In a world of nightmares, Liylah's own reflection might be the scariest thing of all.
After the wintry little village of Brisby succumbs to the country's civil war, Liylah Flouwers finds herself orphaned along with her obstinate kid sister, Rorah. Forced into hiding, Liylah has one hope for survival—discovering the magical power of the dark arts.
But some wishes are better left unfulfilled. A terrible accident with the magic sends Liylah to the dreamlike world of Sojor, a place where the unfamiliar eerily becomes all-too familiar. Nightmares come to life, and bouts of deja vu make Liylah question her very existence.
A sinister shadow haunts Liylah's footsteps, but is this shadow her enemy? Or will it reveal the truth about herself and the darkness that lies within her?
Fans of dreamy character-driven fantasies like Laini Taylor’s Strange the Dreamer and V. E. Schwab’s The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue will fall in love with sisters Liylah and Rorah as they desperately try to survive in a magical dystopian world.
In a world of nightmares, Liylah's own reflection might be the scariest thing of all.
After the wintry little village of Brisby succumbs to the country's civil war, Liylah Flouwers finds herself orphaned along with her obstinate kid sister, Rorah. Forced into hiding, Liylah has one hope for survival—discovering the magical power of the dark arts.
But some wishes are better left unfulfilled. A terrible accident with the magic sends Liylah to the dreamlike world of Sojor, a place where the unfamiliar eerily becomes all-too familiar. Nightmares come to life, and bouts of deja vu make Liylah question her very existence.
A sinister shadow haunts Liylah's footsteps, but is this shadow her enemy? Or will it reveal the truth about herself and the darkness that lies within her?
Fans of dreamy character-driven fantasies like Laini Taylor’s Strange the Dreamer and V. E. Schwab’s The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue will fall in love with sisters Liylah and Rorah as they desperately try to survive in a magical dystopian world.
I don’t want to live in this world anymore.
More than anything, I wish I could trade this world for another, any other. This world is dark, cruel, and unforgiving. A place where suffering has become a way of life, a place where day-to-day survival is the only priority.
It doesn’t matter. I can wish for another world all I want. Never in my life has a wish of mine come true.
With a sigh loud enough to scare the mice away, I slide my beat-up duffel bag out from the corner of my concrete bedroom. I swat it three times, turning my face aside to avoid the cloud of dust. That’s life in a basement. Forty-six days, and I still haven’t gotten used to the filth and grime.
Forty-six days.
Forty-six days of being holed up with my kid sister and two of my friends in a basement, hidden beneath a demolished office building in an abandoned part of town. Forty-six days of anger and resentment eating away at me. A person isn’t supposed to bury their parents at seventeen years old. Chalk it up to another unpleasant side effect of being on the losing side of the civil war ravaging our country. I-Six has no tolerance for dissent, and when the organization of militant extremists rooted out the resistance network my parents were involved with, they…
Well, they swiftly put an end to it. Now my sister and I are left to live in fear of I-Six coming for us next. Guilt by association.
Thunder shakes the ground above me. I’ve always liked storms. They’re a sign that nature feels as gloomy as I do. My tongue feels like sandpaper as I lick my chapped lips. Dehydration is to blame for that, although anxiety is certainly playing its part. Every time I look around our cramped, windowless hideout, I swear the walls are closing in around me. This isn’t exactly the best living arrangement, given my claustrophobia. I can hardly breathe in this place, not only because of the anxiety squeezing my chest, but also the stinkifying odors. A different odor reigns supreme each day. Today, it’s not the smell of rodents or raccoon carcasses tucked somewhere in the crevices. No, my poor, scrunched nose tells me today’s winner is the reek of the waste products left by the vermin hiding among the boxes and junk. Not that I’m complaining.
Okay, I’m complaining.
My bedroom—if it can be called that—is defined by the drab green curtain hanging from the ceiling, separating my corner from the rest of our prime underground real estate. Everything I own is stuffed back here, and it isn’t much. I have no bed, only my old sleeping bag from home sprawled across the same concrete floor the cockroaches roam. I check for them in my squishy pillow every night before bed.
Two piles of clothes sit at my bedside. One pile I call the dresser—that’s the dirty pile. The other I call the hamper, which is the even dirtier pile. Altogether, I have three hoodies, two pairs of pants, and not enough underwear to match.
Except for the smattering of toiletries I occasionally take into the single bathroom I share with the others, I own no sleepwear, no shampoo, no makeup, or any other indulgences that might make me feel like a real seventeen-year-old girl. At least we have a sink and a toilet that work. I guess a shower would be too much to ask.
I really don’t want to live in this world anymore. The gray walls of the windowless basement don’t afford the luxury of gazing at the sky, wishing for whatever might be on the other side of the rainbow. That’s presuming there are any rainbows out there to begin with. Storms have to end before a rainbow can appear. Some storms… some storms go on forever.
I close my eyes and imagine some other place, some place far, far away, like in a fairy tale. A place without war, a place where a person can live a normal life with family and friends. A place with rainbows and pretty animals. And if there were monsters in this place, you could be brave, stare them down, and they’d go away. I wonder if there is such a place. There must be. What would that place look like? How would I get there?
I roll my eyes. This is the child in me talking, a child who had too many fairy tales read to her at bedtime and believed they could come true. I’m grown-up now, and growing up means accepting that fantasies don’t exist. Dreams don’t come true. In the real world, there is no escape.
There is, however, responsibility. And today, I have a hospital to rob. The four of us are in desperate need of food, and my sister needs medicine for her stupid strep throat. Rorah has always been susceptible to it. Her symptoms are mild now, but last year’s bout turned into scarlet fever. I need to start her on antibiotics before that happens again.
I swipe my rain jacket off the floor, and my tiny stuffed floobie dog lies crumpled on the filthy concrete. I forgot I’d hidden it there. It’s one of the few cherished things I brought from home during our frantic escape.
I kneel and pick up the ragged toy, holding it gently in my hands. The day my sister gave it to me was the only day in our entire lives that we bonded, a bond that lasted about two minutes. She was five years old, and I was in the hospital with pneumonia. She gave it to me as a get-well gift. I’m sure she’s forgotten it by now, but I could never get rid of it. It’s a tether, I guess, a reminder that deep down, my sister and I really do care about each other, even if we never act like it.
The dog’s little nose and floppy ears take me back home to Brisby. The wintry little village I grew up in offered comfort and joy with no strings attached. As a kid, I had no idea how precious it was to feel safe, to feel loved. I miss that so much. Brisby is gone forever, or that version of it, anyway. A victim of the war, just like any other town. Nothing more than vague memories from a distant past.
I can’t do this right now.
I set the toy aside and check the pockets of my rain jacket for my hospital badge. I can’t afford to forget it. It’s the only thing that lets me roam the halls without being stopped for questioning. Even then, the badge isn’t valid, my volunteer work having ended months ago. It’s not just hospital security I’m worried about. I-Six uses the hospital as a makeshift base, taking advantage of the antiquated computer technology to communicate and conduct their financial activities outside secured channels. Being captured by I-Six means being locked away forever in one of their prisons, possibly tortured. Or maybe just killed, if I’m lucky. Is that better or worse than hiding in the basement until I starve to death? I’m really not sure.
I barely recognize the vibrant young face imprinted on my badge. What a difference a year makes. I hardly remember the person I was before the war, before I lost my parents. It’s like my old self is locked away forever in the past, and my future self no longer exists. Even my name feels hollow and unrecognizable when I hear it or think it to myself. It’s the same name I’ve always had, only now it’s heavy, burdened, stained with a history it was never intended to carry. A name is useless when you have no identity to go with it.
“Liylah!”
Well, there you go. There’s no mistaking my name when my kid sister shrieks it at full blast. My skin crawls every time.
“Liylahhhh!”
Even from her scratchy throat, my sister’s earsplitting wails shatter the very molecules in the air. Where does she think I am? I don’t know why she hasn’t already barged through my curtain like she usually does. Wait, I do know. She’s too lazy to get up. Too bad. Let her scream. I’m not her servant, ordained to answer her beck and call.
I pull open the zipper of my duffel bag and swipe my hand along the lining to make sure it’s empty. I need the full space to load up on all the supplies we need. My stomach is already tight. I’m nervous, and for good reason. I nearly got caught during my last shoplifting expedition.
My hand trembles as I zip my bag shut. I lack the iron will needed for this mission. Hell, I’ve never even had an iron. But I don’t have a choice. I have mouths to feed besides my own.
“Liylah!”
And that loud mouth screaming my name happens to be one of them. The pounding of feet on the concrete sends a shudder through my bones. My sister’s coming.
Shoot… The floobie dog.
I scoop the toy into my hand and shove it inside one of the fifty-three pockets of my cargo pants. Fifty-three might not be the exact number. There might be more. Hey, there’s fashion, and there’s convenience. Though actually, these pants might be a little of both.
The curtain swishes, and there’s Rorah, gawking at me in her tattered, brown sweatshirt that reads not your girl in bold white letters. Today marks the eighth straight day she’s worn it, and the stink enters my room long before she does. “There you are. Didn’t you hear me?”
The girl’s lack of awareness is… something. “Well, I heard somebody screeching my name like a belligerent pest. How could I have known it was you?” I can’t quite tell if Rorah caught my sarcasm. She tends to conveniently filter it out when it interrupts her stream of obnoxiousness. “So what is it now?”
Rorah dangles a filthy sock in my face. The stink overpowers me. “There’s a hole in my sock.”
Seriously… this is seriously happening right now? I swat the smelly sock away from my nose. “Ask Santa for a new pair.”
I picture Rorah’s reaction perfectly in my mind before it happens. On cue, she huffs, crosses her arms in defiance, and then, the big finish—the self-righteous scrunching of her lips. “Santa can’t bring us anything. We don’t have a chimney.”
“Huh. Well, maybe you can build one.” I gesture toward the ground above us. “There’s bricks scattered all over the place up there.”
“Or maybe I could just take some of the ones in your head.”
Nice. My sister’s glare is diabolical enough, but it’s even more so with her untamed hair growing out of control. She’s always worn a braid over her ear like her own personal trademark, and now, lacking access to a haircut, the ponytail hanging from it reaches far below the front of her shoulder.
I don’t need this right now. I’m anxious enough as it is, and the last thing I need is another fight with my sister. It’s become a daily occurrence. More like hourly. Maybe minutely.
She huffs again, then scowls. “I’m serious. I’m not wearing a sock with a hole in it on this gross floor.”
I glance at my sister’s bare feet, her toes wiggling in the grime. This isn’t about a torn sock. Rorah is the furthest thing from dainty, having eaten worse things than whatever gunk is on the basement floor. This is just her regularly scheduled nuisance-of-the-day routine. Today, it’s a hole in her sock. Yesterday, it was Liylah, my hair is tangled. The day before that, it was Liylah, my nails are too long. That one prompted me to steal a pair of clippers from the convenience store in the hopes of earning a moment’s peace. It didn’t work.
Oh well. The two of us never got along before our tragedy, so why start now? Our six-year age difference has never helped, plus I spend most of my time inside my head anyway. Introversion, one of my teachers called it, back when school was actually a thing. I don’t know if that label is right, but if it means I inherently have zero tolerance for the nonstop brash-and-sass my sister dishes out, then I guess it makes sense.
Rorah shouts again, fraying my last nerve. “Hey! That’s mine!” She points to her homemade rat trap that I confiscated this morning.
“Not anymore, it isn’t.”
“Why not? You said you wanted to catch that thing.”
“Yeah, to kill it, not adopt it. It’s a rat, not a hamster from the pet store.” Rorah patchworked the mini rat home with scraps of wood from the rubble outside. It has a spring-loaded door and everything. The girl is clever, I’ll give her that. “You’ve been feeding that thing for weeks, haven’t you?”
Her face flushes bright red. A dead giveaway. “So?”
“So? We’re starving, and you’re giving our last scraps to a rat?”
“Only from my share.”
I scoff. “Well, at least you finally made a friend.”
Rorah’s eyes dart to the side as she bites her bottom lip. I know all of Rorah’s mannerisms, each one a telltale sign of what she’s thinking. “Mom would have let me keep it.”
There it is. The Mom would have card. I’m not falling for it. “Well, guess what? I’m Mom now. And I say you need to stay away from it.”
“Why?”
There’s always a why. Always. “Because you’re going to get rabies, that’s why. And I don’t know if I can get shots for that at the hospital.”
“Nobody actually gets rabies.”
“Yeah, well, if anyone did, it would be you. And another thing, I don’t want you gathering stuff from outside anymore.”
“Why not? I might step on a rusty nail and get tetanus?”
“That, and somebody’s going to see you up there—or more likely hear you. Hurricane Rorah. I can’t believe the entire state doesn’t know we’re here, much less the I-Six patrols.”
Rorah’s nostrils flare. “If they haven’t heard your snoring by now—”
“Just… stay out of trouble, okay? Is it that hard?”
She goes quiet, but only to build the drama for her next retort. She’s good at that. “I’m just saying, if they ever trace the seismographs here some night after you fall asleep—”
I flail my arms. “Please?”
I try not to lose patience with my sister, but it’s getting harder by the day. Anyway, time’s wasting. I should have left ten minutes ago. I’ve learned that I have to time my arrival at the bus stop perfectly. Too early, and I’ll be subjected to the uncomfortable stares of the waiting crowd. Too late, and I’ll miss the bus. Trying to hit that sweet spot is tricky, like trying to find a banana between its unripe green stage and its rotten brown stage.
I slip into my rain jacket. If I’m late and have to catch the next bus, I won’t get to the hospital and back before curfew, making this shoplifting mission infinitely more dangerous than it already is.
Rorah watches me pick up my duffel bag, and her eyes drop to her waist, where she’s fiddling with her hands. “You’re going to the hospital?”
“No, I figured I’d go to Jupiter instead. Hey, when I get there, I’ll tell everyone you left behind that you said hi.”
“Oh, so I’m an alien now?”
I ponder the theory. “You know, that would explain so much… the weird sounds you make all night, the way you never understand a word I say, the fact that we have nothing in common, and those bizarre antenna-horns sticking out of your head. Oh, I’m sorry, those are your ears.”
Rorah crosses her arms. “At least my butt doesn’t smell.”
“Does your nose work?” I sling my empty duffel bag over my shoulder. “I have to go.” I brush aside her ponytail, placing my palm against her forehead to check her fever. “You’re a little warm. Are you going to live until I get back?”
She scrunches her lips. I probably shouldn’t have put it that way. This whole thing makes my stomach turn, like it’s trying to digest a giant month-old ball of cabbage. Cabbage laced with acid.
At least Theen and Haven will watch over her while I’m gone. If I can’t trust my best friend since second grade and my boyfriend of over a year, who can I? The only blessing I have is that the two of them are living here with me, on the heels of their own family issues. Their company is the only thing keeping me sane. Even if that sanity is hanging by a thread.
I slide the curtain aside and step into the main part of the basement. The few lamps we own cast a dim, yellowish light on the cement walls. Temporary shelving overflows with boxes stuffed with maintenance tools, unused tiling, and other useless crap. The two steel support posts that hold up the floor above us have never seemed sturdy to me, and neither do the rotting beams of wood they’re holding up.
Theen follows me to the door. Her plain, sleeveless T-shirt may be faded, but her orange hair glows even in the dim light of the basement. She bounces toward me with the usual spring in her step. Nothing ever dampens her spirits. At a glance, one would never guess that her own parents were taken prisoner by I-Six a year ago and haven’t been heard from since. “You’re off?”
“Yeah.”
She takes my hand softly in hers. “Well, be safe.”
“I will. I promise to come back alive, as long as I don’t get killed first.”
“We’ll hold down the fort while you’re gone.”
I flash a knowing smile. What Theen really means is, she’ll take care of Rorah not only while I’m gone, but forever if I don’t make it back. “Thank you.” In my head, I wish her luck with the holy terror that is my sister.
Haven is the next to say goodbye, except I can tell by his anxious expression that it’s not really goodbye. He walks toward me with his lanky gait, his black hair mussed and his gray shirt stinking just a little bit less than the rest of us for some reason. A nice quality in a boyfriend.
He keeps his voice hushed. “I want to go with you.”
I knew he was going to say that. It’s nice that Haven worries about me, but as much as I would love to have someone watch my back, it’s too risky for him to come. “We’ve talked about this. They’re questioning everyone who doesn’t have a badge. Even I got stopped last time and barely talked myself out of it.” He’s sensitive, so I have to be careful not to hurt his feelings. “Look, I appreciate your concern, but you would just get us both caught.”
He furrows his brow and sighs.
“Trust me.”
It’s not just today. Haven doesn’t like hiding from the war. That was never more apparent than when his family fled town amid the social unrest stirred by I-Six, and he stayed behind on principle. He doesn’t believe in running. He believes in justice. My parents were the same way, and look how that turned out. That’s what Haven doesn’t understand, and it’s the same with Theen and Rorah. But I do understand. Fighting I-Six will only get you killed.
Which reminds me… It’s time to go spin the wheel of fate.
I adjust the strap of my duffel bag over my shoulder and put on a reassuring smile for my friends. “Look, I’ll be fine. I’ll be back before any of you can miss me.” If only I felt as confident as I’m trying to appear.
Haven helps me shove aside the stack of heavy boxes that presumably secure our lock-less door against intruders. I swing the door open and a whiff of fresh air tickles my nose. For a moment, I almost believe the world outside might have returned to normal. But I know better.
At least this little expedition will give me a chance to get outside, a temporary reprieve from the claustrophobia, the depression, and the horrid smells of the basement. I climb the wobbly, unfinished staircase leading to the rubble that camouflages our hideout.
My sister is waiting for me at the top of the stairs. I have no idea how she slipped past me. She gazes at me with her tough but vulnerable brown eyes. “I could go with you.”
My heart falls in my chest. Who can blame her for having abandonment issues? I run my fingers along her ponytail. “I need to go alone, okay? It’ll be fine. I’ll be back before dark.” I nearly plant a kiss on her forehead, before I think better of it. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t kiss her, it’s just… I don’t know. It feels too sentimental. It would feel too much like saying goodbye for the last time.
Her voice is fragile. “But I can help. I know how to take care of myself. I’m scrappy.”
She is scrappy, that much is true. But there’s no way. “I said no. Now, scrap yourself away.” I climb the stairs again, certain this time I’ll make it to the top without interruption. But nothing is that easy.
“Liylah! You’re just going to leave me here with this sock?”
This time, I don’t break stride. “Give it to the rat to use as a blanket. I gotta go.”
I make it outside at last, sidestepping the discarded scraps of metal and wood on my way to the deserted street. It’s an hour-long walk to the bus stop. At least the storm clouds hanging in the moody gray skies will keep me company.
After hiding in a mouldering, stinking basement for 46 days with her 11 year old sister, best friend and boyfriend, 17 year old Liylah Flouwers knows she has to try to do something different. She's almost been caught by the all powerful, tyrannical organisation I-Six after her latest jaunt to the hospital to gather medication and supplies for her sister and friends, and now she knows it won't be long before the agents finally catch up to her. All because her parents were part of the resistance before they were murdered. When she admits to her friend, Theen, that she didn't enquire about other resistance groups, she feels shunned by her friends, and decides she has no choice but to turn towards a rumour she overheard. The Dark Arts are the answer to all of her problems - and more important, the only way to not make her feel so powerless. Except, when she ventures to a dingy old nightclub to meet with a practitioner of the Dark Arts, I-Six raid it; and Liylah's world instantly turns inside out.
Told from the first person singular, in an almost present tense, Dark Innocence takes the reader through a dystopian world filled with the horrors of war. Liylah is simply striving to keep her kid sister alive - at almost any cost. But her patience has worn thin with the constant demands, name calling and whining from 11 year old Rorah. She's tired, heartsore and believes she's beginning to see things. What Dark Innocence does particularly well is describe the heart-wrenching despair of grief and guilt and how it can almost drive one person to the brink of insanity.
Although, Dark Innocence takes its sweet time to get to the main part of the plot. It gets almost repetitive with Liylah striving time and time again to steal supplies from the hospital and arguing with Rorah and Theen about the things she can't seem to get right - despite her very best efforts. It gets to the point of self wallowing as she laments her short-comings time and time again.
Saying that, when the plot really does pick up when Liylah finds herself in the strange world of Sojar. As she tries desperately to find her way home and tries to figure out the significance of the strange floopy toy poodle stuffed into her pocket, she begins to discover some truths about herself. It almost seems as though Alexander has fallen into the rhythm of writing here, as the book moves so much quicker at this point, and becomes much less wallowing.
S. A.