several hours, the sun centered itself in the sky above Nikola. His stomach rumbled. Time for some lunch, Nikola thought. He dug around in the ammo box and came up with a crumpled five dollar bill, two ones, and a handful of coins. Plenty of money to stock up on some snacks.

Nikola pictured Dewey beside him and raised his hand. High-five. He jammed the money into his pocket, stashed the comics in the metal box, and placed it back under the sod. With a grimace, he shook the coins from his pocket into his palm and poked around until he found the right one. Nikola held it up. It was Dewey's coin.

The coin glinted in the sun. On one side there was a miner drilling for gold. On the other side was a street scene of Deadwood. Dewey said he’d found the coin on Main Street in Deadwood. Solid gold, Dewey had said. He had mailed it to Nikola and made him promise to keep it safe and hold onto it until he moved back. It’ll be worth a fortune some day, Dewey wrote. He’d told Nikola he would split that fortune with him and they'd both be rich. Nikola made a fist around the coin, and with a lump in his throat, he shoved it deep into his pocket. He was gonna keep that promise.

Nikola ambled over the hilly field toward the Superette, a dingy little convenience store that stocked mostly junk food. The man at the counter watched him intently as he wandered the aisles of the store. Nikola grabbed a bag of Hot Cheetos, two Snickers bars, and a can of Pepsi. As the clerk rang up each item and dropped them in a plastic bag, he peered at Nikola through thick glasses perched on the end of his nose.

Back at the fort, Nikola dove into his bag of snacks and reread the stack of comics. The afternoon passed slowly, and the sun continued its inevitable downward slide into the western sky. He decided it was time to head back home so he repacked his comics and grabbed his skateboard.

Nikola kicked the board along the sidewalk, dodging imaginary orange cones along the way. He came to a stop at the bottom of the driveway, picked up his skateboard, and walked to the garage. Nikola pulled the key from his pocket and let himself in. After a quick trip to the bathroom, he rummaged around the kitchen looking for anything that could pass for dinner. He dug around in the freezer and, under a half empty bag of ice cubes, found a frozen pizza. Score. He turned on the oven, put the pizza in, and sauntered to the living room.

Papa returned just as Nikola sat down on the couch. His brow was furrowed, and his jaw clenched. A five o'clock shadow added to his dark expression. Nikola didn't ask about the job interviews.

They sat in silence as the pizza heated in the oven. Papa pretended to read the daily news, with the laptop perched across his legs. Nikola gazed out the window, watching dust motes float in the sunshine. He turned his eyes to a framed photograph of Grandma and Mama that hung on the wall. The photo had been taken long before Nikola was born. The grainy image depicted a street scene back in the old-country, just outside a cafe. Grandma and Mama were dressed formally. Nikola had always thought they seemed melancholy in the photo—he had never bothered to ask why.

There was a shadow-filled doorway in the background of the photograph. A man leaned against the doorframe, partially obscured by the darkness. He wore a black suit, topped off by a fedora. Nikola gasped. It looked like the old man at the funeral—the one that had been beneath the tree.

Smoke billowed into the living room. Nikola! Papa cried. He lurched up, lowering the laptop to the coffee table.

Nikola was faster. He dashed to the kitchen and threw open the oven door. More smoke.

Papa grabbed a towel and removed the charred pizza. He dropped it to the stovetop with a sigh