First Frost

Mythos Academy Series, Mythos Academy Short Stories

#0.5 Prequel E-Story

Genre: Urban Fantasy, Young Adult

Release Date: July 2011

I am Gwen Frost, and I have a Gypsy gift. It’s called psychometry — that’s a fancy way of saying that I see images in my head and get flashes of other people’s memories off almost everything I touch, even guys.

My gift makes me kind of nosy. Okay, okay, maybe a lot nosy — to the point of obsession sometimes. I want to know everything about everyone around me. But even I don’t want to know the secret that a girl in my class is hiding or the terrible loss that will send me to a new school — Mythos Academy, where the teachers aren’t preparing us for the SATs, but to battle Reapers of Chaos. Now I have no friends and no idea how my gift fits in with all these warrior whiz kids. The only thing I do know is that my life is never, ever going to be the same …

Note: This e-story takes place before the events in Touch of Frost. It is available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Kobo, and other online booksellers as a 99-cent download, not as a free story here on the website. You don’t have to read it to start or enjoy the series, but if you want to see exactly how Gwen winds up at Mythos Academy, you might enjoy it.

Buy First Frost at the following sites:

Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Books-A-Million / Google Play / iBooks / Kobo

Read Excerpt

“Can I borrow your hairbrush?”

Paige Forrest stared at the long mirror mounted over the row of sinks that lined one wall of the girls’ locker room. Gym class had ended three minutes ago, and all the girls were busy yanking off their sweaty T-shirts and shorts and changing back into their real clothes—the skinny jeans and tight, cropped tops they wore to impress themselves, each other, and most importantly the cute boys at Ashland High School.

Everyone except for Paige, who stood frozen in front of the mirror. She was pretty with her long black hair and pale green eyes, but I didn’t think that Paige was looking at herself with the normal vanity of a sixteen-year-old girl. For one, Paige wasn’t putting on a fresh coat of lip gloss or mascara or dusting her face with sparkling powder like the other girls crowded at the mirror were. She wasn’t gossiping with the girls around her or wondering what disgusting, gray mystery meat was going to be served in the cafeteria today. She wasn’t even texting on her phone or checking her messages.

No, Paige was leaning over the sink and peering into her own eyes as if she could see something in herself that everyone else couldn’t—something horrible from the pained, twisted expression on her face.

The look made me want to know what she was hiding.

I was kind of nosy that way. Okay, okay, so I was a lot nosy that way. Okay, okay, so I was exceptionally, exceedingly, unstoppably nosy—to the point of obsession sometimes. I wanted to know everything about everyone around me. Why? Well, I blamed it on my Gypsy gift.

I was a Gypsy with psychometry magic. A fancy way of saying that I saw images in my head and got flashes of other people’s memories and feelings off almost everything that I touched. A favorite necklace, a beloved book, a cherished photo of a family trip to the beach. I could get a vibe off anything that someone had a personal attachment or connection to, and I could see and feel exactly what that person had experienced whenever she’d worn that necklace, read that book, or looked at that photo.

I didn’t know exactly why I had magic or why I was even considered a Gypsy in the first place, but I liked the power that my pscyhometry gave me. I liked knowing what everyone around me was really thinking, from whether a girl was truly my friend or talked about me behind my back to whether a boy was totally into me or was actually thinking about another girl instead. Like Drew Squires, my one and only boyfriend. Thanks to my psychometry, I’d flashed on Drew while we were kissing and felt him pretending that I was Paige. I’d dumped him on the spot.

Yeah, sometimes the things I saw and felt hurt, but I still loved knowing other people’s secrets. And judging from the weird look on her face, Paige was hiding something—something big.

“Paige?” I asked again, a little louder this time, my voice rising over the chatter of the other girls, the squeak of shoes on the floor, and the constant slams of the locker doors.

Paige partially snapped out of whatever trance she’d been in and met my eyes in the mirror.

“Gwen? Gwen Frost?” she asked in a daze, almost as if she didn’t recognize me.

I looked at my own reflection in the mirror. Sure, my wavy brown hair was a loose, sweaty mess right now, which is why I wanted Paige’s hairbrush to start with, so I could pull my hair back into a ponytail. My winter-white skin was all flushed and splotchy from attempting to play basketball during gym class, and my violet-colored eyes were a little strange-looking to start with. Okay, okay, my eyes were very strange-looking to start with.

But Paige and I had gone to school together since kindergarten. Sometimes we even hung out when our mutual friends got together on the weekends. She should know exactly who I was—especially since she’d hired me to find her missing cell phone.

Phones, keys, wallets, laptops, crumpled bras, and bunched-up boxers. For the right price, the kids at Ashland High School hired me to find things that were lost, stolen, or otherwise not where they were supposed to be. Yeah, I used my Gypsy gift to make extra money instead of fighting some great, ancient evil with my magic. Sue me for being an entrepreneur and not wanting to work at some greasy fast-food dive like other kids did.

Thanks to my psychometry magic, it was easy for me to find stuff. Usually, all I had to do was run my fingers over a girl’s desk or look through her purse to get a good idea of where she might have left her cell phone or dropped her favorite bracelet. And if I didn’t immediately see where the lost object was, then I kept touching stuff until I did. Kind of like Nancy Drew following a trail of psychic breadcrumbs to wherever they led her.

People left psychic vibes everywhere, on everything they touched, and those vibes revealed everything from what they’d had for lunch to what they really thought of their best friend’s new boyfriend. Most of the time, the girl either secretly thought the guy was a total jerk or she wanted him for herself. All I had to do to tap into those vibes, to see people’s actions, to feel their true emotions, to discover their secrets, was stretch my fingers out and touch all the objects around me, big and small.

Buy First Frost at the following sites:

Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Books-A-Million / Google Play / iBooks / Kobo

Jennifer Estep

Urban Fantasy Author

First Frost

Mythos Academy Series, Mythos Academy Short Stories

#0.5 Prequel E-Story

Genre: Urban Fantasy, Young Adult

Type: E-Story, Prequel

Release Date: July 2011

First Frost description:

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