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Last week we announced that Neon May’s Urban, Fantasy For YA Readers, Chloe and the Half-World (Slumberland Station, Book 1) is our Kids Corner Book of the Week and the sponsor of our student reviews and of thousands of great bargains in the Kids Book category: over 300 free titles, over 500 quality 99-centers, and hundreds more that you can read for free through the Kindle Lending Library if you have Amazon Prime!

Now we’re back to offer a free Kids Corner excerpt, and if you aren’t among those who have downloaded this one already, you’re in for a treat!

Chloe and the Half-World (Slumberland Station, Book 1)

by Neon May

4.7 stars – 12 Reviews
Kindle Price: 99 cents
Or currently FREE for Amazon Prime Members Via the Kindle Lending Library
Text-to-Speech and Lending: Enabled

Don’t have a Kindle? Get yours here.

Here’s the set-up:

Slumberland Station is an urban fantasy series for young adults aged 12 and up.

If her father finds out Chloe plays with ghosts after school, she’ll be grounded forever. Why? Because for Chloe, playing with ghosts means racing them from rooftop to rooftop across the Manhattan skyline. Not to worry; when you’re fourteen, you’re immortal, so what could possibly go wrong?

Well, let’s see…

Being asked by a ghost for directions and becoming the target of a seventeen-year-old assassin? Having to ride an actual ghost train and save a friend who never existed? How about befriending the scariest clowns you’ve ever met or learning your father may be a mad scientist and your life a lie?

Now Chloe is left with only one choice: enter the Half-World and seek out the truth that lies beyond reality—if there’s such a thing as reality, of course.

And here, for your reading pleasure, is our free excerpt:

SLUMBERLAND STATION

BOOK ONE

CHLOÉ

AND THE

HALF-WORLD

By Neon May

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author.

01 WONDERLAND AT DUSK

I was waiting for the Echoes, the ghosts of Manhattan 7.

The place was the rooftops of Morningside Heights, the time was dusk.

“Alice! Hey, Alice!”

No answer.

My partner in crime was still unaccounted for.

I looked around the deserted rooftop one more time. I nearly hoped Alice was hiding on top of the water tower, ready to sneak up on me, since she always loved to make a theatrical entrance and startle me in the process.

Alice drove me nuts half of the time; the other half, I drove her nuts. We both enjoyed every minute of it.

On the days Alice and I played with the Echoes on the rooftops of Morningside Heights, we always made the trip from our high school together.

Today, after our last class, Alice had been approached by Ryan. Ryan was a second-year and the head of the Computer Club. He was both nerdy and cute, character traits Alice greatly appreciated. All I knew was Ryan wanted to talk to her about something important.

Had he finally gathered up the courage to ask her on a date?

I doubted it.

As a consequence of that ill-timed meeting, Alice was twenty minutes behind schedule. Our school, Willow High, was only a short bus ride from Morningside Heights, but if her conversation with Ryan dragged on, she’d miss our rendezvous with the Echoes.

Alice wouldn’t ride her Cushman to Morningside Heights, even though it was faster than taking the bus. The streets below were rather safe, but no one in their right mind would leave a vintage scooter in plain sight. Even in the secure parking lot at school, it always made me nervous to be away from my scooter.

Yes, I also owned a Cushman.

Alice and I were the Cushman Gang.

Any minute now I’d hear Alice’s voice call my name. Of course, she wouldn’t use my actual name. She rarely said things like “Hey, Chloé!” or “What’s up, Chloé?” No, she had to call me “Red,” just because I had short red hair. I’d told her it was cliché to use such a nickname and had been threatened with “Scarlet.”

So “Red” it was.

I glanced at my phone, a sophisticated device as thin and flexible as a sheet of Bristol paper. There was no text message from Alice, and if I sent her one that said “hurry!” it would be ignored.

The sky above had darkened; dusk was descending upon Manhattan 7. The shadow of the water tower stretched its distorted silhouette all across the rooftop.

Time was running out.

Soon the Echoes would rise from their hiding place, from that unknown world that remained invisible until sunset. Then we’d race them to Central Park River from rooftop to rooftop.

If Alice didn’t miss the run.

Should I race the Echoes without her if she didn’t show up in time?

No, it wouldn’t feel right. It was always the two of us. For everything.

The fading light covered the skyline with a layer of deeper shades of orange and red. I had a few minutes left before the Echoes would be conjured up by some mysterious force and materialize all around me.

I tried to convince myself Alice would be here in time. She always was.

Just like the Echoes.

I didn’t think many people were aware of their existence. Alice and I may be the only ones able to see them.

Our first encounter with the ghosts of Morningside Heights was last fall. We’d started our first year at Willow High and were getting bored with life. The Drum & Bass music club we’d created at school, The Sick Music Ward, didn’t seem to generate any interest whatsoever among the other students.

One late afternoon, tired of sitting in an empty room, we decided to head for the rooftops of nearby Morningside Heights. There, for the first time, we saw the Echoes rise from nothingness.

Our initial fear of being surrounded by dozens of ghosts was soon replaced by excitement. When the Echoes began to run from rooftop to rooftop toward the north edge of Morningside Heights, we threw caution to the wind and followed them. We didn’t stop until we reached Central Park River and watched them vanish with the last gleams of light into the heat haze surrounding the forsaken island of Manhattanville.

Alice and I believed the Echoes were lost ghosts who, when dusk came, tried to get back home, back to Manhattanville. The island, located north of Manhattan 7, was forgotten by most everyone, dismissed as a mirage.

It exerted an incredible fascination on us.

The Echoes’ presence added much to that fascination. Alice and I were unable to explain why, but we could feel some distant connection with the ethereal creatures.

Of course, it could have been because we were a pair of weird kids.

Well, at least Alice was weird.

Okay, I was weird too, but she was the weirder.

Tired of standing still, I walked toward the edge of the rooftop. Not bothered with vertigo in the least, I looked down at the sparse traffic in the streets far below. The faint rising sounds of car engines accelerating and decelerating, screeching tires, and impatient horns formed a cocoon all around me.

I raised my eyes and contemplated the scenery ahead. It was a sea of derelict buildings made of red bricks whose rooftops featured few obstacles. Thanks to the narrowness of the streets separating the buildings, leaping from rooftop to rooftop wasn’t too suicidal.

Alice and I were aware that by using the unforgiving city as a playground, some day one of us might fall to her death, but why worry?

We were fourteen; we were immortal.

Today, we would once more follow the Echoes until they reached Central Park River. We’d watch them try to get to the shores of Manhattanville Island on the other side of the river and vanish into the evening fog.

There were few urban legends regarding Manhattanville, and the Internet was devoid of any information on the subject. From what we’d been able to gather, the island was uninhabited. Deserted streets, silent parks, and empty buildings. The structures showed no sign of decay; everything was frozen in time. There were no bridges linking the island to Manhattan 7, the Bronx, or New Jersey. There were no docks.

Direct observation of Manhattanville was made difficult due to the constant heat haze surrounding the island, and no one in Manhattan 7 cared about its unlikely existence and lingering mystery. Only the Echoes, Alice, and I were attracted to it.

Alice, who had given the ghosts their nickname, had decided Manhattanville was protected by an invisible barrier preventing normal people from expressing any interest in the island’s secrets. She called it the Not Curious field.

Her simplistic explanation as to why the two of us weren’t affected by such a field was that we weren’t normal people.

So exploring Manhattanville was part of our agenda for the coming summer. Just a few more months to wait.

“Hey, Red!”

I turned around, following the sound of Alice’s voice. I looked up and let out a sigh of relief, hiding that I was mildly annoyed by her lateness. There she was, standing on top of the water tower, proud of her dramatic, though predictable entrance.

Her clothes, always light years away from banality, emphasized her constant elaborate style, a style she seldom diverged from. She was wearing a deep blue lace shirt and skirt from her favorite boutique, Baby, The Stars Shine Bright, matching high boots and over-knee socks. Her long black and metallic blue hair floated around her face, sometimes concealing her pale and delicate features. She didn’t even need ostentatious make-up to look perfect for the part of a twisted Alice in Wonderland.

I dressed in a similar way, but unlike her, stuck to black and preferred making more muted fashion statements. I was wearing small boots, plain over-knee socks, shorts, and a Hospital Records sleeveless shirt under a fishnet t-shirt. I always tried to keep it below spectacular, unlike Miss “Made by American McGee” up there.

“So Red, ready to race the ghosts?”

Yes, I was ready. Wasn’t I the one who’d been waiting the whole time?

“Can you come down now?” I asked. “You’re scaring the crows.”

“I don’t see any crows.”

“My point.”

Without arguing any further, Alice slid down the slope of the water tower’s roof. After a graceful leap, she landed on the rooftop, one hand and knee down on the concrete. Her hair still concealing her face, she rose and walked toward me like a Japanese ghost, like a Shinigami.

As always, her over-the-top attitude made me chuckle. Behind her mannerism, behind the curtain of hair, was a mischievous smile that said, “It’s just for show. I don’t take myself seriously.”

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said after stopping in front of me. She parted her hair, revealing her dark eyes and the smirk on her face. “You’re thinking you’re still the coolest.”

I nodded with an approving smile. “I am indeed.”

The whistle of a train was heard in the distance; the time for the Echoes to appear was near. The air around us began to shimmer.

“I wonder how Doctor London would react if he could see you,” said Alice while stretching her body.

“My father? He’d kill me for sure.”

“And your sister?”

“If Gillian found out, that’d be much, much worse.”

Undefined silhouettes, like wisps of smoke, interfered with the fading light.

“Why do I think if your mother knew, she’d want to join us?” I said.

Alice made her trademarked Cheshire cat face. “Elvira would love it.”

“You didn’t tell your mother about the nickname I gave her?” I asked, panicking. “You wouldn’t—”

Alice winked. “Don’t worry. She says she loves it. Makes her the coolest of all.”

I shook my head; a typical response of mine to Alice’s all too frequent antics. “You and your mother are something, you know.”

Alice touched my arm. “Here they come, Red. Get ready.”

The light turned to shades of red and purple. Human shapes formed all around us and on the neighboring rooftops. Some of those shapes became more and more defined as each second passed. Some remained in a faded state, as though the effort to attain a more substantial form was too much of a strain. Still, even the most tangible Echoes retained a subtle transparency.

What made them so fascinating was their everyday appearance; they looked like normal human beings. The youngest of them must have been around six or seven years old and the oldest in their late fifties. Men, women, and children, all wearing plain clothes. No vaporous shrouds or bloodstained veils.

No headless wraiths dragging clanking chains while moaning either. If not for their translucent bodies and transfixed looks always turned toward Manhattanville, the Echoes could have been any nondescript person in an urban crowd.

They never glanced at us or even at each other. They were in a world of their own, a world whose topography was identical to ours, since they were always aware of the physical obstacles Alice and I faced when running with them.

I looked at the expressionless faces. I kept hoping I’d recognize one of them, someone I used to know as a real human being, but every ghostly face remained unfamiliar.

They gathered on the rooftops of Morningside Heights and never in the streets below. The rooftops were their haunting grounds; it gave them a clear path to their final destination, Manhattanville.

“Let’s go, Red,” said Alice.

The echoes moved away, slowly at first, then faster to gain momentum and jump over to the next building. Not that they needed that momentum so precious to Alice and me. The lightness of their movements indicated the plane of existence they lived on possessed a lower gravity than our own.

Alice leaned forward and started running among the ghostly crowd. “See you by the river!” she shouted.

“Not if I get there first!” I shouted back.

Taking a few steps back, I planted my feet on the ground and then propelled myself forward. I reached the edge of the building with sufficient speed and leaped into the air. The first jump was always the most exhilarating. I looked down at the distant street below and let that elusive feeling of vertigo engulf me for a delightful and fleeting moment.

I landed on the next rooftop, still running. Alice was a few yards ahead. I was getting closer. Although some of the Echoes were able to take an early lead, we always managed to keep up with the majority of them.

I dived over a block of air vents, rolled for a couple of yards, then slid under a big red pipe. Back on my feet, I reached the edge of the rooftop and made the next jump in the midst of a group of younger Echoes. I cast a few side-glances while suspended in the air, hoping one of them would look at me. After all, we were playing together, racing side by side.

Nothing happened.

The Echoes were, as always, indifferent, unaware of our presence.

I got to the next rooftop and caught up with Alice.

“Here comes my favorite part!” she shouted with a wild smile.

“Mine too, Wonderland Girl!”

She let out a giggle that made her sound crazier than she already was, and I laughed again. We were insane, no doubt, and about to pull a very dangerous stunt.

No sweat; immortality was on our side.

The building we’d landed on was the first of a group of three, each shorter than the next by half a dozen stories. The trick was to jump high enough, fly over the building in the middle, miss its ledge, and land on the third rooftop.

Dropping some twelve floors at once had its drawbacks. Our speed would be so high even the luckiest landing could result in some broken bones or worse, but there was a way to slow down our descent. It involved utter craziness on our end and some involuntary participation from the Echoes.

I went into high gear, leaving Alice behind. My right foot hit the ledge of the building. I sprung into the air. I shot past the building in the middle and began to fall toward the edge of the third rooftop. I spotted several Echoes floating in my way, and that was the trick, a trick discovered the day Alice had accidentally run through one of them.

I passed through the first Echo and let the strange, misty substance its body was made of slow me down. I couldn’t change direction, but there were enough Echoes in my path for my speed to decrease.

Diving through their bodies was unlike any other sensation. It felt like falling through thick spider webs made of fleeting images, of flashes of unconnected thoughts. Those thoughts popped into my mind when I came in contact with the Echoes, as if I could link up with their memories. The visions were chaotic and brief; they didn’t linger long enough to be remembered.

A quick glance over my shoulder. The smoke-like bodies I’d flown through regained their original shapes. Even though I suspected it wasn’t quite so, the Echoes always gave the impression they couldn’t care less about the human world.

I caught a glimpse of Alice. She was falling behind me, an ecstatic expression upon her face as she passed through another Echo.

I focused back on the building below. Its rooftop was getting closer at an alarming rate. I plunged through the last ghostly bodies in my path, hit the warm concrete, and rolled several times on the ground without breaking any bones.

I stopped, crouched on the rooftop, catching my breath. Soon, Alice was by my side. The Echoes were still running around us.

“It’s so fascinating,” she said, looking at the creatures passing us by or jumping over us.

“I know. We can walk through them, but when we stand still, they’re able to avoid us, as if they could see or sense us.”

“And they keep ignoring us.”

I got up, grinning. “Come on. A few more buildings and we’ll be by the river.”

Racing the echoes was always exciting. Racing them with my best friend was even better. So I always grinned a lot during those moments.

Alice and I stood on top of a building at the edge of Morningside Heights. We watched the last Echoes glide down toward Central Park River and head for the other side. Once they left the shores of Manhattan 7, they vanished in the faint light of another new evening, never to reach the abandoned island of Manhattanville. The long whistle of a train was heard in the distance; the run had ended.

“They never stop trying,” said Alice. “I wonder what’s so important to them over there.”

I sat down on the ledge of the roof, my feet dangling some 300 feet above the street. “I think they used to live there.”

“And one day, someone erased them from our world,” said Alice, being in her usual speculative mood once we’d raced the Echoes. “Then, they turned the Not Curious field on and made everyone forget about Manhattanville and its banished ghosts.”

“Who’s they?”

Alice sat down beside me and wrapped her arm around my shoulder. “Nobody knows. Nobody wants to know. Nobody cares.” She lowered her head. “Nobody cares about anything anymore.”

“That’s not entirely true,” I argued, although I knew it was. People were more and more detached from each other every day.

“It’s mostly true.”

“You and I, we both care. We’re here. We’re with the Echoes. Soon, we’ll go to Manhattanville.”

Alice, who couldn’t stay still for very long, got up and took a few steps back. “You and I won’t make a difference, but I agree it’ll be fun to explore Manhattanville this summer.” She paused and then added, “Since for some strange reason the Not Curious field doesn’t affect us.”

“Maybe we could make a difference,” I said almost to myself. “If we could find out what the Echoes are…”

I didn’t finish my sentence; I didn’t know what we could change. We were just two teenagers constantly reminded by the adults around us that we were too insignificant to make a difference. Of course, my father had never told me that. The conversations I had with him were always short and of little significance. On the other hand, my sister Gillian never missed an opportunity to make me feel unimportant.

I let my eyes drift across the horizon. Dusk lingered on, but the sky and clouds had taken on a deeper color.

Like rust.

It was early spring, but the wind was warm, already carrying the promise of a long, hot summer. I liked that very much. I longed for the heat to choke the streets of Manhattan 7; I longed for the burning sidewalks and rooftops under my feet and the fire filling my lungs when I raced the Echoes.

I looked west across the Hudson and let the setting sun blind my eyes for an instant. The dying light leaked through the twisted skyline of the industrial complex of Edgewater. North, beyond Manhattanville, the borough of Riverdale was invisible, hidden by the distant heat haze. I looked to my right and followed the river’s course along Central Park until it merged with the Harlem River.

Farther away, between Manhattan 7 and Queens, was Kling-Klang Island, a labyrinth of dark wooded hills about the size of Central Park. It was a private island owned by Kling-Klang Robotics, a secretive research institute on artificial intelligence, nanomachines—those clever, microscopic robots that could hide inside your body unnoticed and replicate themselves—and other technological wonders.

It also happened to be our home, Alice and me. My father, Doctor London, was Kling-Klang Robotics’ Director and Alice’s mother one of the top researchers. Even my sister Gillian was a designer there, whatever it was she designed.

Most likely little nagging robots.

Yes, Kling-Klang Island was my home, and so was the city of Manhattan 7. I was born and had lived all of my still very young life here.

So why did I feel like I didn’t quite belong?

Enough introspection and back to the present. “Did Ryan finally ask you out?”

Alice, who was bathing in the crimson light like a gothic priestess, giggled. “No, not yet. He wanted to talk to me about a dream he’s been having.”

“A dream? Sounds like a premise for a date. Hey, I dream of you every night.”

“It’s not.”

“You’re in it, right?”

“I am, but it’s not what you think. So are you, by the way.”

Me? Why would I be in Ryan’s dream?

“It’s weird,” said Alice. “Ryan is convinced the dream takes place in Manhattanville, although he’s never been there. He, a girl who he believes is Japanese, you, and I are running through the streets. There are dark men on every street corner watching us; their heads are burning. There’s another girl with blue hair who waits for us at the end of a street. There’s a boy by her side; he has long silver hair.

“We’re never able to close the distance that separates us from them, no matter how fast we run. There’s a flash of bright light, and Ryan, you, and I are left alone in the middle of the street. All the others, including the Japanese girl who was running by our side, are gone.”

I remained silent at first; it was hard to comment on somebody else’s dream. It didn’t mean much or perhaps that Ryan was a strange boy. “As you said, it’s weird.”

“Yeah,” said Alice, “but I’m sure it’s nothing.”

I decided to forget all about Ryan’s dream and watched the last rays of sunlight disappear beyond New Jersey. It was time to head home.

At this moment we were supposed to be in school participating in the activities of our Drum & Bass club. There was no need for our families to know Alice and I were the only club members and our current activities didn’t involve discussing and listening to music, but rather playing daredevils on the rooftops of Morningside Heights with ghosts.

“We should go,” I said. Getting no reply from Alice, I insisted. “Alice? It’s time to go home.”

Still no answer. Something wasn’t right.

I rose to face her. She stood there, staring at something over my shoulder. Her mouth was open in dumb amazement. She looked funny.

“What—?” I said.

“I’m freaking out right now,” was the only explanation she gave me at first. Then she added, “It’s totally wicked.”

“I’ve never seen your eyes open so wide,” I joked.

“Turn around, Red. Just turn around.”

I complied, wondering what could be making her act so strange. When I found out, I also freaked out. “Can’t be,” I whispered.

“Obviously can,” she said.

Our lives had just taken an even more exciting turn than usual, but I wasn’t sure it was a good thing.

On the opposite end of the rooftop, was a girl who must have been close to our age. Standing straight, she was watching us in complete silence.

Not that she would have been able to communicate with us if she’d wanted to. Her voice would have never carried over the distance that separated our world from the Echoes’; she was one of them.

She was one of the ghostly creatures from that other world which merged with ours when dusk fell upon the city. She was an Echo, and for the first time ever, an Echo was aware of our presence.

Her body was caught in the light coming from a red flashing beacon on the corner of the building. Her fleeting shape was enveloped by the intermittent beam, but some of her features were faintly discernible. I could have sworn she was smiling.

Was it because she could see the stunned expressions on our faces?

“She’s still here,” said Alice. “She hasn’t gone with the others. She can see us.”

“It’s like she…knows us,” I said. “Do I sound crazy?”

“You do, but I think you’re right.”

“Scared?”

“Just totally creeped out.”

“Same here.”

The girl’s body shimmered and became even more intangible. She raised her arm and pointed up at something to her right.

Then she was gone.

“It didn’t really happen, right?” said Alice.

“Do I have to answer that?”

“Guess not. What was she pointing at?”

I scanned the various buildings near the spot the Echo had indicated. There, on a taller building, was erected a water tower upon which a message was scrawled in big, bright blue letters.

Somehow, Alice and I both knew the message was addressed to us, even though we hadn’t a single clue about its meaning.

It read:

Where is Slumberland Station?

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