Under the Midnight Sky
By Ariana Kell and Edrie Black
5/5
()
About this ebook
When she first became homeless, Eloise fell asleep every night listening to her favorite band, Midnight Revolution, especially one song:
If they’ve turned you out, if they’ve brought you downIf you’re feeling lost, if you’re all aloneHey baby, remember, remember, don’t cryEverybody’s home under the midnight sky Now, a few months later, she doesn’t listen to music anymore. One morning, though, she sees that Midnight Revolution is playing in town that night, and she feels herself start to come back to life.
Ibe is a security guard at Walmart. One morning, he catches Eloise shoplifting, but later that night, he sees her dancing at the Midnight Revolution show and can’t take his eyes off her. But she runs away in the middle of a kiss, leaving him with just a name and some security video footage.
Tannie’s living with her Uncle Ibe while her mom’s in rehab for drug addiction. Tannie is used to dealing with other people’s problems, taking care of herself and everyone else, too, like when Ibe asks her to play host to an unhoused girl named Sheena for the afternoon.
As they navigate life’s challenges, Eloise, Ibe, Tannie, and Sheena all find love under the midnight sky.
Ariana Kell
Ariana Kell falls in love with her characters first, to test them out. Besides romance, she enjoys other indulgent things like making double chocolate raspberry cake and lying in bed on sunny mornings, as well as non-indulgent things like returning emails and trying to make the world a better place.
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Book preview
Under the Midnight Sky - Ariana Kell
Part 1: Midnight Revolution
Wake up at first light in a sleeping bag under the bridge. Scan for creeps and cops. Check that Mag and Sheena also made it through the night. Check possessions in order of importance: water bottle, cell phone and earbuds, toothbrush, cheap rain poncho, change of clothes, almost-expired driver’s license. Stuff the sleeping bag into a pack so that everything is together and easy to grab at a moment’s notice. Start breathing.
This was Eloise’s morning routine.
Once Mag and Sheena were ready, they would walk to the park and take turns going into the Walmart to use the bathroom. Mag always reminded them to brush their teeth. You don’t want to end up like me,
she said, baring her jagged smile.
Eloise couldn’t imagine lasting ten years on the streets, teeth intact or not. She felt like she was diminishing, like every night under the bridge wore her down, closer to nothingness. She was conscious that she felt less and less as the weeks went by, that she said less and less. At first, it had worried her, but eventually, even worrying slipped away. She woke up, she checked her stuff, and she looked out for Mag and Sheena.
On the surface, they were an unlikely trio: slow-moving Mag who’d been on the streets for years, since her husband had died and her landlord had kicked her out to make room for gentrifiers; nineteen-year-old Sheena who, with her ethereal face framed in blond wisps, looked like she would break at the least bit of shock; and ordinary, brown-haired Eloise, who had learned the hard way from her ex-boyfriend to be constantly watchful and on edge.
Sheena came back from the bathroom with the news that there was a new security guard, and he was cute. Cute
was a word Sheena used frequently to refer to people of any gender, young and old, as well as creatures and inanimate objects from buildings to trees. It was not an indication of attraction (Sheena used the word hot
very infrequently, almost always to refer to girls with combat boots and tattoos).
When her turn for the bathroom came, Eloise put her toothbrush and a clean pair of underwear in the purse she used to look respectable. Mag and Sheena would guard her pack.
Can I listen to music?
Sheena asked, and Eloise took out her phone.
When she’d first gotten away from Daryl and started sleeping outside, listening to music had made Eloise feel alive and free, like anything was possible, and her earbuds were always in. But after she’d come into the city, she didn’t feel safe with her earbuds in — she needed her ears to listen for trouble. Occasionally, she’d listen to something at the library while she waited for her phone to charge, but she found it hard to focus on the music. Even Midnight Revolution, her favorite band, didn’t reach through her ears to her heart the way they used to. Now, she kept her weak battery charged more for Sheena’s sake than her own. Sheena didn’t listen to Midnight Revolution; she said they were mainstream and unoriginal. She preferred the Bon Iver album.
Eloise found herself walking through the automatic doors of the Walmart without having noticed the security guard — or anything else on the walk from the park, for that matter. That wasn’t good; being oblivious was asking for trouble. She looked around her, as if memorizing the Walmart entrance could make up for her momentary lapse. And that’s when she saw the poster.
It was one of those slick band-promo posters, with the musicians standing around, holding their instruments in the middle of a field like they lived there — only you don’t get those perfectly ripped jeans from living in a field. Eloise knew this from experience. But she wasn’t going to hold it against them, because the band in the poster was Midnight Revolution. They were playing downtown on Wednesday.
What day was it? Lunch was at the Catholic church today, so it must be… Wednesday? Yes. Midnight Revolution was playing downtown that night. Eloise felt her heart leap in a way she hadn’t felt in weeks. She absolutely had to go. She closed her eyes briefly, steeling herself to look at the price. Then, she looked. Thirty dollars. She’d made thirty dollars in a day. Not recently — and definitely not often — but she’d done it. And she could do it today.
In the bathroom, Eloise changed her underwear and splashed water on her face and arms. She scowled at the soap dispensers. She hated how public bathroom soap smelled, but she’d given the last of her soap to Mag just yesterday.
After she was done washing, she walked down the bath aisle. She tried to smell the different soaps, but they mostly smelled like plastic packaging. Shelf after shelf of things she couldn’t buy paraded themselves in front of her. She shouldn’t keep Mag and Sheena waiting, but she kept looking at the soap. She picked up a bottle of lavender bubble bath and looked at it closely. Then, instead of putting it back on the shelf, she