Chapter One

Yesterday had been weird for Aria.

She had been seeing freaky things ever since her father and she landed at the J. F. Kennedy Airport yesterday afternoon. Ever since she had stepped off Flight 277, from Michigan to New York, she could have sworn that her mind was playing tricks on her.

The first strange thing she had seen had been the man behind the desk when they exited the plane. His face had seemed perfectly ordinary – she hadn't looked twice – until he opened his mouth to reveal two horrible rows of rotted-through, black, and pointed teeth. He had given her a predatory grin as she walked past.

And when they had stopped for a hot dog on the corner of a busy street when walking from their taxi to their hotel, she had noticed that the vendor had peculiar eyes. When she had first looked at them they had seemed green . . . but after looking at them again she saw that they were undeniably yellow. While her father paid, she had stolen one last look.

They had been orange.

Even the woman who had worked the front desk in the hotel's lobby had seemed to have shimmering black hair and huge Monarch butterfly wings sprouting from her back. Aria had hardly believed that no one had taken out their camera phones or called the police.

Her father, Scott, had calmly taken the room key from the exotic hotel employee and smiled. "Thank you," he had said, slipping his wallet and key into the back pocket of his jeans and reaching down to pick up both his and Aria's suitcases.

The woman had smiled and given the astonished Aria a wink.

Now Aria sat in their room at the Holiday Inn Express, yawning and sipping a Styrofoam cup of heavily-creamed coffee. Scott's job required him to take these trips to large cities, in order to meet with other executives and representatives for the company.

Yet this was the first time that Scott had invited her to accompany him on one of his business trips. "You're going to miss a good amount of school," he had warned her. "But you're fourteen now, and I think you're old enough to decide whether or no you want to come with me or stay with the Buckleys."

In fact, Aria had not wanted to stay with the Buckleys, their elderly neighbors, and one week later, she was away from Beal City, Michigan (pop. 345), for the first time in her existence. The airport in Michigan alone had been a giant shock – there had been so many people. It had almost overwhelmed her.

And if she thought that Michigan's airport in Detroit was crowded, the sheer masses of people at the J. F. K. Airport had almost made her faint. It was as though every Beal City resident could have fit in there fifty times – maybe more?

Although, the one event that held the award for Largest Shock of Aria's Fourteen Years of Life was driving in a taxi through Manhattan and Brooklyn to get to their hotel.

So. Many. People.

And there were so many types of people. Men in expensive business suits, talking on cell phones, would pass homeless men sitting against the walls of buildings, begging pedestrians for money. Women with piercings in their noses and tattoos covering their arms would walk next to elderly ladies with blue hair and jogging suits.

Short people, tall people, stick-skinny people, and people who looked as though they were their own planet all perused past one another without a second glance.

And, of course, at some times Aria had believed she had seen something a little too freaky, even for New York City.

Scott had glanced down at his daughter's wide-eyed staring and had cracked a smile. "It amazes me, too," he had assured her, putting his arm across her shoulders. "Every time."

Finished with her coffee, Aria set down her cup and picked up the note her father had left her that morning. She vaguely remembered the alarm clock going off at five thirty that morning, but she had been too tired to care. When she woke up four hours later, she had found her father's hasty scribbling on a piece of hotel stationary.

Aria –

I have to be at the Hyatt in Manhattan for a work conference at six thirty, and I won't be back until late tonight. Take your cell phone and explore Brooklyn, but make sure you call me every two hours. I love you, and be safe.

Dad

Explore Brooklyn, Aria thought, setting the note down and getting up to take a shower.

Be safe. She hoped that was possible, especially since New York City was not only filled with tons of people, but some people who didn't . . . seem . . . human.

After a shower, Aria was feeling more awake. She put on a pair of jeans, black Converse, and a purple T-shirt that had the Sailor Moon logo. After looking outside, she pulled on one of Scott's sweatshirts.

Dad, she texted Scott's cell, I don't want to interrupt your meeting. Call you at noon. Love you. Flipping her phone shut, she grabbed her wallet (with fifty dollars inside of it), her room key, and slipped all three things into the oversized sweatshirt pocket.

Brooklyn awaited.