Through the Veil

 I'm writing a new book called Through the Veil. Here is an excerpt

        Violet rolled her eyes and tapped Shri’s shoulder. ‘I will escort you to a boutique’ she informed, shooting the two younger children an unimpressed look. ‘If you two wish to accompany her as well,’ she said, raising her voice slightly ‘then it would do you well to cease your quarrel.’ Ali and Anne abruptly stopped shouting and turned to Violet repentantly. ‘Sorry, Vi’ they both chorused. Shri stared at Violet, slightly intimidated. She didn’t know what it was about the older girl that made her so nervous. Perhaps it was her overly- formal tone that sounded afraid of messing up. Perhaps it was her scars, only one on her face, but many scattered all over arms. She didn’t seem self-conscious, wearing them almost proudly, like a badge of honour. Perhaps it was the way she held herself, with confidence, but tensed up in the way she had seen in her uncle who had fought in the war, tense, was if waiting to be attacked at any moment. She had the same eyes, wary, alert, ready to lash out at any sign of danger. Whatever it was, she felt wary of the dark-haired girl who seemed to be an intimate friend to sadness.

Violet turned and strode off, in the direction Shri and Ali had come from. Shri scrambled to catch up to her, feeling that she was always a step behind in this strange world. By now she had pieced together most of the details of what had happened to her. She probably wasn’t dead, judging by Ali’s vehement denial of that fact. Maybe she was in a sort of in between place. ‘Coma’ her mind whispered to her. Yes, that was probably it. It was almost scary how quickly the answer came to her. She had never been afraid of death, unlike many of her friends. She had had an eerie fascination with it as a young child that made her relatives look at her sideways and whisper about her behind their hands. She had been able to see death, hovering over sick people’s heads and swarming hospitals. Sometimes when there were too many, the sad aura around them would overwhelm her, and she would dissolve into tears. She had stopped telling people about it when she was roughly 4 years old. She, her parents, siblings, uncles, aunts and cousins had all gone to see her great-uncle who was sick. She had seen Death sitting on the side of his bed, swinging his legs and looking down at her curiously. She had announced to the whole room that he was going to die soon. His adult son who was sitting beside the frail old man had promptly burst into tears and begged his father not to leave him. Shri’s mother had taken her out of the room and slapped her, inquiring what the hell he thought she was doing. ‘You can’t just tell people they’re going to die, Shrinandhini’ she snapped. That was when she had stopped mentioning the spectres she saw everywhere. Eventually, she learned to tune them and she stopped getting overwhelmed. At some point she tuned them out so well, she forgot about them and only saw flashes of translucent blue and a faint gloom in the air.