Some songs aren’t meant to exist.
When sixteen-year-old Emma receives a mysterious Beatles record—a cover of The Girl Can’t Help It, a song they never recorded, her life changes in ways she never imagined. Grieving her grandmother’s death and lost in the heavy fog of depression, Emma doesn’t expect much from the strange package. But the moment the needle drops, magic ripples through the world.
Angels shiver. Dragons stir in their hoards. Vampires feel an ancient hunger awaken. The song calls to them all, and it calls to Emma too. For the first time since her grandmother’s death, Emma feels something spark inside her: hope. But magic has a price, and the Dark has heard the song as well.
To protect the record, Emma must venture into the Hidden States of America—a surreal, shadowed version of the country where myth and reality blur. It’s a country shaped by the stories we tell and the secrets we keep, where ordinary towns hide extraordinary truths.
As Emma struggles to carry the song to where it belongs, she’ll have to confront her grief, face her deepest fears, and discover if she has the strength to resist the pull of the Dark.
From Patrick de Moss, the acclaimed author of Kings of Nowhere, comes a darkly magical tale of loss, courage, and the power of music to heal even the deepest wounds. This is a story that explores the fragile beauty of hope and the strength it takes to face the shadows.
Rare is a spellbinding modern fable. Every note of the song of this story echoes with both wonder and danger. Some songs can change the world. Some songs can change you.
EXCERPT
Far, far away to the east, in New York City, where magic and power and rumor swirled in their own urban galaxy, a very ancient and powerful creature lived in the highest tower money could buy. While many of his kind lived and worked in the greater New York area, coiled around the rise and fall of stocks and bonds in an endless dance of power and wealth, he was by far the oldest in that den of snakes. He was old enough that his thick fingers still dreamed of worn gold coins and his body of piles of treasure beneath his scales. Now, of course, he slept only on damask of the finest quality, spread over a memory foam mattress—nowhere near as comfortable as cold hard cash.
That night, he was window shopping, his hungry eye roving over page after page of the most exotic goods Sotheby’s online could offer.
If one lived long enough, even the most exquisite meals tasted like ashes on the tongue; breathe often enough, and even bottled air from Everest smelled stale and flat. He could hardly be bothered to hide his own nature when he was alone—the secret theater of the Council and its Compact had been a bit of a thrill for a while, but Mr. Drake—just Drake to his friends—was getting bored.
He yawned, and his long, forked tongue spilled out, unfurling and flicking against his human nose. No one was around to see it, so he wasn’t breaking the Law, and besides, he missed all the parts of his true shape quite badly. Missed a herd of sheep’s eyes rolling in terror. Probably lamb again tonight, from that place on the other side of Broadway.
Mr. Drake’s lair took up the entire upper floor of his tall tower in the center of the city, wide rooms filled with the carcasses of kingdoms burned to the ground beneath his fearsome will. Company logos on banners from decades past, those battle standards of board members who had crumbled and fallen to their knees in merger upon acquisition upon merger. Darwin had certainly been on the money about the adaptation of species. In the face of adversity, Drake and the rest of his kind had thrived, but—
But he wanted to spread his wings high above his head, soar over the crescent moon, sweep down on farmland and gout flame from his throat; the glorious crescendo of a sun going supernova. Instead, he stoked another cigar, the smoke curling from his nose a pacifying reminder of who he had to be now.
His cellphone lit up, vibrating on the long cocobolo desk. Drake looked down at it with a grimace and tapped the screen with one stubby finger.
“Drake,” he said. “How do you have this number?”
“I have my ways, Old One.”
He was in the middle of pouring himself another whiskey, ready to tear this joker a new set of holes, when he recognized the voice and sighed.
“Old One, is it? When was your sweet sixteen, Morgan?”
“Oh well, you know me,” The Hollow Woman sounded far too cheery for his tastes. “Evergreen.”
Drake snorted.
“Isn’t it still daylight on your side of the world? Why don’t you go out and catch some rays, you old hag? Go get a tan. Would be good for the both of us.”
“Have it your way,” Morgan said sweetly. “Don’t trouble yourself with little old me, then.”
“I won’t,” he snarled, and hung up. Smoke was starting to waft down from the high ceilings, having pooled there in those short minutes on the phone. The AC here was top notch, of course, the best AC in the city, but nothing manmade could keep up with his kind’s distemper. He flipped through a few more pages on Sotheby’s, but quickly, rapidly stabbing his finger on the mouse. He tried to hum something to himself, and his phone buzzed again.
“All right. This is getting old pretty fast,” he said. “Spit it out already and go away. What do you want?”
“Want? Oh, darling Drake, not a thing. Not a single thing.”
He laughed, a deep rumble like an earthquake, the magma pushing up beneath the surface.
“Wanting is what you’re for, Morgan. Maybe you forgot?”
“Well, now. Maybe you’re not interested.” She was almost purring. Purring! “I’m sure one of your brothers will be.” And she hung up on him.
Author Bio:
Playwright, poet, prose writer, as well as former gravedigger, hotline psychic, line cook, chef, waiter and a few other things in between, Patrick de Moss lives and works in St. John's, Newfoundland.
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