The House in the Cerulean Sea (Cerulean Chronicles, #1)

by T.J. Klune

He couldn’t believe it was only Wednesday. And it was made worse when he realized it was actually Tuesday.

Conundrum. Linus didn’t like to lie about anything. Even little white lies caused his head to ache. And once one started lying, it became easier to do it again and again until one had to keep track of hundreds of lies. It was easier to be honest.

Calliope, a thing of evil, sat on the edge of his bed, black tail twitching as she watched him with bright green eyes. She started purring. In most cats, it would be a soothing sound. In Calliope, it indicated devious plotting involving nefarious deeds.

He’d accepted long ago that some people, no matter how good their heart was or how much love they had to give, would always be alone.

He absolutely did not scream, no matter the evidence to the contrary.

It wasn’t bad. It was worse.

You will be staying at the guest house on the island, and we suggest locking all the doors and windows at night to avoid any … disturbances.

“It can’t be any worse because there’s nothing wrong with any of them. They’re children.”

“To ensure the safety of the children,” he said as if it were second nature. “To see that they are being provided for. Cared for. And that they aren’t in danger, either from themselves or others.”

It doesn’t matter where he came from. Or what he is. He is a child, and your job, as much as it is mine or Arthur’s, is to protect him. And all the others.”

Just because you have decided that all magical beings need to be tagged in the wild for tracking doesn’t give you the right to question me or my legal status.”

“They fear what they don’t understand. And that fear turns to hate for reasons I’m sure even they can’t begin to comprehend. And since they don’t understand the children, since they fear them, they hate them. This can’t be the first time you’ve heard of this. It happens everywhere.”

And she (because she was a she, beard and all), reached up and straightened her cap.

“Are you Mr. Baker? If you are, we’ve been expecting you. If not, you’re trespassing, and you should leave before I bury you here in my garden. No one would ever know because the roots would eat your entrails and bones.” She frowned again. “I think. I’ve never buried anyone before. It would be a learning experience for the both of us.”

I’ve always wanted to see if humans make good fertilizer. It seems like they would.” She eyed him up and down hungrily. “All that flesh.”

the fact that there was a weapon of mass destruction in the body of a six-year-old and the world wasn’t prepared was simply shocking.

Are you ill? If you are, I think we should go back to the garden so you can die there. I don’t want to have to drag you all the way back.

Sal, the large boy who had to weigh at least 150 pounds, was gone. But not completely. Because he had turned into a five-pound Pomeranian.

The air, the floors, the very walls that surrounded them.

“I am evil incarnate,” the dastardly voice said. “I am the blight upon the skin of this world. And I will bring it to its knees. Prepare for the End of Days! Your time has come, and the rivers will run with the blood of the innocents!” Talia sighed. “He’s such a drama queen.”

so when faced with a perceived threat, and even though everything felt topsy-turvy, Linus did the only thing he could: He moved to protect the children.

He could barely see the flowers just off the porch. Everything else was lost to the darkness. It was as if the night were a living thing and had consumed the world. Linus’s skin felt electrified.

Lucy looked exactly as he had in the photograph. His black hair was windswept, and his eyes were red and ringed with blue. He looked so small, but the smile on his face was twisted into a sneer, and his fingers were twitching at his sides, as if he were barely restraining himself from reaching out and tearing Linus limb from limb.

Flames began to rise behind him, though they didn’t seem to burn the house, and Linus couldn’t feel the heat that should have been pouring off of them.

Lucy groaned, and the red disappeared from his eyes. The fire subsided. The blackness winked out, and the remains of the sunset appeared on the horizon. The stars were bright, and Linus could see the main house across the way.

“our prejudices color our thoughts when we least expect them to. If we can recognize that, and learn from it, we can become better people.

Something fluttered in Linus’s stomach. He thought it must have been something he ate.

There were reasons such laws existed, and while Linus had never understood them, not really, there was nothing he could do about that. Linus knew that people often feared (though he felt that word was coded for something else entirely) what they didn’t understand.

Regardless of his parentage, he is a child. And I refuse to believe that a person’s path is set in stone. A person is more than where they come from.”

Lucy might cause fear in the majority of the world, but he doesn’t cause it in me. I’ve seen what he is capable of. Behind the eyes and the demon in his soul, he is charming and witty and terribly smart. I will fight for him as I would for any of my children.”

he found himself thinking of dark eyes above a quiet smile, and then there was nothing but white.

“Fire and ash!” Lucy bellowed as he paced back and forth. “Death and destruction! I, the harbinger of calamity, will bring pestilence and plague to the people of this world. The blood of the innocents will sustain me, and you will all fall to your knees in benediction as I am your god.”

Expressing Yourself was, according to Mr. Parnassus, an idea that would give the children confidence.

“The things we fear the most are often the things we should fear the least. It’s irrational, but it’s what makes us human. And if we’re able to conquer those fears, then there is nothing we’re not capable of.”

“I am but paper. Brittle and thin. I am held up to the sun, and it shines right through me. I get written on, and I can never be used again. These scratches are a history. They’re a story. They tell things for others to read, but they only see the words, and not what the words are written upon. I am but paper, and though there are many like me, none are exactly the same. I am parched parchment. I have lines. I have holes. Get me wet, and I melt. Light me on fire, and I burn. Take me in hardened hands, and I crumple. I tear. I am but paper. Brittle and thin.”

Ten minutes later, he wished for death.

the parchment attached to the mast. In blocky lettering were the words: LEAVE. WE DON’T WANT YOUR KIND HERE.

no one deserves to be made to feel lesser than they are.”

Just because you don’t experience prejudice in your everyday doesn’t stop it from existing for the rest of us.”

It wouldn’t do. Violence against any child was wrong, no matter what they were capable of.

“They wouldn’t dare,” she said, showing far too many teeth. “The moment they stepped onto my island with the intention of hurting someone in that house, it would be the last thing they’d do.”

LEAVE. WE DON’T WANT YOUR KIND HERE, one side of the parchment said. NO, THANK YOU, the other side said.

Linus was finding himself not only getting used to seeing, but rather looking forward to. He told himself it was because Mr. Parnassus was a cheery fellow, and if this were the real world, perhaps they could have been friends, something that Linus was in short supply of. That was all it was.

Sins seemed to be subjective. Oh, murder was bad, and harming others was too, but was that comparable to someone who’d nicked a candy bar from the corner store when they were nine years old? Because if it was, Linus was destined for Hell given the Crunchie bar he’d slipped into his pocket and consumed late at night while hiding under his comforter.

Linus certainly could be firm when he needed to be, but he did have a weak constitution, and the sight of blood tended to cause him to feel woozy.

A disheveled room is the sign of a disheveled mind. It’s best to keep things clean when possible.”

“I like music that makes me happy. And I like death. It’s strange how people can mix the two. They all died by chance, and then people sang about them after. I like those songs, but not as much as the ones sung by dead people.”

“My brain is filled with spiders burrowing their eggs in the gray matter. Soon they’ll hatch and consume me.”

“Humanity is so weird. If we’re not laughing, we’re crying or running for our lives because monsters are trying to eat us. And they don’t even have to be real monsters. They could be the ones we make up in our heads.

“I suppose. But I’d rather be that way than the alternative.