Page 1 of Nine-Tenths

Chapter One

There's this thing in stories called the "inciting incident".

And mine? It's a goddamn doozy.

It’s the part of the book, right at the start, where you pinch the pages between your fingers, and whisper to yourself:here we go.It's the bit where the lovers have their meet-cute, the farm boy leaves his family behind for the wider world, the Chosen One is attacked by her first evil monster, blah, blah, blah. You know what I mean. It's my favorite part of the book. It's the place where everything opens up and you have no idea what you're in for—only that it'll be exciting.

I know all about Inciting Incidents because I was going to be a writer.

No, IthoughtI was going to be a writer. Historical romance, that’s my jam. Dukes, rakes, windblown-gowns, dropped handkerchiefs, cliffside confessions—I am a slut for that stuff. Forget real history (totally flunked ‘We’re-Feeding-You-Colonialist-Narratives-Disguised-As-Education101’). Give me made-up kingdoms and far-flung pirates. Give me the fantasy of a happily ever after that lasts beyond ‘the end’. Give coffee andstories, and I am a very happy boy.

But right before he got sick, in the summer between my first and second year of university, my Dad and I had a serious talk about writing. How much work it is. How long it takes to start paying off, how little mid-list writers make. Backup plans.

And then…after,I thought, well, he wasn’t wrong. If life was going to be pointlessly, stupidly, cruelly short, then I should spend my time trying to dosomething good, right? I switched majors. Science makes sense. Science is logical. Science creates vaccines and saves lives. Science can bring species back from the brink of extinction.

Science doesn’t break your heart.

All of this is to say that I can—with complete and utter certainty—point to the exact moment when my life became a trash fire. It was my twenty-fourth birthday, and my big sister Gemma gave me the dumbest, but most totally plot-initiating gift: a sunrise alarm clock.

My Inciting Incident starts like this: in Mum’s pokey poppies-and-roosters kitchen, with Gemma turning over the box that the wrapping paper reveals, trying to figure out where the English description is hidden.

"It's an alarm clock," Gemma says, when I don’t comment immediately. She's leaning on the back of my chair, the braid hanging over her shoulder long enough to tickle my neck. I flick it away.

"I have a perfectly good alarm clock." I hold up my phone, then let it slap back down onto the plastic tablecloth. "Goes ding when there's stuff."

My sister heaves the kind of sigh only eldest-born siblings make, indulgent and frustrated at the same time. I love making her make that noise. It's hilarious.

"It wakes you up gently," Gem says. "So you’re not cranky."

"M'not cranky."

Everyone laughs. I may have snapped at Stuart just this morning when he shook my foot through my childhood bed sheets like an aggressive chihuahua.

Okay.

So I'm cranky in the mornings.

"I don't see how it's supposed to work." Stu grabs the clock. "How can you see the light if your eyes are closed?"

As the younger brother of twin siblings, I am used to having the toys I’m playing with getting pulled out of my hands. Instead of trying to snatch it back, I fiddle with the iridescent green bow that was on the box.

"The same way you can see sunlight through your eyelids. It just works, okay? I've been using this exact same one for months. I promise you'll wake up in a better mood."

"You know, it's rude to give someone a present that benefits yourself," I say, playing with the tape on the bottom of the ribbon. I stick it to my ear. Mum smirks at my accessory, but otherwise her prim little 'all my babies are home to roost' face stays in place.

Makes me feel a bit shitty, because I'm the only one of us who went away to school, andstayedaway. Gem came back to live with Mum straight after she finished her undergrad, so Mum wouldn't be alone in the house after Dad. Stuart never left the city, though he's got his own place now. But that'swhyI stayed away after I graduated last year. Mum and Gem don'tneed me, and if I came back, Stu would try to get me to join his construction crew.

To be fair, Idogo weak in the knees for the kind of person jacked enough to pick me up and consensually throw me around. Standing on a roof next to a whole crew of pretty roughs trying to help them replace shingles? That's gonna lead to me swooning, falling off, and dying of a broken neck. Stu doesn’t want that on his conscience.

Because she's a bossy know-it-all, Gem takes my present from Stu and opens it to show me how it works.

Suddenly empty-handed, Stu helps himself to another piece of my birthday cake, licking the icing off his fingersandthe serving knife.

Mum slaps the hand holding the knife, and Stu flushes up and sets it down in the sink. He descends on his third piece like a wolf, but at least now he's watching his manners.

"There's instructions," I point out as Gem tosses the booklet on the table. "I don’t need you to do it for me."

"The day you read the instructions," Mum says, "is the day I'll know for sure the fairies swapped you back."