Excerpt from my novel...

Well, I thought today would be a good day to share an excerpt from my novel. It's just a draft so nothing is finalized but I hope you enjoy it. It'll at least tell you why I named this blog The Charmed Bracelet.

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“We don’t have much time so I’ll give you the condensed version. Got it?”

Maggie nodded.

“All right. Does the word Gloaming mean anything to you?”

“Yes! I can’t get it out of my head ever since that night—”

“Yes or no will do,” said Skip abruptly, with a glance towards the darkness. “Gloaming is a city, a Fae city folded inside of this one. Most humans don’t know about it unless they’ve got business there or they make the right friends. Mostly it works the other way around.” He frowned. “The Fae have got their fingers in all of our little pies and we just keep leaving them on the windowsill.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

“You really are green. I’m talking about the Fae Folk—faeries, pixies, goblins, et cetera. You do believe in faeries, don’t you?”

Maggie took a sip of her coffee out of politeness. It tasted better than she expected. She couldn’t tell if Skip was asking her a serious question and she felt a sudden urge to laugh, but bit her cheek to hold it in. Even if he was joking, she didn’t think laughing at him would help matters. So she resorted to a tactic she’d developed for dealing with Board Members: she repeated the question. “Do you believe in them?”

Skip winked his blue eye at her. “I wouldn’t be here without them, if you know what I mean.” Maggie didn’t. “Gloaming is what’s on the other side of that gate and that’s where I suspect you went that night.”

“You’re telling me I went into some sort of faerie city?”

“That I am. Your bracelet, there, is a charmed bracelet—it’s an invitation of sorts. They’re used to get in and out of Gloaming. The charm has worn off, you see, which is why it didn’t work when you went back to the gate. Well, that and the timing.”

“Timing?”

Skip shook his head. “The thing I don’t understand is why you still have the bracelet. That’s highly unusual—unless of course they want you to come back.”