The Language of Acorns: Gravity Shattered

By V.R. Friesen

Acorn has perfected the language of invisibility, the dialect of belonging, the slang of nothing special. She comes from a home where she must stay small and quiet to survive. She doesn't trust words or voices, only body movement and expression and posture.

 

She finds refuge in a soup kitchen frequented by the wild pack children who roam their gravity-broken city. Here she encounters a pack led by a boy named Grammar. He notices her at once which both alarms and fascinates her, but she can't bring herself to trust him. Acorn decides to deliberately provoke his anger, to see how he reacts.

 

The results are not what she expects. Maybe, just maybe, she's found a new family. But first she must face her own fears…and the monster in her own home.

 

The Language of Acorns is a short story that takes place before Book 1 of the Gravity Shattered series.

CW: domestic violence

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dimmare Press
• Release date: Nov 26, 2022
• ISBN: 9781777406295

V.R. Friesen

V.R. Friesen has been writing stories since shortly after she learned the alphabet. She grew up on the beautiful East Coast of Canada and now lives on the equally beautiful (but in a different way) West Coast, in Vancouver, BC, with one of her many siblings and a cat. She can usually be found drinking chai lattes, cheering on her favourite basketball team, or reading voraciously in science fiction, fantasy, young adult and dystopian fiction. Gravity Shattered is her first series.

Book preview

The Language of Acorns

THE LANGUAGE OF ACORNS

A GRAVITY ZONES STORY

V. R. FRIESEN

Dimmare Press

CONTENTS

The Language of Acorns

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About the Author

This is a work of fiction. The characters and events are the products of the author’s imagination and are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblances to real persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

Published by Dimmare Press, 2022

© 2022, V.R. Friesen. All rights reserved.

Cover design by Bukovero

Editing by Caroline Kaiser

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

ISBN: 978-1-7774062-9-5 (e-book)

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THE LANGUAGE OF ACORNS

Words are masks and voices lie. Acorn has known this since she learned to walk.

I’m fine, says her mother out loud, while her body whispers of a bruise and cracked rib, and she can’t breathe. Her smile quivers with pain and her eyes say, Help me, but her words say, I’m fine, and that is all people listen to.

Her father says out loud, How nice of you to join