In The Forests Of The Night

I was born to the name of Rachel Weatere in the year 1684, more than three hundred years ago. The one who changed me named me Risika, and Risika I became, though I never asked what it meant. I continue to call myself Risika, even though I was transformed into what I am against my will. By day, Risika sleeps in a shaded room in Concord, Massachusetts. By night, she hunts the streets of New York City. She is used to being alone. But now someone is following Risika. Someone has left her a black rose, the same sort of rose that sealed her fate three hundred years ago. Three hundred years ago Risika had a family -- a brother and a sister who loved her. Three hundred years ago she was human. Now she is a vampire, a powerful one. And her past has come back to torment her. This atmospheric, haunting tale marks the stunning debut of a promising fourteen-year-old novelist.

I was born to the name of Rachel Weatere in the year 1684, more than three hundred years ago. The one who changed me named me Risika, and Risika I became, though I never asked what it meant. I continue to call myself Risika, even though I was transformed into what I am against my will. By day, Risika sleeps in a shaded room in Concord, Massachusetts. By night, she hunts the streets of New York City. She is used to being alone. But now someone is following Risika. Someone has left her a black rose, the same sort of rose that sealed her fate three hundred years ago. Three hundred years ago Risika had a family -- a brother and a sister who loved her. Three hundred years ago she was human. Now she is a vampire, a powerful one. And her past has come back to torment her. This atmospheric, haunting tale marks the stunning debut of a promising fourteen-year-old novelist. From the Hardcover edition.

Set in Cleveland 100 years in the future, this debut novel is the story of Nohar Rajasthan, Private Eye, who's a moreau--descended from genetically manipulated tiger stock. When Nohar is hired by a being illegally created from human stock to look into a murder, he finds himself caught up in a conspiracy of awesome proportions.

"Highlights the activities of animals in the Sonoran Desert during one average 24-hour period"--

In the Old Country, they called them the Gentry: ancient spirits of the land, magical, amoral, and dangerous. When the Irish emigrated to North America, some of the Gentry followed...only to find that the New World already had spirits of its own, called manitou and other such names by the Native tribes. Now generations have passed, and the Irish have made homes in the new land, but the Gentry still wander homeless on the city streets. Gathering in the city shadows, they bide their time and dream of power. As their dreams grow harder, darker, fiercer, so do the Gentry themselves--appearing, to those with the sight to see them, as hard and dangerous men, invariably dressed in black. Bettina can see the Gentry, and knows them for what they are. Part Indian, part Mexican, she was raised by her grandmother to understand the spirit world. Now she lives in Kellygnow, a massive old house run as an arts colony on the outskirts of Newford, a world away from the Southwestern desert of her youth. Outsider her nighttime window, she often spies the dark men, squatting in the snow, smoking, brooding, waiting. She calls them los lobos, the wolves, and stays clear of them--until the night one follows her to the woods, and takes her hand.... Ellie, an independent young sculptor, is another with magic in her blood, but she refuses to believe it, even though she, too, sees the dark men. A strange old woman has summoned Ellie to Kellygnow to create a mask for her based on an ancient Celtic artifact. It is the mask of the mythic Summer King--another thing Ellie does not believe in. Yet lack of belief won't dim the power of the mast, or its dreadful intent. Donal, Ellie's former lover, comes from an Irish family and knows the truth at the heart of the old myths. He thinks he can use the mask and the "hard men" for his own purposes. And Donal's sister, Miki, a punk accordion player, stands on the other side of the Gentry's battle with the Native spirits of the land. She knows that more than her brother's soul is at stake. All of Newford is threatened, human and mythic beings alike. Once again Charles de Lint weaves the mythic traditions of many cultures into a seamless cloth, bringing folklore, music, and unforgettable characters to life on modern city streets. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Thirteen students are compelled by their dreams to play a game in the woods to keep a mysterious monster at bay. Not everyone gets to play it again. (If you like The Giver consider In the Forests of the Night.) Drama One-act. 25-30 minutes 13 actors, gender flexible

Deep in the forest, stands a mountain that has claimed the lives of many daring mountain climbers, known as Death Mountain, which is one of the tallest mountains in the world, at an approximate height of 32,000 feet. The reason that so many climbers have lost their lives is because of health issues and extreme cold temperatures, as the climbers make their way through the jagged edges of the mountain. You can always count on an avalanche to be waiting for the next brave souls to risk their lives climbing to the top of Death Mountain. Not only is the mountain covered with mounds of snow, there is no hint of sunlight to light the climber's way, as they climb the treacherous journey to the peak of the mountain. Of course, there are always some hotshot climbers who think they are the ones who will be the first to stand at the top of Death Mountain and yell out "We made it!, and congratulate the rest of the brave climbers for such a heroic feat. Here's where the story begins. Jimmy Spencer and his friends Karen, Jackie, and Tom were all avid mountain climbers and were always up for a challenge. They all dreamed of being heroes in their town. There wasn't much excitement in their town, so if Jimmy and his friends could climb the highest mountain and survive to tell about it, they would all be heroes. Jimmy knew the only way that would happen, would be if they could climb to the top of Death Mountain. The closest anyone came to climbing that mountain was halfway because of avalanches and extreme cold temperatures. It was too dangerous for helicopters or planes to fly above Death Mountain to search for lost climbers, so any search had to be done on foot. Jimmy and his mountain climbing buddies were used to climbing in extreme temperatures, so they all thought if anybody could tackle such a feat, they were the team of climbers to do it.

First came the time-storm, which erased half the population. Then came the dinosaur apocalypse. How did it all begin? That depends on where you were and who you ask. In some places it started with the weather—which quickly became unstable and began behaving in impossible ways. In still others it started with the lights in the sky, which shifted and pulsed and could not be explained. Elsewhere it started with the disappearances: one here, a few there, but increasing in occurrence until fully three quarters of the population had vanished. Either way, there is one thing on which everyone agrees—it didn’t take long for the prehistoric flora and fauna to start showing up (often appearing right where someone was standing, in which case the two were fused, spliced, amalgamated). It didn’t take long for the great Time-displacement called the Flashback—which was brief but had aftershocks, like an earthquake—to change the face of the earth. Nor for the stories, some long and others short, some from before the maelstrom (and resulting societal collapse) and others after, to be recorded. Welcome to the world of the Flashback. From The Forests of the Night: And she passed me the bottle, after which I took a swig and poured the rest into her glass, then went to the cellar for more—returning with a Woodbridge Mondavi Red Blend to find her swaying to “Upside Down” by Diana Ross (playing from a battered little CD player I hadn’t even noticed she had) and letting a white strap of her halter slip—like a linguini, I thought, and sat down. “Don’t thing I haven’t noticed it,” she said, slurring slightly, and added, “I see the way you look at me.” I uncorked the bottle and filled my glass. “You’re a very beautiful woman,” I said—and sat the bottle between us—too hard, I think. “And a talented one. What would you expect?” I watched as she shimmied and did a little pirouette. “And I’m enjoying the conversation—more than you could know. You move beautifully, by the way. Like a cat.” And then she attempted to spin again but only stumbled suddenly and fell smack into my arms; at which we just looked at each other, she with her boozy, breezy smile and me with an apparent moral dilemma: i.e., should I make a pass at her, like I wanted to, or should I just put her into bed and tuck her away safe (as though she were a simpleton, perhaps, or even child) like, say, John-Boy Walton might. A dilemma I answered by taking her head in my hands and kissing her—heatedly, hot-bloodedly, restlessly—what a friend of mine used to call a “come fuck me” kiss; because she was no child. And I was no John-Boy. And then we went to her room and lay together; drunkenly, sloppily, unspectacularly, and after a while, I dreamed: of lightning permeating everything and rain pounding the roof like nails, like hail; of wives and friends and girlfriends and my father—most of whom I hadn’t seen in years; of small, predatory dinosaurs, deinonychuses, with dark skin and wet backs—who held vigil around our bed like cultists, like priests, and who trilled, softly, faintly, as though they were meditating. As though they were communing.