The Keeper (A Young Adult Dark Fantasy): The Keeper Series, #1

By C. M Neary

A crimson vision signals their arrival. Can one strange boy turn his trouble into a powerful gift to save them all?

 

Raven Brown never fit in. Burdened with his deceased mother's gift to absorb recently passed souls, the haunted teen would trade every bit of his power just to see her again. Already fearing discovery of his ability, he flees when sudden red skies mark the return of an age-old enemy.

 

Escaping through magical mirrors, Raven and his friends hunt for answers to the truth of who he really is. But without the secret to harnessing the curse he inherited, the young man's efforts could all be in vain…

 

Can this brave youth unlock his ancestral mystery and fulfill his destiny?

 

The Keeper is the chilling first book in The Keeper YA fantasy series. If you like heroes embracing their calling, repelling evil, and battling towering odds, then you'll love C.M Neary's soaring story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: C. M Neary
• Release date: Feb 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781999995515

C. M Neary

C M Neary has been writing for over 10 years. Christina is currently working on her Young Adult series, The Keeper. Her Young Adult series The Keeper is available on Amazon, Kobo, iBooks, and Barnes & Noble. Join her newsletter for new releases and offers. https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/t8f6y2

Book preview

Chapter 1

Raven

The nurse comes over to my bedside. She hunches over me like she has some sort of sore pimple on her backside and with every move, it agitates her, about to burst. She never looks at me until she accidentally glances over and catches me in her eyes, but it is only with a disgusted look upon her face.

I hate everything about her. The dirty moles on her face that wobble when she moves, her greasy flat muddy-coloured hair always tied in a tight bun, pulling back her many deep ageing wrinkles. I guess she hopes it will take off the years she so desperately wants rid of. I dread every time she comes into my room to cure me. She talks to my father outside my doorway, knowing full well deafness is not one of my ailments.

He is a burden to you, sir. Has been since he was born. He is wasting away, and every breath he takes is a waste of our own clean air.

I see it in her eyes, the wonder of why my father keeps me alive. I also wonder about the same thing. Because he does, I hate him even more than I hate her.

The nurse sits on the side of my bed, her fat ass uplifting me from my comfortable groove.

Ouch! I squeal as she pulls down my pants. She scratches me with her overgrown nails.

Shut up moaning, you… she says as she stabs my backside. A satisfied grin appears on her face before she waddles out of my bedroom. I get up from my bed and walk towards the window, my reflection stares back at me. I try to rub off the sting and glance outside, into our garden. I watch the snow melt into the soil, and I see the robins have finally returned. They have been hiding from the cold that has lingered here at Black Path Valley for over three months. The late flowers that bloomed have been long dead and rotted back into the soil. With glee and wonder, I watch as nature awakens and breathes life back into Black Path.

I wonder will my father allow me to wander the Valleys again? I hate being cooped up inside this lonely house, with its creaking floors whispering out from the many empty rooms.

Their voices lower as the grumpy servants appear. I always wondered why they even put up with us; a strange man and his ill teenage son, hiding secrets only the walls know.

It’s hard to hate my father, especially since every inch of my life depends on him. I can see the physical resemblance people see in us. Our similar height and build, the same pale complexion and flowing brown curls. The only difference, my ice-blue eyes, which show no sign of life. Well, that is what the people of this town say.

My father’s chestnut eyes are handsome as the single women of the Valley always say when they chat him up as he makes his rounds.

---

They say one’s soul can be seen through the eyes. I see no soul in his, I heard one whisper to another. What a terrible thing to say about someone, but I am no ordinary boy.

They are noticing already, I can tell. They stare. Their eyes filling with a fear that will soon become anger, soon become a swarm of talks, shouts, and arguments at the markets and town meetings.

Eventually, they will send me to the mental house, the one I can see outside my bedroom window, with the grey smoke surrounding it. Or worse, throw me into the coal mines, the hollow pits that have nothing but blackness inside them. They wonder, they guess, they gossip about it, they even believe the legend of the monster, who lurks in the mines waiting for a defenceless human to feed on. They speak about all the bones found in odd places in Black Path. The rumours are rife and can’t be stopped.

---

Raven, come! shouts my father from downstairs. His tone is cold. I head down the stairs, each creek from the old wooden steps makes my presence known to the servants. They come out from their quarters, their coats and bags at the ready before my foot hits the solid marble hallway.

Good night, Mister Brown, the maid, Maggie, says as she walks past, without the slightest nod of acknowledgement. The other two following behind a little too closely is that brother and step-sister. I saw them kissing while they were supposed to be dusting the empty rooms. Why my father keeps them on is a mystery to me.

Maggie was around when my mother was still alive, and so, perhaps, having her here is somewhat of a comfort to him. Her children are just tagging along for my father’s money, and he allows it. I stop and watch them head out the door, then gently close it behind them.

---

I step into the kitchen where my father is waiting for me. He is standing by the sink, which makes the loudest scream when the tap is twisted on, and the water flows down the blocked drain. He is silent, looking out the window into the old garden. It is abandoned, overgrown with weeds, and enters into the woods, a place where no one likes to walk but me.

Are Maggie and the kids gone? he asks me.

Yes, I nod with my hands folded behind my back. I’m dressed in my Sunday best, black pants, black shirt, and charcoal blazer. I wait for my father to move, to make a noise. I have been waiting all day for this. I dreamed of it, fantasied until my heart ached and I could no longer concentrate on anything else. My breathing is heavy, and my eardrums are about to burst from the loudness of my beating heart, echoing throughout my body.

My father notices and turns away. His eyes glance towards me slightly, yet he avoids eye contact.

He heads towards the back door, opens it, and pulls someone inside. He is a poor man from the red lanes of Black Path. I cough from the stench of stale whiskey upon his breath and the smell, of urine on his clothes, smothering the air around us. I step away from him.

What is wrong? says my father. Are you too good to take a homeless man’s soul? His expression stern and unforgiving.

No father, I say.

Then what?

Suddenly, I’m aware of his fragile heart, the beat slowing down. It is something I only recently realised I could do.

My old teacher, Mrs Rose, was a scary old woman and very unhappy when her husband ran away with her sister and left her penniless, homeless, and childless. I was just leaving class for the day when I took one step outside and felt the urge to return to Mrs Rose. My body became agitated as it tried to move forward, my mind foggy, my lips numb. I didn’t want to hear her shout GO HOME at me, so I decided to sneak by our classroom window and stare at her. She was dusting the blackboard and rewriting tomorrow’s lessons on ‘The Human Body’.

I felt it then for the first time, that strange sensation as I felt her pain, the miscarriages, the horrible words her husband called her when she disappointed him yet again for losing the only thing he wanted. The stress of caring for other people’s children and not her own. I saw it coming and was glad as I counted down five, four, three, two, and then one. Mrs Rose collapsed dead on the classroom floor. She will never get up. I’m so entranced that I did not hear my father behind me, or see the shock of Mrs Roses’ death on his face.

It wasn’t me, I plead as he drags me down the red lanes towards home, making sure no one we know well enough to care spots us.

---

She was not found until the next morning by one of my classmates who I felt terribly sorry for. We never discussed it, but I understood at once I had taken my first soul, and somehow, I knew my father did not need me to explain.

---

I stare at the poor man on the floor, coughing uncontrollably and spitting out blood onto our kitchen floor. His soul is already destroyed; it is no good for me.

The strange sensation returns, and everything I feel is a long, sad blur. The alcoholic man’s flashbacks are ones he can’t remember.

How long? Father asks me.

Less than a minute, I say as his heartbeat slows. As he nears his last breath, I begin the count down; five, four, three…

Chapter 2

Dr Brown

Breath in! I say to Keith.

I shouldn’t have inhaled all those fumes, ah, my last patient of the day jokes, all those fumes from my illegal whiskey making. Those police pigs never caught me, and it’s too late now, he laughs, hiding the pain of dying in his eyes before he has even lived.

I see it every day, another man dies from the curse of the deadly coal mines. Men of Black Path, whose lungs are slowly suffocating from the bad air around them, their eyes strained and blinded by black dust, seeing only darkness down in the pits, which have become their second home. What did they do in their past life to be punished like this and what awaits them on the other side?

Take it easy won’t you, Keith.

Ah, that’s what my wife says, but why take it easy, Doc, I ain’t gonna be here in this godforsaken place for much longer. If I am going to die the way I’m going, the least everyone can do is let me do it my way, ah.

I nod as I watch him struggle to breathe the air into his failing lungs. Let him drink his stale potent whiskey until he bursts if he wants to, liver damage will be the least of his worries.

Goodnight, Keith, take care, I say as I pat him on the shoulder. I do not look back. He knows and I know we will never see each other again. This moment is it. He is going to die, and there is nothing anyone can do to save him.

Goodbye, John, Keith whispers from behind as I close the door and head down the stairs onto the main street.

I flash back into the past, remembering when we played in the park across from the large fountain at the centre of town. The gang and I swung high up onto the monkey bars, or jumped into the fountain on those hot summer days.

It all changed at age fifteen. I went one way, they another. Into the mines was the only way for them to go. Keith and I are the only ones left. Soon it will just be me. How sad it feels knowing how free we once felt with a child-like spirit, now painfully destroyed by the working man’s survival.

---

Black Path hasn’t changed since I was a kid. The houses are still stacked upon each other and look much as they did then, only shabbier, about to crumble with one gust of wind. The poorest homes below, the people with jobs or some sort of income up above them.

I hear the sounds of the rigid bridges from one building to the next as the children run back and forth. I cross into the alley that remains dark and gloomy all year round. The children run up and stand outside their front doors waiting for handouts. I used to give them what I could, but the more I gave, the more desperate they became. I had to stop. Now, I wave my hands away from theirs and carry on up the street. I head down the stairs out into the main square towards the fountain, now dried out. No longer does water spit into the air and cascade into the basin below where statues of the great-grandfathers of the rich stand proud, waiting to be admired.

I see my father, his strong expression shining in the mist. The street lamps illuminate him at night, showing the great man who helped open the mines and employ the poor. He was the only doctor in Black Path. He then taught me, and I began to help the people he had helped make sick. Now, all I do is visit the houses of the poor and ease their suffering before they die. I knew he realised what would happen in the years to come, when the dust would eventually suffocate their lungs. The little children he helped bring into the world he would help take away.

Doctor Brown? someone shouts from the mist.

I recognise the voice and return his greeting. Mister O’Grady, what can I do for you today?

Ah, Doctor, I’m feeling a little under the weather. Can I have something to help me? My stomach is causing me terrible pain.

He usually gives me a more descriptive version of his sickness and tells me of his long hours spent in the mines. On most days, he can no longer see, hear, or even talk, even-though he is one of the lucky ones who escaped the clutches of the deadly deathtraps.

Mister O’Grady, I have told you before, I’m not giving you anything.

O’Grady sighs, and I know he can hear the irritation in my voice.

These pains are real, they’ve been persistent and getting worse over the last week. I assure you, Doctor, I wouldn’t tell you lies.

Are you sure about that, Mister O’Grady? Need I remind you, your bill is still outstanding and has been for over two months.

Ah, my great aunt is taking care of it, our families go way back, Doctor, you know that.

Sadly, I do. She would not forget to tell me, how disappointed she would be if I was unwilling to help her favourite nephew. How both our fathers’ helped breathe life back into this town. Over the years, I have managed to block Mister O’Grady’s voice from my mind. All I can hear now is a small noise, faint and unworthy of my time.

Your son, Doctor, how is he? I saw him…

Mister O’Grady, let me give you a checkup and then I’ll see what I can do for you.

We pass the bridge towards his cosy one-bedroom house set atop five others. Everything the poor would give, even their children for what Mister O’Grady owns. Dozens of warm blankets, bags of coal, two beds, new clothes, and plenty of food moulding in the kitchen.

I take out a small bottle and insert the needle of a syringe. His eyes light up like a child’s watching the Christmas lights sparkle on a tree.

Mister O’Grady, where is that lovely chest of yours? The one you had here last time, the one with the gold and blue painting on it?

Ah, the one you could fit a grown man into, is it?

Yes.

Ah, it’s over there, but I can’t give you that as payment, I mean I know I owe you for this and others but am good for it you know that, Doctor. You have plenty of fine stuff at your house, well, some very unusual items. Where do you get them? he asks as he puts his hand on my shoulder and gives me a greedy smile.

The yearning is in his voice as he watches the liquid shoot inside the syringe and drips out of the needle’s end.

My son’s cravings are getting too strong.

Mister O’Grady looks puzzled. He tilts his head, wanting an explanation to what I’ve just said.

I stab Mister O’Grady with the injection and press down hard to hasten the jolt of the chemical flowing inside of him.

My son, he yearns for health. The last man I brought him, his soul was too badly damaged. It is strange knowing such a thing, but I can understand it, for my own soul was withered to nothing the day they took her away. My son, he needs a fine soul, and yours will have to do.

Mister O’Grady grabs hold of my hands. He tightens his grip and