Julie Harford, Author

I'm always writing something.  Even at work I try to scratch down a few lines during my breaks.  I write young adult, mainstream fiction, and even fantasy.  One of these days I should really buckle down and finish them all...

Read on for the excerpts and keep in mind they are only working titles for unfinished projects.

"The Entity and the Shadow"

The Duke was on his way to the dungeon. He was a man that thoroughly enjoyed his work. He was very tall, nearly seven feet, and had mid-back length jet black hair. His eyes were grey and often lacked any expression whatsoever.

He always wore a red tunic with a black cloak the same color of his hair. He liked how it gave the appearance of a never-ending flow of tresses down to the floor. It helped with the intimidation factor he had worked for years to get right.

He was older than he looked. He was nearly sixty, and although he could have asked Ebony to come up with a spell to keep him young, but he had never needed it. One of the books in his private library said that the best way to keep young was to enjoy life and do what makes you happy. That was his secret. Not even one silver hair had ever dared crop up, nor had a crease in his still taut skin.

Five armed guards walked behind him, all of which were completely unnecessary. He had never feared a prisoner. Even unchained, he would have felt perfectly safe. He actually would have loved the challenge of the chase, but he had never met the man, or woman for that matter, who would have been worth the effort. So until that day came, he would keep to tradition and take the guards.

“Be careful with him, Duke,” the Protector warned. The Duke suddenly remembered he was with him and forced himself to listen. Even if his personal opinion of the man was less than high, he had no choice. His position demanded respect. Especially now.

“You’ve been forbidden to kill him,” the Protector went on. He reminded the Duke of a child with a new toy, or at least one who had just gotten a special job from his parents. “Make him talk. Find out how he got here, and where he came from.”

The Duke nodded in all of the appropriate places, wishing the Protector would just stop talking. The Duke knew his job, and even knew the Protector’s job, probably better than the Protector did. He could have had the other man’s job, actually. But he didn’t want the added headaches from being someone’s lapdog. Besides that, he would have missed his library and his dungeon.

“We need to know why Sansvol is here,” the Protector finished. The Duke thought a silent cheer.

“I understand, my lord Protector. Am I to use any special techniques?” The Duke knew he was pushing his limits. If the Protector caught on to the sarcasm, the duke might just end up next to his prisoners. He decided he would start to play the Protector differently. After all, who knew how long things would be as they were? He had learned a long time ago to do whatever it took to take care of his own best interest.

“Use whatever is necessary,” the Protector responded, obviously missing the Duke’s inflections. “It is imperative Sansvol disappear.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Silence reigned for a few seconds. The Duke used that time to think about what he could do to break Sansvol, something he never dreamed of. He might have been a good prisoner to unchain and chase back down. Only time would tell.

Ebony suddenly seemed to appear from a side corridor with a girl behind her. The girl looked vaguely familiar, but the Duke didn’t bother to try to place her. If she was important, he’d remember.

Everyone stopped and the Duke could tell the Protector would want to talk to Ebony. The girl knelt, head down, showing the proper respect to the Protector. She had been trained well.

“My lord Protector,” Ebony said easily, by way of greeting. She obviously hadn’t heard. “Duke. Where are the two of you off to in such a rush?”

The Duke couldn’t help but smile. He noticed the girl glance upward at him and jerk her head back down. He made a mental note of the disrespect but did nothing to draw attention to it.

“Noon is almost here, lady Ebony,” he said grandly. “Rebolt will be dead within the hour.”

Ebony returned the smile. She was the only person he had ever met, except for maybe her mother who had died in her prime before she ever had the chance to blossom the way her daughter had, who seemed to enjoy the pain of others almost as much as he did. One day, with the proper training, she might even learn how to inflict it properly.

“That is good news. Are you going to observe, my lord Protector?” Ebony asked.

The Protector seemed to draw himself up with importance. “No. I have a meeting with our lord Supreme Ruler.”

Ebony gaped at him openly. The girl even looked up in shock. She knew what a breach of protocol this was.

“But my lord Protector,” Ebony began, “with all due respect, why have you been granted an audience? I would have thought that our Lord of the...”

“Jay Sansvol is in the dungeon,” the Protector said sharply.

All color drained out of Ebony’s face, leaving her pale and chalk-like, and her hand flew to her mouth. The girl watched her, obviously confused. The Protector only nodded, looking solemn and grim.

“Now, my dear lady Ebony, you understand,” the Protector told her.

Ebony regained her composure. She nodded, saying, “Indeed.”

The Duke noticed a spot on the wall and focused on it. He did his best thinking this way. He knew that Ebony was one of the privileged few who had ever even heard of Jay Sansvol. He also knew it would take an incredible amount of strength and power to break him, if history was any indicator.

"Senior Year"

Senior year was supposed to be great. We were finally at the top of the hazing food chain, we could take extra electives, and we could even go off campus for lunch. I was a good student so I wasn’t worried about getting into a good college and I was even made captain of the basketball team. I wasn’t part of the ultra elite but I had lots of friends and plenty of guys more than willing to take me out. I’d saved up enough from my summer job to get some killer clothes on top of splitting car insurance bills with my twin brother David.

All the girls in school loved David. I didn’t really blame them. He’d always been tall but this summer’s growth spurt put him at just over six feet. He had wavy reddish brown hair that always seemed to be falling into his eyes no matter how many times he pushed it back. His eyes were bright, sparkly blue and he had a dimple in his cheek that peeked out with every easy smile. Add all that to his broad shoulders and killer abs and he was gorgeous.

Of course they didn’t see the David I lived with. That David always left his muddy cleats in the breezeway for me to trip over and drank milk out of the carton. He always left candy wrappers in the car and played his radio at near-top volume all night. He was a total remote hog and loved to tease me about my frizzy red curls. He belched loudly and gave wet willies every chance he could.

But he was still my very best friend. We told each other everything and banded together against the evil that was our ten-year-old brother Kurt. I knew that no matter what happened David would be there for me. Maybe it was because we were twins but when he was with me I felt more complete, more “me”.

I never dreamed David was keeping a secret.

The day before school started was always a busy one. I’d spend the morning doing any last-minute laundry and organizing my closet. Then I’d double-check my schedule and straighten out my notebooks and other supplies before loading them all into my backpack. This year, since I was captain, I’d helped organize a lunch picnic for my team and spent a couple of hours at the park eating and shooting some playful hoops.

My friend Sandy Clarke was there even though she was totally unathletic. On paper she was our team manager, but she was really just a very energetic and perky but terminally clumsy girl desperate to get some kind of sports on her transcript. She flopped down on the bench next to me and crossed her eyes.

“Ugh, I am so not ready for school tomorrow, Sarah. I like sleeping ‘til ten way too much.”

“Yeah but just think. Tomorrow we can eat at Tony’s without worrying about detention.” Tony’s was the place to eat. It was a funky little diner that totally catered to the teen crowd, playing only popular music and even featuring local artists’ work on the walls. The menu was spectacular, too. The prices were lower than most fast food chains and the food was light-years better, always fresh and hot and made with plenty of time to get back to school.

“I’ll remind you of that at seven twenty-five when we’re looking at Ms. Phelps’ lovely face in homeroom,” she said. Ms. Phelps wasn’t ugly, but she wore so much makeup she always managed to look like a clown. She had become the school joke years ago, even prompting mean-spirited “beauty pageants” in her name where the object was to look as ridiculous as possible. Thankfully she wasn’t one of my regular teachers. It was hard to take her seriously for more than a few minutes at a time when all you could do was stare at her mouth and groan at the lipstick that had gone past the normal boundaries and onto the skin.

“Maybe you should go to bed early tonight instead of staying up to watch lame horror movies on the independent films channel. Then you wouldn't hit snooze five times and get a tardy on your first day back.”

“Oh bite me,” she said. “It’s not my fault your parents are dragging you out for your yearly family dinner then making you stay home instead of meeting me for one last lame poetry reading at the coffee house.”

She’d touched a nerve and she knew it. My family was always so busy with practices and functions and meetings we barely saw each other, especially once school started. Most of the time I actually liked it that way. Mom’s numerous charities and Daddy’s constant committees kept them out of our hair for most of the year. But they were totally fanatical about spending the entire evening “as a family” every year before classes started.

That meant dinner at a fairly fancy restaurant where I’d have to wear a skirt and my brothers would both be forced into ties, followed by a ride home listening to what was supposed to be motivational orchestral music while Kurt and David both took turns poking at me from either side. Then we’d get home and pushed into some sort of card game while our father reminded us about the importance of education and how he was proud to say that as a member of the state senate he had always voted “pro-school” so we could have “opportunities that didn’t exist in the not-so-distant past”. Of course he’d been born into a well-off family and attended a prestigious prep school while insisting we go to the public high school so he could “keep himself current on the issues”, so I was never quite sure what opportunities he was talking about.

Finally we’d be dismissed so we could shower and get ready for the morning. Then it was off to our rooms so we could go to sleep early, which of course I never did. I stayed up reading or second-guessing my outfit, something that David never failed to tease me about. He just didn’t understand the importance of a good first impression. But to be fair, he always looked good, even if he was only in a pair of broken-in jeans and a t-shirt. I envied the way he could just run his hands through his hair and be done while I had to spend so much time and energy to keep mine in check.

“At least I won’t look like I just rolled out of bed and threw on the first thing I grabbed.”

She shrugged and I tried to ignore the look of hurt that crossed her face. Sandy was a good friend but we’d suffered from a deep-rooted case of one-upsmanship that always caused fights and hard feelings ever since we’d met back in seventh grade. She knew that without me she wouldn’t be on the team in any form and she hated it. I knew she’d always have better grades no matter how much studying she blew off and I hated that. David liked to say we were a match made in hell.

We ate our sandwiches in strained silence and watched a few of the girls play a low-key game. After a few minutes I took a long swallow of sports drink and raised the white flag. “By the way, thanks for setting up the first team meeting on Thursday. It was a good idea to host it off-campus. No one’s gonna want to be there this week unless they have to be.”

She shrugged. “I’m just glad the coffee house was open. I know how much you like their lattes.”

Once again a truce had been reached. No apologies were ever given in our relationship and nothing was ever really forgotten. Maybe we really were a match made in hell. But in high school what else could you hope for.

"The Chimney Stone"

The Buccaneer was packed.  I found a parking spot towards the end of the lot and walked to the door, thankful I’d picked up the jacket to keep out the chill.  I saw Maggie sitting on a bench, her curly red hair standing out easily from the crowd.  She was talking to a guy wearing jeans and a hooded sweatshirt and I could only assume he was the friend with the extra room.  I swallowed hard and went over to them, rubbing the small rock again for luck and reassurance.

She looked up and smiled broadly.  “Hannah!  Hi!”

“Hi, Maggie.”

“This is Hunter Alexander.”

They stood and I was immediately amazed at how tall he was.  He stood well over a foot higher than me, putting him up around six-six.  He stared at me doubtfully and I really couldn’t blame him.  “Hi,” I said, extending my hand.  “I’m Hannah Hughes.”

He shook it and smiled quickly.  “Hi.”

“Come on,” Maggie said, getting to her feet.  “I had them hold us a table but it won’t last.”

We went inside and were seated at a small booth.  We ordered drinks and the appetizer plate and sat there in silence.  Maggie cleared her throat and elbowed Hunter in the ribs.

“What do you think?” she asked.

“I don’t know, Maggie.  Maybe she doesn’t even want to move in.”

I swallowed my annoyance at being talked about like I wasn’t sitting directly across from them.  It was, after all, just as awkward for him as it was for me.  Possibly even more so since I had no idea what Maggie had told him.  I decided to set the record straight just so there would be no misunderstandings later on.

“Hunter,” I began, “you’re right.  I don’t know if I want to move in with a perfect stranger.  But until I get the final settlement check from the insurance company, my options are pretty limited.”

I took a deep breath, upset and even a little ashamed that my house had been reduced to an unknown number printed on a piece of paper.  He watched me intently, waiting patiently for me to continue.

“I realize we don’t know each other, and normally I’d never even consider doing something like this, but at this point I don’t have much choice.  I can give you three hundred fifty a month and pay for my own food.  I’m very neat and won’t get in your way.”

He grinned a little, making his blue eyes sparkle.  “I’d say that sounds more than fair.  How about we try it for a week, though?  Just to make sure it’s gonna work?”

“I can get the money out of the bank on Monday.  A hundred should be good for the week, then?”

“Yes, of course.”

Maggie was practically beaming.  “I knew this would work!”

“Calm down, Mags,” he said, leaning back in his chair and lacing his fingers behind his head.  “Hannah might take one look at the apartment and run away screaming.”

She rolled her eyes.  “Please.  Hunter, you’re one of the cleanest people I’ve ever met.”

“Can I look at the apartment tomorrow?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said.  “Around ten?”

“That’s fine.”

The waitress brought our order and the three of us settled into a comfortable conversation about new movie releases and various celebrity gossip.  I decided that no matter what that old man had said, Maggie was decent person and they were both fun to be with.  And what was best, they didn’t press for any details of my personal life.

Eventually, it was time for all of us to go.  Hunter offered to meet me in front of the Laundromat so I wouldn’t have to find a place to park on the street.  Apparently, their building did have a parking lot, but it was only for residents.  If I moved in, I’d get a sticker to put on my car window so I didn’t get a ticket.

“Well, see you tomorrow then,” Hunter said once we were back outside.

“Yeah,” I said.  “Bye.”

“I’ll talk to you soon, too,” Maggie added.  “I have to work in the morning, but if you move in, I’m sure we’ll see each other all the time.”

“Right,” I said, smiling.  It was getting late and I was tired, but I was feeling better than I would have imagined possible.  I was still homeless with no job, but at least I had prospects.

They went their way and I went mine, back to the hotel.  The bed had been made and housekeeping had taken away what little trash and dirty towels I’d left behind.  I hung up my jacket and changed into a t-shirt and panties.  I put the rock from the chimney on the bedside table where I’d be able to see it in the morning.  It had become my talisman, and as stupid as it probably was, gave me some degree of comfort.

"Gina"

“This is your room, for as long as you’re here,” Mrs. Grady said, “so feel free to decorate it however you’d like. Joseph or I would be happy to get you some nails or tacks. Just try not to go too crazy on us, okay? That is, unless you want to paint it when you’re all done.” She was smiling, so I wasn’t sure whether or not to take that as a threat.

I decided it didn’t matter. I’d be home soon.

“Tommy, he’s seventeen, by the way, and Stephanie will be home around three-thirty. Brian is only in preschool, so he’ll be home before lunch. We eat at noon, and I know he’s just dying to meet you. But I promise, I’ll keep him out of your hair.”

“Uh-huh,” I said again, glancing at the clock. I had an hour and a half before lunch. I had no idea what to do with myself. Even if I unpacked absolutely everything in my bags, it couldn’t take more than twenty minutes.

“If you like,” Mrs. Grady said, “I’d love to give you a full tour of the house. I’ll be down in the living room if you decide to take me up on it.”

With that, she left, shutting the door behind her. I sighed and opened my bags. I pulled the drawers of the dresser open and put my clothes away. I put my one and only dress in the closet and set the picture of Karen, Clayton, Vera and me next to the lamp. It was two years old, but it was all I had. Vera took off when she was sixteen, and I never heard from her again. She’d finally left about a month after the picture was taken, after Clayton pulled Russell off of her to stop him from choking her. He was accusing her of being a hooker and a drug addict. She was gone the next morning. She didn’t even leave a note.

I would have brought some of my own books and my journal, but Mom didn’t let me. Since she paid for everything, it was all hers. She decided what to pack.  I went over to the bookshelf and knelt down in front of it, looking for something decent to read.

I decided not to bother and put the suitcases in the closet. I went into the bathroom and saw a toilet, sink, hamper, and shower. It was small, but it was clean. And there were none of Russell’s boxers on the floor, which was a huge plus.

I stared at the door to Stephanie’s room and debated whether or not to open it. I knew I shouldn’t invade her space and I also knew I’d kill anyone who went sneaking around in my stuff, but in the end I just couldn’t help myself. I decided to just peek. I didn’t have to go rummaging through anything or even go inside.

I pushed the door open and stared. This room did not belong in this house. The walls and carpet were dark purple and the ceiling was covered up with an enormous black and purple tapestry with Chinese dragons all over it. There were all kind of pewter statues all around the room; gargoyles, fairies, dragons, you name it. She had put clear Christmas lights all over the walls, around the many posters and paintings, so it looked like a never-ending frame. Candles were sitting on top of her dresser surrounded by stuffed animals and various pieces of jewelry.

From the looks of her clothes heaped in a pile in front of her closet, she wore a lot of black, complete with chains and spikes. There was a pile of makeup and hair supplies on her nightstand. I could see gel, hairspray, black nail polish, dark red hair dye, and tubes of lipstick I could only assume were either black or dark red.

Stephanie Grady was a total Goth. I was floored. I couldn’t believe anyone would dare dress like that and still live in this house. We’d always lived in apartment buildings in the run-down part of town and Mom still wouldn’t let me wear anything remotely freaky.

I went back to my room and sat down on the bed. I laid back and closed my eyes. Stephanie’s family had all of this great stuff. I was just trash and I’d never fit in. I was some charity case they put up in their spare bedroom, probably just to make themselves look good

I hated them.