Trixter (The Trix Adventures) - Softcover

Kontis, Alethea

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1942541023 ISBN 13: 9781942541028

Publisher: Alethea Kontis, 2015

Synopsis

Trix Woodcutter is the long prophesied Boy Who Talks to Animals. He’s also a foundling prankster scamp who places his family under a sleeping spell so that he can run away from home. Compelled by a vision of his dead birthmother, Trix departs on the eve of a Great Catastrophe, only to find himself caught in the maelstrom. Armed with little more than his wits and the wisdom inherent in all fey-blooded youth, Trix confronts a legendary Animal King, faces off against a ghostly feline, rescues a damsel in distress, and discovers more about himself than he ever wished to know. And this adventure is only the beginning...

About this title

From the Author:

"Trix's adventures started back in 2012--the fall after Enchanted's release. I had just turned in the first draft of Hero and was playing around with Trixter in the "free time" I had while I awaited that first painful round of revisions. Per my editor's request, the character of Trix had been almost completely written out of the novel. Not a small feat, when one considers that the whole impetus for Saturday's journey was chasing after Trix when he ran away from home...

I had an inkling of all the trouble Trix got himself into while Saturday was imprisoned in the White Mountains, but how was I supposed to tell that story? The Woodcutter Sisters books were meant to be just that: one book about each sister, leaving no room for Trix.

But...we love Trix!

In 2014, two fortuitous things happened: Harcourt decided not to extend a contract for more Woodcutter Sisters books, and my best friend Casey read that partial draft of Trixter.

The moment the publisher declined our pitch for books 4-7, I was released from my"option clause," meaning that I now had the freedom to do whatever I wanted with the series (including MAKING THE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AS LONG AS I WANT). This is the point where most writers would give up on a world they've spent a lifetime creating and move onto other things.

Luckily for Woodcutter fans, I am not like most writers."

--from ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

From the Back Cover:

The Boy Who Talks to Animals

Trix Woodcutter ignored the twinges in his belly and the ache in his heart as he raced across the meadow. It hadn't been the most graceful of escapes. If he'd had more time to plan, he would have arranged to meet a deer-friend or one of the lynx outside the towerhouse so that he might have covered more ground before the dark magic brew in his system took effect. A deer might have been the better choice as he was (finally) getting too tall to ride a lynx comfortably. If he'd really been clever, then--
    PAIN.
    Trix gasped. Winced. Doubled over. Cramps stabbed through his middle like knives and he cried out despite himself. He'd had bad porridge before, but this was beyond anything he'd ever experienced. His hands balled into fists and instinctively tried to reach for the tiny army with pointy swords fighting a battle to the death inside him so that he could make it all stop.
    He tripped. Rolled. Paused, waiting for the--
    --PAIN--
    --to pass so that he could keep moving. He took a deep breath. The razor sharp flashes of anger inside him subsided enough to let him back up. He shuffled, walked, ran--PAIN--shuffled, jogged, all while trying to think about something besides the incredibly stupid decision he'd just made.
    It would have been impossible to successfully bespell his family without bespelling himself, even just a little. It was all Mama's fault; Mama, with those eagle eyes of hers that saw everything and the silver tongue that could make the devil do her bidding. Being raised by a woman whose every statement came true had taught him to always seek forgiveness instead of permission. His quest was too important this time. One "no" from Mama's lips would have stopped Trix from leaving the house entirely. So he had put her to sleep--put them all to sleep--to avoid her saying anything at all.
    Eagles. The cleverest thing to do would have been to call the eagles and really fly, though they would have disapproved of him betraying his family. Eagles were all about loyalty.  An eagle would never have crossed his congregation. Trix wasn't particularly proud of himself either, at the moment. He deserved whatever horrible pain he was in.
    He cried out and doubled over again. He checked to see if he'd split in two without realizing it, but he spotted no blood on his tunic. He coughed through a particularly wrenching spasm--no blood there either. That last fall had torn his trousers, though. Trix laughed a little as he pulled himself to standing and shuffled forward a few more drunken steps. He told himself that a magicked stomach ache was surely preferable to the whipping Mama would give him if she caught him.
    Trix screamed. The cramps wracked his whole body this time, bringing tears to his eyes.
    "Maybe the whippings weren't so bad after all," he said to no one. At least he'd known when those would end.  
    One more step. Two. Three. Three more steps. It was going to take him days to cross this meadow. Years. A lifetime. He deserved it, too, every moment of crippling agony, every scrape, every tear. Family didn't do this to each other. And yet...
    Three days ago, he never would have put a sleeping spell on the stew and poisoned his sister, his brother, the man and woman who had raised him from a babe and never treated him like anything but their own. Three days ago, it never would have crossed his mind to do such a selfish and horrible thing. But three days ago his birthmother hadn't appeared in his dreams and called for him.
    Earth breaks; fire breathes; waters bless. Fly to me, my son.
    Trix knew what dreams looked like, the real dreams, the ones he was meant to pay attention to. They had more in them than the nothing-dreams of restless nights: more color, more feel, more sound, more taste, more cohesiveness, more details, more memory than memory. Real dreams did not fade upon waking but instead became more vivid, replaying themselves over and over in the mind's eye until the brain teetered on madness with the vision. Real dreams came from the gods. The gods knew how to make a point.
    The gods also knew how to abandon someone in their time of need.
    Trix would never have been able to convey the urgency of those dreams. The journey to Rose Abbey was one he needed to make immediately and alone. There was also a very good chance that the spell he'd put on the stew wouldn't work. It's not as if he had tried such a thing before--
    PAIN.
    Oh, the spell had definitely worked. Perhaps a little too well. Shame, too, because that stew had smelled delicious--one of his better accidental concoctions.
    "It would have been nice to leave on a full stomach," he said, before recalling that no one was around to hear him.
    Between the Woodcutter family and his animal friends, Trix was never alone in the world. And yet tonight there did not seem to be a soul within sight. Trix heard barely a cricket chirp above his ragged breathing. The twilight he escaped into offered a rare solitude. It was at the same time peaceful and concerning.  
    A silent Wood, in the main, usually meant trouble.
    Trix stumbled again, forced himself back to standing and stayed there for a moment, listening. The wind had picked up.
    Trix glanced over his shoulder--he could still make out the very top of the Woodcutter home just above the whipping, writhing grasses of the meadow. Dark clouds gathered in the west, swallowing the sun, but not before something in the tower window caught the fading light and flashed it back at him, like a lighthouse beacon on a foreign shore.
    Like a warning.
    The world fell completely silent then, as if Trix had stopped his ears with beeswax. The leaves were silent, his breath was silent, his heartbeat was silent. Even the wind was silent.
    A moment later, the silence transformed into ceaseless thunder: first a low grumble, and then a growl as the earth bucked and reared, furious and alive.
    The ground fell away before him. Trix came down hard on his knees. The meadow rolled beneath his feet, bending and waving like a sea of tall grass...on a sea of tall grass. He was caught up in the fray, helpless to regain his footing, so he tried to ride the earth as it slid and slipped beneath him.
    He failed spectacularly.

About this edition

• Publisher: Alethea Kontis
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1942541023
• ISBN 13: 9781942541028
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 150