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    Urban Changeling
    Urban Changeling
    Urban Changeling
    Ebook118 pages1 hour

    Urban Changeling

    By Sarina Dorie

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Magic. Jehovah’s witchnesses. Karmic collisions. . . .

    On Megan’s first day at her new school, someone writes on her locker, “Go join the Witness Protection Program,” referencing her family’s religion as Jehovah’s Witnesses. More than anything, sixteen-year-old Megan wants to belong. She wants to fit in at her new school and have a best friend. When she meets Karma, destinies collide. Her new friend brings magic and mystery into her life. The two kindred spirits fill their time together with full moon rituals, classroom frog resurrections, and trying to sneak off without a psychic mother noticing.

    The crystal ball sees trouble brewing. . . .
    Megan’s parents don’t approve of her new friend’s bad influence and worldly ways. Nor do Karma’s parents approve of Megan’s strict, secular upbringing. All that stands in Megan’s way of finding herself is god, her parents and her religion. No biggie, right? Will she choose tradition and religion or friendship and magic?

    Will she become her opposite, an URBAN CHANGELING?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSarina Dorie
    Release dateOct 19, 2014
    ISBN9781311528629
    Urban Changeling
    Author

    Sarina Dorie

    As a child, Sarina Dorie dreamed of being an astronaut/archeologist/fashion designer/illustrator/writer. Later in life, after realizing this might be an unrealistic goal, Sarina went to the Pacific NW College of Art where she earned a degree in illustration. After realizing this might also be an unrealistic goal, she went to Portland State University for a master’s in education to pursue the equally cut-throat career of teaching art in the public school system. After years of dedication to art and writing, most of Sarina’s dreams have come true; in addition to teaching, she is a writer/artist/ fashion designer/ belly dancer. She has shown her art internationally, sold art to Shimmer Magazine for an interior illustration, and another piece is on the April 2011 cover of Bards and Sages. Sarina’s novel, Silent Moon, won second place in the Duel on the Delta Contest, hosted by River City RWA and the Golden Rose contest hosted by Rose City Romance Writers. Silent Moon won third place in the Winter Rose Contest hosted by the Yellow Rose RWA and third place in Ignite the Flame Contest hosted by Central Ohio Fiction Writers. Now, if only Jack Sparrow asks her to marry him, all her dreams will come true. www.sarinadorie.com You can find more of Sarina Dorie’s work online at the following webzines: “Zombie Psychology,” Untied Shoelaces of the Mind http://www.untiedshoelacesofthemind.com/Issue5/psych.php “Losing One’s Appetite,” Daily Science Fiction http://dailysciencefiction.com/fantasy/Monsters/sarina-dorie/losing-ones-appetite “Worse Than a Devil,” Crossed Genres http://crossedgenres.com/archives/035-dark-comedy/worse-than-a-devil-by-sarina-dorie/ “A Ghost’s Guide to Haunting Humans,” Whidbey Student Choice award http://whidbeystudents.com/2011/03/01/new-for-march/ The following stories are soon to be released, “That Stupid Dragon Rider” to the ROAR 5 Anthology, “Greener on the Other Side” to Allasso and Blackboard Galaxy to Untied Shoelaces of the Mind.

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      Book preview

      Urban Changeling - Sarina Dorie

      Urban Changeling

      by Sarina Dorie

      Copyright 2014 Sarina Dorie

      Smashwords Edition

      Cover Art by Sarina Dorie

      Discover other titles by Sarina Dorie at:

      http://www.sarinadorie.com

      and

      https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/sarinadorie

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Dedication

      To the class of 1998. Oregon City High School holds many memories for me, threads of which inspired this story.

      Prologue

      Monsters and Magic

      My mother always used to say there were no such things as monsters, except for the ones you created. If she’d known what I’d created, she would have screamed. Being a Jehovah’s Witness, she would have been horrified to learn I’d been dabbling in magic.

      Chapter One

      Colliding with Karma

      It all began with the party. We’d just moved out of Los Angeles because my parents thought the Oregon City School District would be safer. By safer, I suspected they meant quiet, God-fearing, and had students who didn’t have sex in the classroom when the teachers stepped out. Which is why my father had found a job in some Podunk town at a construction company belonging to a friend of a friend of a friend. I was thrust into a new school four weeks after the start of the school year.

      It was majorly sucktastic.

      After a full day of unpacking, my brother Steven and I sat on the back porch listening to music drifting over the trees from someone’s yard. The exotic New Age music piqued our curiosity, though neither of us would have dared to admit it. I recognized Enya blasting, and after that, something that might have been Middle Eastern.

      Magenta and orange clouds painted the sky in vibrant colors over the tree tops. I sipped my tepid lemonade, the ice having melted an hour before. The air was now cool enough to withstand the humidity in the country air. I lifted my long dark hair from my sweaty neck and held it on top of my head. A gentle breeze tickled plastered strands off my skin. The day had been record heat for September—not the most fun weather if you spent your entire day in an old house unpacking without air conditioning.

      My father plopped his sturdy frame down in a lawn chair beside me. Those hippies and their parties, probably smoking pot out there all night. I thought we would be able to get away from this malarkey when we left the city. He shook his head in exasperation.

      My mother followed him out, setting a fresh lemonade beside his newspaper. Her voice came out high and cloying. Oh, stop! We haven’t even met them. They might be perfectly nice people. She patted his bald head. Tomorrow is Saturday. You know what that means! We’ll get to make new friends spreading the truth of Jehovah.

      I stifled a moan. Walking door to door doing service and passing out Awake! and The Watchtower magazines did not sound like the best way to make friends. Not that it had ever stopped my mother before. Just once it would be nice to live somewhere people didn’t leave flaming bags of poop on your front door because they found your religion annoying. I didn’t even know if there would be any other sophomores at Oregon City High School who were Witnesses. Worst case scenario, I would sit alone in the cafeteria during lunch to avoid the worldly people my parents told me it wasn’t safe to associate with. Best case scenario, I would find Witnesses who chose not to associate with outsiders . . . just like at my old school. I didn’t look forward to either possibility. More than anything, I wanted to find someone like me: a friend who would understand me—and understand what I was going through.

      Having nothing better to do other than wallow in the pre-humiliation of the following morning’s festivities, I announced, I’m going to take a walk.

      My father shook his head vehemently. It’s nearly nine o’clock. There might be gang members on the streets this time of night. We don’t know what this neighborhood is like yet.

      My mother laughed, using the cooing voice she used when talking to babies, dogs and my father when he was irritated. I’m sure it will be safe if Steven goes with her. What do you say, honey? Is it okay for Megan to take a walk if she has her bodyguard? Out of the two of them, my mother was less strict, but that might have had something to do with her being raised Catholic instead of being born into the religion. My mother ruffled my brother’s hair as if expecting him to jump up and volunteer.

      Steven and I looked at each other with the kind of loathing only a brother and sister could have for each other. Two years my senior, he was nearly a foot taller and as lanky as a basketball player. Physical education teachers encouraged him to try out for sports. My parents suggested he choose not to join a competitive team for religious reasons. By choose what they really meant was, You will choose what Jehovah would want you to do.

      I suppose I can go if Megan wants, Steven said. He slouched in his lawn chair further, his body language screaming, Say no! Say you changed your mind about the walk. Don’t make me get up.

      I stood up.

      Don’t stay out late! Mom said in her syrupy sweet tone. We have service in the morning.

      Lucky me.

      * * *

      I was drawn to the music like a shopaholic to a Macy’s sale. My legs carried me along the shoulder of the road past our quaint stretch of houses and around the bend, only to find the neighborhood streets didn’t take me to the cul-de-sac where the music came from. There was no through street. I cut across the field between our row of houses and the neighbors’, wading through knee high grass.

      "I know where you’re going, peck, Steven said. Dad wouldn’t approve."

      Don’t call me that, jerk wad, I said. I’m not a hobbit. I wasn’t that short, but it was hard not to feel like a midget next to him.

      Steven snorted. "It’s from Willow, not Lord of the Rings."

      Like I care.

      I waited for him to lecture me on the evils of our worldly neighbors. He didn’t plant his heels in the ground and threaten to tattle on me. I suspected he was just as curious as I was. We’d both had more freedom back in the days before my parents had become baptized as Jehovah’s Witnesses. Someday, maybe when we were adults, we would make the same commitment and become baptized.

      We trudged through thistles and over lumpy terrain, avoiding blackberry bushes along the fence. Flashes of our back porch light shone through the dense growth of trees in our yard. I couldn’t see my parents, but I could hear their voices rise high and sharp in argument. I hated the way they pretended everything was all right and denied their problems when the elders asked them about their marriage. Jehovah would know they weren’t walking in his truth. He would see how they picked and chose his scriptures instead of following his teachings consistently.

      My neighbors singing Kumbaya was a welcome distraction from my parents. In the growing darkness Steven and I became shadows. I pretended my parents and their cutting words were as invisible to me as I was to them.

      We snaked through the clusters of dried grass and weeds. Thistles attacked my legs as we crept behind the party house. A wooden fence as high as my brother’s head hid the revelry from view. There was definitely the smell of some kind of herb in the air.

      I bet that’s marijuana, Steven whispered.

      It smells like cooking spices, I said. It reminded me of Grandma’s sage chicken.

      The hippie campfire music changed to what I guessed was a recording of a harp. It was pretty, like something I would play on my cello.

      Steven spied over the fence and then quickly ducked down. There are naked people in there.

      My religion would blame it on the curiosity of Eve, but I wanted to see.

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