(Myraverse)
Publication date: April 12th 2022
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult

Synopsis:

There once were two children,
a girl and a boy.
One could create,
the other, destroy.

Within every heart lies the power to bond or break.

On an isolated port of floating garbage called Hop, Gaiel Izz and his sister, Lynd, never imagined they’d be able to change anything…

Not their nasty neighbors, not their hungry bellies, and especially not their missing father.

That will change when they discover the power of myracles — magic that either creates or destroys.

As the brother and sister set across Esa to bring their family back together, this power will either unite them or shatter their entire world to pieces.

It will all come down to what truly lies within their hearts…

Create or destroy?

Excerpt

Chapter One - Unforgiving Hop

THE RED TIDE is COMING!

Water Level Low.

SPRYT SightingsHighly Expected.

Un-luck + Disaster ToAllWho Encounter.

BLOCK EVERYOPENING.

— Mayor Tanning

What a delightful sign to have hanging in front of one’s home — a mix of “watch out” with “you’re on your own.” But that’s living in Hop for ya, a’kay?

As a ﬂoating port in the middle of the sea, there weren’t any roads to or from Hop. On their own, indeed. But it wasn’t always so lonely. Fifty years ago, Hop was a bustling pitstop for the hundreds of trade ships sailing across the Domus Gulf every year. A place to “hop” from one side of the gulf to the other. Being a travel hub made it bursting with exotic goods and fresh ideas. But the wild waters of the gulf were hard to predict, and they only seemed to grow more dangerous over time. One shipwreck was enough to send thoughts and prayers, but after ten and twenty ships washed back blown to bits, it started to nip at the proﬁts. Soon traders found alternate land routes that may have taken longer, but at least weren’t so death-y.

Practically overnight, Hop and its people were forgotten like a used hanky in a puddle. Trapped on a ﬂoating port amid the unfor‐ giving sea, a stagnant idea stuck to them — anything made would just be unmade. What was to stop anything they worked hard to build from falling to pieces like Hop did? Nothin’ lasts butsalt in yer ass became the most grafﬁtied words on the splintering streets, a series of long planks called “Boards.” Was there any point in shining your shoes, doing your hair, brushing your teeth? They would all end up dirty, tasseled, and yellow. Undone, eventually. Was there any point in building relationships, then? Nothing lasts but the salt in their asses, indeed.

Just behind that friendly “red tide” warning sign on Boulie Board, a skinny wreck of a home rose from the battered planks. Its number, 76, was drawn large and wide on the front and side in “Hopper White,” a local specialty paint whose main ingredient was seagull poop. Nothing could be wasted in Hop, not even waste. The pieces that made up the home had a kind of widely used look about them, like maybe that wall had once been the barnacled belly of a rowboat, and before that, it was a sign that said HOP: POPULATION 600. Its door was a full fourteen shades of a should-I-touch-that sort of green and was cracked at the bottom up to the knob. Its two sea-weathered windows were small and narrow like suspicious eyes squinting at the neighbors. By Hopper standards, the Izz family actually had quite a ﬁne little nest.

The only reason the Izz house somewhat outshined its raggedy neighbors was because of the family’s firstborn, Gaiel Izz. Gai liked to fix things when they broke. Something about broken objects made him queasy, compulsive even; a roar in the belly yapping at him to make it better. As for the things he couldn’t fix, he’d at least insist on putting a sheet of soggy newspaper over it or something. In fact, he patched so many holes in his clothes with newspaper that it became the dominant fabric. It crinkled as he walked.

One special night, this industrious ﬁfteen-year-old was lying motionless on the ﬂoor in one of the home’s damp upstairs bedrooms. His right ear was practically suctioned to the ﬂoorboards as he listened carefully for any signs of movement downstairs. He’d been listening so long his ear had become a bright, throbbing mushroom. This night, he’d embark on his most ambitious ﬁxing project yet — his twelve-year-old sister, Lynd.

While Gai may have been on the ﬂoor, he wasn’t out of bed. The ﬂoor was both of the Izz children’s bed. Many, many things ﬂoated by Hop in the strong currents, like sunken ship junk or garbage from far off Electri City on the mainland. But few were “cozy” materials for them to scoop out and use to make bedding. Since nothing came in or out of Hop, if a Hopper wanted something new, they’d best grab a scoop and pray to Zeea that whatever they needed happened to be ﬂoating by that day. Gai once scooped an armful of braided anchor rope and wove it into a nice blanket. He looked over at Lynd sleeping on it, snoring like a ship headed out to sea

— Twaahhh! Peaceful as she seemed, her little hands kept pulling at the fraying edges of the rope-blanket, almost like tearing it apart soothed her as a babe suckling their thumb would. She was deﬁnitely not a ﬁxer like her brother. Truly, she was quite the opposite.

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