#10- One Hundred Known Worlds (YA contemporary fantasy)

Pete’s life isn’t great, but he gets along. It’s not like he’s the only person in the world to have an alcoholic for a mother or a dad who's AWOL. He’s not even the only kid in the neighborhood who has to make sure his little sister doesn’t go hungry. So what if he smokes a joint or steals a car every now and then to relieve the pressure, to escape for a little while? He doesn’t keep the cars. He’s not hurting anyone. Not until he hurts the pink-haired girl.

Sonny’s life isn’t great, but it’s better than most. If her biggest complaints are that she had to leave her friends behind to move into a huge townhouse, or that her mom wants her to be skinny like all the other girls, well, her life must be pretty good, right? Except knowing this doesn’t make it any easier when her mother takes her out for a girls’ day, but spends more time talking on her phone than talking to Sonny. When that happens, the cute guy flirting from the expensive car is a welcomed distraction. At least until he loses control of the car and smashes it right into her.

Pete and Sonny may wake in different hospitals, but they wake with something in common. Both received blood tainted with power. It’s the power to manipulate space, to be wherever they want to be in an instant, and it's being hunted by someone more powerful than even they can imagine. His name is Roald, and his relentless pursuit has destroyed more than one world already.

 Pete and Sonny could help. Or they could keep themselves to themselves and stay alive. But the more time they spend exploring their newfound abilities, the more attention they draw, and the more their options disappear. It isn't long before Pete and Sonny are sent running through worlds they never knew existed. Until they realize that to keep from being prey, they must become the hunters.

ONE HUNDRED KNOWN WORLDS is a completed, 84,000 word young adult contemporary fantasy.

Thank you for your time and consideration.


Delia Moran

First 500 words:

Pete

The way Pete saw it, he was doing the guy a favor. You didn’t leave a Maserati Quattroporte parked on Patterson, with the doors unlocked no less, without wanting it gone. Simple as that. Parking a Maserati in this part of Southie was just another way of saying, “Hey man, I could really use the insurance money right now. Help a guy out.”

Pete was nothing if not helpful.

How to liberate a car was the only useful skill his father had seen fit to pass on before he'd become no more than a name on the bottom of sporadic child support checks, and Pete had paid attention. It took a few minutes — he was rusty on his big game skills — but he worked it out. It didn’t hurt that the windows were tinted all to hell and back, either. He ducked below the dash to work, so no one was going to see him unless they opened the door.

When the engine purred to life, so did he, electric excitement coursing from the gas pedal right up through his body. He felt like a king as he eased into the midday traffic. King of what, he didn't know, but it didn't matter for now. For now all that mattered was how the pulse of the Maserati became his own, and how he didn't have to think about anything but the feel of the road beneath him. Time to celebrate.

He fished a smoke from his stash and lit up. The throaty hum of the engine and the high quality ganje he’d scored last night mellowed him as he drove past shabby triple-deckers and an endless supply of mini-marts. He estimated he had another half-hour before he’d have to ditch the car and he was damn well going to enjoy it. But he stood out a bit too much for his liking cruising Dot Ave., so he headed north toward Boston's Beacon Hill, land of the expensive car drivers.

It was on Newbury Street, while he sat at a stop light with a pleasant buzz going, that he spotted her. Not that her cotton candy pink hair was easy to miss in this crowd of tasteful blondes. She wore it curled under at the chin like a fifties stewardess and had topped it off with a black beret that matched most of her makeup and clothes. He couldn’t tell from where he sat, but he’d be willing to put money on the high odds of facial piercings, maybe even an illegal tat mommy didn’t know about, just for spite.

She sat at a table on the sidewalk in some sort of outdoor restaurant, clearly bored and picking at her fingernails, while the woman Pete figured was her mother talked on her phone and sipped from a teacup, looking uppity and expensive. The girl was cute, right about his age and with the perfect amount of round on her.