A Swan Dark - Excerpt
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Chapter 1 - Returning
Dappled morning sunlight dotted Morgan’s face. She gripped the handle of her father’s old sedan, torn between opening the door and stepping straight into her childhood nightmare—where a week of her life had vanished—or remaining in the car for the rest of summer.
She chose death by heatstroke. That’d show her dad what a colossal mistake this trip was.
“Come on, Morgan. It’s beautiful here.” He 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 call 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 forest spirits were also trying to coax her out of the car.
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 Maddie moved next to him, and Morgan crossed her arms. Ah, yes. The reason we’re here.
Unlike her dad’s previous relationships, which crashed and burned in spectacular flames, Maddie stuck like molasses—sickeningly sweet and 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.
Maddie squeezed her dad’s arm and sighed dramatically. “Awe, the pines smell like Georgia summers.”
Her dad gestured toward Morgan’s older sister, Serena, who was dragging her massive suitcase across the gravel. “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 flipped her hair and wheeled the suitcase toward the Nook, their 100-year-old cottage.
Morgan slumped deeper in her seat.
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.”
“You’d be surprised.” Blue hair fell across her face, and she winced. Right. That. She’d dyed half of it after her dad announced their grand return.
As he leaned over her window, she caught the briefest flicker of irritation before he smoothed it away. “Honey, remember—the past belongs to the past.”
Morgan’s fingers slipped on the door handle. “Dad,” she said, before she could stop herself.
He looked at her, patient. Waiting.
“That week,” she said. The word 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.”
Morgan’s 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 at the lake.
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 complete BS. The past is who we are. It doesn’t just disappear because you want it to. We quit coming here for a reason.” When did your girlfriend become more important than your daughter?
“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.
Maddie 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 was sixteen now. She should be working at the coffee shop, making loads of cash, flirting with cute boys—one of which would be her first boyfriend and kiss. 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.
Maddie paused her mopping in the kitchen. “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 go 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. “Hard pass.”
“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 Maddie could use some help.”
“I sure do,” Maddie 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—before she slid her sunglasses firmly over her eyes. “So many great memories.”
Sure. Like near-death trauma counts.
Maddie 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.
Morgan’s stomach dropped. The party. The same night she’d made every terrible decision possible—dying her hair out of panic and spite, sneaking out, attending a notoriously wild high school senior 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. “I’d also like to hear more about that little adventure.”
Serena rose from the couch, hesitating for just a heartbeat. “Lake it is.”
Maddie 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 was going to the lake before her—
No. She didn’t know why, only that the thought tightened her chest.
Morgan had questions that place owed her answers to.
She caught up to her sister at the edge of the trail, falling into step behind her like they’d done countless times before. 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 didn’t want back.
“You know, you used to tell me some dumb story about how I was cursed and a dragon would kidnap me here,” Morgan said, desperate to think of anything else.
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. For a heartbeat, 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 ruin things.”
She swept down the path, her perfume mocking Morgan as she followed.
“Don’t you think it’s twisted to tell a little kid she’s destined to be a child sacrifice?”
Serena stopped short. Her shoulders went 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—”
She stopped. Swallowed hard. Looked away.
“Forget it.”
For a heartbeat, Morgan thought Serena was about to say something important.
Then the look vanished—and Morgan wasn’t sure if she’d only imagined 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 should have been there. She didn’t know what.
The air hummed, wrong and ancient, like something waiting for her to notice.
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. To get as far from the water and those memories as possible. Her muscles coiled, ready to bolt.
No.
She locked her knees. She wasn’t a helpless kid anymore.
If this place was going to take something from her again, she chose not to look away.
Morgan's story is only beginning.
A Swan Dark is a YA fantasy about sisters, secrets, and the dangerous magic that binds them.
