Myra Jade Ivy is an -almost- normal teenager. She has very pale skin, haunting, bright blue eyes, dark circles under her glowing sapphire eyes due to a constant lack of sleep, and she has the voices in her head, playing the harsh words said to her over and over like a broken record player. Each day, each hour, each minute, and each second she spends living her sane side is battling against the lurking insanity threatening to take over her life. And what's worse is each and every second, it gets stronger, and closer to winning, and anything and everything that goes wrong for Myra's sanity makes her lose more and more of it, making her sane side weaker, and closer to losing.
(Okay, I know a lot of people will tell me that with her mask, she looks like Ticci-Toby. The mask is because of something that happens later on in the story. She only wears that mask so she can actually talk and sing again. Sorry if you see too much of a resemblance, but I tried to make her as original as possible.)
Antique store owner Liz brings home a Victorian taxidermy hound from auction, unwittingly unleashing dark forces on her wife and son.
*****
Nat Loman has finally married the love of her life, Liz, and is getting used to her role as stepmother to Liz's 5-year-old son, Liam. The Loman family runs a bustling antique business so they attend a sale where a striking, black taxidermied hound is up for auction. Liz picks it up for the business, but it ends up being stored in their home, where Nat notices strange things occurring. She quickly discovers the past residents had died violently. Then she hears from a friend about the myth of "the devil's dog", a hound that perches in the shadows, tearing families apart from the inside. Soon, people around the Lomans are dying, and Liz is changing, darkening. It's up to Nat to save the woman she loves from the darkness closing in, and to save Liam from danger no matter what she has to sacrifice.
[[Winner of the 2018 Wattys "Hidden Gems" category]]
[[word count: 60,000-70,000 words]]