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Welcome to the Empire State

Quotes from "The Skinwalker's Apprentice."

Emerald Kipp & The Riddle of the Timekeeper

| The truth about Emerald Kipp is that she was kind of a weirdo |

Somehow, Emerald Kipp made it to her final day of high school, but before she can celebrate with her best friends, strange things start to happen, throwing Emerald’s world into a tailspin. When her family and friends begin to disappear, Emerald must find a way to solve the mysterious Timekeeper’s riddle, a treacherous scavenger hunt throughout NYC, before time runs out.

“Emerald Kipp and the Riddle of the Timekeeper,” is the first book in The Empire Witch Series by Claribel Ortega.

Coming Summer 2014

Sneak Peek of "The Skinwalker's Apprentice"

 

Chapter one of “Emerald Kipp & The Skinwalker’s Apprentice”

Chapter One

New York, NY

October 5th, 1984

™ ˜

          Today was Emerald Kipp’s sixteenth birthday, but she was anything but sweet. In fact, half of her body was currently hanging outside her principal Mr. Grossman’s window, while the other half rummaged through his partially open desk. Her Walkman had been confiscated, and she needed it back. Her black high-top sneakers flailed in the air, as she opened each wooden drawer, shoving papers, pencils and folders aside. No sign of her Walkman yet, and she only had one more drawer to go through. She opened it up with a smile, expecting the slick black case to be shining back at her. But the drawer was empty.
“Damn it,” she whispered, closing the door carefully. Her stomach was beginning to hurt from being folded over the window ledge. Luckily for her, Principal Grossman didn’t have enough sense to move his desk farther away from the window. Had anyone walked in, it would’ve been much easier for her to slide out without being noticed. Her eyes searched the tidy room for her Walkman. It wasn’t anywhere in or on his desk, or on the file cabinet. Maybe it was inside one of the locked drawers on the far end of the room? Emerald was just about to give up, when she spotted it peaking from the highest shelf on a weathered looking bookcase.
“Bingo,” she celebrated quietly, she would have to risk climbing into the office completely and she would have to be fast about it. Before she could swing her legs inside, she heard Principal Grossman talking to his secretary, Sheryl.
“Make sure you give me that report, Sheryl, I need it before the end of the day,” he said hotly. He was already mad about something, and finding Emerald hanging inside his office wasn’t going to help his mood. She could practically see the sweat gathering on his bowling ball of a head, his ears chili red, and his horn-rimmed glasses sliding off his bulbous nose.
She looked at the door, and at her Walkman, he was going to walk in any minute and she had to decide what to do. She thought of the brand new mix tape in there that her best friend Seneka Belling had made her, and she decided it was worth the risk.
Just as Principal Grossman’s hand closed around the doorknob, Emerald pointed one finger at the Walkman, and the black box came flying into her hand. She quickly slipped out of the window, and shut it silently with a wave of her hand. Principal Grossman walked in, without noticing a thing.
“Aunt Nora’s going to kill me,” Emerald thought to herself, as she slipped the Walkman into her jacket pocket. But her aunt would have to deal with it, she decided. Emerald was not going to lose another one of her cassette players to her principal. Being a witch had its advantages, and she didn’t mind taking them whenever she could.
Jackson Darcantel was on his skateboard, heading towards the front entrance of Upperten High School, when he spotted a blue head of hair crawling out of the bushes.
“Emerald?”
She looked up as if it was perfectly normal to be crawling out of the shrubbery, and smiled.
“Hey, Jackson, how’s it going?” Emerald popped up and wiped her jeans clean, patting the Walkman on the inside of her oversized army jacket for good measure.
“Are you sneaking out of Principal Grossman’s office already? Sheesh, Emerald, it’s only been THREE weeks.”
“Technically, I wasn’t sneaking out since I was never really inside,” she rationalized, squinting as she said the word ‘really’. “I was only sort of inside.”
“I’m not even gonna ask what that means, I just know it was something illegal and or dangerous. I saw nothing.”
Emerald smiled, Jackson was one of her oldest friends and he was used to her getting into trouble at every turn. He was a smooth talker, which came in handy when she was trying to weasel her way out of something. The two friends walked together, Jackson picked his skateboard up and carried it under his arm. He was much taller than Emerald, almost six feet to her barely five and a half. He wore a cap turned towards the side, and a black windbreaker jacket over his dark blue tee shirt and jeans. Emerald had no idea why Jackson hung around her. He was everybody’s favorite high school senior and she was on a fast track towards juvie. But they had been friends since first grade, and Jackson saw a side of Emerald that her classmates never got to see. There was more to her than just being the school troublemaker.
Emerald pulled an apple out of her other pocket, and took a big bite.
“Where’s Seny?” she asked, with her mouth full.
“Call me that again and I’ll beat the blue out of your hair,” said a monotone voice behind her.
Seneka Belling was Emerald’s best, and oldest friend. Where Jackson was usually the one trying to get them out of trouble, Seneka took great joy in participating in Emerald’s schemes. And today, Emerald and Seneka had something colossal in the works: the senior prank that would live in infamy. Jackson had wanted no part of it, but he rarely got his way when Seneka and Emerald put their heads together.
“Jackson, come on,” Emerald had pleaded, “it’s our senior year, we HAVE to do this together or it won’t be the same.”
“I’m not budging, you won’t get me in trouble again, just forget it.”
Charlie Woo rounded out their group of friends, he went to school in Brooklyn, and was, luckily for him, excluded from participating in the senior prank.
“Stop being such a baby, Jackson, just do it,” he teased.
“Easy for YOU to say, Charlie, you don’t have to deal with Grossman’s breath if you get caught.”
Emerald and Charlie both grimaced. Principal Grossman’s halitosis was known far and wide.
“What kind of friend are you?” asked Seneka calmly, as she stared Jackson down, she could be really scary when she wanted to be. Where Emerald was a flash of bright colors with a mischievous twinkle in her eye, Seneka’s raven hair and dark clothes, in combination with her somber attitude, made them seem like polar opposites.
“Is the kid going to or coming from a funeral?” Emerald’s Aunt Nora asked in her sharp New York accent whenever she saw Seneka.
After weeks of wearing Jackson down, he finally gave in, he would help Emerald and Seneka plan and carry out the senior prank that no one at Upperten High School would ever forget.
“Don’t forget to be at your places by twelve pm,” Emerald reminded them.
“We won’t,” sighed Jackson.
“Oh, and by the way,” smirked Seneka, tossing a small bag towards Emerald, “Happy birthday.”