The Light (1) (Morpheus Road) - Hardcover

MacHale, D.J.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1416965165 ISBN 13: 9781416965169

Publisher: Aladdin, 2010

Synopsis

Marshall Seaver is being haunted. In the first installment of this chillingly compelling trilogy, sixteen-year-old Marshall discovers that something beyond our world is after him. The eerie clues pile up quickly, and when people start dying, it's clear whatever this is--it's huge. 
Marshall has no idea what's happening to him, but he's soon convinced that it has something to do with his best friend Cooper, who's been missing for over a week. Together with Coop's sister, Marsh searches for the truth about what happened to his friend, ultimately uncovering something bigger than he could ever have imagined.

About this title

About the Author:

D.J. MacHale is the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Pendragon series and the Morpheus Road series. He has written, directed and produced many television series and movies for young people that have been seen on Nickelodeon, The Disney Channel, HBO, Showtime, PBS, Discovery Kids, and the broadcast networks. D.J. lives with his family in Southern California.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Prologue

I believe in ghosts.

Simple as that. I believe in ghosts.

Maybe that doesn’t come across as very dramatic. After all, lots of people believe in ghosts. You always hear stories about some guy who felt a “presence” or glimpsed a fleeting, unexplainable phenomenon. There are mediums who claim they can make contact with the great beyond and receive messages to let the living know that all is well. Or not. Then there are those people who operate on a more philosophical level ... the spiritual types who believe that the energy of the human soul is so powerful, it must continue on after death to some other plane of existence. Of course, there are millions of people who love getting scared by ghost stories. They may not believe, but they sure have fun pretending.

I’m not like any of those people. At least not anymore. A little over a week ago you could have put me in the category of somebody who didn’t necessarily believe in anything supernatural, though I did like horror movies. But that was then. Before last week. A week is like ... nothing. How many particular weeks can anybody really remember? A week can fly by like any other. Or it can change your life. You tend to remember those weeks.

I remember last week.

It was the week the haunting began.

Or maybe I should call it the hunting because that’s what it was. I was being hunted. And haunted. It wasn’t a good week.

My name is Marshall Seaver. People call me Marsh. I live in a small town in Connecticut called Stony Brook. It’s a suburb of New York City where moms drive oversize silver trucks to Starbucks and most kids play soccer whether they want to or not. It’s the kind of place where kids are trained from birth to compete. In everything. School, sports, friendships, clothes ... you know, everything. I’m not sure what the point is other than to win bragging rights. Luckily, my parents didn’t buy into that program. They said I should set my own priorities. I liked that. Though it puts pressure on me to figure out what those priorities are.

I guess you’d call us middle class. We’ve only got one car and it’s almost as old as I am. I can’t believe it’s still running, because we drove it into the ground. My parents liked to travel. That was one of their priorities. Whenever they had two days off, we’d hit the road, headed for some national monument or backwater town that served awesome gumbo or had historical significance or maybe just sounded different. I complained a lot about how boring it was, but to be honest, I didn’t hate it. Bumping around in the back of a car wasn’t great, but the adventure of it all made it worthwhile. It’s kind of cool to see things for real instead of on TV. I miss those trips.

Other than that, my life is pretty usual. Unlike a lot of people in this town, I’ve never been inside a country club. Most of my clothes come from Target. I ride my bike to school. We don’t live in a monster-size house, but it’s plenty big enough for the three of us.

That is, when there were still three of us.

Things have changed. Not that long ago I thought I had a pretty good handle on what normal was. I was wrong. Nothing about my life is normal anymore. The events that unfolded over the last week weren’t just about me, either. Many lives were touched and not all for the better. As I look back, I can’t help but wonder what might have happened if different decisions had been made. Different paths taken. So many innocent choices added to a butterfly effect that fed the nightmare. Or created it. I guess it goes without saying that I’m still alive. Not everyone was so lucky. That’s the harsh thing about ghost stories. Somebody has to die. No death, no ghost. I survived the week and that gives me a feeling of guilt I’ll carry forever. Or at least for as long as I live. I hope that’s a good long time, but there are no guarantees because this story isn’t done.

The hunt is still on.

My story may sound like a fantasy, and maybe some of it is. But many things happened over that week that can’t be ignored or explained away as having sprung from an overly imaginative mind. People died. Lives were changed. That was no dream. After what I saw and experienced, there’s one other bit of reality I have to accept.

I believe in ghosts.

After you hear my story, I think you will too.

© 2010 D. J. MACHALE|1

Cooper Foley was in trouble. Again.

“What were you thinking?” I screamed at him. “Counterfeit tickets? Really?”

“Easy, Ralph,” Coop replied calmly. “I didn’t know they were bogus.”

Cooper always called me Ralph.

“Even so,” I argued. “It’s illegal to scalp real tickets.”

“No, it’s not,” he corrected. “Not if you sell them at face value.”

“Did you sell them at face value?”

He smiled. “No.”

I wanted to smack him.

Cooper and I were making the long walk to school on the last day of the year before summer vacation. He was my best friend. Okay, my only friend. My only good friend, anyway. I think the main reason we got along so well was because we were completely different. I worry. Cooper doesn’t. I think things through. Cooper doesn’t. I freeze in social situations. Cooper doesn’t. I hate playing sports. Cooper doesn’t. I worry about what people think of me. Cooper doesn’t.

I think we stayed friends because there was never any competition between us. We had plenty of fights over the years, but they always ended up in a wrestling match that lasted about eight seconds. No punches were ever thrown in anger. As we walked along on that hot June day, I was ready to plot out all the exciting adventures we’d be sharing that summer. Instead I found out that Cooper was in trouble. Again.

“What’s going to happen?” I asked.

Cooper shrugged as if he didn’t really care. “Nothing. I got spanked, that’s all. Nobody thinks I printed out a bunch of phony Yankees tickets. And for the record, I didn’t.”

“Then who did?”

He gave me a sly smile. “Can’t tell you that, Ralph. I’d have to kill you.”

Coop was changing ... and not for the better. Though he was always a wild guy, he never got into serious trouble. With him it was about being a goof in class or skateboarding without a helmet. The thing was, he always made the teachers laugh and didn’t need a helmet because he never crashed. Ever. Once when we were around ten, we snuck into the private stable of some uber-rich Wall Street guy. I was so scared, I wanted to puke. In fact, I did. All over my pants. Not Coop. He hopped on the back of a prize thoroughbred and rode it, bareback, out of the stable and across the huge lawn, shouting, “Yippiekiyay!” He didn’t get in trouble, either. I, on the other hand, caught hell for ruining my pants. Cooper lived a charmed life. He never puked on his pants.

That is, until we got to high school. That’s when he started pushing things. He got into fights. Real fights. He’d skip school. His parents started coming down on him for his grades, which made it pretty tense around the Foley house. They grounded him ... he snuck out. We’d go for weeks without seeing each other because he started hanging around with some older guys. They smelled like bad news, so I didn’t go anywhere near them. I’d bet anything they had something to do with the counterfeit tickets Coop was busted for selling.

None of this was like Coop. At least not the Coop I knew. Yeah, he liked to have fun and push some limits, but he wasn’t a bad guy. Or maybe I was just naive.

“It’s okay, Ralph,” he assured me. “It was dumb. I get it. I’m not going there again.”

I’d heard that promise before.

“C’mon!” he said. “Tomorrow the gun goes off on summer. What’s the plan? I know you’ve got a plan.”

My mood changed instantly. Coop had that ability. When he got psyched up about something, he brought everyone else right along with him. He was right. I had a plan. I’d been looking forward to this summer for months.

“It’s gonna be great,” I said with excitement. “The rocket kits finally came in. We can set up shop and build ’em at my house ... wait’ll you see the new plasma Dad got from work ... hello, Yankees in high def ... then we can head up to the reservoir and camp for a couple of days and launch ’em.”

Cooper gave me a blank stare. “Okay,” he said with absolutely no enthusiasm.

Undaunted, I pressed on. “Oh! And the Jansens said I could take their Hobie Cat out whenever I wanted. I’m thinking we can race the ferry out to Captain’s Island like we did last summer. Remember that?”

Cooper barely reacted. No, I take that back. Each time I mentioned something I thought was cool, he winced like I was nailing him with poison darts.

“What?” I asked, confused. “Doesn’t that sound great?”

“Uhh ... yeah,” he muttered awkwardly. “But I was kinda thinking more like we should hang out at the beach.”

“No problem,” I said. “We’ll do that, too.”

“A lot?” he asked.

“Yeah, sure, if you want. But there’s so much more we can do.”

Coop gave me a sly smile. “Not that involves girls in bikinis.”

Couldn’t argue with that.

He added, “I’m thinking the beach at the Point will be our base of operations. Or maybe our entire operation. Why not? We’ve only got a couple of months.”

“But ... really? That’s all you want to do? Hang out at the beach?”

“No! I’m all for the rocket thing,” he exclaimed. “Let’s get that on the schedule for, oh ... sometime in late August.”

“You’re killing me,” I said.

I was disappointed in Coop. He hated being bored and so did I. He was always looking for different things to do and coming up with new adventures that kept us moving. That was his job. Trolling for girls at the beach was okay by me, but I didn’t want it to be our sole focus. Besides, the girls I liked had more interesting things to do than spend every waking moment sitting around at the beach comparing tans.

“Aw, c’mon, Ralph!” Coop said. “What’s better than sitting on a blanket in the warm sand next to three or four or eight girls wearing little more than underwear?”

“And talking about ... what? Reality TV? Perez Hilton?”

“Okay, now you’re killing me !” he said. “Who cares what we talk about?”

I guess I did. Unfortunately. Truth was, I needed help in the girl department. Whenever I was around somebody I liked, I got self-conscious. I’m not sure why, either. I think I’m okay-looking and wasn’t hit too hard by the acne stick. I’ve got blond hair and brown eyes, which I’ve heard more than once is a pretty good combination. I think part of my trouble is that I get nervous and start talking too much about things I’m interested in, and most girls don’t care about graphic novels or wartime history. At least not the ones I’ve met. Coop may have had high hopes for a stellar summer at the beach, but I couldn’t see myself starting up a casual conversation about the Battle of Bull Run with a bunch of near-naked girls. They’d crucify me.

Besides, I liked building rockets.

“C’mon, Ralph!” Cooper said. “What’s wrong with messing around a little? That’s what summer’s for. It’s in the rule book.”

“There’s nothing wrong with it,” I shot back. “But there’s other stuff too. You always liked doing stupid stuff like building rockets.”

“I liked Power Rangers too ... when I was six.” He put his arm around my shoulder and said, “We are looking at what could be the most awesome summer of our lives, and all we have to do is ... uh-oh.”

He spotted something over my shoulder.

“Trouble Town,” he whispered.

The courtyard in front of school was packed, but the crowd parted magically to reveal a stunning girl walking toward us. She had long, shiny black hair that fell to her shoulders and dark skin that was the product of an early season tan. Judging from her short shorts, she didn’t mind showing off her long legs. She was hot, and she knew it. Her dark eyes were focused on Coop. My mouth went dry. Something was about to happen. She walked right up to us, locked eyes with Cooper, and snarled a simple, succinct, and venomous “Idiot,” then blew past us without breaking stride.

“I love you too, Agnes,” Coop called to her.

Whenever Cooper gave a girl a hard time, he called her Agnes. With guys it was Richard. In this case the Agnes was Sydney Foley. Cooper’s older sister. She and Coop didn’t like each other much, which was too bad because I wouldn’t have minded hanging out with her. I didn’t have the same trouble making conversation with her like I did with other girls. That’s because when I was with her, I couldn’t speak at all. Seriously. My tongue would swell up and my throat would close. I guess you would call her intimidating. She and Coop had the same dark hair and blue eyes, but that’s where the similarity ended. The girl was cold. I mean icy. She was a year ahead of us in school and light-years ahead academically. I think she’ll have a shot at class valedictorian. She always had a boyfriend but never anyone for long. I guess she got bored easily. Sydney Foley was definitely out of my league ... if I were to be in a league. Still, I would have welcomed the chance to hang out with her a little, and if it just so happened to be on one of those days that Coop made me go to the beach and she just so happened to be there in a bikini, maybe I’d have to think twice about being so critical of Coop’s summer plans.

“I guess she found out about the scalping thing,” I said weakly.

“Yeah. Dinner tonight’s gonna be a real party,” he lamented. “I’ll get lectured by my parents about straightening up and being responsible while she stares through me with those undead vampire eyes. Yeesh.”

I didn’t think Sydney’s eyes looked undead at all, but I could see where getting stared at would be unnerving. But that’s just a guess. Sydney barely knew I existed.

Coop shrugged it off and broke out a big, winning smile. “But it’s cool. Tonight I pay the price and tomorrow ... summer!”

He gave me a double okay sign. That was his way of saying not to worry and that it’s all good.

“You know what?” he added. “I say we load up on frozen pizzas, head to your house, and build us some rockets.”

I had to smile. “You’re a piece of work, you know that?”

He gave me a friendly shove and said, “Absolutely. It’s all part of the Foley mystique.”

Coop had done it again ... he made things right. As we strode into school, I had new hope that the vacation might turn out to be decent after all, especially if I got the old Coop back.

The last day of school was pretty much a blow-off. You’re supposed to go to classes, but exams are over and teachers don’t care what you do. Most everybody hangs out and gets their yearbooks signed with “See you this summer!”—which seems like a lame thing to write, but who am I to judge? I didn’t buy a yearbook, so I headed right for the art department. That’s where I hung out when I wasn’t in class. The art rooms were a refuge for those who didn’t fit into a particular clique ... which I guess meant we were our own clique. But since we didn’t run with each other outside of sch...

About this edition

• Publisher: Aladdin
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1416965165
• ISBN 13: 9781416965169
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352