Introducing Hallowed Hill: Cover Reveal and Excerpt

Hallowed Hill, a YA gothic horror, is currently available for pre-order and will be released on Oct 1.

Martie’s class was near the end of the row, with a spongy blue floor and a mirror across the entire front of the room. Eight other students were there, only one of whom she recognized from her own grade.

And, of course, that one person was Sinclair.

Martie took a deep breath. Sure, she’d gotten off on the wrong foot with Sinclair, but aggravating her was only going to make things harder. And things were already hard enough. If she wanted to survive where apparently others had failed—and she should really follow up on that—she needed allies, not enemies.

“Hey,” she said, walking up to where Sinclair was stretching her arms over her head. “I wanted to apologize for the gas station thing earlier.”

Sinclair was wearing a gi. It was black and had no ornamentation. Without replying to Martie, she bent over and touched the floor behind her feet.

Oh well. Baby steps, she guessed. The instructor stood near the front of the room, watching everyone stretch. She was a small Asian woman, wearing the same gi as everyone else. She stared at Martie as she approached, then, without a word, beckoned for Martie to follow her to a closet off on the side of the room. She selected a uniform from several unlabeled piles and handed it to Martie, then indicated the locker room across the way.

Okay. Maybe talking wasn’t allowed in this class. Martie took the uniform and stepped into the locker room. It seemed like a fairly standard locker room, though there were nice, fluffy towels available, as well as lotion and other toiletries, and someone had placed freshly-cut flowers by the sinks.

She set the gi on a bench by the lockers, shrugged off her pants, and pulled on the uniform ones. They fit perfectly. Nice. An impressive skill, to be able to get the right size just by looking at someone. Martie opened one of the lockers and stuffed her pants in, then slid off her top and stuck that in too. Her key card she kept around her neck as she hurriedly started to put on the gi top.

The lights overhead flickered.

Martie paused, the gi top half on. The lights flickered again, wildly, like there was a wild storm outside and they were going to lose power.

The old building excuse wasn’t going to fly here.

Martie hurriedly shut the locker and finished tucking in her pants, tying her belt as she half-ran back toward the entrance of the locker room. The lights flickered again, and something moved, just out of the corner of her eye, but she didn’t stop to see what—or who—it was.

Outside, in the hallway, the lights were steady. Martie went straight back into the classroom without pausing. There were more kids in the class now, twelve or so, though they were all still stretching. The instructor nodded once as Martie entered the classroom before immediately starting in on a warm-up routine.

Moving her body helped calm her down, focus her mind on other things. No one talked throughout the class, so maybe Sinclair hadn’t been ignoring her after all. There was a rhythm to class—the instructor would hold up her hand, then run through a routine or a move. Then the class copied her. Before too long, the class was over.

Martie still didn’t know what martial art they were doing. Some of it reminded her of the taekwondo back home, but there were only so many ways to punch and kick things.

Most kids had set their stuff along the back wall, so they just retrieved their shoes, coats, and water bottles and headed out. Still not talking. At what point were you allowed to start talking again? The hallway? The front entrance? Outside?

Okay. Maybe she could quickly grab her stuff out of the locker. Just run in, pull on some shoes and grab her stuff, and come back out to where there were other people. Or maybe someone else had gone in, so she wouldn’t be alone in there.

Martie forced herself to open the door and step inside the locker room. The lights were steady. Nothing was out of place. Everything was fine as she walked across the room. Everything stayed normal as she opened the locker and pulled out her clothes and shoes. Nothing moved as she turned and started back toward the door.

Good. Martie took a deep breath. Maybe it had just been the electricity. Bad connection, being out here on top of a hill with no other civilization for miles. Tree roots growing into the wires.

Martie reached for the door handle.

The lights went out.

Martie’s heart hiccupped in her chest. Tree roots in the wires. Just tree roots in the wires. Her hand closed around the door, and she pulled.

The door stuck, like it was locked.

Panic flared at the edge of Martie’s vision. No way this door would be locked. It hadn’t been locked a minute ago. Did it…even lock?

Okay. Okay. Martie forced several shuddering breaths in and out. There had to be another way out, right? There was a pool, so there must be a back way out of this place. She just needed to, you know, feel along the wall until she found her way all the way around. Or turn and head across the room, hands out so she didn’t run nose first into something.

There was a perfectly reasonable explanation for the lights going out. Trees in the wires. Roots in the electricity.

Martie shook the doorknob a few more times before slowly taking a step back and letting go. She turned, putting one hand out in front of her, until she thought she was pointing in the right general direction. Trying not to think of what—or who—was lurking in the dark, she stepped into the room, using the other hand to clutch her clothes and shoes to her chest.

The emergency lights flashed on, casting the room in red light. In front of her, on the mirror, someone had scrawled “GET OUT.” Whatever they’d used dripped down the mirror, dark and vibrant against the red of the lighting.

Martie stumbled, her back hitting the door behind her. She fumbled for the handle, but the door still wouldn’t open.

“I’m trying,” she whispered. “I’m trying to get out.”

The emergency lights flickered, just like the normal ones had, and the girl was there, standing in between Martie and the mirror. She didn’t move, and Martie couldn’t see her expression, her face lost in shadow. She wore the same, long white dress that she had earlier in the day, which flowed around her in a breeze that Martie could not feel. Her hands hung down by her sides.

Martie fumbled with the door again, and this time, miraculously, it pulled open. Stumbling through it, Martie found herself back in the hallway, lights on, people going about their business like nothing was wrong.

Unable to help herself, Martie turned back to the locker room, but the lights were on there, too, and the mirror was clean.

Pausing only to slide her shoes back on, Martie ran all the way back to the dorm, her mind reeling. Who was the girl, and what did she want? Was she really…was she really a ghost? Or just someone playing an elaborate trick?

And, either way, why were they picking on Martie? She’d just gotten here—she hadn’t had time to piss anyone off yet.

Well, except Sinclair. And she hadn’t even done that herself. It was the whole scholarship thing.

What was it Sinclair had said? None of the scholarship students had lasted, so Martie wouldn’t either.

She’d assumed it was the stress of dealing with a high-pressure school while being the only person who hadn’t come from wealth. But maybe it was more than that.

Maybe no scholarship student ever lasted because someone—or something—was determined to scare them off.

More information can be found here.