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Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale
Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale
Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale
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Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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About this ebook

In the realm of very scary faeries, no one is safe.

Sixteen-year-old Kaye is a modern nomad. Fierce and independent, she travels from city to city with her mother's rock band until an ominous attack forces the sixteen-year-old back to her childhood home. There, amid the industrial, blue-collar New Jersey backdrop, Kaye soon finds herself an unwilling pawn in an ancient power struggle between two rival faerie kingdoms—a struggle that could very well mean her death.

Holly Black's enormously powerful voice weaves teen angst, riveting romance, and capriciously diabolical faerie folk into an enthralling, engaging, altogether original reading experience.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateJun 20, 2008
ISBN9781439106624
Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale
Author

Holly Black

Holly Black is the #1 New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of speculative and fantasy novels, short stories, and comics. She has been a finalist for an Eisner and a Lodestar Award, and the recipient of the Mythopoeic and Nebula Awards and a Newbery Honor. She has sold over twenty-six million books worldwide, and her work has been translated into over thirty languages and adapted for film. She currently lives in New England with her husband and son in a house with a secret library. Visit her at BlackHolly.com.

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Reviews for Tithe

Rating: 3.782663236231156 out of 5 stars
4/5

1,990 ratings149 reviews

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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I started to read this book on recommendation, but never got into it. I know "you can't judge a book by it's cover" but I did. I couldn't get into the writing style and it seemed like she was just trying to make everything too cool. Trying too hard.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Kaye, the child of a punk-rock chick that had to grow up too fast, finds herself back in her childhood hometown and discovers that the "imaginary" faery friends of her youth are very much real. Kaye is suddenly thrown into a struggle between two faery factions and is inexplicably drawn to the dangerous faery knight Roiben. While "Tithe" is interesting and gritty, I had to force myself to keep reading it as the beginning was heavy with obscure faery lore that was never really explained well. By the end of the book, I'd caught on enough to understand what was going on, but it still left me feeling vaguely unsatisfied. Even the love connection between Kaye and Roiben felt off, somehow. I'm not sure if I'll be continuing the series.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Kaye is an unusual 16 year old girl. Her mother is in a rock band and Kaye works full time instead of going to school. But that is not what makes Kaye different, what makes her different is that she sees faeries. After her mother’s current boyfriend tries to kill her they move from the big smoke back to Kaye’s grandmother’s place. Kaye thought she had finally put the fairy nonsense behind her, but it turns out they had not put it behind them. Her life gets very interesting very fast. Soon she is caught in the middle of a power struggle, fighting for her life and her friends. Most of all what is the biggest secret Kaye has to learn in order to survive? However from page one I was hooked and could not put this book down. The writing flowed easily and there was an interesting dark humor that permeated the prose. I was surprised after reading this that it is considered young adult. At its lowest level it should be teen. There is swearing, drug abuse, drinking, and smoking which is all just in the first chapter. This book is quite edgy and dark.I really enjoyed this book and am looking forward to reading the next book in the series.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Very Angst-y, Emo. Very Teen. It was a good story and I enjoyed it, but I'm the mother of a Teen, so I know that the Teen would enjoy it more than their mothers.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Kaye is a high school dropout and the daughter of a wannabe rock start. When she meets and helps a stranger, she develops into a faerie. She ventures into faerie land, meeting new friends and enemies. Kaye is a crucial players in a war between good faeries and evil faeries. Tithe was highly recommended, but I thought it fell flat. The plot had a great premise and potential, but I thought some of the characters weren't flushed out enough or were unnecessary.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I kept mentally editing this one, trying to make the plot more intricate. Predictable, but I enjoyed the prose style anyway.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Sixteen-year-old Kaye is a modern nomad. Fierce and independent, she travels from city to city with her mother's rock band until an ominous attack forces Kaye back to her childhood home. There, amid the industrial, blue-collar New Jersey backdrop, Kaye soon finds herself an unwilling pawn in an ancient power struggle between two rival faerie kingdoms—a struggle that could very well mean her death.When Kaye discovers she's actually a Changeling (changed at birth), her whole world starts to get really confusing, and some of the new friends she's met could possibly be her worst enemies.I really enjoyed this book, which portrays the struggle between the Seelie and the Unseelie Court of Faerie. It is dark and suspenseful, and definitely doesn't refer to the light fairy which perches on flowers and flutters about. I'm anxiously looking forward to book 2, Valiant, which is also waiting here on Mt. TBR.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I cannot even tell you how many time Holly Black was recommended to me... And in my typical procrastinatory way, I kept putting it off!What was I thinking???I instantly loved Kaye. From the FIRST page when she stuck her cigarette into her mother's beer bottle! (what? So I'm a tad on the spiteful side...) The characters in this book are hard to rival, Roiben... well I was instantly taken with him (even though he can be quite tough to handle). Kaye's childhood faerie friends: Spike, Gristle and Lutie-Loo (Um Lutie-Loo? WIN!) actually I can't go into them much, because I'll give away too much of the story... But I loved their names!The entire faerie world that Black created is crazy amazing and magical! I could picture each and every detail of the pixies, dwarfs (dwarves?) and fae. Every place, battle and situation was so beautifully descriptive that I was enthralled (enthralled I tell you!) from beginning to end!I read this in the span of a few hours, I stayed up until like 2 am because I could NOT tear myself away from this book!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Kaye thought she was a normal teen, though she did live a unusual life traveling around with her rock star mother. When she finds out that she is not as human as she thought she was and that she must now become involved in a war between the Unseelie and Seelie courts, she now not only has to deal with teenage issues, but live and death fairy issues as well.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    No character development, too many sexual innuendos for YA. The boys were all so sexual and I just don't find a guy with a harem suitable as one's love interest in YA. I also found a few typos and spelling mistakes. However, the plot was original and I liked the new paranormal elements. Might grab the next book in the series because I think Holly Black is a talented author.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Kaye Fierch isn't your average 16-year-old girl. She hasn't been to school since she was 14. She got a job to help her Mom pay the bills. To be honest, she was more of an adult than her Mom, who spent all her nights in bars singing in a band. Besides, Kaye was always considered a little weird. As a child, she spoke to Faeries, though everyone thought it was all in her imagination.When an attack on her mom left the two without a place to stay, they were forced to go back to New Jersey to stay with Kaye's grandmother. As Kaye got a chance to look up old friends, she meets a Faerie Knight that is wounded. This starts off a chain of events that leads her right in the middle of a war between the two Faerie Courts, the Seelie and the Unseelie. The bright and the dark. The tradition of the Tithe is being brought back. It is the sacrifice of a mortal. And it will require that all the solitary fae, those that aren't a part of either court, be bound for seven years in servitude to the Unseelie court.Just when Kaye starts to understand that she herself is set up to be the mortal sacrifice, she is blindsided with more news. For the last 16 years, Kaye has been living a life that wasn't hers to live. She is not a mortal at all, but part of the Fae world herself. Now with her mortal friend, Corney, and the Dark Knight, Roiben, she has to figure out who to believe. Things are not always as they seem.I really enjoyed reading this book, although it is exceedingly darker than I originally expected. Holly Black has created a strange and dark world in which faeries aren't exactly the nicest creatures around. In fact, they are down-right frightening!! Kaye is a great character in that she has feet in both worlds. She is faerie by birth, but having lived in the mortal world for 16 years, she is starting to understand the delicate balance of power between the two worlds. And the need to keep each world in it's place.My only major complaint at all is that this book IS marketed to the young adult set. As a 16-year-old girl, Kaye spends more time in bars with her mother than anywhere else. She drinks and smokes and is a high school dropout. There is also a lot of sexual innuendo that is just way too much for those under the age of 16. It's not a book that I would go right out and buy for my son, who reads at this age level now, at age 11.But for older kids and adults, I think it's a unique story about new worlds. And I'm looking forward to reading Ironside, the follow-up to this book. 4/5
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Kaye Fierch has always been an outsider. She's 16 and lives on the road taking care of her out of control rock and roll mom. When a roadie tries to kill her mom, they end up back at grandmas house. The last time she was there she was a child,playing with make believe fairy friends.Now she finds she is the ultimate outsider--she isn't even human. She's a pixie who becomes involved in the life and death politics of the Seelie and more malevolent Unseelie court. And she meets a beautiful fairy knight, who is torn between Seelie and Unseelie and winds up falling for Kaye. As Kaye disrupts the balance of power, evil visits her human friends. Themes include being an outsider, love awakening, and the consequences of actions.The book also has homosexual roles and rather rough sexual overtones.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Modern urban faery fantasy for YA. but it doesn't quite work. The initial premise is poorly thought through and becoems confusing later on when the internal consistency of the faery rules breaks down. At imes ti feels very much like a mid series book but it is't. The inconsistency of Kaye's background doens't help.Kaye is a modern teenager living with a single mum - singer - experincing many of the lows that such a changeable life can bring. but she's always had her faery friends to concole her. Even if no-one else really believe in them - apart form maybe some undetailed references to her primary school friends. After an arggument at a party she finds herself walking back thorugh the rainy woods and stumbles across a bleeding stranger. She shoudl know better than to invovle herself, but she does anyway and sicoversthe darker side of some of her faery friends. And maybe the truth about herself and her family. It's the inconsistency of the faery rules that grates most I think - food and time in faery land being especially problematic, but the vagracies of whether or not and to what degree iron has an effect seems contrived for each scene rather than being throught through as the details of the world. Kaye is particularly either effected or not almost at random. Kaye is never really belivable a s acharacter and even less so after the grand revelation which seems to come as no shock to her depsite a previous unbelivable obliviousness to it. The two attitudes don't mesh very well. Brief excerts into other characters viewpoints don't help. It's also very prudishly YA with no-one getting more than a kiss despite hte well know proclivities of the unseelie court that seems to exercise all the others.I believe this may be the author's debuet novel so a certain amount of forgivness in clunky writing may be in order - the world is interesting enough, but I'm unlikely to continue reading the rest of the series.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Kaye, is an aimless high school dropout whose possibly alcoholic mother moves from place to place with whatever band she happens to be in at the moment. When her mom's boyfriend attacks her mom, they move back to New Jersey to live with her grandmother, where she grew up. While reconnecting with grade school friends, she misses her other friends, the faeries who were her playmates as a little girl. It isn't long before strange things start to happen to her, and she begins to find out the strange history of the world of Faerie and her own story.Kaye is a likeable enough heroine, and there were aspects of this story that were interesting. It didn't have a lot of substance to it, and was not especially ground-breaking or well-written. After being underwhelmed by the Spiderwick Chronicles, I probably should not have expected more from this, but I did hope, after all the rave reviews, that it would be something special. Finally, as something of a side note, I am not someone who believes YA should be totally sanitized, and everybody likes a bad girl, right? However, I thought this novel unnecessarily glamorized smoking/excessive drinking/blase attitude to sex/dropping out of school. I'm not moralistically uncomfortable with it, it just seemed to be trying a little too hard to be edgy, without the realism that would have made everything a bit more compelling.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Have you ever read a novel and wished you'd found it sooner? It might seem strange, but even though I'm a frequent consumer of YA, I rarely find myself wishing I'd read a book when I was a teenager. Usually, I'm just glad for the experience; many YA writers craft immersive worlds and likable characters so skillfully that their works feel relevant despite the fact that I'm 26 years old. And it's not quite that I felt I was too old for Holly Black's Tithe, the story of a New Jersey teenager who learns of her faery nature when she's used as a pawn in the war between the Seelie and Unseelie Courts.No, instead I simply felt that Tithe would have struck a chord with me as a teenager, that it would have been incredibly relevant had I read it upon its release in 2002, when I was eighteen, rather than eight years later. Reading it now, as a grown-up, I mostly just felt nostalgic.Black describes the world of sixteen-year-old Kaye with surprising honesty and grit. Kaye lives in a magical land that I haven't often seen described in books, and certainly not with such accuracy: it's the world of my youth, New Jersey at the start of the twenty-first century. There are ravers and punk boys and long, emotionally complicated nights in diners. There are gay boys who love anime. There's the boardwalk of what I was sure must have been Asbury Park, abandoned and creepy and vivid. And, true-to-form, there's Kaye, an honestly written heroine if I've ever seen one. Kaye's a bit weird--she had fairies as imaginary friends since she was a kid--and definitely imperfect. She can't help but seduce her best friend's boyfriend. She gets her other friends into trouble. She's flawed, but, dammit, she's honest. As I read Tithe I couldn't help but feel that I knew Kaye--she's just about every teenage girl, complicated and conflicted. In short, she was terrific.As were most of the supporting characters here: Corny, Kaye's companion, one of the most realistically rendered gay friends I've ever seen in fiction. Corny isn't a magical and perfect gay boy a la Mercedes Lackey, but instead a complex and complete person in his own right. Likewise, Roiben, Kaye's otherworldly love interest, a sexy stoic with problems and a life beyond Kaye's.Unfortunately, the plotting of the novel doesn't quite live up to the promise of the characters. Black takes us a long time to get us to the central conflict, and Kaye's episodic explorations through the faery world just weren't as interesting to me as her adventures in the in the real world. Still, there's a lot worth exploring here--particularly if you've ever found magic in the magical kingdom known as New Jersey.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    You know, I read this book twice between when I bought it (sometime in 2004, I believe?) and when I gave it away to a teenage coworker towards the end of 2007 or beginning of 2008, but I don't remember a single thing about it.For all the hype I'd heard to make me want to read it, and everything since then about how it's a great story, it made absolutely no impression on me, other than the pretty cover with the butterfly.I'm sure it's a decent story, but memorable? Not in the least. Glancing at plot synopses, it's a lot like a hundred other stories about faeries and pixies and such that I have read, but without the really special qualities to make it stand out.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This was a good novel to read. The beginning was interesting and it remained great until the conclusion. The novel could have ended better.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Take a stroll into the edgy world of magic realism where it may look like home, but the lights are out and unbelievable fairy tale creatures have gathered inside. Sit back, enjoy the story, but never, ever eat the food.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A pull you in and refuse to spit you out fantastical read! This book is amazingly addictive and completely immerses you in Holly Black's fantasy world of faerie and all creatures in between. The characters and the imagery were wonderfully depicted and the danger filled plot left me breathless. The ending left me wanting more. Kaye is a great character and I wish I was more like her!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Good book, I found that the bad language was a little much, but all in all a good book.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A modern faerie tale marketed at young adults but just as riveting for adults. Enter the dangerous world of the faerie courts and experience a world of magic, power and strange desires. Tithe takes the traditional faerie tale plot (involving evil queens, reluctant heroes and an unlikely love) and twists it into a thrilling story I simply couldn't put down. This book is an easy read, but the characters are well written, reacting in believable ways to unbelievable situations. Definitely worth the read!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Tithe is exactly my kind of fairytale - gritty, real, and creepy as hell. The vivid writing is by turns enchanting and disturbing. In many ways, this is a story about power and what we choose to do with it. I enjoyed it immensely. I’m already looking forward to reading more from Ms. Black.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Holly Black spins readers an enchanting world in her brilliant debut dark fantasy novel, TITHE. Kaye Fierch and her musician mother Ellen move back in with her grandmother in New Jersey after Ellen’s boyfriend mysteriously tried to attack her. Now Kaye is back amongst the friends she had to leave six years ago—both the human and the faerie ones.In the middle of the rainstorm, Kaye stops to help a wounded faerie knight named Roiben and attracts the attention of two warring faerie kingdoms, the Seelie and Unseelie Courts. The Unseelie Court has recently brought back the Tithe, a human sacrifice for the obedience of the solitary fey, among which are Kaye’s childhood faerie friends.An even more shocking secret is revealed to Kaye—she is actually a faerie herself, disguised with some very strong glamour! Her fey friends want her to go along with her selection for the Tithe and then reveal her true faerie identity at the last minute, thus making it seem like the Unseelie Queen was trying to kill her own kind.The trouble is that things don’t go exactly the way they planned. Kaye’s involvement in the faerie war means endangering her human friends, not to mention falling for Roiben, whom her friends warn her to stay away from. It’s hard to distinguish between friend and foe in this exciting world of faerie.Holly Black is not one to waste words, and so TITHE is written succinctly but beautifully. The plot is sometimes hard to follow, and even after my tenth or so reading this time everything’s still not all clear, but I think that’s part of what makes this book so exciting for me!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This was very well-written, very lyrical, and shows quite a scary and sinister view of faeries. This is that Faery where humans should NOT eat or drink what's offered for fear of becoming trapped there. For instance, one character's misstep gets him wrapped in thorns, and all the pain that would entail…
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Either you enjoy this genre or you don't and by the end of this 300-page book, I've confirmed in my own mind that I don't. The suspension of disbelief required is too much, not to mention the romance-novel encounters between the mortal and fairy worlds and oh-so-daring language and cookie-cutter teen angst. Maybe if this was your fantasy, you'd be inclined to enjoy the story, but I never wanted to be a fairy, so I was just bored.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is a fun quick read. Although I am not a huge fan of fairy stories I did like this one. I think what gets me about the fairy stories is that their "history" is confusing with the different courts and all. Also fairies are very tricky and there are always lots of rules to follow or else the main characters(or mortals) always seem to be getting into trouble with the fairies. So overall I give it 4 stars.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book has been out for a while but for some reason I avoided it. When I first discovered it (years after it was written) I'm pretty sure I had had my fill of fairies at the time - having read Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr. I had also heard people say how if you read Wicked Lovely first - you wouldn't like Tithe and vice-versa. So! I figured it would be a dud for me and I forgot about it for a while. And then! Well...I don't know why I thought about it again but the point is I did! And I'm glad I did. This book was amazing for me! I really really enjoyed it. It was edgy and witty and portrays faeries in a no nonsense way. They are what they are and Kaye is a part of that life whether she likes it or not.I really enjoyed the variety of characters - Kaye's crazy mother and overbearing grandmother - Cory, her best friend's gay brother who turns out to be a unlikely friend, of course there is beautiful and dangerous Roiben and The Thiselwitch who I found fascinating.The first in a series, I'm curious to see where it goes. I have to say, I think I liked Tithe just a bit more then Wicked Lovely. The world of faerie that Black created just appeals to me more. Theirs is a world that exists besides ours but could exist on it's own. I always felt like Marr's fairy world was too dependent on reality - if that makes any sense at all :)I would recommend this one to anyone who likes a good fairy fantasy story.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    As promised after my review of The Cruel Prince, I went way back in time and found Holly Black's 2002 faerie novel, Tithe. I'm not sure if my review of this story is fair, because The Cruel Prince is such a more developed book (as it should be since it was published 15 years later and writers should grow into their craft).While the story of Kaye, a changeling girl who is just discovering who she really is, was engaging and I finished the book in record speed, I was left wanting ... more. More tension, more character development, more suspense.For me, this was an exercise in discovering Holly Black's roots. I certainly will read more of her books. She is an absolute guru on everything faerie and her ability to transport the reader to the world of fae is masterful, even in her early work.If you are curious as to the roots of Black's faerie world, or if you are like me and need more after reading The Cruel Prince, do check out Tithe. I will definitely be reading more of Black's work and seeing how she evolved as a writer into the Queen of all things Fae.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Sixteen-year-old, Philly resident, Kaye Fierch ends up shipped back to her grandmother's house after her mothers boyfriend tries to stab her mother. However once she gets there she sees the reappearance of her imaginary friends from childhood. Faeries are real and she is one of them. Her friends tell her that the Unseelie court has selected her for their next tithe (human sacrifice) and she should pretend to be human until the they removed her glamour and reveal her. This will allow her friends freedom from the sinister Faerie courts for seven years. Unfortunately she is also in love with a knight of the dark court who would rather make alliances with the light. Adding the interference of a few of her human friends the tithe may not go as planned. It's not very often I find myself liking faerie books but this one was great. I found Kaye a bit abrasive at first but I love how strong she is as well as her ability to take things in stride. Kaye is also very clever and inventive in dealing with her troubles. I also found the rules of the faerie courts dealt with in a neat, matter-of-fact way. I also enjoyed the contrast between the modern world (which was full of Stark Trek, comic, and literary references), and the beautiful (but cruel) faerie world.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    The book has no spark of life, and limited originality. Characters act without reason - stumbling from one mess to the next, creating little blobs of action rather than a narrative arc that spans the whole book.

    A lot of the reviews say this book is very "dark" and the world of the fey is terrifying as well as beautiful. I was disappointed to find that while there is a fair amount of vividly dark description, Holly's fairies essentially think and act like humans. They aren't convincingly different or other. This pretty much negated any impact that all of the dark and dangerous trappings might have had.

    The character of Roiben disappointed me as well. He's a lynchpin of the book - it's his sexual energy that is meant to charge the book, and he is also Kaye's primary liaison with the world of faerie. He's a make-or-break character, so when he became just as dull and human as the other fey in the book, I really lost interest.

Book preview

Tithe - Holly Black

PROLOGUE

And malt does more than Milton can

To justify God’s ways to man.

—A. E. HOUSMAN, TERENCE, THIS IS STUPID STUFF

Kaye took another drag on her cigarette and dropped it into her mother’s beer bottle. She figured that would be a good test for how drunk Ellen was—see if she would swallow a butt whole.

They were up on stage still, Ellen and Lloyd and the rest of Stepping Razor. It had been a bad set and watching them break down the equipment, she could see that they knew it. It didn’t really matter, the sound system was loud and scratchy and everyone had kept drinking and smoking and shouting so she doubted the manager minded. There had even been a little dancing.

The bartender leered at her again and offered her a drink on the house.

Milk, Kaye smirked, brushing back her ragged, blond hair and pocketing a couple of matchbooks when his back was turned.

Then her mother was next to her, taking a deep swallow of the beer before spitting it all over the counter.

Kaye couldn’t help the wicked laughter that escaped her lips. Her mother looked at her in disbelief.

Go help load up the car, Ellen said, voice hoarse from singing. She was smoothing damp hair back from her face. Her lipstick was rubbed off the inside of her lips but still clung to the edges of her mouth, smudged a little. She looked tired.

Kaye slid off the counter and leapt up onto the stage in one easy move. Lloyd glared at her as she started to pick up the stuff randomly, so she stuck to what was her mother’s. His eyes were glazed. Hey kid, got any money on you?

Kaye shrugged and took out a ten-dollar bill. She had more, and he probably knew it—she’d come straight from Chow Fat’s. Delivering might pay crap, but it still paid better than being in a band.

He took the money and ambled off to the bar, probably to get some beer to go.

Kaye hauled an amplifier through the crowd. People mostly got out of her way. The cool autumn air outside the bar was a welcome relief, even stinking as it was with iron and exhaust fumes and the subways. The city always smelled like metal to Kaye.

Once the equipment was loaded up, she went back inside, intent on getting her mother in the car before someone smashed the window and stole the equipment. You couldn’t leave anything in a car in Philly. The last time Ellen’s car had been broken into, they’d done it for a secondhand coat and a bag of towels.

The girl checking IDs at the door frowned at Kaye now that she was solo, but let her in all the same. It was late anyway, almost last call. Ellen was still at the bar, smoking a cigarette and drinking something stronger than beer. Lloyd was talking to a guy with long, dark hair. The man looked too well dressed for the bar. He must have bought a round or something, because Lloyd had his arm over his shoulder and Lloyd wasn’t usually a friendly guy. She caught a flash of the man’s eyes. Cat-yellow, reflecting in the dim light. Kaye shivered.

But then, Kaye saw odd things sometimes. She’d learned to ignore them.

Car’s loaded, Kaye told her mother.

Ellen nodded, barely listening. Can I have a cigarette, honey?

Kaye fished the pack out of her army-surplus satchel and took out two, handing one to her mother and lighting the other.

Her mother bent close, the smell of whiskey and beer and sweat as familiar as any perfume. Cigarette kiss, her mother said in that goofy way that was embarrassing and sweet at the same time, touching the tip of her cigarette to the red tip of Kaye’s and breathing in deeply. Two sucks of smoke and it flared to life.

Ready to go home? Lloyd asked. His voice sounded velvety, a shade off of sleazy. Not normal asshole Lloyd voice. Not at all.

Ellen didn’t seem to notice anything. She swallowed what was left of her drink. Sure.

A moment later, Lloyd lunged toward Ellen with a suddenness that spoke of violence. Kaye reacted without thinking, throwing herself against him. It was probably only his drunkenness that allowed her slight weight to be enough to throw him off balance. But it worked. He nearly fell, and in an effort to catch himself, dropped what he’d been holding. She only saw the knife when it clattered to the floor.

Lloyd’s face was completely blank, empty of any emotion at all. His eyes were wide and his pupils dilated.

Frank, Stepping Razor’s drummer, grabbed Lloyd’s arm. Lloyd had just enough time to punch Frank in the face before other patrons tackled him and somebody called the police.

By the time the cops got there, Lloyd couldn’t remember anything. He was mad as hell, though, cursing Ellen at the top of his lungs. The police drove Kaye and her mother to Lloyd’s apartment and waited while Kaye packed their clothes and stuff into plastic garbage bags. Ellen was on the phone, trying to find a place for them to crash.

Honey, Ellen said finally, we’re going to have to go to Grandma’s.

Did she say it was okay? Kaye asked, stacking her Grace Slick vinyl albums into an empty orange crate. They hadn’t so much as visited once in the six years that they’d been gone from New Jersey. Ellen barely even spoke to her mother on the holidays before passing the phone to Kaye.

More or less. Ellen sounded so tired. It’ll just be a little while. You can visit that friend of yours.

Janet, Kaye said. She hoped that was who Ellen meant. She hoped her mother wasn’t teasing her. If she had to hear another story about Kaye and her cute imaginary friends…

The one you email from the library. Get me another cigarette, okay, hon? Ellen tossed a bunch of CDs into the crate.

Kaye picked up a leather jacket of Lloyd’s she’d always liked and lit a cigarette for her mother off the stove burner. No sense in wasting matches.

1

Coercive as coma, frail as bloom

innuendoes of your inverse dawn

suffuse the self;

our every corpuscle become an elf.

—MINA LOY, MOREOVER, THE MOON, THE LOST LUNAR BAEDEKER

Kaye spun down the worn, gray planks of the boardwalk. The air was heavy and stank of drying mussels and the crust of salt on the jetties. Waves tossed themselves against the shore, dragging grit and sand between their nails as they were slowly pulled back out to sea.

The moon was high and pale in the sky, but the sun was just going down.

It was so good to be able to breathe, Kaye thought. She loved the serene brutality of the ocean, loved the electric power she felt with each breath of wet, briny air. She spun again, dizzily, not caring that her skirt was flying up over the tops of her black thigh-high stockings.

Come on, Janet called. She stepped over the overflowing, leaf-choked gutter, wobbling slightly on fat-heeled platform shoes. Her glitter makeup sparkled under the street lamps. Janet exhaled ghosts of blue smoke and took another drag on her cigarette. You’re going to fall.

Kaye and her mother had been staying at her grandmother’s a week already, and even though Ellen kept saying they’d be leaving soon, Kaye knew they really had nowhere to go. Kaye was glad. She loved the big old house caked with dust and mothballs. She liked the sea being so close and the air not stinging her throat.

The cheap hotels they passed were long closed and boarded up, their pools drained and cracked. Even the arcades were shut down, prizes in the claw machines still visible through the cloudy glass windows. Rust marks above an abandoned storefront outlined the words SALT WATER TAFFY.

Janet dug through her tiny purse and pulled out a wand of strawberry lipgloss. Kaye spun up to her, fake leopard coat flying open, a run already in her stocking. Her boots had sand stuck to the tops of them.

Let’s go swimming, Kaye said. She was giddy with night air, burning like the white-hot moon. Everything smelled wet and feral like it did before a thunderstorm, and she wanted to run, swift and eager, beyond the edge of what she could see.

The water’s freezing, Janet said, sighing, and your hair is fucked up. Kaye, when we get there, you have to be cool. Don’t seem so weird. Guys don’t like weird.

Kaye paused and seemed to be listening intently, her upturned, kohl-rimmed eyes watching Janet as warily as a cat’s. What should I be like?

It’s not that I want you to be a certain way—don’t you want a boyfriend?

Why bother with that? Let’s find incubi.

Incubi?

Demons. Plural. Like octopi. And we’re much more likely to find them—her voice dropped conspiratorially—while swimming naked in the Atlantic a week before Halloween than practically anywhere else I can think of.

Janet rolled her eyes.

You know what the sun looks like? Kaye asked. There was only a little more than a slice of red where the sea met the sky.

No, what? Janet said, holding the lipgloss out to Kaye.

Like he slit his wrists in a bathtub and the blood is all over the water.

That’s gross, Kaye.

And the moon is just watching. She’s just watching him die. She must have driven him to it.

Kaye…

Kaye spun again, laughing.

Why are you always making shit up? That’s what I mean by weird. Janet was speaking loudly, but Kaye could barely hear her over the wind and the sound of her own laughter.

C’mon, Kaye. Remember the faeries you used to tell stories about? What was his name?

Which one? Spike or Gristle?

Exactly. You made them up! Janet said. You always make things up.

Kaye stopped spinning, cocking her head to one side, fingers sliding into her pockets. I didn’t say I didn’t.


The old merry-go-round building had been semi-abandoned for years. Angelic lead faces, surrounded by rays of hair, divided the broken panes. The entire front of it was windowed, revealing the dirt floor, glass glittering against the refuse. Inside, a crude plywood skateboarding ramp was the only remains of an attempt to use the building commercially in the last decade.

Kaye could hear voices echoing in the still air all the way to the street. Janet dropped her cigarette into the gutter. It hissed and was quickly carried away, sitting on the water like a spider.

Kaye hoisted herself up onto the outside ledge and swung her legs over. The window was long gone, but her leg scraped against glass residue as she slid in, fraying her stockings further.

Layers of paint muted the once-intricate moldings inside the carousel building. The ramp in the center of the room was tagged by local spray-paint artists and covered with band stickers and ballpoint pen scrawlings. And then there were the boys.

Kaye Fierch, you remember me, right? Doughboy chuckled. He was short and thin, despite his name.

I think you threw a bottle at my head in sixth grade.

He laughed again. Right. Right. I forgot that. You’re not still mad?

No, she said, but her merry mood drained out of her. Janet climbed on top of the skateboard ramp to where Kenny was sitting, a king in his silver flight jacket, watching the proceedings. Handsome, with dark hair and darker eyes. He held up a nearly full bottle of tequila in greeting.

Marcus introduced himself by handing over the bottle he’d been drinking from, making a mock throwing motion before letting her take it. A little splashed on the sleeve of his flannel shirt. Bourbon. Expensive shit.

She forced a smile. Marcus resumed gutting a cigar. Even hunched over, he was a big guy. The brown skin on his head gleamed, and she could see where he must have nicked himself shaving.

I brought you some candy, Janet said to Kenny. She had candy corn and peanut chews.

"I brought you some candy, Doughboy mocked in a high, squeaky voice, jumping up on the ramp. Give it here," he said.

Kaye walked around the room. It was magnificent, old and decayed and fine. The slow burn of bourbon in her throat was perfect for this place, the sort of thing a man in a summer suit who always wore a hat might drink.

What flavor of Asian are you? Marcus asked. He had filled the cigar with weed and was chomping down on one end. The thick, sweet smell almost choked her.

She took another swallow from the bottle and tried to ignore him.

Kaye! You hear me?

I’m half Japanese. Kaye touched her hair, blond as her mother’s. It was the hair that baffled people.

Man, you ever see the cartoons there? They have them little, little girls with these pigtails and shit in these short school uniforms. We should have uniforms like that here, man. You ever wear one of those, huh?

Shut up, dickhead, Janet said, laughing. She went to grade school with Doughboy and me.

Kenny looped one finger through the belt rings of Janet’s jeans and pulled her over to kiss her.

Yeah, well, damn. Marcus laughed. Won’t you hold up your hair in those pigtails for a second or something? Come on.

Kaye shook her head. No, she wouldn’t.

Marcus and Doughboy started to play Hacky Sack with an empty beer bottle. It didn’t break as they kicked it boot to boot, but it made a hollow sound. She took another long swallow of bourbon. Her head was already buzzing pleasantly, humming in time with imagined merry-go-round music. She moved farther into the dim room, to where old placards announced popcorn and peanuts for five cents apiece.

Against the far wall was a black, weathered door. It opened jerkily when she pushed it. Moonlight from the windows in the main room revealed only an office with an old desk and a corkboard, yellowed menus still pinned to it. She stepped inside, even though the light switch didn’t work. In a shadowed corner, she found a knob. This door led to a stairwell with only a little light drifting down from the top. She felt her way up the stairs. Dust covered the palms of her hands as she slid them along the railings. She sneezed loudly, then sneezed again.

At the top was a small window lit by the murderess moon, ripe and huge in the sky. Interesting boxes were stacked in the corners. Then her eyes fell on the horse, and she forgot all the rest. He was magnificent—gleaming pearl white and covered with tiny pieces of glued-down mirror. His face was painted with red and purple and gold, and he even had a bar of white teeth and a painted pink tongue with enough space to tuck a sugar cube. It was obvious why he’d been left behind—his legs on all four sides and part of his tail had been shattered. Splinters hung down from where they used to be.

Gristle would have loved this. She had thought that many times since she had left the Shore, six years past. My imaginary friends would have loved this. She’d thought it the first time that she’d seen the city, lit up like never-ending Christmas. But they never came when she was in Philadelphia. And now she was sixteen and felt like she had no imagination left.

Kaye set the bourbon on the dusty floor and dropped her coat next to it. Then she tried to set the horse up as if he were standing on his ruined stumps. It wobbled unsteadily but didn’t fall. She swung one leg over the beast and dropped onto its saddle, using her feet to keep it steady. She ran her hands down its mane, which was carved in golden ringlets. She touched the painted black eyes and the chipped ears.

The white horse rose on unsteady legs in her mind. The great bulk of the animal was real and warm beneath her. She wove her hands in the mane and gripped hard, slightly aware of a prickling feeling all through her limbs. The horse whinnied softly beneath her, ready to leap out into the cold, black water. She threw back her head.

Kaye? A soft voice snapped her out of her daydream. Kenny was standing near the stairs, regarding her blankly. For a moment, though, she was still fierce. Then she felt her cheeks burning.

Caught in the half-light, she could see him better than she had downstairs. Two heavy silver hoops shone in the lobes of his ears. His short, cinnamon hair was mussed and had a slight wave to it, matching the beginnings of a goatee on his chin. Under the flight jacket, his too-tight white T-shirt showed off his body.

He moved toward her, reaching his hand out and then looking at it oddly, as though he didn’t remember deciding to do that. Instead he petted the head of the horse, slowly, almost hypnotically.

I saw you, he said. I saw what you did.

Where’s Janet? Kaye wasn’t sure what he meant. She would have thought he was teasing her except for his serious face, his slow way of speaking.

He was stroking the animal’s mane now. She was worried about you. His hand fascinated her despite herself. It seemed like he was tangling it in imaginary hair. How did you make it do that?

Do what? She was afraid now, afraid and flattered both. There was no mocking or teasing in his face.

I saw it stand up. His voice was so low she could almost pretend that she didn’t hear him right. His hand dropped to her thigh and slid upward to the cotton crotch of her panties.

Even though she had seen the slow progression of his hand, the touch startled her. She was paralyzed for a moment before she sprang up, letting the horse fall as she did. It crashed down, knocking the bottle of bourbon over, dark liquor pouring over her coat and soaking the bottoms of the dusty boxes like the tide coming in at night.

He grabbed for her before she could think, his hand catching hold of the neck of her shirt. She stepped back, off-balance, and fell, her shirt ripping open over her bra even as he let go of it.

Shoes pounded up the stairs.

What the fuck? Marcus was at the top of the stairwell with Doughboy, trying to shove his way in for a look.

Kenny shook his head and looked around numbly while Kaye scrambled for her bourbon-soaked coat.

The boys moved out of the way, and Janet was there, too, staring.

What happened? Janet asked, looking between them in confusion. Kaye pushed past her, shoving her hand through an armhole of the coat as she threw it over her back.

Kaye! Janet called.

Kaye ignored her, taking the stairs two at a time in the dark. There was nothing she could say that would explain what had happened.

She could hear Janet shouting. What did you do to her? What the fuck did you do?

Kaye ran across the carousel hall and swung her leg over the sill. The bits of glass she’d mostly avoided earlier slashed a thin line on the outside of her thigh as she dropped into the sandy soil and weeds.

The cold wind felt good against her hot face.


Cornelius Stone picked up the new box of computer crap and hauled it into his bedroom to drop next to the others. Each time his mother came home from the flea market with a cracked monitor, sticky keyboard, or just loads of wires, she had that hopeful look that made Corny want to scream. She just couldn’t comprehend the difference between a 286 and a quantum computer. She couldn’t understand that the age of guerilla engineering was

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