EXCERPT: The Nightland Express

In antebellum America, two teens bury their secrets and join the historic Pony Express, and soon discover the mortal world is not the only one on the brink of war.

Young, poor, and orphaned in rural Missouri, Jessamine Murphy frets over her very pregnant sister, not at all sure how to feed their family until the baby is born, let alone after. When Jessamine comes across a recruitment poster reading “Pony Express Special Assignment: St. Joseph, Missouri to California. Two riders wanted. Orphans preferred,” her tomboy heart skips a beat: not only for the ample risk wage, but for the adventure and the chance to track down their wayward father in California. Jessamine cuts her hair, dons a pair of pants, and steps into the world as Jesse.
At the Pony Express station, Jesse meets Ben Foley, a quiet but determined boy, so secretive about his origin story there is little doubt it must be turbulent, and they become partners. They are an odd pair—one excitedly navigating the world as a boy for the first time, the other a mixed-race young man trying to defend his freedom—yet their esteem for each other grows as they head west across the United States. As they encounter mysterious portals that carry them miles in an eyeblink and unusual creatures with uncanny glowing eyes, it becomes clear that this is no normal mission. A second, magical realm exists just below the surface of the mortal one, intertwined since the beginning of time—but the divisive violence of colonization and war are tearing the two worlds apart. As Ben and Jesse struggle to find themselves, they discover their unlikely alliance may be the only thing that will save them . . . and the creatures and environment of two struggling worlds.

YOUNG, SKINNY, WIRY FELLOWS
not over eighteen. Must be expert
riders, willing to risk death daily.

Ben winced as the hurried razor nicked him. He bit his tongue to stay still, watched his mother Penny’s hands in the mirror as they flicked across his scalp with the straight-edge and lopped off his curls. Shaving away the last visible sign of her from him until all that remained was his father, staring back.

When she was done, she wiped his head with a wet cloth and rested her hands on his shoulders.

“I don’t want to go,” he told her. He couldn’t see her face in the mirror, just her hands. Behind them both, he could see the open door of their one-room shack. The morning was young, green and white broken by the cobalt blue of the bottle-tree in the yard.

“I know,” she said, voice coming down from above. “But you must. Before they return from the funeral.”

The thought awoke a hot, familiar, trembling feeling. Anxious and afraid, it twitched and writhed like a worm burrowed deep in his gut and chest.

“Come with me.” He’d asked so many times. Pleaded. Maybe this time she would change her mind.

“You’ll get twice as far without me, the way we look,” she replied. The same reply as always. “Walk in daylight. Run in moonlight. That’s your magic, Ben. Your power. Use it. Get as far away from here as you can. Don’t you worry about me.”

“Then I’ll find a place where we can be,” he said. “I’ll come back to you and we’ll go there together . . . I promise.”

She didn’t answer with words. Instead, she pulled him against her, stroked his head and hummed. Her voice soothed the wriggling, ugly shape inside him. He resisted at first. He was a man now, sixteen. Not a boy.

He gave up and closed his eyes, letting her enfold him in her warmth and song for what he feared would be the final time. The world went away, and he let it, for he knew that all too soon, it would be over.

It reminded her of the dead fawn their dog had found in the thicket a few miles off the farm, tiny and still wet from birth. Stuck-to with maple leaves, hanging limp out of the hound’s mouth. They’d dug a little grave and left a candle to burn out over it.

Jessamine set down the shears and ran her hand along the back of her neck, feeling the jagged, thick hem of her hair. She wondered if she should put her braid in the ground, too.

Alice was in the front yard chopping wood, which she insisted on doing even eight months pregnant. Her bangs, a browner shade of red, were matted with sweat. She wrung her hands round the handle of the axe when she saw Jessamine.

Jessamine rolled her eyes and strode past her older sister—indignant strides were easier in trousers—and chucked the braid into the brush beyond the yard.

“The meadowlarks can make a nest of it, I reckon,” she remarked. “How do I look?”

Alice set down the axe and looked Jess up and down, taking in the shirt and vest, trousers and boots. The slacks were cuffed up inside the boots, the cinched belt made her waistline pucker, and the vest was stitched in at the sides for fit. Though Jessamine was tall for her age, she was still shorter than most sixteen year old boys.

“It ain’t natural, Jess. Aunt Mary says so. A woman riding a horse astride like that.”

“Aunt Mary says it’ll stop you from bearing children, and that’ll be the end of you!”

“Aunt Mary says if you look a leprechaun in the eye and say his name three times, he has to tell you where he keeps his lucky gold.”

“It’s not a joke, Jess!” Alice whispered, as if someone were listening from under the planks of the deck. “Little people keep their power in names. And in gold.”

“Listen. You should be happy I’m going to join the Pony. If this works, you can have your sister and your father. The bank won’t take the house and we’ll be warm and well fed through the winter. It’s going to be all right.”

That evening they ate supper in silence, listening to the crackling of the fireplace. Jessamine only had one thing on her mind, but she didn’t run her mouth about it for fear of hurting Alice’s feelings. Her plan had never been a secret, and neither had Alice’s disapproval of it. They had both been there when they saw the flier on the door.

Just like the ones soliciting thin, wiry fellows, it was issued by the Pony Express and said “Pony Express Special Assignment.” “Two riders wanted.”

It even read “Orphans preferred,” but the rest of the assignment details were different. The most startling difference was that the riders would be hired to take a parcel from St. Joe’s all the way to California.

The Pony’s full route was almost two thousand miles, made up of relay and home stations. Dozens of horses and their skinny, young riders.

Jessamine had dreamed of joining the Pony and escaping the growing tensions in Missouri, just her and a horse and a saddle between them. But she’d never thought there’d be a chance to ride all the way to California. It seemed impossible that a rider would be assigned the full route, with no hand-offs or relief riders, but Jesse wasn’t about to argue with destiny. The special Express assignment was the miracle she had wished for.

Edward Murphy had always said traveling the Overland trail was as close to following the anointed path of God as any man was like to get. Laden with terrors and dangers and adventures, rewarding only the most virile with unending milk and honey in the wealth of the west.

In and out of their lives he’d been, craving that ambrosia. Until one day he’d finally left for good.

Now, finally, Jessamine could go after him. She knew what she would say to him, had rehearsed it every night before she slept, weeks before she’d found the flyer and every night since. Daydreamed about the shock on her father’s face slowly changing from surprise that Jessamine had come all the way to Carson City for him to remorse for what he’d done. Understanding that he’d been a cowardly father, a rotten dad. Knowing that the right thing to do was to admit how awful he’d been to Jessamine. To Alice. To both of them. And come home.

If she’d been born a boy, none of this would have mattered. Even without a father, a boy could convince the bank to give them longer. Negotiate some kind of payment plan. But they wouldn’t give the time of day to two girls, one with a bastard in her belly and the other that got the side-eye from everyone in town for her unladylike manner.

They were still human, and hard workers. But it didn’t matter. There was no man of the house, not since Edward Murphy had left. It made Jessamine so mad she could spit.

Alice cleared the table while Jessamine collected the dishes, setting them on the floor for Old Dix to lick. She’d wash them clean in the basin tomorrow, but crumbs attracted mice, especially as the days grew chill. It was too late to go out now, and Jessamine shivered at the thought of the cold water under the late September air.

“When I bring pa back, maybe he’ll have found some of that gold after all, and he can buy us a proper cook-stove. We might as well be living in a cave at this rate.”

She brought Alice a blanket and the two of them sat by the fire. Alice rocked gently in her chair, cradling her belly. Jessamine sat cross-legged on the floor, stitching the final piece of her costume.

“Oscar’s family has a cook-stove,” Alice murmured. “Cast iron, from Charleston. Four burners with an oven, and the iron would keep Faeries out. The advertisement in the Courier said that it will make you cry for joy.”

“Oscar,” Jessamine grumbled. “I’ll give him something to cry about.”

Alice sniffled, not because she had actually started crying yet, but as a warning that she might, if Jessamine didn’t school her tone. They had informally agreed not to mention the young lawman, but Jessamine wasn’t wholly surprised that his name still boiled up. Like a rash. Some good he and his four burners were doing Alice and their baby now.

It brought up something Jessamine had been meaning to say. She reached up and put her hands on Alice’s knitting needles. The wool yarn was thick and rough.

“Alice. Listen. You have to promise not to try and find him while I’m gone. He left you like this. He’s no good. And if something were to happen to you while I’m out west, I couldn’t forgive myself. Hear? Even if you find him, he made it clear what his priorities were when he ran out on you.”

Alice didn’t respond. She found it impossible to lie and they both knew it. It was one of the things that Jessamine found most endearing about her. She squeezed her sister’s hand.

“All I ask of you is that you don’t go looking for trouble named Oscar Montero while I run this little ol’ errand.”

Alice, on the other hand, snored softly under the quilts and blankets while Jessamine stripped off her vest and shirt. While the white light of the morning crept through the cracks in the farmhouse’s old wood walls, Jessamine pulled the final bit of her outfit on over her head. The undershirt was snug and hard to get on, but once she had tugged it down over her chest and most of her ribs, it wasn’t too bad. Back on went her shirt and vest. She snuck into the washroom to steal a moment in the mirror.

Hair tousled from sleep, breasts flattened under the tight shirt she’d sewn, the result was astonishing. She smoothed her hands over her chest and tossed her bangs, watching her reflection with a surprising spark of pride. The person staring back at her was bright-eyed and confident, androgynous and handsome. For the first time in a long time, Jessamine felt she recognized that face in the mirror.

She heard Alice stirring in the main room and splashed some water on her face, ran her fingers through her hair. It was time to go.

“You’ll call on the doc if anything feels strange, right?” she asked as she stuffed rolls and some cheese in a kerchief. “I asked Danny to come round once a day and check on you. And Aunt Mary is planning to come up from Kansas City in two weeks. If anything feels wrong, take Annie into town and someone’ll get you what you need.”

Alice pulled her shawl tight and followed Jessamine to the door. She stood on the porch while Jessamine dressed Morgan, a chestnut gelding with a white blaze down his nose.

“But it’s you I need, Jess. Why can’t you just stay here? We can do all right on our own. Without pa. And without Oscar, even, if that’s what you think is bettermost. We could even go live with Aunt Mary—”

“—but we shouldn’t have to,” Jessamine said. “Edward Murphy helped bring us into this world. The least he could do is provide for us like a respectable father now that we’re here.”

Alice sniffled. Jessamine patted Morgan’s sturdy neck and left him to meet her sister on the porch.

“You ain’t simple. Listen. I’ll be back before the baby comes. Draggin’ pa by his bootstraps if I have to. Okay? I promise.”

Out of her shawl came a dried flower. It was delicate and flattened from one of Alice’s books, its little white, star-shaped blossoms paper-thin and fragile. She tucked it in Jessamine’s vest pocket.

“Jasmine,” she pointed out. She smiled. “Your namesake. So you don’t forget where you came from.”

Jessamine wrapped her sister in a hug from the side, making room for the baby but squeezing tight.

Then, to keep any more tears from falling between them, Jessamine turned away. The worn leather seat of Morgan’s saddle was warming under the rising sun. With a cluck and a nudge the horse was off, and Jessamine was on her way to St. Joe’s.

A dozen brick buildings stood backed by the blue autumn sky. They squatted proudly over clusters of smaller buildings like red hens over clutches of eggs. Main Street cut between them, full of horses, ox-drawn wagons, and young white boys offering to do anything and everything for a penny.

“On your way to the California Road, mister? I got dried beans, just a nickel a quart! Gallon molasses, fifty cents!”

“Public meeting of the state of the Union!” This time it was a less-young white boy pushing a different ask: a flier into Ben’s chest. He was immediately off to pin his broadside to the next man. “Defend our rights! Vote Breckinridge!”

Ben crumpled the paper and threw it in the street without reading it. He already knew what it said—”Defend our rights”—and what it meant. The second half of the sentence was implied: To own slaves.

The call to arms, in all its versions, flitted along the streets of every border city from Kentucky to Missouri. Many simply depicted an image of a black man with a cane and top hat, as if the mere image would be enough to convince anyone of the cause. The fliers flew in the wind like flags marking territory already won. Ben wanted to burn every one of them.

But he couldn’t. He pulled his hat down further over his brow. He had to push through. And keep pushing, all the way to California. That was the only way to make good on his promise.

He took the folded flier from his breast pocket and confirmed the address of the Pony Express Headquarters. REGISTER AT THE PATEE HOUSE HQ, the flier read: 1202 PENN STREET. Only a few blocks away.

The Patee House building took up a full block, red brick with white trim, big arched windows on the ground floor, and rectangular ones on every floor above. It had been a luxury hotel since it had been built in ’58. Ben guessed that not one of those fancy rooms was empty, even so late in the season; St. Joe’s was one of the busiest jumping-off places on the California Road.

Jumping-off place. The phrase reminded Ben of a dock over a river, steady with settlers heading west. For land, for gold, for whatever they could get. Family after family, each with their fleet of wagons, bartering and begging. Preparing for a journey along the Overland Trail from St. Joe’s to Sacramento that would take most families months, if not years. Through Kansas and Nebraska prairie and the Rockies, through Salt Lake Valley and the unforgiving southwestern desert.

Hundreds of thousands had been making the journey since ’55, and some before then, hoping to hit it big in the land of gold and honey. But traveling two thousand miles with a family and all their belongings? Ben couldn’t imagine it. Good thing he had neither.

The quiet office was empty except for the clerk, who glanced over his spectacles and Gazette when Ben doffed his hat and entered. A painting of the Pony Express founders hung on the back wall: Russell, Majors and Waddell. The three suited business men whose partnership formed the basis of the country’s most beloved and patriotic enterprise.

“I’m here to register for the Pony,” he said, pushing every ounce of white inflection into the words. He’d found the first impression was the most important; if he could pass in the first moment, there was never a second glance.

That was the case now. The clerk saw a white boy with green eyes and a tan. He nodded at Ben’s brow. “What happened to your hair, son?”

“Caught fire,” he said. “Would’ve burned my eyebrows off, too, if it weren’t for the loving embrace of the Platte.”

The clerk chuckled at the idea of the brown, slow moving Platte River being anything but dank sludge. Ben unfolded the flier he’d found nailed to the fence-post out front his father’s property line, placed the sheet on the desk. The clerk let his spectacles slide down his nose to read it. He forgot all about Ben’s shaved head and tabled the Gazette.

“Hm. Stationmaster Declan’s special assignment, eh?” He peered up at Ben, eyelids heavy with doubt. “You sure?”

The clerk took a long look at Ben and he resisted the urge to turn away and hide his face. Maybe this was a stupid idea. If he went back to Penny now, she’d still be there. It would be bad, but at least they would be together. Maybe they could find another way.

But the clerk just shrugged and turned in his chair. Yanked open a drawer full of paperwork and slapped a simple, bare-bones form on the counter.

“Sign here and record your emergency contact. Bring the form to the station where they’re hiring for the assignment. If you get the job, it’ll serve as your employment contract. If you get thrown out of the saddle and break every bone, it’ll serve as a safety waiver.” As Ben read the form, the clerk added, “Or to let us know where to send your body.”

Ben didn’t hesitate. The regular fliers for the Pony Express read “Orphans preferred” for a reason. It was a dangerous job, and it wasn’t a stretch to believe that a special assignment for the same company might be even riskier. He took the form and folded it, along with his flier, and slipped it in his breast pocket alongside the other piece of paper hidden there. The three sheets that documented his life: his past, his present, and—he hoped—his future.

“Sir, I’ve been in the saddle since I was a baby, driving cattle and sheep. I didn’t come all the way here from Louisville to turn back now.”

“Stables are down the street,” he said. “And you’d better hurry; I think they’re starting soon. Majors himself is here for the hiring.”

Ben nodded, shoving his hat on his head before hurrying down the hall. He shouldered out the door, nearly barreling over a slender white boy with dark copper hair who was on his way in.

“Watch it!” the boy snapped in a high, almost sweet voice. His glare, on the other hand, had nothing palatable about it. Ben would have liked to admire such a pretty face, but he had a one-way ticket to California to earn, so he settled for a polite tip of the hat before he jogged out into the bustle of Penn Street.

The Pony Express stables were a modest brick building in front of a grassy stable yard, practically in spitting distance from the Patee House. Past the stable yard were the actual stables, sheltering half a dozen hardy horses of all colors: morgans and thoroughbreds, some famously plucked from cavalry ranks. The beasts were the lifeblood of the Pony Express.

He followed the cracking, uneven laughter of boys and hopped the log fence, rounding the stable and entering the yard. Young men, aged fifteen to eighteen, stood around, most of them thin and trying to look manly in shirts and trousers borrowed from fathers or older brothers.

He sized up his competition. There were eight of them—seven boys and one girl, Ben realized, dressed up like a boy with her blond hair tucked in her hat and her body drowning in a boy’s shirt and trousers. They were being observed by a handful of aloof young men, who leaned against the fence in riding clothes and deerskin jackets. They each had an orange necktie hanging at their collars—Pony riders, they were. Real ones.

Ben tried not to envy those neckties too much. He didn’t want them to notice him noticing them. He wanted to stay as invisible as possible. This afternoon, he told himself, he would wear one of those neckties round his neck. Then he’d lay eyes on the green hills of California in as soon as a week. Build the house he’d dreamed of. Make a plan to find Penny and bring her there, too.

A tall man in a black coat called them over. He had a thick beard and the stiff posture of a long-time businessman. Ben recognized him from the photograph in the clerk’s office. It was Alexander Majors, as tall and gaunt as Ben imagined Abraham Lincoln might be, from the stories Penny had told.

“Sad lot, aren’t they?” The apple-sweet voice from earlier popped up from Ben’s shoulder. The pretty boy from the Patee House stood beside him. From his clean skin and clothes, skinny arms and soft, shining hair, Ben wondered if he’d ever worked a day in the life. To someone from that life, anything less must seem sad.

The boy snorted, then chuckled. He pointed at his neck, decorated with no orange necktie, and waved his own copy of the special assignment flier.

“Sorry. Sad lot, aren’t we,” the boy said, voice softening. Then, as an afterthought, he said, “Jesse Murphy.”

“Ben Foley,” he replied. They shook hands. Murphy’s was slender, but calloused in the palm, no doubt from reins and horse tack, holding an ax and other farm tools. Maybe Ben had been too quick to judge. “Best of luck in whatever’s coming next.”

Jesse’s eyes twinkled. “When I win, luck will have nothing to do with it,” he said.

Ben raised a brow. Took a certain kind of boy to have confidence like that. A certain kind of boy, or a certain kind of upbringing, anyway.

“Now then. As you’re aware, we’ve a special assignment requiring two riders. The supervisor of the assignment has requested fresh blood, and he is seeking a certain manner and demeanor which will befit the unprecedented nature of the assignment.”

Majors spoke in a slow, proper Kentucky drawl—like Ben’s father—and for a moment Ben felt like he was a child in an outdoor schoolyard, being instructed in letters and numbers. Not that he had ever attended school, of course. That had been an occasion and activity bestowed only to his half-brother. But Randall had found no qualms describing the experience in great detail, and as a child Ben had committed the fantasy to heart.

“Thus, any one of you is eligible, regardless of your riding experience or the status of any noteworthy referral.”

Majors paused to clear his throat, looking down at the ground for a breath, as if he were repressing any personal objections to this unprecedented vetting process.

“On what criteria are we to be judged?” asked one of the boys. He, like all of them, had already sized up his competition and was kicking at the toes to be on with it.

“Speed, horsemanship, and understanding the rules,” Majors replied. “This is the Pony Express, after all. Now then. There is a welcome sign on the eastern side of town. On the back of it is a basket, and in it are ten orange neckties, one for each of you. And there are ten horses in the stable yonder—again, one for each of you. The first two riders to bring back one of those neckties will be hired.”

Majors was unimpressed. He flicked a stray sliver of stable hay from his shoulder.

Ben turned when he heard Murphy bolt from beside him, taking off like a minnie from a shotgun. The commotion spurred Ben’s side and he leaped into a sprint for the stables, shooting a glance over his shoulder for only a second. Murphy was headed away from the stables at top speed. Where was that kid going?

Ben slowed as he reached the stable aisle. The horses were alert to the sounds of running men, ears perked and pawing. But these horses were bred and trained for the Express. Ben laid eyes on a lovely blue roan mare and swung himself into her saddle. She was well-trained and ready, charging out of the stable and into the busy St. Joseph street.

It was not the open road race he’d hoped for. Wagons and people criss-crossed the street and meandered like twigs in a river. Ben’s horse wasn’t shy—on the contrary, she was prancing and eager to run—but there was simply no avenue through.

Ben heard other boys on their horses behind him; only four had made it out of the stables on a horse so far, the others probably struggling to get in the saddle.

Jesse Murphy, astride a chestnut gelding with a white blaze on his nose, shouted down at a family standing on the curb. They scattered like minnows in a lake, triggering a ripple through the body of people. As a lane cleared, Murphy tapped his heel into his horse’s side and they were water bursting through a dam, breaking free and charging down the road.

“Out of the way, please,” Ben called. It got some traction with the pedestrians on the road, but not enough. He groaned, watching Murphy and his gelding pulling further and further ahead. Behind him, the other boys were struggling and gaining. He couldn’t fall behind.

It worked. Seconds later, he and his mare were fast after Murphy, pounding down the main street of St. Joseph as people jumped out of their path. The welcome sign, jutting from a stone pedestal, loomed ahead, and within seconds, Murphy reached it, leaping from the saddle and dashing toward the pedestal. Ben made it seconds later, running up behind the other boy. Over his shoulder he heard the chaos of their incoming competition.

Murphy had found the basket full of neckties. As Majors had promised, there were ten, one for each of the riders. And Murphy was shoving every last one into his coat pockets.

“Making sure I win,” Murphy said. “But I guess there’s two spots in the roster.” He pushed one of the ties into Ben’s hand and winked.

Then he dashed for his horse, up in the saddle like he’d been born there. His horse reared and they were off, racing into the six inbound riders, who would soon find they’d been cheated. Majors had said the test was about understanding the rules. If the rules were taken strictly, without a necktie the other boys couldn’t win.

But there was no time to debate Jesse Murphy’s morality. Not if Ben wanted to win, too.

His boots stopped in the gravel as he hurried back to his mare. A necktie lay crumpled on the road. It must have fallen from Murphy’s coat when his horse had reared. Ben had only a moment before the others would make the spot, but in that moment all he could think of was California.

The moment passed. Ben snatched the loose necktie from the ground and vaulted into his mare’s saddle just as the dirt clouded with the hooves of the other riders.

Ben’s roan mare was a blur down Penn Street. The other boys shouted after him, now not only inferior riders but hobbled by anger. One of the horses had enough and threw her boy. He tumbled to the street and cried out when something snapped and broke. Ben kept his attention forward. Now and again he thought he saw flashes of chestnut ahead, but it wasn’t until he slowed and landed back in the stable yard that he confirmed for certain that Murphy had returned first.

And there he was, like a little dandelion seed, standing in front of Majors and a second, enormous man. Together, the three watched Ben arrive, the large man puffing on his pipe so great clouds of gray smoke bubbled over his head.

“Here, sir,” Ben said, breathless. He held up the necktie as proof, though in his other hand he shoved the second deeper into his pocket.

“First and second. It seems you and Mr. Murphy are the winners,” Majors said. His dour tone had no inflection of either praise or disappointment. “And just in time to meet your new employer: Mister Darcy Declan, the stationmaster at French Bottoms.”

The man with the pipe was even larger up close. He was both tall and wide, dressed in a long black tailcoat. Under his stovepipe hat fell black curls that matched his impressive mustache, and he looked out into the street with the weight of a mountain. Ben lowered his eyes out of respect, staring instead at the big man’s golden vest buttons.

The first rider to arrive jumped off his horse made straight for Ben, pushing his sleeves up past his elbows. Ben widened his stance, a coiling shape in his breast coming to life, readying every muscle in his body for a fight. But the boy didn’t make it past Stationmaster Declan, who held him back with a hand that engulfed the boy’s entire shoulder.

“They should be disqualified. Mr. Majors said this was about understanding the rules.”

The others dissolved into a caucus of accusations. Ben kept his mouth shut, clutching the necktie in his hand. He saw Murphy doing the same, though the boy’s eyes still had the flicker of lightning. Ben pushed down the knots writhing in his stomach. He couldn’t lose this. This meant everything! If Murphy hadn’t cheated, they might have won fair and square, and now . . .

The stationmaster’s intimidating gaze only fell upon the boys that had lost, the shadow of his attention silencing them with a mighty weight.

“And as far as I can see,” he said, with a voice heavy as pipe tobacco, “only two of you returned with neckties.”

Copyright © 2021 by J.M. Lee. Excerpted from The Nightland Express by J.M. Lee. Published by permission of Erewhon Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the author.

J.M. (Joe) Lee is a Minneapolis author, illustrator and writing mentor with a background in linguistics and film. He was the winner of the prestigious Jim Henson’s the Dark Crystal Author Quest and author of Shadows of the Dark Crystal, the official prequel fantasy novel to the 1982 classic fantasy film. You can find Joe at his website: joeyverse.com.

EXCERPT: The Nightland Express (Erewhon Books)

J.M. Lee | 5961 words