The Daegon's Challenge

Prologue (Part 1)

                                             Dedicated to you lovely readers

Mama never let us go to the Acceptance Festival. We lived in the Capitol. A twenty-minute trolley ride would take us there, but she always found an excuse.

"The night air is bad for Abby's lungs," Mama would say. "And you are much too young, Heather." While the city celebrated a new challenger, our little family hid in the house, playing cards. The most important holiday in our country and my sister and I were the only kids who didn't get to see it.

Then when I was seven, Mama announced she would be going to the festival, without us. We begged and pleaded, but Mama wouldn't have it. Our neighbor and housemaid, Margaret, came to watch us. Well, more like she sent us straight to bed and passed out on our living room love seat. Margaret was the only woman I knew who had less of a festive spirit than Mama.

I pressed my pillow over my ears but could still hear the music and drunken hollers from outside. I bet there was dancing too. How could anyone sleep during the Acceptance? The only night when this tired city had any life to it. When people stopped caring about their troubles to have a bit of fun. And I was missing it.

A floorboard creaked. I sat up. Through the darkness was the faintest silhouette of Abby opening the armoire.

"What are you—" I began.

"Shh! You'll wake Margaret."

"What are you doing?" I whispered, crawling out of bed. Already, Abby slipped her tan-colored hemp jacket over her nightgown.

"We're gonna see the Acceptance Festival," she said with a grin. "Now come on, put your hat and gloves on."

"But Mama is there; she'll find us and ground us for eleven years."

"The Town Square is massive with like a thousand people there. She won't notice two more. And we'll be back before her." She shoved her curly brown hair into her cap, carefully tucking in any loose strands. "Papa took me when I was six. You're seven. It's high time you got to see a daegon."

A daegon. I grinned at the thought. I was finally gonna see what a daegon looked like. I hurried with my hemp jacket and cap. Abby helped me wrestle my shoes and gloves on. Both of us were running on the high of nervous excitement. The kind you can only get by doing something you're not supposed to.

Abby creaked the door open. Only darkness greeted her.

She waved me over. "Hurry up."

"Hang on a sec," I said, yanking open my desk drawers. My fingers groped to find an object resembling a pencil. Once a year a daegon comes to the human world for the Acceptance Festival. There he'll grant someone's wish. I found what I was looking for and scribbled down my wish.

"I'll leave without you if you don't get over here."

I raced over to Abby, my wish in hand. Abby rolled her eyes. She was more patient than most twelve year-olds, but not by much.

We crept as quietly as cats down the stairs and through the hallway. Margaret's snores rattled the hanging pictures. My heart pounded just as loud. With not so much of a creak, we slipped out of the door and out to freedom.

Outside, we were greeted with the sight of ghosts dancing in the street. Their non-corporeal forms caught the light from deep-colored paper lanterns and refracted it back. A patchwork of colors.

The living contended themselves with sitting on the curb drinking and laughing. A few more business-savvy neighbors set up makeshift shops in the abandoned houses. Mostly selling alcohol, but some were pastries. One had sparklers for us kids.