Author's Note: Woo-hoo! I've finally written enough of this book (I hope) that I can start posting it! So...this is Emry's story. It is totally different from Shaun's, but Emry is so different from Shaun that it was only inevitable. It is entirely in Emry's point of view until...oh, about three quarters of the way through the book. In fact, I haven't even gotten to the point where I switch POVs yet. And there is a great deal of editing that must be done, so I will probably only post a chapter every other day at first.

Oh, and I'm having a girl. Another one. We're going to name her Aiwin Kyla Marie. My first daughter is Rowyn Kaileigh Ann. My kids are totally going to hate that their mother is a writer and likes weird names. I just thought it was appropriate to throw the names out there, though, b/c it just occurred to me that they would fit in great in Jumyria with those names. Wahaha.

Please excuse my author's notes. They will probably have little to do with the actual book. Hormones are making my tendency to ramble worse than ever.

Prologue

“I think you should paint the house blue.”

Eight-year-old Emry Damarkin tilted his reddish-gold head to the side and reconsidered the picture he’d been creating for his mother. A large sheet of paper hung on a sturdy wood easel, its tray littered with various pots of finger paints. There was an old woman dosing in the corner of the family sitting room. She’d been told to make sure that little Emry’s paints did not find their way onto the walls, but she knew that the second oldest Damarkin boy would be the last person in the world to make a mess. Disappointing his parents was one of his biggest fears, and so he strove to be perfect. At everything. And because his mother was always complaining about what a rowdy hooligan his father was, he did his best to model himself after the ideal Jumyrian man, who was always proper and respectful and never rowdy.

Mother loved it.

Father hated it.

He’d learned early on in life that he would never be able to please everyone, so instead he focused on his mother. This painting was for her, a brilliant – in his opinion, anyway – rendition of the house where his mother had grown up. Emry’s grandmother had been a servant at Damarkia, and when his mother was just a child, she and her family had lived in a small house not far away. His mother had taken him and his older brother there a few days ago, to show them her very humble beginnings. There had been a slight stain of pink to her cheeks as she pointed out the tiny cottage to him and Geybrial, as if she were embarrassed.

Geybrial had said nothing, merely walked up to the house and ran his hands over the cracked plaster of the outer walls as if remembering a dream long forgotten. His mother had explained that she and Geybrial had lived in that very house for a short time, before their mother had married their father. Though he would have been too young to form any concrete memories, it was obvious that the place was familiar to his older brother.

Now Emry wanted to recapture that place, to immortalize it in a way that would show his mother that he did not mind if she was once a servant, that he would love her no matter what form she took.

When he heard the voice comment on the color, he at first thought it was a servant’s child. Though the servants were not supposed to bring their children to the estate during their work hours, Emry’s father was quite lenient in that respect. Emry had actually tried to befriend the Cook’s young son once, but the lad had taken exception to the fancy way Emry talked and punched him in the eye.

That was the end of trying to befriend servants’ children.

“No. The house is supposed to be white,” he advised the child.

“Then paint it white.”

He sighed at the other child’s ignorance. “The paper is white,” he attested. “If I paint the house white, it will just blend in.”

“Oh.”

Ignoring the other child, Emry stood and stared at the paper for a while longer. He’d already drawn the roof and a few of the windows. Now…

“Perhaps if you mix in a little bit of blue. Just to make it stand out.”

What an annoying little girl. He would have thought his silence would imply that he was not in the mood for conversation – or advice – but apparently not. Intent on giving the child a dressing down, he spun on his heel…only to discover that there was no one there. Blinking with a moment’s confusion, he deduced that the child must have run away.

Emry turned back to his painting. Maybe mixing in a little bit of blue wasn’t such a bad idea. It would serve to separate the house from the rest of the paper, anyway, and there had been a slightly bluish tint to the walls, now that he thought about it. Carefully, he combined just the right amount of white and blue in the lid of one of the small paint tins and started to draw in the house.

“Perfect.”

This time he whirled around. No one was there. But no one would have had time to run away, either. The voice had come from just over his shoulder, so he should have at least caught some glimpse of the child as she flew from the sitting room. This was not a small room, and Emry was positioned dead in the center, far from the walls and a goodly distance from any furniture. While he was incredibly careful, his siblings often were not. Shaun had this obnoxious habit of pretending to be a monster, and when he was in one of those moods, he would destroy anything in his path; Geybrial actually enjoyed getting into fights with the servants’ children, often resulting in damaged furniture; and Mak…well, she was just learning how to walk, but if she should happen to crawl into the sitting room and try to use Emry’s easel to pull herself up to her feet…

In deference to his siblings, Emry had set up his easel in a manner that would ensure the least amount of damage should any accidents occur. It also ensured that whoever was speaking to him had not left the room.

“Where are you hiding?” he asked, immediately ducking down to look underneath couches, chairs, tables…but there was no one there.

“I am not hiding. I am right here,” the voice said, again from just over his shoulder.

Emry stood up straight, his heart pounding. This was not possible. The voice was far too young to be Miss Bertra, and she was still snoring in the corner, anyway.

A ghost. A ghost was talking to him.

“I am not a ghost, silly. I am a person, just like you,” the voice insisted.

“Then why can’t I see you?” he asked, his voice thin and trembling.

“Because I am not there.”

“But you just said you were here,” he argued.

“Of course. I am here. But I am not there. Where you are,” she explained. Sort of.

“Oh. Um…okay.” He had no idea what was going on, and he was frightened. He should wake up Miss Bertra…

“I would not do that,” the voice advised, and Emry finally realized that she was reading his thoughts. His level of fear tripled. Now he was too terrified to move, let alone call out to Miss Bertra. “Good. Because she would never believe you anyway, and her breath stinks.”

Her breath did stink. But how could she possibly know that? And just who was she, anyway?

“I am a friend,” she announced. “I have been watching you for a little while, and now I know why it was you. You do not have any friends. Just like me. So we are going to be each other’s friends.”

Emry was still confused, but surely if this invisible person wanted to be his friend, then she did not mean him any harm. So he could relax a little bit. Right? Then why wasn’t he relaxing?

“It is a lot to take in,” she agreed sagely, sounding far older than she had only a moment ago. “You should sit down, maybe.”

He immediately plopped down on the nearest chaise, staring blankly at his half-finished painting. “W-what is your name?” he managed to ask out loud.

Her response was something long and far too complex for his already stunned brain to comprehend.

“Emmi…what?”

She repeated the name. It did not sound a bit shorter the second time around.

“Can I just call you Emmi?”

She sighed, and he could almost imagine her breath on the back of his ear. His ears stuck out a little bit, and Geybrial was constantly teasing him about it. “I suppose so,” she allowed.

“So why don’t you have any friends?” Emry wondered, regaining his wits enough to ask her a question without stammering.

“Because I do not know anyone.”

“Well, you do not have to know people to try and befriend them,” he advised, having received similar advice from his mother once. Telling someone else and actually following the advice himself were two entirely different concepts, however.

“It is not that I have not tried, though I suppose if I could try, I would be very scared. But I really do not know anyone,” she insisted.

“You…you live alone?” he guessed.

“Yes.”

“But your parents…”

“I do not have any parents. I do not know what happened to them, but I guess they died.”

She must be very old, then, if she lived all by herself. The only people Emry knew who lived by themselves were always around his parents’ ages. No kids ever got to live by themselves – unfortunately.

“Stop picturing me as some old hag. I am not old,” Emmi insisted. “Things are different where I am.”

“And where are you?”

“That is a secret, Emry Damarkin. Maybe I will tell you one day. Now, are you going to finish the picture? I saw the house, too, and I think I can help. I have a really good memory.”

So he rose to his feet and started to paint again, gradually coming to accept that Emmi was not a ghost, or if she was a ghost, then she was at least a friendly one. Together, they recreated his mother’s house with the utter imperfection of children, but even though the walls were a little crooked and the grass was more yellow than green, Emry’s mother still smiled when she saw the painting. She said it was the loveliest thing she had ever seen.

It was the loveliest thing Emry had ever seen, too. Not because it symbolized a home or a long-ago past, but because it symbolized, for him, something far greater.

That painting was the start of a long and very satisfying friendship. The best…the only…Emry Damarkin would have for a very long time.