Page 1 of Bombshell

Prologue

61 years before our story…

The sisters had been whispering to each other all night.

It definitely wasn’t anything good, that much was obvious. I always knew when they were talking about something serious because they were using their branches rather than their mouths.

I also knew it was about me because I was the only one in the entire grove who didn’t have branches to talk with.

They were all tree nymphs, one of the oldest species of supernatural in the world. Sister Madrone, who was the proudest of the sisters, always made sure to repeat that we weren’t just any nymphs like the other elements that thrived along the coast of California. No, we’d been given an ancient name long ago that many rarely ever used anymore: dryads.

But it didn’t really matter what they were called. Dryad or nymph. I wasn’t like them. I was different.

Unlike the sisters—who were actually my aunts—my skin was not made of tree bark. Actually, I didn’t take after the many species of trees that lined the coastline. I didn’t grow leaves frommy head, nor did my eyes have the same upturned shape like those of my aunts. I was different, and up until a few months ago, it hadn’t really bothered me. Not until the word mule was tossed out one evening when one of the sisters grew frustrated with me.

Despite knowing who my mother was, they always talked about how absurdlyhuman-likeI looked. My skin was pale and soft, almost smooth save for the freckles that grew the tiniest of clover buds. Like my aunts, my hair was green, but stringy and fluttery. It didn’t sway in the wind or make crackling sounds the same way their leaves did.

The only part about me that was even close to looking like my aunts was the long vines sprouting from my back. Eight of them to be exact. Aunt Oak, who detested anything creepy and crawly, sometimes shuddered when she saw them and told me that I looked like a spider only to be hushed by Aunt Willow who was always on my side.

She’d been the closest to my mother before my birth had ended their millennium-long sisterhood forever.

I was the strangest thing living in the beautiful grove we called home. The only thing close to being as odd as I was, was little sister Lilypad who’d been born between a water nymph and a tree nymph and still looked like a little baby despite being nearly my age.

But at least Lilypad hadn’t killed her mother.

Nymphs could mate with other nymphs with ease—even if it was generally frowned upon—but a human and anymph?

That had never been done before.

One of the earliest memories I had was one of my birthdays and Aunt Oak devolved into piteous sobs about the loss of my mother Elowyn and how it should never have happened.

Abomination. That was what she called me, and while I didn’t know what the word meant at the time, I knew that it wasn’t a good thing. I added it into the words that they called me when they thought I wasn’t listening to them. Abomination, mule, halfling, science experiment, and more.

“Effie belongs here. With us,” Aunt Willow insisted, speaking for the first time since they’d started their argument fifteen minutes ago. I perked up from where I was seated on one of the great roots of one of the grandmother trees and peeked around her massive trunk just in time to see Willow withdraw the branches that made up her hands away from Aunt Oak and Aunt Alnus.

“She cannot stay with us forever, Willow. Even you must see that she grows faster than her peers. She should be with her own people,” Aunt Alnus, who was the oldest and wisest of the sisters, murmured just loud enough for me to hear. “Besides, her father wants her. Does he not have a right to his daughter?”

Her words made a pit of unease form in my stomach. The word ‘father’ was foreign to me.

There were no men within our grove. Nymphs did not require them to procreate amongst themselves, so the only ones I’d seen were the ones who brought supplies up the mountain for me as I couldn’t live off of sunlight and rainfall like my aunts could.

The aunts had mentioned this father more and more over the past few months and I couldn’t help but be curious.

I barely looked like the nymphs, so would I resemble him at all? Did I want to resemble him? I just wanted to belong and up until this point I thought Ididbelong with the sisters. They were my family and they always talked about how family was supposed to stick together and protect one another.

But now as they spoke I realized that I’d never fit in with them. Not completely.

“That man is no better than a mad scientist—” Aunt Oak was cut off by the rest of the sisters shushing her.

The grandmother tree I was sitting on pulsed under my hands, telling me that it had probably been her that had warned the aunts that I was nearby and could hear them.

Nymphs didn’t age. At least not in the way that I was told that human people usually did. They could live forever, but even then time still eventually affected them too. As the sisters aged their bodies would start to grow in size and their mobility would lessen until their legs became roots and they became one of the trees in the forest.

The sisters called it the final transition, and once it happened the former sisters were now grandmothers and with it, the ability to speak with their mouths was lost.

The grandmother tree underneath me had transitioned within my lifetime. Aunt Fir had been mischievous and always liked to carry me on her shoulders high above the grove, pointingout the glittering ocean in the distance and the little tiny town that lit up like magic during the night.

Next to Aunt Willow, she’d been the closest to me, and now outside of little pulses, I couldn’t talk to her at all.

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