Kevin Wade Johnson
2026
Excerpt 1: "This cursed town," she muttered. I felt a chill run up my spine. "Don't say that." "I didn't mean real Cursed." "I saw someone—mostly heard—getting Cursed when I was a kid." "Oh no." "I still have nightmares sometimes. The hammering." She came and put her arms around me. I turned my head to let my cheek rest on her hair, all pulled up still. "You like that?" she said softly. "Always like a hug." "Then let dreams dismiss night fears." "I like that," I said. "I got it from my mama." "Wise." Excerpt 2: "What was that about?" Georges said. "We learned a bit, but what were they standin' to gain?" I didn't say anything. //I'd kept my head high…gazing up into the blueness of the sky, looking at the puffy white clouds drifting on the wind.// "They told us a lot," Lilly said. "On top of what Jane discovered with the Portals." //I'm not going to be drifting. I'd been pulled along by the currents, when my last life was ending. But no more.// Jane said, "I just wish I'd found out more about where each Portal is. On a map." //I passed through Death's Portal, and the passing was nothing but pain. Agonizing pain. But I've come through. Come out the other side.// "What you've found is immense. Don't discount it," Lilly said. "And it gives us a starting point to go explore those Portals from." //Lifted up out of the drowning river…floating like a cloud above it all.// Georges said uneasily, "Though the Hand's prowlin' those same Portals." //This second life isn't going to be all buoyancy, all the time. But I won't let fear pull me under, either.// "True," Lilly said, "but we'll just have to be ready." //I won't let it.// //I won't.// They looked over at me. "I'm ready," I said.
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