Excerpt from Under This Red Rock by Mindy McGinnis, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Sorry," I tell her, digging deep, finding words, working to make my tongue move. "I haven't been sleeping."

"I know, honey," Grandma says, her fingers clenching my wrist. Whether she is saying that she can hear me moving around the house at night, or if she's aware that lately I have been answering the monsters, I can't say. Maybe she is simply saying she knows, as if she understands.

Because Grandma doesn't sleep, either.

And she can sympathize with me to a point. Her only daughter married a man that left her with no money and two children that carried a seed of instability growing inside their minds, small root systems developing, tree trunks of madness thickening, making rings, crowding out normality until we wore leaves like crowns.

"Neely!"

Grandma's back, standing in front of me, arms crossed. I've been drawing, ink-stained fingers creating a tree boy and girl, heads intertwined, laced together. His half has died.

I never showered.

"Sorry," I say again. "Sorry." If my mouth makes twenty words today, this will be at least eight of them. I jump to my feet, grab some clothes from the clean laundry basket, and head for the bathroom.

I need to do better. Grandma sees a lot and guesses more. And while she might understand sleeplessness and grief, while she might be familiar with the long night and despair, she can't ever know about the depths, the monsters, and the voices.

Or the fact that sometimes, they have really good ideas.

Excerpted from Under This Red Rock by Mindy McGinnis. Copyright © 2024 by Mindy McGinnis. Excerpted by permission of Katherine Tegan Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.