Spell Fire by Ariella
Moon
Blurb
New
school. New friends. New reputation. High school sophomore Ainslie
Avalon-Bennett works hard to hide her Crazy Girl past. But as long as her best
friend’s disappearance remains unsolved, she can’t shake the depression and
obsessive-compulsive disorder that once landed her in a mental ward.
Ainslie’s
tenuous control over her life shatters when her warring parents ditch her at
Christmas. While they take a cruise to “work things out,” Ainslie must spend
the holiday in Palm Springs with her aunt and uncle, owners of a struggling
Mystery School and occult store. Plunged into the world of fire fortunes,
dragons, entity eaters, and an ailing spell book, Ainslie is well beyond her
comfort zone. Then she meets a boy who spikes her pulse and calms her OCD. But will she lose him once he discovers her
past? Or will his deadly secret, hidden in plain view, be their undoing?
First Page
Chapter One
My parents never said it to my face, but I know they didn't expect me to
survive middle school. I was fine until seventh grade, when my best friend
disappeared. November twenty-sixth, the day after Thanksgiving, will forever be
branded on my brain.
Sophia's foster parents weren't allowed to tell me anything. Their worried
expressions said enough — she hadn't been moved to another foster home. Her
social worker was another dead end. And I'm positive Sophia would have found a
way to let me know if she were okay. She had even picked out an email address
with a code name, Hope Huntleigh, so her biological parents couldn't trace her.
When she didn't contact me and I couldn't find her, I knew something terrible
had happened. The court must have allowed her parents to regain custody. Which
meant Sophia's life was in danger — or worse.
When Sophia went from here to gone, in a way, so did I. Her disappearance
detonated within me a deep depression, then crippling anxiety and paralyzing
obsessive-compulsive disorder. I went from normal to the fetal position
twenty-four/seven.
I'm better now. Not totally fine, not perfectly normal, but functional.
I've pushed my memories of those times into a box and shoved it into the deep
recesses of my mind. But I can see in my parents' eyes they haven't forgotten.
Even though I survived — despite their dire expectations — and am now a high
school sophomore, my every flash of anxiety or hint of OCD sets them against
each other. Mom and Dad disagree on everything, from how late I stay up to how
many after-school activities I should take part in. Their only shared belief is
that my mental health issues would disappear if the other weren't such a lousy
parent.
I'm afraid their marriage won't last past Christmas. Which is why I need to
hide my mental illness. If they think I'm okay, then they'll stop fighting.
They just need to hang in there for two more years. Afterwards, hopefully, I'll
attend Columbia University and become an astrophysicist.
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