Chapter 1

I thought I’d share a sneak peek of the first chapter of Mist & Shadow! When I first started writing the novel the summer before my senior year of college, I began with Chapter 1 and proceeded onward chronologically, chapter by chapter.

It’s undergone quite a few revisions and tweaks, and it’s probably the chapter I’ve reread the most! (My favorite though is Chapter 9: Old Haunts, which actually wasn’t part of my story outline but came out spontaneously. In that chapter, Daphne heads into the woods around her house for a walk after a nightmare and encounters two shades on her own for the first time.)

So here it is….

*deep dramatic voice*

Chapter 1: A Shadow in the Dark

Daphne didn’t know how she’d ended up in the passenger seat of a car she’d never ridden in before. Or who the girl sitting next to her was. Or where they were, exactly.

The driver, in fact, didn’t appear to notice she was no longer alone. She was maybe a year older, nineteen at most, her thick black hair chopped at the chin. Daphne observed her with detached interest, her thoughts as tuneless as the steady whir of the tires on the wet pavement. The girl yawned widely and rubbed an eye, leaving behind a faint smudge of mascara underneath.

Daphne looked out her window for a marker she might recognize. It was difficult to see anything in the moonless dark. They were driving through thick woods that stretched on both sides of the road like an endless, narrow tunnel.

The radio dipped briefly into static. 

With nothing interesting to see, Daphne focused instead on her reflection in the wet glass, her dark hair blending in with the night. She frowned. Pale gray eyes squinted back. Behind her in the reflection, the strange girl yawned again.

After several hours, though perhaps it was only minutes, Daphne became aware she was expecting something to happen.

She threw a glance at the nameless driver beside her, bracing for something her mind could not yet perceive before fixing her eyes ahead. The girl, whoever she was, hadn’t moved her attention from the road. A cold wave of dread washed over Daphne. Her heart thumped unpleasantly. Waiting.

Bumps rose on her skin from the frigid cold blasting from the car’s air vents. Suddenly the darkness was suffocating, looming over them like a giant that could crush the car as easily as an aluminum can. Daphne clasped her hands tightly together, trying to calm down. Everything was fine. She just needed to—

“Look out!” The yell tore out of her.

A shadow flew across the headlights like an overgrown bat, vanishing into the surrounding dark. Daphne whirled around to look out the back window as thunder cracked like a whip across the sky. The creature was gone. A blink would have missed it.

She turned forward slowly, shaking at the near miss, though at the same time unsure why. Daphne glanced sideways again. The girl hadn’t reacted to the shout or shown any sign she knew the car had almost hit something—or almost been hit. 

Silently, they drove into the night. Every second stretched like an hour. Daphne sat stiffly on the edge of her seat, full of dread as she watched the road in case the shadow returned. 

Rain splattered on the windshield. Would it come back? Doubt crept in. Perhaps it was just an animal after all. But no, it wasn’t—she was somehow certain of that. It was something dangerous. Daphne anxiously scanned the road, the woods. The radio dissolved into static. 

By the time she sensed it again, it was too late.

The car lurched with a deafening bang as something hit its left side with the force of a charging rhino. Daphne’s head smacked against the passenger window. Pain lanced through her skull. Even in the shock of the moment, the girl steadied the car, shrieking.

Daphne pressed a hand to the growing throb in her head and looked out the window, dazed. A shapeless form made of the densest, most soul-stopping black was soaring toward her.

There was no time to react. Glass shattered. Wet shards cut like fiery needles into Daphne’s upthrown hands and nicked her forehead. In what was undoubtedly an instinct to flee, the girl jerked the wheel and floored the gas instead of the brake—

They lurched again just as another force collided with the car near the back. The car spun haphazardly, then, without warning, flipped. Daphne felt weightless and devoid of thought as she tumbled around, not able to scream or yell or do anything in the noise of the crushing metal and the girl’s screams—

Stillness.

The car groaned to a final halt. Daphne lay curled on the ceiling, which now served as the floor. Every inch of her body ached. Thick drops of rain thudded dully against the engine above.

Beside her, quietly suspended by a seat belt, was the girl. Daphne felt the pull of her presence in the corner of her eye but did not want to look. She knew, as if the knowledge was already there waiting, that the girl was dead.

She swept aside broken glass with a shaky hand. Static spluttered out of the radio. Willing her trembling limbs to move, Daphne half crawled, half dragged herself out the smashed window and landed with a final thrust of pain on the wet asphalt.

Nausea boiled up in her throat, and blood welled from her glass-bitten hands, but she propped herself up on one of them, short of breath, and followed the beam from the only surviving headlight toward the woods.

Even as her vision turned to dust, Daphne could have sworn a shadow soared across the trees and melted into the dark.