About Masks: Rise of Heroes

Written by Hayden Thorne
Print Information:
276 pages / 69000 words / 5x8 trade paperback
ISBN: 978-1-60370-356-7, 1-60370-356-X
eBook Information:
204 pages / 69000 words
Available file types - html, lit, pdf, prc
ISBN: 978-1-60370-481-6, 1-60370-418-7

Michael St. James is something of a cad, and now he’s paying for it, banished to a backwater, post-colonial Virginia town for his sins. Happily, he finds something to occupy his time in the form of Daniel Calhoun, a stiff-necked local squire who simply begs to be taken down a notch for his arrogance. The two begin a torrid affair, and Michael pushes them to the very edge of social extinction with his wild ways, drawing Daniel into mischief at every turn.

Eventually Michael realizes that he teeters on the very brink of ruining Daniel’s life as thoroughly as he has his own, and decides to do the honorable thing. Will it be too late for him to convince Daniel he can do the right thing? Or will Daniel Calhoun decide perhaps he doesn’t want a gentleman after all?

Sample

Chapter 1

My day began with my mother’s voice in my ear, going on and on and on about my grades and the crap dye job on my hair. Dad had already gone off to work, so he was spared one more coronary moment by my hands. Liz did nothing but stare at me from across the table. Her mouth hung open.

“Wow, Eric,” she breathed, giving me a disgusting view of half-eaten cereal in her mouth.

“Look, if my prescription was updated, we wouldn’t be having these accidents with Punk ‘N Go, would we?” I retorted.

Mom rolled her eyes as she set down empty glasses by our plates. I immediately filled mine with milk. “All you need to do is tell us if you think your eyes have gotten worse, for heaven’s sake. It’s not as though setting up appointments with Dr. Stubbs means cutting your jugular open and sticking a straw in it.” Mom glanced at Liz, who’d redirected her jaw-dropping to her. “What?”

“Fine, fine. I’ll make an appointment, but I’m not changing my hair color. Seriously—what’s the fuss? So I’ve got blue streaks in my hair. Big deal.”

“Streaks?” Liz echoed. “What streaks? You look like you’ve just shampooed in Smurf blood.”

I narrowed my eyes at my sister but took the high road. In boring arguments like this, it was always best to keep that stiff upper lip and not respond. It said a lot about character, especially with me being three years younger than Liz. What was it about adults that they forgot what it felt like being a teenager?

“Anyway, Eric,” Mom continued, “there’s this matter about your grades.”

I sighed. “Yeah, I know.”

She kept talking as she bustled around the kitchen. My grades stank, what was up with my Chemistry exams, why couldn’t I demonstrate as much interest in Geometry as I did Art, et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseam? I waited until her back was turned before fishing out my little vial of blue food coloring from my jacket pocket, which I quickly unstopped and emptied into my milk. There were only a few drops left as I’d made good use of my supply, and I made a mental note to wander off to the supermarket for reinforcements after school. The resulting color wasn’t as deep as I hoped. Nothing stole one’s thunder more than a sky-blue concoction, when one intended something along the lines of denim.

Liz watched me in horrified fascination as I drank my Blue Breakfast Beverage in three massive gulps, hoping that my milk moustache made the perfect complement to my hair despite its wimpy shade.

“You’re so mature,” she muttered, shaking her head.

I pushed back my chair and stood up just as Mom turned around, a plate of eggs and bacon neatly piled on the platter she held.

“I gotta go,” I said. “I’ll be late for school.”


“As if punctuality made a difference before,” Liz said.
“What about breakfast?”

“Can’t. Sorry, no time.”

I gave Mom a purposefully loud, sloppy kiss, leaving a sky-blue smear on her cheek, and then shuffled off. I only had two pieces of toast with butter and blue milk, and I knew that Mom was about to pounce on me with that grease pile she was going to set down on the table. I was sure she also knew that her efforts wouldn’t have made a smidge of difference. I wasn’t going to risk a premature heart attack over a full belly; besides, solid sustenance was bad news to the ethereal.

After brushing my teeth, I gave my hair one more critical appraisal. My home dye job wasn’t as bad as everyone insisted, but then again, my family had always been a bit drama queen-ish over the smallest, most insignificant things.

They’d voiced concerns over my complexion as if genetics didn’t play a part (I could trace my paleness back to my great, great grandmother, who was, by all accounts, this delicate little thing who couldn’t stay out in the sun for too long). They’d complained about my skinniness, too (well, Mom had, anyway, and she never bought into the “late bloomer” argument). My hair was too shaggy, though it never reached past the top of my ears, with the back cut close and super short and the layers growing longer the higher they sprouted on my skull, spilling over my face in a dark, asymmetrical fringe. 

Their complaints placed more weight on the fact that my uneven bangs covered my eyes. They shouldn’t moan, really. I used to edge my eyes with a thin line of black. I could still remember that odd sound my dad made when I came down for breakfast looking pale, sullen, and kohl-rimmed for the first time. He made me think of a squirrel with TB. Knowing their responses to eyeliner, I thought that hiding my eyes under my bangs would be a kindness to them, but no. They were only slightly appeased when I began to wear glasses, which served as another shield, but they knew they could do nothing about my fashion sense. I mean, for God’s sake, I was sixteen—not to mention bored out of my mind.

A stern warning from the principal’s office killed the eyeliner use after a week, but I found comfort in the thought that my glasses served as replacement eye edging. The frames were black, plastic, narrow rectangles, and they worked, I guess, well enough for my purpose.

Now, of course, my problematic black shag had been given a bit of a facelift, and I’d worked random blue streaks all over (Punk ‘N Go, the best hair color brand for penny-pinching teenagers). Smurf blood? Whatever.