Verwandte Artikel zu The Mirrorwood

The Mirrorwood - Hardcover

Fagan, Deva

 
9781534497146: The Mirrorwood
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 1534497145 ISBN 13: 9781534497146
Verlag: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2022

Inhaltsangabe

Perfect for fans of the Twisted Tales series and Doll Bones, this thrilling, “cleverly original” (Kirkus Reviews) middle grade fantasy follows a girl without a face as she battles a deadly enchanted forest and learns the truth behind her world’s fairy tales.

Appearances are always deceiving…

Fable has been cursed by what the people in her village call the Blight, a twisted enchantment that leaves her without a face of her own. To stay alive, Fable has to steal the faces of others, making her an outcast that no one trusts. When the fierce Blighthunter Vycorax comes to kill Fable to stop her curse from spreading, Fable narrowly escapes by fleeing into the thorny woods surrounding her small village.

The treacherous forest has been ruled by a demon-prince for centuries, a deadly place trapped in time. Fable—and her opinionated feline companion, Moth—is the first to dare enter in a very long time. There, she encounters a tediously chatty skull, dangerously meddlesome deities, and a beast so powerful it tears at the fabric of reality, leaving nothingness in its horrible wake.

Fable will soon discover that, in the Mirrorwood, nothing is quite like the stories say, and the perilous realm may be the only chance she has to break her curse and find her true self.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Deva Fagan writes fantasy and science fiction for all ages. When she’s not writing, she spends her time reading, doing geometry, playing video games, hiking, and drinking copious amounts of tea. She is the author of several books, including Rival Magic, Nightingale, The Mirrorwood, A Game of Noctis, and The Delta Codex. She lives in Maine with her husband and their dog. You can find her online at DevaFagan.com.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter One CHAPTER ONE
I was wearing my sister Gavotte’s face on the night the blighthunters came to our cottage. All eight of us were crowded around the table, waging a fierce poetry battle to decide who would get the last slice of Da’s gooseberry pie. Indigo was arguing passionately that “savage” really did rhyme with “cabbage,” which was probably why none of us noticed the threat except Sonnet, who didn’t care for gooseberries.

“There’s someone coming down the lane.” Sonnet rose from the table and went to peer through the diamond-pane window beside the door.

A spark of worry nibbled at me. Hardly anyone came all the way out to our farm. We were too close to the Mirrorwood. Our cozy cottage—a bit ramshackle with the extra rooms tacked on over the years to handle three sets of twins—lay on the farthest edge of town. If you stood in just the right spot, you could see the enormous wall of thorns bristling along the northern hills. A prickly promise, meant to bind away the magic of the blighted realm and keep it from tainting the rest of the world.

But it hadn’t worked. Magic still escaped. Dribs and drabs, like the spatters of madder and saffron that flecked Mum’s apron after a day working her dye pots. Fragments of raw blight that warped whatever—whomever—they touched. Twists, we called them. You might suddenly sprout wings or claws. Your skin might turn to flames or ice.

No wonder folks were scared of it. I would be too. That is, if I weren’t already blighted.

For me, the greatest danger wasn’t the thorns or the corrupting magic. It was being discovered by those who thought anything touched by the twists had to be destroyed: blighthunters. The crimson-coated warriors trained to fight and kill people like me. But surely there was no reason for hunters to visit our farm.

“Is it Aunt Nesta?” I asked hopefully. She was family. She knew my secret. She was safe.

“No,” said Sonnet. Her shoulders were stiff, and there was a note of wary tension in her voice. “There’s two of them. Riding horses.”

Da and Mum exchanged a look. Mum’s lips had gone tight. “Allegra,” Mum said to my twin sister. “Best be ready, just in case.”

Allegra groaned. “It’s not my turn. Can’t Fable go upstairs? It’s probably just another peddler.”

I started to push away from the table. “It’s okay. I’ll go. But if they’re selling charms against the blight, buy me one,” I added, trying to make a joke of it.

No one laughed. Indigo was glowering at Allegra. “Ease up, Leg. It’s not Fable’s fault. One extra day won’t do you harm.”

“Oh, I know exactly how much harm it does.”

She didn’t look at me, but I flinched anyway. Allegra was my twin sister, and I knew she loved me. But you can love someone and still be angry at them. Not that I blamed her, after what I’d done to her for the first five years of our lives.

Sonnet, still at the window, drew in a sharp breath. “They’re wearing red coats.”

No one spoke. No one moved. Hunters wore red.

“Everyone stay calm,” said Mum, her voice brisk and businesslike, as if she were negotiating the price of her wool. “We’ll handle it like we always do.”

A chilly pit had opened in my belly. We’d had close calls with hunters before. Last summer my brother Thespian had to truss me up in a burlap sack and carry me over his shoulder, pretending I was a lumpy bag of turnips, in order to pass a hunter on the road to Aunt Nesta’s. But they’d never come to our house. And I hardly ever left our family farm. The last time I’d seen anyone other than family was… oh. Oh no.

Last week. I’d been out gathering wild strawberries at the edge of the northern woods. The miller’s son had passed by along the old hunters’ trail. I’d run as soon as I saw him. But had he seen me?

More importantly, had he seen the face I was wearing?

I couldn’t answer those questions. All I could do was try to be what I’d always been: Allegra’s identical twin. I gulped, looking at my sister.

“Go on, then, take it.” She slid closer along the bench, wearing a look of grim resignation that stabbed me in the gut. It wasn’t fair. I didn’t want this either. I’d give anything not to be like this.

“Sorry,” I whispered, cringing at just how useless the word was, after everything I’d already done to her. Everything my blight had taken. “Sorry” would never be enough.

She only closed her eyes, bracing herself. I reached out to brush my fingers against her cheek.

That was all it took. My curse, my blight, woke hungrily. Buzzing warmth rippled up my arm, my neck, tingling across my face as skin shimmered, bone shifted, and my face reshaped itself. The wavy brown hair I’d borrowed from Gavotte lightened to Allegra’s honey blond. My nose shrank, turning snub. A heartbeat later, and no one would have guessed that I was anything other than Allegra’s identical twin.

Only my family knew the truth: that I was a blighted face stealer.

Allegra whimpered, gripping the edge of the table as if someone had just torn away a bit of her soul. That was how she’d described it, the one time I dared ask her how it felt. Thespian had tried to tell me it wasn’t bad, like standing up too fast and getting a head rush, but I think he was just trying to make me feel better. Allegra always told the truth, even when it hurt.

I scooted back along the bench, giving her space. No one else said anything. Mum and Da had never made a fuss over my face stealing. I think they wanted to pretend it was an everyday thing, like feeding the chickens or washing the dishes. Not a curse that could have me and my entire family imprisoned, or worse.

I ran a hand over my hair. Allegra’s hair. It would be fine. Hunters had never visited our house before, but we’d practiced how to handle it. Just act normal. Absolutely normal.

“They’ve hitched their horses at the post,” said Sonnet. Mum went to wait with her by the door, while Da cleared away the dishes and Gavotte covered the last slice of pie with a napkin. Thespian sat at the end of the table, watching me out of the corner of his eye, the way our sheepdogs watched the flock.

I knotted my hands together, feeling utterly miserable. Moth sprang up onto my lap, butting his head against my fingers and purring. I cuddled him closer, his warm weight steadying me, as usual. Making it easier to breathe, to think.

Do not worry, his voice whispered in my mind. If the hunters try to take you, I will slash out their eyes.

“My sweet, bloodthirsty fluff.” I skritched him between the ears until his purr became a deep drone.

“Oh, yes, talk to your cat,” said Indigo dryly. “That’ll convince the hunters there’s nothing to investigate.”

“Lots of people talk to their cats.”

Indigo arched a brow. “But how many of the cats talk back?”

I ignored them. No one could hear Moth except me, in any case. And right now he was the only thing keeping me from falling into a complete panic.

Sonnet returned to the table, sliding onto the...

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Verlag
Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Erscheinungsdatum
2022
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1534497145
ISBN 13 
9781534497146
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
304
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV
info@simonandschuster.nl

Herculesplein 96
Utrecht
3584 AA
Niederlande