Of Dusk and Shadows

Published by: eXtasy Books

Author : J.S. Frankel

ISBN :978-1-4874-4323-8

Page :205

Word Count :65600

Publication Date :2025-05-16

Series : #

Heat Level :

Available Formats :

Category : Young Adult , (YA) Paranormal and Urban Fantasy , What's New

BrandsExtasy Books
Product Code: 978-1-4874-4323-8

0 reviews
Write a review

TO PURCHASE AT AMAZON CLICK HERE:

OTHER SELLERS:

Clint Vaslef, almost eighteen and about to age out of his orphanage, runs off to seek his own future. He finds a magical gem that embeds itself in his hand and transports him to the world of Yorkuni, one that is swathed in shadow most of the day.

Aided by Mira, a young woman roughly his age—and a thief, among other things—they travel across the land in search of the Inn of Imagi, the only place where he might be able to get rid of the gem and return to Earth.

The gem’s magic protects Clint, as it has the ability to bring him back from the dead, but only five times, so he has to be careful in everything he does.

He also begins to wonder if Mira is really on his side, and by the time he learns the truth, it might already be too late.

June sucked in the most major way when it came to weather. New York’s summers could never be described as comfortable or fun or relaxing. No, they were more like sultry, steamy, and unlivable, in some cases, when dealing with the elderly. More oldsters died from heat stroke than any other physical problem, or so some experts said. I wasn’t sure about that.

What I was sure about was that it was past midnight, it had turned from June second to June third, it was too damn hot, and I couldn’t sleep. The alley was narrow, with only a few crates for company, a dumpster, and my backpack with my clothes, a couple of paperbacks, and my toiletry kit inside. I lay in a cardboard box—actually, three boxes that were duct-taped together—scratched my head, and stared up at the stars. They seemed close enough to touch...

“Beautiful, ain’t they?”

Morton’s voice jerked me back to Earth. “Yeah, guess so.”

A scraping sound indicated that he was crawling over to my position. I’d moved here after running away from St. Elmo’s Orphanage in Rochester eleven days ago, found refuge in a few alleys, but the denizens there had been less than stellar, so off I went to another alley, and then another, and then another until I met up with Morton. He turned out to be okay, although he liked to talk, sometimes too much…

“Y’ever think there’s life up there, Clint?”

Another Morton question. He loved to chat about the unknown. Of indeterminate age, Morton—no last name ever given—was a small man, roughly five-three, skinny, bald, and he only had one leg. He never told me about how he lost his lower left leg, or what he’d done before ending up here, but that was his right. Most homeless people—or unhoused, or vagrants, or alley occupiers, or…whatever—didn’t say much, if anything, about their pasts.

He would have to ask me now. It was roughly one AM, so getting any sleep was an impossibility, at least for the moment. As for his question, I’d read a lot of sci-fi and fantasy novels, and they’d always taken me to places unknown.

However, my reality was that I was temporarily residing in a filthy alleyway on Earth with a one-legged man who loved to chat about the intangible and impossible. “I don’t know, Morton. But if there is, maybe it’s better than here.”

“Better than you had,” he grunted and sat up to rub his stump.

He was right about that. Clinton Vaslef, that was me. At least, that was the name I’d been given, and I knew that my family name was Russian-Jewish in descent. One of the Brothers at the orphanage told me so, but he didn’t say much more than that, at least when I was little. After a while, I simply accepted the fact that my parents hadn’t wanted to take care of me.

What I did know was that for the first seventeen years of my life, St. Elmo’s had taken me in. Since there were no Jewish orphanages open, St. Elmo’s—Catholic, although they never pushed it on me—had given me a home and a decent education. I’d never gone hungry, but it got lonely at times, and it became more than discouraging that no family thought me worthy.

In a way, I couldn’t blame them. I’d always been on the short and skinny side, dark-haired, with brown eyes, a narrow face, and average looks. That was one thing, but I’d been born with a withered right leg. Some people asked me if it was polio, but no—I’d simply been born that way. So, for the first few years of my life after I’d learned how to walk, I limped. It wasn’t that bad, but it probably scared off prospective parents.

A home was all I’d ever wanted. I didn’t care what color my future parents would be, or what religion they were, or if they had money. If they had a house or an apartment, and if they owned it, good enough for me. But until that day came—if it ever did—then St. Elmo’s was my home.

Elmo’s wasn’t the worst place around. Oh, it had its share of bullies and punks and losers, but it also had a few nice people. The Brothers who ran the place—Andrew and Frank, who really were brothers—headed the administration. While growing up there, I quickly learned to differentiate between the nice and the scummy. It was like there were factions—and maybe it was the same way in regular schools—and a person had to make a choice between siding with the nice or siding with the scum.

I sided with the nice, got my face beaten in more than a dozen times by the kids who didn’t care that I was handicapped, and I thought my life was total crap. St. Elmo’s taught me not to trust anyone, although I trusted Brother Andrew and Brother Frank. They were in their forties, stocky and plain-featured, and they always gave me good advice.

However, the best advice I got was from an older kid named Benny Nargat on how to fight.