Getting cracking on book 2 - finally!

WARNING - Minor spoilers

I wasn't going to post an excerpt from book 2, because I'm worried about spoilers and the freshly-written, unedited (read: needs a lot of work) chapter 1 is full of them.

However, I'm so bloody proud that I've FINALLY started writing book 2, and a whole chapter to boot, that I can't resist posting a little bit. And it is from the point of view of a character who's only got a minor part in Book 1 but becomes super important in Book 2. So important, in fact, she's a POV character.

*Edit: Ok, now re-reading it, I'm not sure it deserves pride of place on the blog, but I'll leave it here just because it has been such a long time since I've written anything.*

So, for your eyes only, I present...

Book 2 - The Timekeepers' Island

Chapter 1

June knew her sister thought she was stupid. Otherwise, why would she bring her to all these private meetings? Summer thought June too thick to understand what was going on, that was why.

And it was true that when Summer asked her stuff, June gave her the silent treatment and it didn’t make her look bright. But Summer was too superficial to stop any further than appearances, and whenever June opened her mouth, her lisp and her stutter were exactly where Summer stopped to assess her intelligence. Besides, why should she say anything about what made her cry at night to total strangers?

‘Times have been very tough for us, Mister Galloway,’ Summer would say in her sweetest voice, dripping like honey all over the fat sorcerer. If they had any money, they were always sorcerers. ‘June, won’t you tell Mister Galloway how hard things have been for us?’

At other times Summer would act angry, the righteous kind of anger, like today.

‘What of our hard work?’ she shouted now to the men in the room. ‘They call us roaches and lazy, but do you know how much magic is used each day to restore and grow food for our people? Free magic, which costs nothing to the governors! June, won’t you tell these gentlemen how hard our people are working? And for no rewards! Until our work is recognised as worthy, how can we stand a chance of making a contribution to this society?’

The five men and women were seated around a large polished table made of one slab of mahogany. Like everything else in the room, it screamed of understated opulence. The war had obviously not reached this part of the city. The table alone could have fed June’s school for a week.

June never said anything at these meetings. She didn’t want to do anything that would help her sister and she didn’t like the pity-disgust in the gentlemen’s eyes when they looked at her. She knew exactly what her sister was trying to do, which was to get Faerie back on the map and move back there, and June had no intention of ever setting foot in that damned place again, and if the spirits wanted to curse her for swearing, let them! As far as she was concerned, not struggling against her sister’s grip and sitting there looking like a dirty street urchin to make rich sorcerers pity her was as much as she would consider doing for her sister’s cause. Even if it made her look like a stupid, dirty street urchin.

But June wasn’t stupid, and as her sister droned on and on, June’s head was full of schemes to escape her sister’s clutch.

She had tried many times before, and been successful on a few occasions, but then had been caught. She knew she would be caught this time too, but the question was always: when? How much time could she buy for herself? Time free, away from the bullies at school and Summer’s snarky remarks, from the expectations and the meetings. Time to just be June.

~ Edit, 28th March: I did some editing on this today! Whoop whoop! I won't post it as this is meant to be a raw post, and also because I am sure it will change so more. ~