Maya MacGregor - The Many Half-Lived Lives of Sam Sylvester

Sincere thanks to Lydia K. Valentine for her review of and input regarding the manuscript, helping us to ensure that all readers can connect with our story and feel genuine representation.

Heartfelt gratitude to Noem Martnez for their helpful feedback on Sams story.

Text copyright 2022 by Maya MacGregor

All rights reserved. Copying or digitizing this book for storage, display, or distribution in any other medium is strictly prohibited.

Quotation on from Jack London, The Call of the Wild (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1903).

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, please contact permissions@astrapublishinghouse.com.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Astra Young Readers

An imprint of Astra Books for Young Readers, a division of Astra Publishing House

astrapublishinghouse.com

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN: 978-1-63592-359-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-63592-570-8 (eBook)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021050226

First edition

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Design by Barbara Grzeslo

The text is set in Sabon LT Std.

The titles are set in Futura Std Light Condensed and Khaki Std 1.

For my queer family. Whether you can come out yet or not, you belong.

he first time I see the house, its as it swallows my father.

I count to threeDads strategy for doing things Im not ready to doand make myself look up.

The sound of something rattling in a hastily packed box behind me has stopped. Ive carefully kept my eyes on my phone, scrolling Tumblr, but I cant avoid it anymore. I sit here watching motes of dust drift in the slanting afternoon light.

The front door is even ringed in red like a mouth. Not a bloodied mouth, nothing monstrous. Nor are the two dormer windows at the top in any way aggressive. They droop. The house looks like it tried but that it had found whatever it tried just too hard, and it quit.

I can kind of relate to that. New house. New city. New school.

Again.

I hope I do better than the house did.

Sam! Dad sticks his head out the door to holler. Youve gotta come see this place!

Hes so excited about it. Ive seen pictures, of course, but he insists they dont do it justice.

I push a lock of lavender-swirled hair out of my face and open the car door.

Outside the wind is chilly, and Im amazed that I can smell the ocean. The salt tang to the air and the brisk winter wind wake me right up. I shouldnt be surprised to smell the sea; it surrounds Astoria on all sides. Theres even a damn palm tree in the yard next door. Arent we fancy? I like it. Theres no one around, but its Wednesday afternoon, so I guess people are still at work. Just as I think it, I see a person with a backpack covered in She-Ra and Steven Universe patches and Pride flags turn the corner onto our new street. Im pretty sure I feel their eyes on me as they look over their shoulder, and I hurriedly turn away, even though I want to know if I saw rightI thought I saw the telltale pink-purple-blue of the bi flag. I dont want to get my hopes up. Maybe I didnt see what I thought I did; it was just a glance. Im used to being the only queer in the room (the only one who was out, anyway), and in Portland, I was still too terrified to even register that wasnt true anymore.

Tapping my thumb against my iPhones screen, I trot up the few steps to the house. I close my eyes on the top step. The floors over the threshold are dark hardwood, maybe walnut. Even from here, I get a whiff of newish paint, the smell fading but not gone. The foyers mostly offset by pale light coming through the windows. The house is oriented north-south, and I wonder what itll be like in the golden hour if the sun ever really comes out here.

I can see it behind my eyes, all warm orange turning the dust motes to sparks instead of sparkles.

Sam! Dad calls my name again. Hes upstairs, from the sound of it.

I open my eyes and let the house swallow me too, stepping over the threshold.

The house echoes around my footsteps. Its a strange sound, like Im descending into a cave. We have zero furniture. Theres supposedly a truck from IKEA coming in the next day or so, but for now, my feet on the stairs feel heavy, so heavy their thumps should be heard by the ocean and its waves three streets away.

I put one hand on the banister as I climb the stairs, and my trepidation grows. Like the sea wind or a wave at the change of the tide, it washes over me and retreats, slipping back into the deep.

At the top of the stairs is Dad, leaning on the railing. Hes a smidge taller than I am, around six feet. Im still not used to seeing him without his locs surrounding his warm brown face, always in contrast to my pale white skin and naturally dirty blond hair that is more half-hearted wave than Dads gorgeous tight coils. He cut the locs off for his new job. I said I didnt want him to cut them. He said they were heavy and giving him migraines with extra pressure under his hard hat (plus his hairlines receding, and hes self-conscious about it), and then he chased me around the apartment after I buzzed his head. The downstairs neighbors pounded on their ceiling to tell us how much they appreciated that.

He laughed at the time, but I think Dad had more mixed feelings than he let on, and the silliness was him trying to hide it. Hes worn locs since I was little, and while I know it was his choice and his reasons, I think he felt the weight of more than hair once it was done.

Did you see the palm tree? I ask. It feels important that he knows its there. Palm trees are vacations and sun-drenched shores, and this move is neither of those things, but the tree seems hopeful anyway.

I did, I did. Dad grins at me. Not quite a tropical paradise, but I thought youd like it. Come see your room.

I follow, trailing my hand along the banister. It looks like its been freshly sanded and re-varnished, the same dark wood as the floor. My fingertips stick slightly on the smooth surface. I think if I bent over, I could see my face in the glossy reflection.

Hes giving me the biggest room. He insisted that hes too lazy to climb stairs to get to bed, and his smaller room has an en-suite, which just means he gets his own bathroom. And when I walk into my new room, a little shock goes through me.

The room is huge. The windowsill directly ahead of me spans both dormers, almost a window seat, and is a solid two feet deep. The upper bit rises straight along the outermost edges of the windows and then curves inward to meet in a little point like the peak on top of an ice-cream cone.

Walking to one of the walls, its almost too bright to look at. Its white. White-white, not eggshell or cream. It looks and feels hastily done. Theres even a seam visible. Dad would be mortified if his crew did this. I rap my knuckles on it, and a hollow sound greets me.