PW #234: YA Contemporary Fantasy: THE WAXLING

Manuscript Status: Finished

Mentor Name: Megan Grimit
Mentee Name: Sheena Boekweg
Title: THE WAXLING
Category: YA
Genre: Contemporary Fantasy
Word Count: 70,000 words

Pitch:

The Waxling was supposed to be a monster, made from the mold of a dead girl. A creature Arialle spent years training to protect, for the powerful wish maturing within its seed heart.

Blake’s also been trained— to hunt down the monster and steal the wish to save his dying mother. But when the Waxling wakes, they discover she’s not a monster at all. She’s trusting, kind, beautiful…

And wanted dead by both their families.

Excerpt:

The stupid mannequins wouldn’t stop glaring at me from the gift shop window. Their eyeless stares followed me around the bus station as I dropped my bag, slumped into a seat by the garbage, and glanced back.

One plastic faceless statue still judged me from beneath a Welcome to Tacoma baseball hat.

I flipped it off. “Look elsewhere, freak,” I mumbled. I put my boots up on the chair across from me.

The noise startled a little boy sleeping on his mother’s lap. A smear of chocolate covered his lip.

The mom didn’t notice. She didn’t wipe his face. Wipe his stupid face.

My eyes stung, so I closed them.

Mattie would be okay without me. He didn’t need his big sister to watch out for him. I had to think for myself here. He wasn’t the Protector. They weren’t going to train him the way they trained me. No one would be that cruel.

To him.

Soft music played through the sound system as I peeked at the clock. Seven minutes to freedom. My heel bounced against the vinyl chair. The mom glanced up, looking twice. Once, to judge my long dress and old-fashioned braid, and again, probably to peg me as a member of a cult. She woke up her son and changed seats.

I gritted my teeth.

She wasn’t wrong.