Chapter 1.2

The grave had changed in the last few months: like Monday’s life, it had acquired an air of abandonment around it. The January snow had already begun to cover the hill of dirt that once reminded Monday where to find her friend. As she stood in front of the grave surrounded by the faceless dead, she marveled at the fresh headstone and envied the girl underneath. Just arrived this morning was Alyson’s tombstone, accompanied by her parents who lingered only a few minutes before leaving in their grief. The headstone was a shock. Until this morning, Monday felt like she was in a fog, that the death wasn’t real but until this moment, the arrival the marker was the cold wind that shook her. The death was real.

            Monday realized in her weakened, hungry state, that with no home to go back to, she longed for her own headstone. 17 years old and wanting to join her friend six feet under.

But then who would look after the dead?

 

The Nightlings: Chapter 13

Monday thought that Robyn’s parent’s obsession with birds stopped at their kids names. Looking around their home, she was clearly wrong. There were birds everywhere; from the fabric on the couch to the details on the wall paper, there was not 1 inch of their house that didn’t have a bird on it. All around their house, beady eyes from figurines followed you wherever you went.

 

The Nightlings: Chapter 11

Night was falling soon; Monday could feel it in her bones. The voice pulled her outside and from the sound of a door and the space she had, into a van. She felt her shoulder blades move and started to scream.

 

The Nightlings: Chapter 10

 

“And our top news story tonight; missing girl from the Larkspur murders is possible spotted in Syringa. More details after the break.”

 

The Nightlings: Chapter 9

 

 

 

Following what was one of the best days of her life was one of her worst. Two days after Sorin, Edith came by with a new bottle of blood for Ezra and a target for Monday.

 

Update and name meanings

I would like to start off with this post to let everyone know that Chapter 9 is delayed a week. I have two test to study for and a camping trip to go on, basically, I don’t have the time. With that out of the way, I wanted to write another fun post.

A lot of the names in the book have a special meaning behind them. As I pointed out in Chapter 8, most of the street names are Catholic saints, like Martha street where Ezra lives in named after Saint Martha, the patron saint of cooks.

Some names don’t have that special of names, Syringa is just the real name of lilacs and has a lot of them. Monday’s home town Larksper is the common name of Consolida, a flower that is toxic to humans. Some of the characters names don’t have any real meaning other then I liked them; names like Jolene, Jason, Edith, and Marcus. Bo was named after a fictional charter from the Thief Lord(BTW great kids book)

And sometimes what seemed like random names turned into happy accidents.

(You can skip to 3:00. If you ever have a bad day, watch Bob Ross)

For example, Monday at one point was named Wendy and it was going to be short for Wednesday. i thought that it was to cliche to name a depressing charter after the worst day of the week in the mother goose poem, so instead I settled on Monday. Fair of face but worst day of the week, a little bit of bad and good, just like Monday. However after I renamed her is when I discovered that the day Monday is named after the moon. I gave my night dwelling character a night themed name. (Side note, the moon has nothing to do with night, I did learn something out of Intro to Astronomy.)

Some other characters had their back story added because of their name. Ezra was always Ezra because I liked the name and Sorin was named Sorin after I watched Legend of the Guardians, the stupid owl movie. I liked the name and my have been influenced by Jim Sturgess.

Look familiar?

And yet after I named them and looked up what their names meant, I was kinda inspired by them. Ezra means “Help” in Hebrew, which inspired his Jewish heritage and Sorin meant “Sun” in Romanian, which inspired his heritage, just the Romanian part, the Romani part came in later.

I like knowing the meaning behind character names, even if it’s not intentional. It’s like colorful eggs on a Easter egg hunt. Since i won’t post again still afterwards, Happy Early Easter, Eostre, bunny commercialism or whatever you celebrate.

This Blog is © Copyright – All rights reserved – Novels by Megan Bennett.
You may publish translated versions of this article on non-English language blogs provided you acknowledge Novels by Megan Bennett as the original source.

 

The Nightlings: Chapter 8

“Are you sure this is safe?”

 

Monday looked up at an 8 story building on Sanders street. Sanders Street was one of the few streets not named after saints; it was once the factory side of town where the Blair brewery was built, but the family had moved locations years back, leaving empty buildings behind. The moonlight hit the crumbling brick and bounced of the broken glass roofs illuminating the ally below. Monday stood next to Ezra, both in Nightling form and wearing the Nightling’s uniform; dark jean, fingerless gloves, and a black tank top with a slit in the back for the wings, it was a week since she had become and Nightling training had begun.

 

The Nightlings: Chapter 7

 

 

Monday felt a jolt as she woke up, back in the small room, surprised to find her feeding tube was missing. She could feel her body twitch and twist as it felt like she was being pulled apart. Monday bucked in the bed but found not only was she still bound to the bed, but now, her legs were bound too. Monday looked over at Edith and saw that she was reading something on her tablet, “Edith, I need more meds.”

 

The Science of Nightlings

The further I get into the book, the more I think about how Nightlings work. I’ve always wondered about the science behind mythical creatures and how they would work in the real world. Not things like, why do werewolves exist but, werewolves that grow in size when they change, were does the extra mass for that come from and were does it go?

In this blog post, I’m just going to clarify the science behind them to 1. Clarify what’s going on to my readers, and 2. A note to look back on when I change things and need to clarify them more. This is a non-spoiler post; it just clarifies the information that our Character Monday.

The Science of Nightlings

Nightlings in the simplest terms are the physical embodiment of human rage. This is based on the idea who stores of people who snap. Example would be the battered housewife who stabs her husband 30 times, it’s shocking and goes against common since but in a way, it’s understandable. To be a Nightling you need to things

1.      A trigger – The Fledgling stage

2.      A release – The Nightling stage

The trigger is an event that cements the rage inside a person. Take Monday, she was abused by her step-father for years, but the event of the night that Alyson killed herself- Alyson tried to save Monday from her stepfather but Monday, scared of what would happened, turned on Alyson and defended her stepfather in court. Alyson, being bullied for “trying to harm Monday’s poor and innocent Step-father” kills herself but not before calling Monday to let her know. This is Monday’s trigger; the loss of her only friend to her stepfathers actions. This cements the rage in Monday against her stepfather, because Monday is not the only victim now. Monday also feels some rage against herself, which isn’t uncommon for Nightlings, for her roll in the event. This moment is what triggers Monday to follow Alyson’s body to Syringa and starts the Fledgling process.

Next comes the Nightling stage. To be a Nightling, you have to release that pint up rage in an inhuman way, such as killing. It can’t be done in self defiance either. You’ll notice that Monday escapes her Step-father in the kitchen in Chapter 5 with stabbing him in the chest, if she gone to a neighbor and called the police, she could have been spared from being a Nightling, but instead she goes back and stabs him to death instead. Dion would have probably died, but Monday’s rage is what killed him, not her self defense.

It’s important to note that not all people can be Nightlings, because react to different situations differently, going back to the metaphor before, not all abuse women are going to kill there husbands. Not all people are going to be Nightlings, being a Nightling is something that you a predisposed to. All it takes is the right events to trigger the change.

The next part is the first change itself. I’m not going into detail on the actual change itself, since that will covered in Chapter 7. The first change happens the first night you commit your first kill. Nightlings follow the sunrise and the sunset. Which means that at different times of year, the Nightlings phase is either shorter or longer? More detail about the change will come next week.

Now that you a Nightling, what is your lifestyle? First of all, Nightling drink blood (Monday sees Edith give Ezra a bottle in Chapter 3), but not on the nights that they kill. All of their victims are picked out for them ahead of time. If the victim’s blood type is known a head of time, then they may drink but it is not preferable. This will be explained more in alter chapters but what generally happens is that after a Nightling kills their target, Lenny is in charge of collect the bodies from the crime scene. Once he has he bodies, he has the blood test to make sure there are no drugs or disease and drains the body of blood. The blood is then typed and if the blood is compatible, then it is sent to the Nightling who killed the target. I the targets blood type is not known before hand and the targets blood doesn’t match, then Lenny will switch bloods to different Nightlings, depending on their blood type. The blood is then bottled up and Edith delivers the blood to the different Nightlings, sometimes with their next kill. Nightlings only kill about once every 6 weeks. Nightlings have to drink blood to keep the inhuman, animalistic side of them at bay. They won’t die, but they will become unstable and prone to outburst of aggression that can lead to accidental deaths.

I may be over thinking it but these are just the basic facts. In later chapters, I’ll post updated post on things like:

1.      The pros and cons to the Nightling life

2.      The system that keeps them under ground

3.      The physics of being a Nightlings

If anyone had any questions, leave them in comments. New blog posts this week to make up for the week I took off. Chapter 7 on next Monday; although it could come sooner, it’s a good chapter.

This Blog is © Copyright – All rights reserved – Novels by Megan Bennett.
You may publish translated versions of this article on non-English language blogs provided you acknowledge Novels by Megan Bennett as the original source.

 

The Nightlings: Chapter 6

 

I took only an hour and half for him to find her, but it was the longest hour and a half of Monday’s life.

 

Monday was pressed up against the counter, she wanted to look away from Dion, but all she could do was stair at him in. Monday tried to come up with what she had done, but off all the emotions she felt- anger, repulsion, horror- the only way to describe what she felt was relief. He can’t hurt me anymore, Monday thought. The feeling of ease washed over her, but there was darkness to it. This must be the Nightling side of her being freed.