Shadow Breakers (20 page)

I smile back at him, and I see something in his mischievous eyes behind that floppy hair. What is it? Trust, affection, friend-liness? Or something more? For the moment, I can't tell.

It looks like we are back in business.

Whatever happens.

• • •

My name is Miranda Keira May. I am thirteen years old, and I'm an ordinary girl, living an extraordinary life.

In this place at the edge of the world, my friends and I see things we're not supposed to see. And we know things we're not meant to know. About ghosts and demons and conspiracies. In this place where the land meets the sea, where fantasy meets reality, where dreams meet wakefulness. This town of history, of myth, of secrets. Of life at the borders of what you call reality. The stuff the authorities haven't got time for, the tales your parents tell you are just stories.

There's a darkness falling across the land, and we can see it. And we're being trained by our mentor, Miss Bellini, to face it.

We're just a bunch of kids — the perfect front for the perfect undercover organization. We investigate the weird, understand the strange, think the unthinkable, restore the balance of the world.

You'd better believe in us. We're here to save you.

Nobody else will.

You see, this is how it is, this is the way the world turns. This is what I've learned.

That darkness at the edge of town, the whisper in the grass like a passing ghost, the shapes in the corner of your room, the shadows outside in the streetlights, and the things that come in your dreams . . .

They all tell us something.

There is more to this existence than I ever imagined. There is more to this life than I could ever have known.

These things come from another place. And they're all real. As real as streets, and houses, and cars. As real as your family, and your friends. As real as fear, and as real as pain and regret.

And as real as love.

I would like to thank Arts Council England for providing a gener
ous grant, which contributed greatly to my being able to complete
the earliest draft of this novel, and also my friend, the poet Rob Hindle, for giving me the inspiration to apply in the first place.

Thanks to the Chicken House team for their enthusiasm, and helpful and constructive input at all times, and to Caroline Montgomery for being such a hardworking and diligent agent.

As ever, my love to Rachel, Elinor, and Samuel for being my supportive and long-suffering family.

My dad, Brian Edwin Blythe, died a few months before the final draft of this book was completed. It is dedicated to his memory, and the memory of the many times he took me to the library and started a lifelong love of reading.

DANIEL BLYTHE is the author of several tie-in novels for the popular BBC sci-fi television series
Doctor Who
. He studied Modern Languages at Oxford and teaches Creative Writing at Sheffield Hallam University. He lives in Derbyshire, England, with his wife and their two children. Visit his website at
www.danielblythe.com
and follow him on Twitter @danblythewriter.

All rights reserved. Published by Chicken House, an imprint of Scholastic Inc.,
Publishers since 1920.
CHICKEN HOUSE, SCHOLASTIC
, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

www.scholastic.com

First published in the United Kingdom in 2012 as
Shadow Runners
by Chicken House, 2 Palmer Street, Frome, Somerset BA11 1DS.

www.doublecluck.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Blythe, Daniel.

Shadow breakers / by Daniel Blythe. — 1st American ed.

p. cm.

Summary: After moving from London to what seems like a dull seaside town, twelve-year-old Miranda is recruited by a group of friends from school to help identify and stop the evil that is shadowing Miranda and causing weird events in town.

ISBN 978-0-545-47979-0

[1. Good and evil — Fiction. 2. Psychic ability — Fiction. 3. Supernatural — Fiction. 4. Family life — England — Fiction. 5. Moving, Household — Fiction. 6. England — Fiction. 7. Mystery and detective stories.] I. Title.

PZ7.B6279Sh 2013

[Fic] — dc23

2012011273

e-ISBN 978-0-545-52064-5

First American edition, January 2013

Cover design by Natalie C. Sousa

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.