One (One Universe)

the only freaky things going on in this town.
    Inside, the house seemed nice enough, if a little bare. The front door opened directly into the living room, with a long hallway off to one side leading to what I assumed were the bedrooms.
    “Your room is the last door on the left.” Mom glanced around the house and shook her head before dumping my suitcase on the floor and heading back outside for the last load.
    It smelled of cologne and stale air, like Dad was only here often enough to shower. Maybe he was. Yet another thing I didn’t know about him. I tucked my hair behind my ears and tightened my grip on my bag. I wasn’t going to find my room just standing here.
    The first door was open, and a quick peek inside at the navy bedspread and sparse decorations confirmed it was my dad’s bedroom. My heart did a little flip at the picture of me and Mom on his nightstand. The next room was empty, though it seemed to be a decent size. Might be nice for an office or something. I didn’t pay it too much attention; I was already drawn to the last door on the left.
    My hand shook as I turned the knob and pushed open the door. I don’t know what I expected, but it looked just like any other room. Full sized bed, a large wooden dresser, plain vanilla walls. Empty of personality. Dad obviously hadn’t gone to any trouble to make me feel welcome here. To make his daughter feel at home. I tried to ignore the disappointment clogging my throat and dumped my suitcase on the bed.
    Then I heard Dad’s voice floating in from the hallway. I was tempted to wait for him to come to me, but instead I squared my shoulders and headed toward the kitchen.
     
    For more information on Jamie Grey and her books, please visit http://www.jamiegreybooks.com /

Wavecrossed
    by Andrea Colt
Available Summer 2013
     
    Chapter 1
     
    Midnight is the perfect time to eat a turtle.
    Submerged in an icy river, I focused briefly on the thought, then let it go. My brother should be close enough to hear, and it would make him come running, so to speak. Mentally, I grinned.
    My lungs craved air, so I flicked my hind flippers to propel me upwards. As my head broke the surface, I spun to scan both sides of the forested shore. No human faces peered back in the moonlight, but I pivoted in the water to check again as I sucked in a breath. Not that a nighttime fisherman would see anything odder than a seal poking her head out of a coastal Maine river—which wasn’t a totally crazy sight, though most seals kept to saltwater—but it wasn’t random humans I was worried about. It was the other kind, the kind who knew what I was. The lying-in-wait kind.
    But if anyone lurked in the shadows, I couldn’t see them. Or, I noted as I drew another breath, smell them. So I was safe. Probably.
    Letting my muscles relax, I lifted my nose further into the air to let the crisp breeze ruffle my whiskers. I spun in the water again, this time for fun. Despite the danger, I loved these nights, these escapes. For a while I could lose myself in motion and instinct, forget the problems waiting for me ashore. Here, I didn’t have to pretend to be a normal teenage girl, didn’t have to smother my anger and growing desperation. Here, weightless in the river, the world felt right . For a moment, at least.
    The water around me shifted as my brother surfaced two feet away. The seal version of my twin was darker than my dappled cloud coloring; he was gunmetal spotted with shadow, his eyes round wells of midnight as he huffed out a breath.
    Cass, you can’t eat turtles. Brennan’s thought was tinged with outrage. What would Nicky say?
    Nicky was the snapping turtle Brennan had found injured in a pond when we were in middle school. He’d taken him home and kept him in the basement bathtub for a week until his leg healed. Now whenever we met a snapping turtle, Brennan claimed it was Nicky’s uncle, or grandmother, or sister-in-law.
    Nicky can’t talk, so he wouldn’t say anything. I dove, abandoning the moonlit surface. Water pressed against my fur and skin; from below came the faint clicks and rustlings of crayfish scuttling over rocks.
    The bottom of the river beckoned, a fascinating murky dark, and as always a part of me wanted to paint it. But if I tried, the result would probably look like a squid threw up on canvas—oils could never capture the life and motion of an inky midnight river.
    In any case, I didn’t paint anymore. Not even in human form. I’d won schoolwide