The Sisterhood: Season Two: The Sisterhood (Seasons), #2

By Tali Inlow

CONTINUE THE JOURNEY WITH SEASON TWO

 

Autumn Parish never wanted to be a hero. But as she treks across the desolate Midwest years after the collapse of society, a hero is exactly what she's become: a SHEPHERD, weaving magic from words and guiding people between this life and the next.

 

Summer Norwood rules a wild outpost on the outskirts of what used to be Phoenix, but her grasp on power is fragile. As the SHERIFF, she has a massive target on her back. With evil brewing, she vows not to go down without a fight.

 

In their childhoods, both were students at the Whitmore School for Girls in Appalachia, an elite and intensely secretive SCHOOL where young women were taught how to conquer the world. Those who attended became part of the Sisterhood, a network spanning the globe, their influence and power unparalleled.

 

Desire drew Autumn and Summer together from different worlds, taking them from enemies to lovers at Whitmore. But betrayal ultimately tore them apart. Twenty-five years later, when Autumn receives a magical summons drawing her west, she never expected to be reunited with the woman who betrayed her all those years before. But when Autumn realizes that other members of their Sisterhood are in danger, she may have to put their past where it belongs, teaming up with Summer to save them all.

 

***The Sisterhood is a serialized speculative fiction adventure. Start with SEASON ONE to discover kick-ass heroines surviving at the end of the world and bonds of friendship and love built to overcome any obstacle. For fans of The 100, Into the Badlands, or Mad Max: Fury Road.*** 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Two Is Enough Publishing, LLC
• Release date: Dec 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393924609

Tali Inlow

Tali Inlow is an up-and-coming author of queer speculative fiction. 

Book preview

THE JOURNEY OF THE SISTERHOOD

THIS IS A SERIALIZED saga—if you haven’t read previous episodes yet, go back and start at the beginning!

And once you get to the end of this book, check the links there to continue the journey.

EPISODE FOUR

The Shepherd

AUTUMN’S TRAVELS HAVE been productive. She’s always been a fast walker, and there’s little she fears, even out amongst the wilderness as she’s been. Despite her confidence, the new Midwestern desert of the continental United States has its obstacles—the Unmen raiding the village a day and a half ago had been reminder enough. Nothing is certain, not Now.

The sun crept past midday a bare few hours ago, and the sands beneath Autumn’s feet had begun their slow shift into firmer ground. Scrub brush now dots the surrounding land. With only three days remaining until her deadline for meeting Iris, she knows that she has a fair bit of ground yet to cover. The only reprieve: that the Winds have died down the further west she’s moved. Yesterday, Autumn had removed her scarf before sunset. This very afternoon, she has already unfurled it and tucked it into a pocket of her pack.

Even with the changing of the Winds, Autumn knows enough to exercise caution. The Winds are just a small part of the dangers in the world after the End, but they are fickle.

Fickle, and furious.

Unforgiving.

If Autumn’s memory serves, the world collapsed in on itself economically around eight years ago. Maybe a little longer than that, but time becomes more of a circle the longer a person dwells on it. But Autumn remembers how the weapons of mass destruction and psychological warfare alike had been deployed in the aftermath of the economic and political fall of nations. The electromagnetic and nuclear disturbances had been horrific, but in some places, the propaganda was nearly as damaging.

The Winds came not long after the worst of the fallout had subsided. Autumn had been south of what had been Chicago, just Before. Farmlands had been the most susceptible to desertification, and the whole corn belt and even much of the land south of it had turned into blistering sand dunes, barely habitable. But humans have always been adaptable. What remained of the population, they made it work.

Until the Winds came. And riding upon them, the Sickness.

One of Autumn’s first bouts with the Winds had been one of her worst. And no matter how hard she tries to forget it, she’s sure that it will be one memory embedded firmly in her brain until death comes for her. Perhaps it will survive even then.

Autumn had still been young and naïve when things changed, that kind of irrevocable change that civilizations cannot hope to undo. Out of Whitmore for barely a decade, still excited by the possibility of the challenges set before her, out to accomplish things where and when she could without the help of her Sisters. She had finished her assignment in Chicago, even as rumblings were reaching her through various networks of contacts—her Sisterhood and others alike—about shit on the horizon. The nasty shit that implied anyone with a decent head on their shoulders should get out of major population centers, especially in a country as polarized as the United States.

Autumn had left the city limits at sundown, her superbike carrying her at ungodly speeds away from the shores of Lake Michigan. She’d had the best of intentions—of looping down to her family’s neck of the woods, visiting for a bit before heading to the Carolinas, perhaps even seeking out the Whitmore School, or at least her old haunts in the mountains the school calls home.

But the universe had other plans. Not just for Autumn, but for every human being the planet across.

The initial blast caught Autumn off guard, and she wrecked her prized mode of transportation in epic fashion, only her wits and sharp reflexes keeping her from a fate half so gruesome as that of her bike. It had still taken her weeks to recover, and when she did, the world that greeted her was hardly recognizable.

Without knowing where else to go, what else to do, what goddamned course she was possibly supposed to take, Autumn had traveled east. She would get to her family eventually—but first, Whitmore. If there were answers to find, resources to use, networks to tap into, that was where they’d be.

Traveling with a sizeable group, Autumn and her anonymous compatriots began navigating the harsh landscape, headed towards the East Coast. Back in those early days, no one was safe, not even Autumn. People had not yet learned the truth: there was as much safety in numbers as there was in traveling alone. That is, none.

In fact, the hardest lesson had not yet come: that more people equated to more danger, not less.

Especially when the Winds came. And especially when the people they beat down on were unprepared.

They were all vulnerable. Autumn vowed to never be so vulnerable again.

The children succumbed first. Their reaction to the Winds, to the Sickness carried on it, that was what still to this day woke Autumn, a scream threatening to burst from her lips, sweat-drenched and shaking. When the Winds had whipped up around them, unsuspecting and pitiless, Autumn and the people she’d been traveling with were perfect prey—unassuming, unprepared, and utterly, utterly helpless.

The Winds themselves were bad enough. Sharp and blistering, they could burn a person’s skin