Uncanny
by Sarah Fine
by Sarah Fine
Genre: Young Adult, SciFi
& Fantasy, Thriller / Suspense
Publisher: Skyscape
Publication Date: October 3rd
2017
BLURB
Cora should remember
every detail about the night her stepsister, Hannah, fell down a flight of
stairs to her death, especially since her Cerepin—a sophisticated
brain-computer interface—may have recorded each horrifying moment. But when she
awakens after that night, her memories gone, Cora is left with only
questions—and dread of what the answers might mean.
When a downward spiral of
self-destruction forces Cora to work with an AI counselor, she finds an
unexpected ally, even as others around her grow increasingly convinced that
Hannah’s death was no accident. As Cora’s dark past swirls chaotically with the
versions of Hannah’s life and death that her family and friends want to
believe, Cora discovers the disturbing depths of what some people may
do—including herself.
With her very sanity in question, Cora
is forced to face her greatest fear. She will live or die by what she
discovers.
What Others Are Saying
Kirkus Reviews
"Readers will be hooked by the mystery ... A dark and twisty psychological thriller that straddles the question of what it means to be human."
"Readers will be hooked by the mystery ... A dark and twisty psychological thriller that straddles the question of what it means to be human."
Lucie A., NetGalley
Reviewer, 5 Stars
"I find the title of this book particularly well found, because this book was strange, disturbing and clearly Uncanny."
"I find the title of this book particularly well found, because this book was strange, disturbing and clearly Uncanny."
Laurie B., NetGalley
Reviewer, 5 Stars
"The way this story played out was such a twist and turn through the pages that I was not ready for it to end."
"The way this story played out was such a twist and turn through the pages that I was not ready for it to end."
EXCERPT
Chapter One
I
wish I were small. Just one of those girls with bird bones who can ball up,
knees under chin, heels to butt, tiny-tiny.
But
I am huge. I seem to have my own gravitational pull. I am a black hole,
expanding by the minute, and no gaze can escape me. My head might as well be
brushing the white ceiling, leaving a little grease stain there. I’m contained
between the armrests of this chair, but I could swear my elbows are brushing
the walls on either side. My belly is swelling, and soon it’ll overflow onto
Principal Selridge’s desk and ooze toward where she stands on the other side,
clutching her biceps as if she’s afraid they’re going to peel away from her
bones.
I
turn my head and look out the window. We’re two stories up. If I had jumped, my
body would have sailed past that auto-cleaning windowpane in a fraction of a
second, a blink of an eye. Easy to miss. But now I have everyone’s eyes. They
can’t look around me or past me. Black. Hole.
Selridge
steps in front of the window, blocking my view of the park across the street.
She motions one of the cannies over to take her place and guard the spot. He’s
got a wide, blank face, fair skin, black hair—impossible to mistake for human.
He’s the one who unlocked the doors as the others lugged me off the roof, down
the stairs, up the hall, past the banner welcoming the incoming freshmen, the
Clinton Academy Class of 2073. First day of school, halfway through homeroom
discussion period, and I gave everyone something to talk about.
Lara
and Mei were cutting class, laying flowers in front of Hannah’s locker as I was
carried past. They watched me go by with stone faces. I’m guessing Finn told them
about the message he sent me this morning. I hope he doesn’t blame himself. I
didn’t really think about that, up on the roof. I should have.
The
rest of my classmates gathered in the doorways of their homerooms and stared.
They were probably using their Cerepins to stream what they were seeing to
their channels. A hundred simultaneous vids of Cora Dietrich on the Mainstream,
screaming, screaming, screaming.
If
you were to listen to all of them at once, it wouldn’t come close to the noise
inside my head.
“You’re
going to be okay, Cora,” Selridge says, now back behind her desk. “Your parents
will be here soon. If you turn your Cerepin back on, you could talk to
them—they made sure to tell me they’re eager to hear from you.”
She
taps her own Cerepin, a small black nodule on her right temple. Hers is an
older model, and unlike the newer ones, it signals when it’s capturing. The red
light is blinking. She’s probably streaming a feed of me straight to Mom and
Gary. They can see what she sees, thanks to her implanted lenses. They might
even be talking to her now through the sensor in her ear, words I can’t hear
and don’t want to. My mother might even have been the one who told Selridge to
guard the window.
Mom
was definitely the one who alerted the school. I don’t know if it was because
Finn carried through on his threat to send her the vid he sent me this morning
or because she got scared when I turned my Cerepin off.
Considering
what happened last time, I don’t blame her at all.
My
hands cover my eyes and my shoulders jerk up around my head. I can’t think
about it, not now, please not now, but my brain is already feeding me memories
of a sharp, sickly sweet scent and my cold, wet feet sliding along a marble
floor. I bend at the waist and start to rock. I know the keening sound is
awful, at once hoarse and high and grating, but I can’t stop it. I can’t stop.
“Cora
. . .”
That’s
all Selridge can think of to say.
Firm
hands grasp my shoulders. I try to wrench away, but the canny is too strong. He
holds me still. He doesn’t understand that I need this. How could he?
He
lets me go when my keening escalates into a full-fledged scream. I keep my
fists pressed into my eyes. Outside, I hear the shuffle of feet, the sound of
voices. Homeroom discussion is over. I should be going to my individual
learning session with Aristotle. Neda will wonder where I am.
Wait.
She’ll know. Everyone knows.
My
hands fall to my lap like birds hit by skycars. Dead on impact. My vision blurs
as I stare across the room, making Selridge one with the wall behind her. She
shudders when she sees the look on my face.
My
breakfast comes up in a single sudden heave. All over Selridge’s desk screen,
stomach acid and bits of protein bar, sour and burning on my tongue. I spit on
the floor as my principal gags. “Sorry,” I whisper.
I
cover my mouth and breathe, but the smell is a hand around my throat, once
again dragging me back to the night it happened. It is fingernails clawing at a
closed door, trying to rip through. Everything in me locks up.
Wet
feet sliding on a marble floor.
This
time, it’s just acid and spit, splashing onto the hardwood and the synthetic
leather of my boots.
My
heartbeat swishes in my ears. The canny offers me a cloth to wipe my mouth, and
when I don’t take it, he does it for me. Selridge’s lips move. What is she
saying?
“Cora!”
It’s Mom. She squats next to me, right in the puke at our feet. When she wraps
her arms around me, I feel her shaking. “It’s going to be all right. We’re
taking you home.”
Okay,
this is good. I was afraid they were going to take me straight back to the
hospital.
“We
should take her back to the hospital,” says Gary from behind me. “We talked
about this.”
“She
really should be evaluated,” Selridge says. “If she can’t promise she won’t try
something—”
“I
know, but we can monitor her,” Mom says, turning to my adoptive father. “I
won’t leave her side if that’s what it takes.”
“You
shouldn’t take more time off,” Gary mutters.
“I
really can’t allow her to return to school until she’s been cleared by a
doctor,” says Selridge, her voice louder now. “The suicide attempt was made on
academy grounds. This is very serious.”
“That’s
fair, Maeve,” Gary says to my mom.
“No,”
I whisper. I’m not a black hole anymore. Now I’m invisible.
“We’ll
decide in the car,” Gary says a moment later. Mom probably just gave him the
death glare, and he doesn’t want to get into it in front of Selridge. “CC, can
you walk?”
I’ve
asked him a million times not to call me that, but it’s a habit he can’t seem
to break. He doesn’t realize that every time he says it, he makes things harder
for me, and I’m scared to explain—scared to hurt him more than I already have.
His hands on my shoulders are softer than the canny’s. Gentle, like he’s asking
permission. I don’t fight him as he pulls me up and guides me away from the
stinking mess I made. I turn and press my face into his sweater, trying to
escape the smell, and he lets me. Puts his hand over the back of my head and
stiffly holds me there, shushing me as I tremble.
“Please
send me a quick message to let me know how she’s doing,” Selridge says. “We’re
all very concerned.”
As
Gary lets me go, Selridge ducks her head a little, trying to make eye contact
with me, but I’m not letting it happen. If we lock gazes, I’ll see just how bad
it is, and I don’t want to know.
I
had planned to never know.
“Cora,
it really will be okay,” Selridge says. “We all miss Hannah, but nobody blames
you for what happened.”
I
wish the wind had blown just a little harder up there on the roof. Just one
good gust.
Mom
puts her arm around my waist, maneuvering me between her and Gary as they lead
me out of Selridge’s office. “I thought we agreed,” Gary says under his breath.
“She’ll
be better at home,” Mom says. “Besides, if she went to the hospital again,
she’d just come back to the same house. The same us. The same memories.”
He
nods. “You’re probably right. Besides—the investigation isn’t complete. They’ll
need to talk to Cora at some point.”
Mom’s
grip on my waist tightens. “Not now, Gary!”
We
walk past empty classrooms and occupied learning auditoriums with closed doors.
Inside one of those auditoriums, Neda is facing off with Aristotle in the way
only she can, probably mad as hell at me, maybe scared I’ll tell someone about
her part in all of this. When I turn my Cerepin back on, there’ll probably be
fifty messages from her.
When
I turn on my Cerepin . . . if I do. I’m scared to see Finn’s message again, to
find out how many times I was tagged in vids by people who believe the worst of
me. Not wanting to risk more stares, I examine the floor as we walk down the
hall, past the mute cannies standing dormant, waiting for another student to
rescue or protect. They have no feelings, but if they did, disgust would be at
the top, I’m sure. Some of them nearly fell as they pulled me from the ledge.
Do
they fear death?
Do
I?
We
make it outside. The wind gusts an hour too late, ruffling my short hair,
blowing dust into my eyes. A company car is waiting. Gary must have been on his
way to the Parnassus complex when he probably got a frantic call from Mom, and
here they are. I’m making him look bad.
Hurting
him again, after everything he’s done for us. God. I don’t know why they’re
being nice. I wish they had just let me go.
Leika’s
door slides open as we reach the curb. I dive into her, grateful to be hidden,
and Mom and Gary climb in after me. “Where to, sir?” Leika asks, all sleek
metal and compliance. I wish I had her voice, her calm.
I
glance over at Mom and Gary. They’re looking at each other. A long look full of
shared hours, a shared heart. Mom blinks. Gary’s eyes shift to meet mine.
“You’re in a lot of trouble,” he says.
“I
know,” I mumble.
“We’ve
always been patient with you, CC, but this—”
“Gary,”
Mom murmurs.
He
sighs. Closes his eyes. His nostrils flare. “All right. Let’s get real here.”
This
is his CEO voice. I imagine it echoing in a boardroom. Hannah had this kind of
presence, too. You had no choice but to listen to her.
Had.
Oh,
god. I clench my teeth as my stomach turns.
“Cora,”
Mom says. “Gary has a point. What you did this morning—that was . . .”
Insane?
She was probably going to say insane.
“Unacceptable,”
Gary continues for her. His fingers are interlaced, his elbows on his knees,
his eyes so intense. “We lost one of our daughters not even two weeks ago, and
the other one seems determined to self-destruct!”
“Gary!”
He
holds up his hand. “It has to be said. Because if I don’t, I’m going to say
worse, okay?” His eyes are shiny and bloodshot.
“I’m
sorry,” I say, my voice shredded by the screaming and the puking and the crying
and the knowing that this is all my fault.
“If
you’re sorry, just tell us what happened,” he says, and it comes out of him in
one rapid stream. “Help us understand. Be honest. You’re going to have to
explain at some point.”
“She’s
doing her best,” Mom says. “The doctor said to give it time.”
“But
she’s avoiding the whole thing!” He says to me, “Look at you. Look at what you
did this morning.”
“I’m
sorry.”
“We
don’t want your apologies, goddammit!” snaps Gary. “We want to know why!”
I
put my hands over my ears, but it does little to shut out the noise. If my
Cerepin were on, I’d turn my music up to eleven. “I told you before. I’ve told
you a thousand times. I don’t remember.”
“Because
you’re trying not to,” Gary replies. “Franka notified us of the pills in your
room. Where did you get them?”
I
press my face to Leika’s window. “I needed to sleep. The other pills weren’t
working.”
“Hard
for them to work if you don’t take them,” Gary says.
“I
found the bottle in your bathroom cabinet this morning,” Mom adds. “I counted
them. You haven’t taken a single one.”
I
wrap my arms around myself, as if that could keep me from flying apart. I turn
to my mom. “I don’t want to go to the hospital again. Please.”
“Maybe
you do need more time and space from the house,” she says, stroking my arm as
she contradicts herself. “Like Gary said, it hasn’t even been two weeks.”
I
jerk away, but then I see the hurt on her face. “Please,” I say again. “I’ve
only been home for a few days. The hospital is so . . . cold.”
I
squeeze my eyes shut as I remember. That nurse with the sad face. I was looking
at her over Mom’s shoulder as Mom told me Hannah was dead, while Gary sobbed
out in the hallway for his lost baby girl.
“You’re
asking us to trust you, CC,” says Gary. “And I’m wondering why you think we
should.”
Suddenly,
I am so, so tired. “I won’t turn off my Cerepin tracking again. I was upset.”
Finn
will blame himself. But I hope he holds off now. I hope he understands there’s
no need to send the vid to Mom and Gary.
“Things
have to change,” Gary is saying. “I can’t live like this. We can’t live like
this.” He puts his hand on Mom’s knee, and she scoots a few inches closer to
him. “We’re grieving, too, you know.”
Is
he kidding?
“Things
will change,” I tell him. “I’ll change.”
“We
don’t want you to change!” says Mom. She’s either a great liar or she’s living
in an alternate reality, with a different Cora.
“We
want you to get better,” Gary adds. “And you’re not going to until you really
deal with what happened—and come clean, if you need to.”
My
stomach lurches. “I don’t have any secrets, but I’ll try to get better. I’m
working on it. I promise.”
“Empty
promises aren’t good enough, not after this morning,” Gary says.
Mom
sighs. “He’s right. We have certain conditions, and if you don’t accept them,
we have no choice but to take you to the hospital. I want you home, Cora, but I
won’t do it if it means risking your life.”
“Franka’s
always right there,” I say. “And my Cerepin—”
Gary’s
jaw clenches. “Do I need to remind you,” he says slowly, “of what you did that
night?”
I
know what he’s thinking: if Franka’s settings hadn’t been changed, if our
Cerepin trackers hadn’t been turned off, Hannah might still be alive.
“No,”
I say, so loudly that my voice cracks. “I remember that part.”
Gary
mutters something under his breath, then grips his jaw as if to hold the words
in. The muscles of his forearm are taut. After a few seconds, he lets go and
takes Mom’s hand. “And we won’t even get into this morning, when you did it
again,” he continues. “We can’t trust you not to mess with the tech meant to
protect and supervise you, and we can’t be awake twenty-four-seven.”
“Please,”
I say, “I’ll do anything you want as long as you don’t take me to the hospital.
I can’t go back there. I just want to go home.” I want to be in my room, in my
bed, in the dark, the closest I can get to being nothing, thinking nothing. I
want to take one of those pills Hannah had stashed away, the ones that crush
dreams into blackness.
I
want to take all of them at once.
Mom
and Gary are quiet. They’re looking at each other, intent. The green lights on
their Cerepins blink—they have the newest version, with thought control. They
can communicate without saying a word. Finally, Mom nods.
“All
right,” says Gary. “So, CC, I’ve been doing a lot of research, and I think I’ve
found something that could help. If you cooperate, we’ll take the hospital off
the table for now, but only if you really give this a chance. Deal?”
“A
lot of research?” Not sure he could make it sound more ominous if he tried.
“We
only want the best for you,” Mom says.
“What
is it?”
“I
have a friend who has developed an amazing program that might be exactly what
we need. Really cutting edge.”
“Yeah.”
I draw the word out. “I hope you don’t mean that literally. I don’t want a
neurostim or anything like that.”
That’s
what they’d do to me at the hospital. Cure me with a wire threaded into my
brain. They still use them for depression even though they’ve just been banned
for everything else.
“This
isn’t that kind of treatment. It’s something different. More of a . . .
service,” says Gary. He leans forward. “Up to you, CC. It’s that or Bethesda
Medical.”
Mom’s
eyes are pleading. Gary looks hopeful but haggard. He’s aged ten years since
that night.
I
shudder as memory draws its sharp nails along the locked door again, leaving
deep, ragged grooves. Whatever this “service” is, I don’t know if I want it,
but I’m certain I don’t want to be in a cage, unable to decide my own fate.
“Okay,” I tell them. “I’ll try.”
Author Info
Sarah Fine is the author
of several books for teens, including Of
Metal and Wishes (McElderry/Simon & Schuster) and its
sequel, Of Dreams and
Rust, the bestselling Guards
of the Shadowlands YA urban fantasy series (Skyscape/Amazon
Children’s Publishing), and The
Impostor Queen (McElderry, January 2016).
She is also the co-author (with Walter
Jury) of two YA sci-fi thrillers published by Putnam/Penguin: Scan and its
sequel Burn. Her bestselling adult urban fantasy romance series, Servants of
Fate, includes Marked,
Claimed, and Fated,
and was published by 47North in 2015, and her second adult UF series —Reliquary (and its
sequels Splinter and Mosaic) was published
2016. When she’s not writing, she’s psychologizing. Sometimes she does both at
the same time. The results are unpredictable.
Author Links:
Presented by
No comments:
Post a Comment