How is everyone doing with #NaNoWriMo? Have you fallen off the wagon, or are you writing strong? I’d love to hear about your writing journey in the comments below 🙂 Meanwhile, it’s that time again y’all! Yet another #teasertuesday featuring the mystical Blackbriar Cove. If you’re new to the story, Blackbriar is the upcoming sequel to Silver Hollow. Every week I share little snippets as I write the next chapter in the Borderlands Saga. If you already know Silver Hollow, welcome back! I hope you enjoy this week’s teaser.
Today we’re taking a step back in time, and a peek into the twins’ mysterious past. This episode was brought to you by awesome grandmother’s everywhere and their endless cryptic wise-sayings 😉
*major spoilers for silver hollow below*
Blackbriar Cove
Borderlands #2 Teaser
Once Upon a Time…
The Cove was as old as the people, and it would live long after them, or so Nanny said. From the time they were little, the twins knew to trust their grandmother’s word. It simply was, just as the molding moss that covered their log cabin, or as the wind that whispered of magic and danger.
“Some things are built to last,” Nanny said. “Some things you don’t question and everything else you fight.”
The twins first learned to fight from their grandmother’s knees. She had two knees, perfect for two similar but very different sisters.
“Nanny,” Faye would whisper, interrupting the old woman’s soothing hum, “where did we come from?”
“From the rocks, from the mountains, sugar.”
Jo, ever the one to point out the fault in anyone’s arguments, couldn’t help but argue. “But Pa and the uncles came from across the sea.”
Their grandmother’s laughter was dry as sandpaper and warm as crackling embers in the nearby fire pit. “Oh-ho, is that right? Well,” she said with a gleam in her onyx eyes, “your mama may have chosen him—why I shall never know—but you both were born to the mountain. You are my blood, my dears. Never forget that.”
Jo nodded, convinced at once with their grandmother’s reasoning. Jo loved Nanny best of all, of course. Though she always questioned, Jo saw the world such as their grandmother said it was. If Nanny claimed they were of the people, they were.
But Faye chewed on Nanny’s words, as she often did while running about the forest beyond the cabin. The trees grew wide and tall here in the cove, trunks wide enough for a small home, perfect for a little girl to escape to. The twins had each claimed a tree as soon as they were set loose without strict supervision. And as Nanny always seemed to know what went on about her territory, and the twins weren’t old enough to mind, they didn’t think to be afraid. They spent hours exploring the Cove and soon knew the wood beyond sight of the cabin by heart.
The trees had been Faye’s idea. There was nothing she liked so well as climbing and spending her days in trees, watching as butterflies and lesser spirits came to visit. Jo preferred haunting the small creek that ran behind Nanny’s cabin. The sisters were twins, though they looked nothing alike, really. Yet they were alone with no other playmates and so remained close.
When they wanted to be alone, they each went their special tree. Faye climbed hers and pondered over Nanny’s words. Faye wasn’t so certain their grandmother was right about everything, for all that she was a Great Spirit.
Three things Faye knew for certain. Mama had left them here years ago and barely came to visit, Pa even less. Faye couldn’t remember much before the cabin and the constant clickety-clack of Nanny’s weaving loom, but she remembered her mother’s fear the night they went away. Last but most telling, Faye and Jo were tied to the land as Nanny said—but there was sometimes more.
Nights they loved best, to dance with fireflies and the gentle wisp spirits. There were blossoms and animals that came out at night that never appeared during the day. Their friends, the wolves and bear would show them hidden paths. And then there were the old shadows, who remembered the eldest days and how the people saved the humans from a certain doom by bringing them into the cove. Faye loved playing with the shadows. Sometimes she felt she could slip in among them and disappear entirely. Jo preferred the light of the stars and traded secrets with them. By day they certainly belonged to the people, as Nanny said, but the sisters wouldn’t ignore what made them other. Unseelie.
to be continued…
“In a single night of madness, Amie won the battle and lost the two people she loved most. As she struggles to be the queen her people need, her family band together against the hidden threat at their borders.
Haunted by the ghosts of her past, Amie strikes a pact with an ancient being called The Storyteller. In order to see Emrys again, they must put aside their blood feud, and cross the veil to a place of spirits and monsters.
Blackbriar Cove is a land where superstition and chaos reign, and spirits plague dreams. A dark curse has twisted the Unseelie who once lived in the home the Blackbriar twins vowed never to return. But death is not the end in Silver Hollow, and the war for the Borderlands has only begun.”
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Silver Hollow (Borderlands #1)
is available where eBooks are sold
Jennifer Silverwood 