Read Sunlight and Shadow Online
Authors: Cameron Dokey
Sunlight and Shadow
Praise for Cameron Dokey's retold tales:
STORYTELLER'S DAUGHTER
“This is a delightful retelling, tweaked by the author to create a fresh, often quirky feminist who is not afraid to speak her mind. Indeed, the king remarks, with humor, that wise women people Shahrazad's stories, but the kings and princes are idiots. Dokey's style blends just the right amount of old-fashioned phrases and figurative language with touches of contemporary tongue-in-cheek humor. The author actually manages an element of surprise in the present-tense retelling, even though readers familiar with the tale will know its outcome. There's plenty to tantalize teens: tower imprisonments, decapitations, intrigues of the court, and attempted coup, riots, fighting, and of course the blossoming love between Shahrazad and Shahrayar.⦔
âSchool Library Journal
BEAUTY SLEEP
“Dokey has taken the familiar âSleeping Beauty' fairy tale and turned it into a fantastical romance guided by adventure and magic with humor and wordplay thrown in for good measure.⦠The characters are realistically drawn, especially Aurore, who, as narrator, is chatty, witty, and easy to like.⦠This is an enjoyable read for mature fans of fairy tales.”
âSchool Library Journal
Available from Simon Pulse
PUBLISHED BY SIMON & SCHUSTER
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
First Simon Pulse edition July 2004
Copyright © 2004 by Cameron Dokey
SIMON PULSE
An imprint of Simon & Schuster
Children's Publishing Division
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
Designed by Debra Sfetsios
The text of this book was set in Adobe Jenson.
Manufactured in the United States of America
4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3
Library of Congress Control Number 2004100041
ISBN-13: 978-0-689-86999-0
ISBN-10: 0-689-86999-1
eISBN: 978-1-439-12033-0
Chapter Three: Lapin Comes to the Point, Finally
Chapter Four: What Luapin's Bells Summoned
Chapter Five: Jern Makes a Choice and Hears a Sound
Chapter Six: The Lady Mina Speaks Her Mind
Chapter Seven: The thoughts of the Forrester's Dark-Haired Child
Chapter Nine: What Sometimes Happens to the Best-Laid Plans
Chapter Ten: In Which a new Friendship Is Formed
Chapter Eleven: And new Plans Are formed
Chapter Twelve: In Which Many Things Begin to Converge
Chapter Fifteen: The Brief Calm Before the Storm
Chapter Sixteen: Trial the First, and Trital the Second
Chapter Seventeen: In Which Many Stoites Draw Down to a Single Close
“Once Upon a Time ⦔ is timely again in these retold fairy tales:
THE STORYTELLE'R DAUGHTER
by Cameron Dokey
BEUTY SLEEP
by Cameron Dokey
SNOW
by Tracy Lynn
MIDNIGHT PEARLS
by Debbie Viguié
SCARLET MOON
by Debbie Viguié
SUNLIGHT AND SHADOW
by Cameron Dokey
From Simon Pulse
Published by Simon & Schuster
And so, I stepped away, pulling my hood down over my face, for I had begun to weep in earnest and did not want to give my father and those who did his bidding the satisfaction of seeing me cry. The second I stepped away from my mother, I could feel the wind begin to rise. Tugging on my cloak with desperate, grasping fingers. Howling like a soul in hell
Over the scream of the wind, I heard my father shouting orders in a furious voice. Then I was gripped by strong arms, lifted from my feet, and thrown like a sack of potatoes over someone's shoulder.
The last thing I saw was the flame of my father's torch, tossing like some wild thing caught in a trap.
The last thing I heard, dancing across the surface of the wind like the moon on water, was a high, sweet call of bells.
For Amanda, who was there for the finish For Lisa, who was there at the start For Jodi, who was there for everything in between and then some And for Hilary, who gave me my first glimpse of the Queen of the night
A House Divided
Come close, and I will tell you a story.
Or, at the very least, I'll start one.
The story isn't mine alone, so I shouldn't be the only one to tell it. But, as I think it's only fair to say the whole thing started with my parents, it seems equally fair that I should be the one to get the storytelling ball rolling.
This is how the whole thing began, to the best of my knowledge.
In a time when the world was young, and the hows and whys of things you and I now take for granted were still being sorted out, Sarastro, Mage of the Day, wed Pamina, the Queen of the Night. And, in this way, the world was made complete, for light was joined to dark. For all time would they be bound together. Only the breaking of the world could tear them apart.
In other words, in the time in which my parents wed, there was no such thing as divorce.
I don't know how long they were married before I came along. How many days and nights went by. Of all the questions I asked as I grew, and I asked plenty,
until I learned that questions didn't always equal answers, that particular question was one I never voiced. I think this is because I wasn't all that old before I figured out there was another way of asking the very same thing: