You Got the Look...

Hi Guys!!

THIS is "THE LOOK"

Hope everyone had an awesome Thanksgiving!! Laura at My Baffling Brain tagged me in the You Got the Look meme on her blog a couple weeks ago. Sorry for taking so long with it, Laura. :)

So the rules are I have to go to my current WIP, find the word "look" and post the section which includes it, as well as the surrounding paragraphs. Then tag five other people to do the same.

 I'm currently pretty excited about my latest book, The Veil-Walker. I'm seriously RIGHT at the beginning of the book, just about eight thousand words in. But I'm really liking it.

Just to give you a little background, the Veil-Walker is about a boy--Fen-- who is able to walk through the Veil between life and death and enter Purgatory. Because he's a Veil-Walker, the veil is permanently thinned around him and death leaks through, gradually killing off everyone he loves. In this scene, he just found his Gramps dead (Gramps was the last member of his family still alive). When he touched his grandfather's body, he got yanked into Purgatory.

(Oh--and Fen generally has visions of Purgatory when he looks into mirrors but, in this scene, he's only ever actually been there once)

******

And it's like every mirror I've ever looked into--only worse. My stomach lurches into my rib-cage as my body is yanked forward and up and down all at the same time. Nausea rolls through me and I put out my hands to catch myself...

            “Easy, Fen.”

            I jerk, my head swinging around wildly to catch the source of the voice as my eyes pop open. I’m on my hands and knees and above me is a grey sky…a sky I’ve only ever seen in mirrors. Rain clouds waver and glitch, unsure what they’re supposed to do in this forsaken place. Everything feels drenched in despair.

            “Fen?”

            This time I recognize the voice. Gramps, the way he used to sound, before old age diluted him into a fuzzy Xerox of himself.  I can hear him, but I still don’t see him. All I see is the gossamer buildings of the grey city. They waver, vague and not-quite-there. Trying to focus on them makes my head hurt.

There’s a quick shock of fear as I realize I’m back in the alleyway the boy died in. It looks the same, but it’s not. Like the years changed Gramps, this place has changed the alley—turning it into nothing but a poorly made copy of the real one. This whole world is just a grey shadow of our own. How do I know that? I can’t. But I do. I know the rules here like I’ve spent years memorizing them.

 Everything is unstable and weak, built on the spirits trapped here, glued together only with their yearning for life. Blurred and murky cravings leak into the air, the buildings, the earth itself. It’s already draining me, making my bones ache. I stagger to my feet and shout,“Gramps? You here?”

The grey devours my words, turning them to dull whispers. I open my mouth to try again when I Gramps says, “Fen? Where are you? Come to me. Fen!” His voice is strong. Commanding.

I feel that pull again, right behind my navel.  A whoosh of air. And then I’m back in a counterfeit copy of my living room. It's as grey here as the rest of Purgatory, but the endless rain is blocked. I'm kneeling in front of my grandfather, who looks as insubstantial as everything else. At least until he rises, leaving his body to sag in the easy-chair.

 Despite the total weirdness of the situation, my mouth drops. In leaving his body behind, Gramps gained solidity and dropped twenty years. The man standing in front of me is no more than fifty. Strong. Vibrant. With a low sob, I throw myself into his arms like I’m five years old again. 

And tagged next is:

Talynn at Ink in the Book

Blair B. Burke at A Writer's Progression

Sherry Ellis at The Mama Diaries

Tammy Theruailt

Jen at Scribbles from Jenn

If you haven't checked out these blogs, make sure to pop over and say hi. They're awesome. :) Did you guys all have a good Thanksgiving? Anyone else out there working on a brand new idea? Tell me something about it!!