The Fae Chronicles: The Hollow Forest

Chapter 1

     I never liked lunch; Ryan, Rowan and I were always sandwiched between the popular kids who didn't want to sit by the....other kids. I don't care what sorority you're gonna be in or who's weed you're gonna smoke after school, just let me eat my freakin' cheeto puffs in peace.

   Today, however, was different. Ryan and I sat outiside in the courtyard of Waterbury High School, enjoying the first sunny day in weeks, when Rowan skidded to a stop in front of our table, almost flying over it altogether.

   "They found Walter Martinez!" She cried, he abundant brown curls falling out of her ponytail and her glasses crooked.

   "What?" I asked, putting my apple down and turning to stare at her.

   "Walter Martinez. You know, only the third guy to disappear in the last month." Ryan answered for her, pushing his "Harry Potter hair" as I called it, out of his face. Ryan's parents had adopted him from Scotland seven years ago, so he still had a small lilt to his accent.

   "Yeah! They found him dead, of course, you know the whole 72-hour thing- "

   I made a face. "Rowan, I'm eating."

   "They found him on the side of the road. He looked like he'd been blinded and then dunked in milk. He was all white and blue and veiny. It was wierd." Rowan's father was the county coroner and she fully intended to follow in his footsteps.

   "Cool!" Ryan breathed.

   "Ryan!"

   "Sorry." He gave me a sheepish grin.

   "Yeah..." I flicked a crumb at him and hit him square in the nose.

   "Hey!" He responded by balling up a piece of notebook paper and throwing it at me. We then realized that Rowan was staring at us, her chin propped in her hand.

   "You two done?" She asked.

   I cleared my throat awkwardly. "Yeah."

  "Well," Rowan continued. "As I was saying before I was rudely interrupted, they found a tattoo on his left forearm of a tree."

  "Okay....lots of people have wierds tattoos and birthmarks, like me-Ryan, you okay?" I looked over at him to see his face steadily paling, making the smattering of freckles across his nose stand out.

  He was silent for a couple of seconds. I could almost feel the wheels turning in his head. He realized that Rowan and I were staring at him. "Y-yeah. I'm fine."

  "Good, because Mr. Tyson gave us a heckton of homework. We still going to Heyday after school to barely chip the surface of the monstrous iceberg that is our chemistry homework?" Rowan asked. Heyday was my Aunt Tessa's café. It was where the high-schoolers of Waterbury came to hang out, and in this case, where we did homework.

   Ryan pulled "the face", which meant that a-

   "Sorry guys, I can't. Mom wants me to help her plant the garden today." That was his excuse today.

   "Gotcha." Rowan muttered. He'd been taking rainchecks on a lot of our plans lately, which wasn't at all like him.

   The bell rang for fourth block to begin. I gathered my things in my bag and trudged out of the courtyard to drama class.

_____________________________________

    "Class....Class! CLASS!" Ms. Lorain clapped her hands, director-style and the auditorium filled with chattering drama geeks, myself among them, fell silent. This could only mean one thing.