Michael
Alan Peck won the Illinois Library Association's 2015 Soon to be Famous Illinois
Author Contest for
his debut novel The Journeyman (The Commons Series, Book
1). The Journeyman is recommended for fans of fantasy and
magical realism, both teens and adults.
The Journeyman tells the story of three people who board a bus and – following a horrific accident – must band together as the last hope for the afterlife, known to them as The Commons.
Synopsis:
“Paul Reid
died in the snow at seventeen. The day of his death, he told a lie—and for the
rest of his life, he wondered if that was what killed him.”
And so
begins the battle for the afterlife, known as The Commons. It’s been taken over
by a corporate raider who uses the energy of its souls to maintain his brutal
control. The result is an imaginary landscape of a broken America—stuck in time
and overrun by the heroes, monsters, dreams, and nightmares of the imprisoned
dead.
Three
people board a bus to nowhere: a New York street kid, an Iraq War veteran, and
her five-year-old special-needs son. After a horrific accident, they are the
last, best hope for The Commons to free itself. Along for the ride are a
shotgun-toting goth girl, a six-foot-six mummy, a mute Shaolin monk with
anger-management issues, and the only guide left to lead them.
Three
Journeys: separate but joined. One mission: to save forever.
But first
they have to save themselves.
EXCERPT
Paul Reid died in the snow at seventeen.
The day of his death, he told a lie—and for the rest of his life, he wondered
if that was what killed him.
"Don't worry," he said to Mike
Hibbets, the only adult in New York City who'd ever cared about him. "I'm
coming back."
Pop Mike ran the New Beginnings group
home, where Paul lived. He didn't believe the lie. And Paul told himself that
it didn't matter.
"Does your face hurt?" The old
man leaned on his desk in the New Beginnings main office.
Paul twisted his pewter ring, a habit
that announced when something was bothering him. His face did hurt—especially
his swollen eye.
As did the ribs he hadn't been able to
protect two days earlier, when he hit the ground, balled up, in a Hell's
Kitchen alley while four guys stomped him until they tired of it. He'd tried to
shield his face, where damage might show forever. But he fared just as poorly
at that as the afternoon sun cast a beat-down shadow show on a brick wall and a
girl stood nearby and cried.
Paul had little to say, and no one
worked a silence like Pop Mike. His nickname had once been "Father
Mike" due to a talent for sniffing out guilt that rivaled any priest's. He
asked the New Beginnings kids to drop that name so potential donors wouldn't
confuse his shelter with a religious operation. There's no God to lift us up—we
rise or fall together, he taught them. So they compromised and shortened it.
"Five foster homes, three group
homes, some street life in between," Pop Mike said.
"So?" Paul couldn't look him
in the eye.
"So no one makes it through that
without survival skills, which you have. And you've found a place here for four
years, and now you're just up and leaving."
The desk was a relic of the building's
days as a school, a general hospital, and before that, a mental hospital. Its
round wood edge was uneven and worn, as if the many kids trapped in this chair
over the years had stared it away, varnish and all.
Paul shifted in the chair, his side one
big ache. He hated hearing his life recited as if it were recorded and filed
somewhere, which it was.
The winter wind forced its way through
the gaps between the cockeyed window sash and its frame. A storm was due.
Outside, the fading daylight illuminated
the wall of the adjacent building. A cartoon-ad peacock, its paint battling to
hang onto the decaying brick, peddled a variety of Pavo fruit juices.
"New Beginnings matters to
you." Rumor was, Pop Mike could go weeks without blinking. "Look how
you tried to save Gonzales."
"I told him to run for help. He
just ran." Paul had practiced this conversation— how it would play out.
Pop Mike wouldn't mind that he was leaving. If he did, Paul wouldn't sweat it.
Yet he was unable to face the man.
The painted peacock smiled despite its
sentence of death-by-crumbling. Its tail, gathered in one fist, bent outward in
offering. The feathers ended in a once-vibrant assortment of bottles spread
above the Pavo slogan like leaves on a branch of a shade tree: "Wake up to
the rainbow! Wake up to your life!"
Decades of sun and rain had rendered the
flavors unidentifiable in the grime and washed-out hues. Paul could only guess
at grape, apple, orange, and watermelon.
"You could apply for our Next Steps
program—work your way to an equivalency credential."
Paul didn't bother to refuse that one
again.
Pop Mike followed his gaze. "The
all-seeing eyes."
"What?"
"The peacock. In some Asian faiths,
it's a symbol of mercy and empathy. In others, it's the all-seeing eyes of the
Almighty. What that one sees, of course, is a customer."
"It's time for me to go." Paul
touched his fingers to his eye, which flared in protest. "This is how New
York chose to tell me." He prodded the bruise to see if he could make it
hurt more. He succeeded.
Pop Mike reached across the desk, took
hold of Paul's wrist, and gently pulled his hand away from his face. He didn't
let go until he was convinced Paul wouldn't do it again. That was the only way
he could keep Paul safe from himself.
"Please," he said.
"That's the one word I have left. It won't work, but I'm saying it.
Please."
Paul twisted his ring.
Pop Mike took in the beaten-up backpack
at Paul's feet, the military-surplus coat thrown over the back of the chair.
"Where are you going?"
"Away. I'll let you know when I get
there."
Wake up to your life, said the peacock.
About the Author:
Michael
Alan Peck tells tales big and small. Life's magical, but it isn't always enough
for a good story. So he makes up the rest.
He’s made
his living writing about TV, its celebrities, and its past. He’s also put food
on the table reviewing restaurants and writing about travel.
He has a
godawful memory, so he focuses on the written word. He likes to think that over
time, he’s gotten better at it—the writing, not the remembering. He forgets
important dates. He’s pretty good with movie lines. But after several years, he
tends to tweak them. He prefers his versions over the real ones.
Funny goes
a long way with him. Probably further than it should.
He grew up
outside Philadelphia and has lived in New York, L.A., and San Francisco. His
current home base is Chicago.
