A Swan Dark
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Chapter One - Returning
Morgan gripped the handle of her father’s old sedan, torn between staying in the car for the rest of the summer—or stepping back into the only place that might finally tell her what happened the week she disappeared—and why she couldn’t remember it.
Death by heatstroke still looked like the better option.
“Come on, Morgan. It’s beautiful here.” Decked in flannel and hiking gear, her dad stretched his long limbs, looking a decade younger at the sight of the Nook. “See the way the light falls through the branches? The Japanese have a word for it—komorebi.” He grinned, clearly pleased with himself. “Worth leaving before dawn, right?”
A chickadee chirped above him, and the breeze rustled the leaves of an oak tree as if even the forest was trying to coax her out of the car.
Dappled morning sunlight pressed against her face—warm and unwelcome. She glared at him through the slit in her window. You know what happened last time we were here. Don’t pretend you don’t.
His girlfriend Leanne moved next to him, and Morgan rolled her eyes.
Unlike her dad’s previous relationships, which crashed and burned in spectacular flames, Leanne stuck like molasses—too sweet, impossible to wash off. She’d orchestrated this whole return tour, chirping about fresh air and quality bonding time like this wasn’t the last place on earth Morgan wanted to be.
In matching flannel, Leanne squeezed her dad’s arm and sighed dramatically. “Aw, the pines smell like Georgia summers.” Her smile flickered—like she needed them to like her.
He gestured toward Morgan’s older sister, Serena, who was dragging her massive suitcase across the gravel. His rolled sleeves were already dusted with road grit, but he didn’t seem to notice. “Hard to believe it’s been ten years since we’ve been back. What do you think, Hun?”
Serena dropped the bag with a thud and slid on her sunglasses. “It’s going to be a long summer,” she said, sounding like she had somewhere better to be. She flipped her hair and wheeled her suitcase toward the Nook, their 100-year-old cottage.
Morgan slumped deeper in her seat, pulling her oversized T-shirt over her knees.
Her dad sighed and turned back to her. “Come on, Kiddo.” He hesitated, just a beat too long. “You can’t stay in the car forever.”
She didn’t respond. Blue hair fell across her face, and she winced. Right. That. She’d dyed half of it out of spite when he had announced their grand return.
At least that’s what she told herself.
The color felt wrong now, too loud, but she refused to change it back.
As he leaned over her window, his brow furrowed—then smoothed back to that practiced, patient expression he always used when he didn’t want to deal with something. “Honey, remember—the past belongs in the past.”
The words he’d repeated too many times hit at the raw ache in her chest.
The lake. The full moon. For a second, she could almost see it—water black as glass, something moving over the surface.
He knew. He had to know.
Her fingers slipped on the door handle. “Dad,” she said, before she could stop herself.
He looked at her, patient. Hopeful.
They’d rarely talked about it. The thought of knowing—really knowing—tightened something in her chest. She didn’t want the answer.
She asked anyway.
“That week,” she said. The words scraped out of her. “When I went missing.”
The patience vanished. Not anger—something flatter. Distant.
“Morgan,” he said quietly.
“You were there,” she pressed. “You know something. Everyone does. I just—”
“You were found safe. That’s what matters,” he cut in. “You don’t remember because there’s nothing to remember. We’re moving forward.”
Her jaw tightened. She reached for the newspaper clipping in her pocket—she’d read the article so many times she could recite it, as if repetition could turn blank memory into truth.
Missing for a week. Search parties combed the woods. Slippers discovered in the mud.
Nothing to remember. Sure…
“We need to keep moving forward,” her dad continued.
She groaned. Since her father started counseling, he’d said that expression at least three times a week.
“Dad, that’s not how it works. You don’t just decide it’s over and pretend nothing happened. We quit coming here for a reason.” You don’t get to rewrite it.
“Morgan, please. I know it’s hard, but it’s like what my counselor always says, we have to forgive—”
She’d rather face her childhood nightmare than listen to another therapy platitude. She shoved the door open hard enough that the hinge popped.
He turned bright red, but to his credit, he didn’t yell. He clenched his jaw like he was counting to ten.
Maybe counseling’s not all bad.
***
The inside of the Nook smelled like dust and old wood. Heat pressed down like a heavy blanket. Whoever built the place apparently decided insulation and air-conditioning were optional.
Every surface was crowded—crooked picture frames, aged fishing gear, a clock that ticked a fraction too slow. It should have felt cozy. Familiar.
Instead, it felt like something left behind too long.
Leanne immediately took over, cleaning like she owned the place. Their dad’s top half vanished into the fireplace. Serena claimed the biggest bedroom, somehow making the explosion of art supplies and designer clothes look like a magazine spread.
Morgan kicked an old footstool, sending it skittering across the floor. She’d just turned eighteen and planned to work at the coffee shop all summer, make her own money, maybe meet someone—
someone she actually chose. Instead, she was in sweat-drenched Vermont with no AC and no escape.
“I think we’ll be able to have a fire tonight,” her dad called from inside the fireplace.
Morgan plopped down in an oversized leather chair, sending up a puff of dust. “It’s like a million degrees. Why would we need a fire?” Sweat glued her legs to the leather.
Leanne paused her mopping in the kitchen, a messy braid spilling over her shoulder. “I love fires."
“Of course you do,” Serena muttered, flipping a magazine page. Even in the heat, Serena was pristine—lounging on the checker sofa like a fashion model for cottage life, teen edition.
Their dad’s head popped out of the fireplace, streaked with soot. “New place, new energy. Let’s set the tone right this time. Why don’t you guys head outside? Explore the woods. Get some fresh air. Check out the lake.”
Morgan’s entire body locked. A damp chill curled around her ankles, like the water had found her already.
The lake.
Where it happened.
Where she disappeared for an entire week.
She forced herself to breathe.
“All you’ve done is complain since we got here.” Her dad wiped his face with a rag, smearing more soot. “Either start cleaning or go outside. I’m sure Leanne could use some help.”
“I sure do,” Leanne hollered. “There’s a second mop in here.”
“You love the lake, Morgan,” Serena said, her voice laced with a sneer. For just a second, something flickered across her sister’s face—apprehension, maybe, or guilt—like she’d seen something Morgan hadn’t. Then she slid her sunglasses firmly over her eyes. “So many great memories.”
Sure. Like near-death trauma counts.
Leanne pranced into the living room, bucket in hand, her headscarf knotted like a middle-aged Cinderella. She jiggled Serena’s shoe. “Cleanin’s fun. You can tell me all about that end-of-the-year party.”
The air went out of the room.
The party. The same night Morgan had made every terrible decision possible—dying her hair, sneaking out, attending a notoriously wild graduation party. She’d barely made it through the door before the police busted the place for underage drinking. Both sisters ended the night calling their dad from jail.
Their dad paused, his usually controlled hair sticking up in ash-dusted tufts. “I’d also like to hear more about that little adventure.”
Serena rose from the couch, hesitating for just a heartbeat. “Lake it is.”
Leanne placed a warm hand on Morgan’s shoulder. “Just us, then, Sweetheart.”
Nope.
Morgan bolted out the door—not toward her room, but toward the trail.
If Serena reached the lake first—
No.
Morgan had questions, and that place owed her answers.
She passed her sister on the trail, making sure she was in the lead. Morgan rubbed her arms, trying to ignore the prickling sensation crawling up her skin.
The thick trees cocooned them, funneling the scents of summers past— fresh evergreens, damp soil, and the lingering odor of suntan lotion—each tugging at memories she wasn’t sure she could handle.
“You know, you used to tell me some dumb story about how I was cursed and a dragon would kidnap me here,” Morgan said, her lips curling.
For years, Serena had horrified her with tales of what would happen when they returned. In milder versions, a dragon mauled her. Later ones featured townsfolk dismembering her, mounting her bloody head on a pike.
“Hmm,” Serena paused as a green dragonfly darted past. Her mouth tightened—like she wanted to say something else, something almost kind—but then she shrugged. “It’d be nice to be an only child. You have a way of ruining things.”
She swept past Morgan, her perfume mocking her.
“Don’t you think it’s twisted to tell a kid she’s destined to be a child sacrifice?”
Serena stopped short, her shoulders rigid. She spun, her violet eyes flashing with something raw and unguarded. “You want to know what’s twisted?” Her voice dropped. “Having to see—”
Her throat worked. She looked like she might actually say it.
Then she swallowed it down.
Morgan waited, but the look vanished as if it were only her imagination.
“Forget it.”
They stepped into a clearing, and there it was.
The lake.
A blinding expanse of blue, stretching impossibly far beneath the midday sun.
Morgan froze, flip-flops anchoring her to the ground as Serena breezed toward the water. Her stomach knotted. Breath caught like she’d swallowed glass. The forest, so loud moments ago, fell quiet. The silence pressed against her skin—heavy, expectant.
Something was missing.
The air hummed, wrong and ancient, like it was waiting for her.
Her chest burned, iced, then burned again. Her pulse thundered in her ears.
The piercing water transfixed her as memories of the night she disappeared slammed into her with the force of a tsunami.
A swan.
A moon, full and round.
And then—the girl.
A ghostlike figure with shimmering hair and feathers drifting in her wake.
Morgan’s hand twitched toward Serena’s retreating shape. “No…”
Every instinct screamed at her to run. Her muscles coiled, ready to bolt.
But something deeper—quieter—refused.
She dug her nails into her palm. Forced air into her lungs.
She lifted her head.
She wasn’t a helpless kid anymore.
This place didn’t get to take anything else.
Opening chapter excerpt — subject to change before publication.
Morgan's story is only beginning
A Swan Dark is a YA fantasy of sisters, buried truths, and magic that binds—and breaks.
From A Swan Dark, a YA mythic fantasy novel.
