Synopsis
Seventeen-year-old Siobhan Murray has never believed any of the legends of the supernatural in her hometown of Port Alto, Massachusetts. Since her mother's disappearance thirteen years ago, she hasn't believed in much of anything. But when Siobhan's best friend Wren goes missing, Siobhan sets out to find her, coming face-to-face with the truth—about Port Alto, her mother, and the mysterious and dangerous realm of Arcadia.
Cold Iron is now available in paperback and eBook format here!
Cold Iron is now available in paperback and eBook format here!
Excerpt
Chapter One
Wren works at the used bookstore during the summer, so that’s where Siobhan goes after she finishes her last shift on the boardwalk. It’s the last day of summer, her last day slinging ice cream for tourists, and her last free afternoon to spend with Wren before school starts again. Siobhan barely stops to clock out and take off her sweat-soaked apron before leaving the ice cream stand and following the boardwalk back to her truck.
Downtown, the sidewalks are swarming with tourists juggling salt water taffy and kitschy merchandise and small children. Siobhan parks her truck on the corner and heads down the sidewalk toward the bookstore, the sea wind tugging at loose strands of her ponytail. A few tourists shoot her wary and obvious looks as she passes, but she brushes them off with a flash of her middle finger. She has somewhere else to be.
Tucked between a hair salon and Port Alto’s only Chinese restaurant, the used bookstore isn’t the most conspicuous shop in town, but it’s perfectly located to swallow unsuspecting tourists as they bounce around the narrow streets. Inside, the store smells of dust and old books and pine air freshener. Ceiling-high bookcases line the walls, crowded with books. The higher shelves boast impractical objects: crystals, tin soldiers, a tiny, perfect ship inside a glass Coke bottle. An old-fashioned typewriter sits on the counter, next to a glass bowl of mints.
“Hey, Harding,” says Siobhan.
Wren is sitting cross-legged behind the counter, writing in a leather notebook. She wears horn-rimmed glasses and an appallingly yellow sweater, her short, dark hair striving valiantly upward in defiance of hair products and basic physics. When Siobhan comes in, she looks up and raises her eyebrows.
“You’re late,” she says mildly, by way of greeting.
“I got off late,” says Siobhan. “The boardwalk was crazy today.”
“We’ve been busy here too,” says Wren. “I just finished tidying up.”
The bookstore is certainly tidy; Siobhan will grant her that. Wren’s organization system is questionable—classic novels shelved with dollar-store paperbacks, erotic novels leaning suggestively against self-help books, religious books uneasily sharing a section with science fiction and fantasy—but it seems to make sense to Wren, because she can find what you’re looking for before you even know you’re looking for it.
Siobhan leans against the counter, plucks a mint from the bowl and pops it into her mouth. “When do you get off?”
“Not until three,” says Wren. “So unless you want to sit quietly until then, you should find something else to do.”
Sitting quietly is very low on Siobhan's list of interests, but the bookstore is empty and she has nothing better to do. “There's no one here. Can't I stay?”
“You came at a quiet moment,” says Wren. “It won't last long. I'd leave if I were you. Unless you want to deal with more tourists.”
Siobhan considers. “I'll hide behind the counter.”
Wren rolls her eyes, but she's smiling. She leans back in her chair and stretches her legs; they're disproportionately long compared to the rest of her, and she struggles to find a place to rest them, trying a few different positions before apparently giving up and, after a furtive glance around the store, propping them up on the counter. At that moment, though, the doorbell rings as the door opens.
Wren snatches her legs off the counter at the same moment that Siobhan springs up, ready to hide, but it’s too late. The customer steps inside—a small, wiry woman with graying hair pulled into a tight ponytail, wearing a tweed jacket and leaning heavily on a blackthorn cane.
“Can I help you?” says Wren, her voice suddenly, perfectly polite.
The woman doesn’t answer. Her gaze sweeps the store before coming to rest on Siobhan, taking in her ripped jeans and wild hair and the tattoos up her arms, and her brow furrows. Siobhan’s used to that look—she's received it countless times from tourists and teachers and counselors and other people's mothers—but heat still rises to her face.
“Ma'am?” Wren prompts.
At last, the woman notices her. Siobhan lets out a breath.
“This may sound strange,” says the woman, her voice cool and formal and clipped around the edges, “but do you have any books on the paranormal?”
A frown appears between Wren’s brows. Siobhan smirks, knowing how Wren, a principled skeptic and agnostic, must feel about answering that particular question.
“Our paranormal section is in the back, ma’am,” says Wren, “next to the religious section.”
The woman gives a curt nod and disappears into the back.
“What is her problem?” says Siobhan.
“Shh,” says Wren. “Keep your voice down.”
They wait in silence while the woman browses, Siobhan trying to catch a glimpse of her between the shelves. After a minute, she gives up and starts playing with the typewriter on the counter, pushing the keys so that they click obnoxiously. Wren shushes her again.
Several long minutes pass before the woman returns, empty-handed. “Did you find what you were looking for?” says Wren.
The woman looks at her blankly; it seems to take her a minute to understand the question. Slowly, she shakes her head. “I’m afraid not.”
“Could I help you find something?” said Wren. “Maybe in another section . . .”
“That won't be necessary.” The woman’s gaze falls on Siobhan again. “Thank you for your help, er . . .”
“Wren,” says Wren.
“Right,” says the woman. “Well, thank you for your help, Wren.”
She adjusts her bag on her tweed-clad shoulder and limps out of the store. Wren sighs, looking both relieved at her departure and disappointed not to have made a sale.
“Seriously, what was her problem?” says Siobhan. “She was looking at me like I had a third arm.”
She’s not sure why she’s so rattled. She’s used to people staring at her, but for some reason, she feels like the woman’s gaze held more than the usual disapproval or pity or suspicion. There was something else, something almost like recognition. But that can’t have been it, because Siobhan is sure she’s never seen the woman before in her life.
Wren rolls her eyes. “Port Alto and their ghost stories,” she says, clearly more bothered by the woman’s choice in reading material than by any strange looks. “It’s complete nonsense.”
Siobhan is inclined to agree. Nothing that she’s seen would lead her to believe the stories of strange and supernatural happenings that seem to breed in and around Port Alto, Massachusetts. Still, she muses, anything is possible. There might be ghosts, witches, sea monsters, everything the legends purport. All Siobhan knows is that, if they’re real, they have nothing to do with her.
“Hey, it brings the tourists in, right?” she says.
Wren shrugs. Siobhan supposes neither of them is feeling particularly fond of tourists after dealing with them all summer. Still, without the influx of money each year, Port Alto—once a prosperous fishing town—might as well drop off into the sea.
So, Siobhan thinks, let Port Alto have its ghost stories. She’ll take what she can from it, and today, that’s these last hours of summer with Wren. Just as soon as they can get out of here.
“Guess I should leave and let you do your job,” she says.
Wren regards her thoughtfully for a moment, then shakes her head.
“No,” she says, “you can stay.”
*
When Wren finishes her shift, they get coffee at the hipster place across the street, which is to say that Wren gets a coffee (black, two sugars) and Siobhan gets a frappe that may or may not contain coffee, depending on the weather, the day of the week, and the relative position of the planets.
They sit at their favorite table by the window, which is conveniently located for them to make fun of the tourists passing outside. Siobhan sucks on her frappe and tries to imagine that it tastes as good as a cigarette, looking out at the familiar clapboard storefronts, the old brick courthouse, the crumbling sidewalks. Wren takes her notebook out of her messenger bag and begins to write again.
“What are you working on?” says Siobhan.
Wren doesn't look up. “A college application essay.”
Siobhan frowns. “It's summer.”
“Most schools start accepting applications in the fall,” says Wren. “And they have different essay prompts, so I’ll have to write more than one.”
That’s news to Siobhan. No one ever told her anything about applying for college, presumably not wanting to waste time. “Where do you want to go?”
“I don't know yet.” Wren wraps her hands around her coffee cup. All her fingernails are neatly bitten down to the quick, her cuticles little ragged half-moons. “My dad wants me to go to an Ivy League school, but I don’t know if I can get in.”
“Of course you can,” says Siobhan, and she means it. Wren is one of those unusual people who seem tailor-made for their particular lives, as if their existence were planned in advance. It's distressingly easy to imagine her going to class, visiting the library, walking the brick paths of some rolling green campus. She has college written all over her and her oversized sweater.
Wren gives a bracing smile. She finishes her coffee and returns her notebook to her bag.
“Want me to drive you home?” says Siobhan.
Wren’s shoulders tense, and she shakes her head. “I don't want to go home yet.”
Siobhan bites her lip and nods, thinking of the great old house uptown where Wren lives with her parents, or rather, where Wren lives alone while her father goes on trips to DC and her mother languishes in the bedroom, strung out on alcohol and painkillers. Then again, who is Siobhan to judge? She doesn't want to go home yet, either.
“Let's get out of here,” she says.
Wren follows her back to her truck, a rusted, baby blue Ford pickup with a dented fender. Siobhan slides into the driver’s seat and turns the key in the ignition, and the engine sputters to reluctant life.
The air conditioner has long since lost its battle with the Massachusetts summer, so she rolls the windows down and turns the radio up, blaring classic rock from the gravelly speakers. Wren makes a discontented noise and reaches for the dashboard, and they have a brief slap-fight over the volume before Siobhan turns it down to a level they can both accept.
She picks up speed as she leaves town, taking the road to the woods. As the huddled buildings of Port Alto give way to the green sprawl of the countryside, the bubble of happiness that has been slowly expanding in her chest ever since she arrived at the bookstore bursts into a rush of reckless joy. She loves few things more than driving; behind the wheel she is invincible, and the world belongs to her. Wren lays her hand over Siobhan's on the gearshift, twining their fingers together like ivy as Siobhan guides the truck through its paces.
They crest a hill, and the woods loom into view, spreading out beneath them. Siobhan slows down as she heads between the trees, turning off the radio as the music breaks up into voiceless static. All around them, the woods loom silently, the trees verdant in late-summer glory, casting long shadows over the road. A slight wind stirs the branches, the shadows shifting and merging. Even in the truck, Siobhan can smell the damp forest floor.
Something flickers at the edge of her vision. Startled, she slams on the brakes and twists around in her seat, expecting to see—she doesn't know. A deer, maybe, or a car in the opposite lane. When she looks again, though, there's nothing, only the shadows shifting over the road. Her heart racing, she pulls onto the shoulder.
“What the hell was that?” she says.
Wren doesn't answer. She’s staring out the window, her expression impossible to read. Wordlessly, she opens the passenger-side door and steps out onto the shoulder.
“Harding?” says Siobhan.
She jumps out of the truck just in time to see Wren cross the road to the other side. At the tree line, she stops, her back turned, motionless. Siobhan catches up with her, panting.
“What are you doing?” she says.
“I thought—” Wren breaks off, frowning, staring into the shadows. “Never mind.”
“Come on,” Siobhan urges. “Let’s get out of here.”
Wren doesn’t argue. She follows Siobhan back to the truck, and they get in. With a quick glance over her shoulder, Siobhan pulls back into the road and turns around. Wren leans her head against the window, staring out at the dark woods with the same strange look on her face, but Siobhan keeps her eyes fixed on the road until the shadows fall away and they’re breezing back down the road to Port Alto.
Wren works at the used bookstore during the summer, so that’s where Siobhan goes after she finishes her last shift on the boardwalk. It’s the last day of summer, her last day slinging ice cream for tourists, and her last free afternoon to spend with Wren before school starts again. Siobhan barely stops to clock out and take off her sweat-soaked apron before leaving the ice cream stand and following the boardwalk back to her truck.
Downtown, the sidewalks are swarming with tourists juggling salt water taffy and kitschy merchandise and small children. Siobhan parks her truck on the corner and heads down the sidewalk toward the bookstore, the sea wind tugging at loose strands of her ponytail. A few tourists shoot her wary and obvious looks as she passes, but she brushes them off with a flash of her middle finger. She has somewhere else to be.
Tucked between a hair salon and Port Alto’s only Chinese restaurant, the used bookstore isn’t the most conspicuous shop in town, but it’s perfectly located to swallow unsuspecting tourists as they bounce around the narrow streets. Inside, the store smells of dust and old books and pine air freshener. Ceiling-high bookcases line the walls, crowded with books. The higher shelves boast impractical objects: crystals, tin soldiers, a tiny, perfect ship inside a glass Coke bottle. An old-fashioned typewriter sits on the counter, next to a glass bowl of mints.
“Hey, Harding,” says Siobhan.
Wren is sitting cross-legged behind the counter, writing in a leather notebook. She wears horn-rimmed glasses and an appallingly yellow sweater, her short, dark hair striving valiantly upward in defiance of hair products and basic physics. When Siobhan comes in, she looks up and raises her eyebrows.
“You’re late,” she says mildly, by way of greeting.
“I got off late,” says Siobhan. “The boardwalk was crazy today.”
“We’ve been busy here too,” says Wren. “I just finished tidying up.”
The bookstore is certainly tidy; Siobhan will grant her that. Wren’s organization system is questionable—classic novels shelved with dollar-store paperbacks, erotic novels leaning suggestively against self-help books, religious books uneasily sharing a section with science fiction and fantasy—but it seems to make sense to Wren, because she can find what you’re looking for before you even know you’re looking for it.
Siobhan leans against the counter, plucks a mint from the bowl and pops it into her mouth. “When do you get off?”
“Not until three,” says Wren. “So unless you want to sit quietly until then, you should find something else to do.”
Sitting quietly is very low on Siobhan's list of interests, but the bookstore is empty and she has nothing better to do. “There's no one here. Can't I stay?”
“You came at a quiet moment,” says Wren. “It won't last long. I'd leave if I were you. Unless you want to deal with more tourists.”
Siobhan considers. “I'll hide behind the counter.”
Wren rolls her eyes, but she's smiling. She leans back in her chair and stretches her legs; they're disproportionately long compared to the rest of her, and she struggles to find a place to rest them, trying a few different positions before apparently giving up and, after a furtive glance around the store, propping them up on the counter. At that moment, though, the doorbell rings as the door opens.
Wren snatches her legs off the counter at the same moment that Siobhan springs up, ready to hide, but it’s too late. The customer steps inside—a small, wiry woman with graying hair pulled into a tight ponytail, wearing a tweed jacket and leaning heavily on a blackthorn cane.
“Can I help you?” says Wren, her voice suddenly, perfectly polite.
The woman doesn’t answer. Her gaze sweeps the store before coming to rest on Siobhan, taking in her ripped jeans and wild hair and the tattoos up her arms, and her brow furrows. Siobhan’s used to that look—she's received it countless times from tourists and teachers and counselors and other people's mothers—but heat still rises to her face.
“Ma'am?” Wren prompts.
At last, the woman notices her. Siobhan lets out a breath.
“This may sound strange,” says the woman, her voice cool and formal and clipped around the edges, “but do you have any books on the paranormal?”
A frown appears between Wren’s brows. Siobhan smirks, knowing how Wren, a principled skeptic and agnostic, must feel about answering that particular question.
“Our paranormal section is in the back, ma’am,” says Wren, “next to the religious section.”
The woman gives a curt nod and disappears into the back.
“What is her problem?” says Siobhan.
“Shh,” says Wren. “Keep your voice down.”
They wait in silence while the woman browses, Siobhan trying to catch a glimpse of her between the shelves. After a minute, she gives up and starts playing with the typewriter on the counter, pushing the keys so that they click obnoxiously. Wren shushes her again.
Several long minutes pass before the woman returns, empty-handed. “Did you find what you were looking for?” says Wren.
The woman looks at her blankly; it seems to take her a minute to understand the question. Slowly, she shakes her head. “I’m afraid not.”
“Could I help you find something?” said Wren. “Maybe in another section . . .”
“That won't be necessary.” The woman’s gaze falls on Siobhan again. “Thank you for your help, er . . .”
“Wren,” says Wren.
“Right,” says the woman. “Well, thank you for your help, Wren.”
She adjusts her bag on her tweed-clad shoulder and limps out of the store. Wren sighs, looking both relieved at her departure and disappointed not to have made a sale.
“Seriously, what was her problem?” says Siobhan. “She was looking at me like I had a third arm.”
She’s not sure why she’s so rattled. She’s used to people staring at her, but for some reason, she feels like the woman’s gaze held more than the usual disapproval or pity or suspicion. There was something else, something almost like recognition. But that can’t have been it, because Siobhan is sure she’s never seen the woman before in her life.
Wren rolls her eyes. “Port Alto and their ghost stories,” she says, clearly more bothered by the woman’s choice in reading material than by any strange looks. “It’s complete nonsense.”
Siobhan is inclined to agree. Nothing that she’s seen would lead her to believe the stories of strange and supernatural happenings that seem to breed in and around Port Alto, Massachusetts. Still, she muses, anything is possible. There might be ghosts, witches, sea monsters, everything the legends purport. All Siobhan knows is that, if they’re real, they have nothing to do with her.
“Hey, it brings the tourists in, right?” she says.
Wren shrugs. Siobhan supposes neither of them is feeling particularly fond of tourists after dealing with them all summer. Still, without the influx of money each year, Port Alto—once a prosperous fishing town—might as well drop off into the sea.
So, Siobhan thinks, let Port Alto have its ghost stories. She’ll take what she can from it, and today, that’s these last hours of summer with Wren. Just as soon as they can get out of here.
“Guess I should leave and let you do your job,” she says.
Wren regards her thoughtfully for a moment, then shakes her head.
“No,” she says, “you can stay.”
*
When Wren finishes her shift, they get coffee at the hipster place across the street, which is to say that Wren gets a coffee (black, two sugars) and Siobhan gets a frappe that may or may not contain coffee, depending on the weather, the day of the week, and the relative position of the planets.
They sit at their favorite table by the window, which is conveniently located for them to make fun of the tourists passing outside. Siobhan sucks on her frappe and tries to imagine that it tastes as good as a cigarette, looking out at the familiar clapboard storefronts, the old brick courthouse, the crumbling sidewalks. Wren takes her notebook out of her messenger bag and begins to write again.
“What are you working on?” says Siobhan.
Wren doesn't look up. “A college application essay.”
Siobhan frowns. “It's summer.”
“Most schools start accepting applications in the fall,” says Wren. “And they have different essay prompts, so I’ll have to write more than one.”
That’s news to Siobhan. No one ever told her anything about applying for college, presumably not wanting to waste time. “Where do you want to go?”
“I don't know yet.” Wren wraps her hands around her coffee cup. All her fingernails are neatly bitten down to the quick, her cuticles little ragged half-moons. “My dad wants me to go to an Ivy League school, but I don’t know if I can get in.”
“Of course you can,” says Siobhan, and she means it. Wren is one of those unusual people who seem tailor-made for their particular lives, as if their existence were planned in advance. It's distressingly easy to imagine her going to class, visiting the library, walking the brick paths of some rolling green campus. She has college written all over her and her oversized sweater.
Wren gives a bracing smile. She finishes her coffee and returns her notebook to her bag.
“Want me to drive you home?” says Siobhan.
Wren’s shoulders tense, and she shakes her head. “I don't want to go home yet.”
Siobhan bites her lip and nods, thinking of the great old house uptown where Wren lives with her parents, or rather, where Wren lives alone while her father goes on trips to DC and her mother languishes in the bedroom, strung out on alcohol and painkillers. Then again, who is Siobhan to judge? She doesn't want to go home yet, either.
“Let's get out of here,” she says.
Wren follows her back to her truck, a rusted, baby blue Ford pickup with a dented fender. Siobhan slides into the driver’s seat and turns the key in the ignition, and the engine sputters to reluctant life.
The air conditioner has long since lost its battle with the Massachusetts summer, so she rolls the windows down and turns the radio up, blaring classic rock from the gravelly speakers. Wren makes a discontented noise and reaches for the dashboard, and they have a brief slap-fight over the volume before Siobhan turns it down to a level they can both accept.
She picks up speed as she leaves town, taking the road to the woods. As the huddled buildings of Port Alto give way to the green sprawl of the countryside, the bubble of happiness that has been slowly expanding in her chest ever since she arrived at the bookstore bursts into a rush of reckless joy. She loves few things more than driving; behind the wheel she is invincible, and the world belongs to her. Wren lays her hand over Siobhan's on the gearshift, twining their fingers together like ivy as Siobhan guides the truck through its paces.
They crest a hill, and the woods loom into view, spreading out beneath them. Siobhan slows down as she heads between the trees, turning off the radio as the music breaks up into voiceless static. All around them, the woods loom silently, the trees verdant in late-summer glory, casting long shadows over the road. A slight wind stirs the branches, the shadows shifting and merging. Even in the truck, Siobhan can smell the damp forest floor.
Something flickers at the edge of her vision. Startled, she slams on the brakes and twists around in her seat, expecting to see—she doesn't know. A deer, maybe, or a car in the opposite lane. When she looks again, though, there's nothing, only the shadows shifting over the road. Her heart racing, she pulls onto the shoulder.
“What the hell was that?” she says.
Wren doesn't answer. She’s staring out the window, her expression impossible to read. Wordlessly, she opens the passenger-side door and steps out onto the shoulder.
“Harding?” says Siobhan.
She jumps out of the truck just in time to see Wren cross the road to the other side. At the tree line, she stops, her back turned, motionless. Siobhan catches up with her, panting.
“What are you doing?” she says.
“I thought—” Wren breaks off, frowning, staring into the shadows. “Never mind.”
“Come on,” Siobhan urges. “Let’s get out of here.”
Wren doesn’t argue. She follows Siobhan back to the truck, and they get in. With a quick glance over her shoulder, Siobhan pulls back into the road and turns around. Wren leans her head against the window, staring out at the dark woods with the same strange look on her face, but Siobhan keeps her eyes fixed on the road until the shadows fall away and they’re breezing back down the road to Port Alto.