Is your party hat on? Kazoo in hand? This is the Annual Wattpad Block Party after all! I for one am thrilled to be a part of it. *throws confetti*

For those of you who don't know me, my name is Rebecca Sky, I'm most known for my book THE LOVE CURSE, and I got my start writing right here, on Wattpad!  Before Wattpad I was a high school English dropout, and even though I sucked at it, I loved writing. My English teacher told me I was her most creative student—she was referring to my spelling and grammar. But in my defense, I spent my days daydreaming instead of paying attention in class.

Wattpad gave me a safe place to make mistakes and learn and grow. Now just 4.5 years after finding Wattpad, I have two literary agents, have been interviewed by one of the biggest papers in the world, and have some very exciting things coming up this year that I can't wait to share with you all. I owe so much to this site and this phenomenal community. 

         It's impossible to express the extent of my gratitude, but I try to give back wherever I can. One way I do is by co-hosting a weekly twitter chat with 3 top Wattpad writers. We offer free advice on writing and the industry. We also do a monthly read/review/share contest for our readers. If you're interested in either of those I have more info in my profile.

         When I was first asked to come up with a post for the Wattpad Block Party I asked my readers what they'd like me to write about. Being the awesome supportive crew they are, they requested a sneak peak at a project I've been working on for the past year.  So without further ado, here is a random chapter and the blurb from my novel A LIFETIME ACCORDING TO KARMA ROSE.  (Go easy on me, these are unedited and subject to change):

BLURB:

In his clockwork palace, the Father of murderers stews over his dwindling supply of soul powered parts.

And in small town Echo Lake, the daughter of an atheist taxidermist and a Hindu yogi, recovers from the murder of her sister by forming an unlikely friendship with a boy in a coma.

Through the boy she learns that the dead still exist, and that bad souls have been coming back and stealing parts of people's lifetimes—hers included—leaving her with a strange heart shaped clock, that's counting down the hours she has to live.

But because she can see the clock, she can fix it.

To do so she travels to the place bad souls go when they die in search of a replacement part. There she learns that the boy in a coma is somehow involved with the murder of his father, and the Father of all murderers.

They must work together on an adventure of a lifetime, against the enemy of all lifetimes, to find her missing piece, the truth, and possibly a little love.

A tale of blossom and bone,

fear and freedom,

pain and persistence.

Will they find her part? Or will her last second run out?

RANDOM CHAPTER:

It's a strange and barbaric thing to measure the dead. And it's an everyday occurrence in my home. I can recite the steps like a well loved recipe—slice open the stomach, slop the entrails into a plastic bucket, then weigh them with a kitchen counter scale. I've seen it done other ways too—meat hooks, rulers, stones, but it's the bucket that measures how many rags you'll need to stuff the insides. This isn't something your average teenage girl should know. I blame my mother's love for eccentric professions, and thanks to her favorite being taxidermy, there's no escaping death. No matter how much I wish I could.

I realized this for the first time when I was eight. A hunter brought Mom a Grizzly to embalm—this was when I also learned it takes a sack of rags for every pound of guts. There were so many buckets worth that Mom used all her supplies and started repurposing items from around the house. According to my mother there's an art to stuffing, even in death it's important to look full. It wasn't until she took our bedding that she finally felt it was enough. Now, somewhere in Washington there's a Grizzly with a My Little Pony sheet in its left arm.

And sometimes I wonder how many rags it would take to fill me. That can't possibly be average.

There was a time when seeing dead animals would've made me cry—I learned the hard way that if you're around something enough it becomes normal.  

Unfortunately, the type of normal that comes with years of Mom's embalmed animals didn't prepare me for my first dead person. This is not my first dead person. It's my second. And nothing could prepare me for this...

There's weight.In the far corner of the unfamiliar room afluorescent light blinks over a thin sheet, a second skin, covering the corpse and gurney. The cloth suffocates the body, shadows form in strange places—a dark screaming circle where the mouth should be, a large teardrop for an eye.

I take a deep breath.

Two men, one with wild grey hair and the other neat red curls, stand on either end. The light silhouettes their forms, making them nightmarish creatures—dark Butchers, robed in black plastic gloves, aprons, boots. Silence passes between them, then a nod so slight I almost miss it.  They lift the blanketed corpse by its head and feet. The centre sags, the sheet dangles like ghost tentacles over the table.

My breaths come in raggedy bursts.

They heave the body onto a brass industrial scale big enough to hold several of Mom's buckets. The corpse bends over the register to form a frown.

I know how it feels.

I'm no stranger to death—animals, or people. I was ten when my sister Gracie got sick. The naive, childish, part of me thought we were invincible, that everyone I loved was invincible. I sat beside her and held her hand, rubbed her arms to keep her warm. I watched as her rose lips faded to white, and her eyes turned to marbles, shiny and lifelike, but stone. Until that moment we'd been inseparable. She was my first dead person.

 As her color left I felt a gapping hole grow in my heart. Like her soul clung to a section of mine, and dragged it with her, unraveling me from the inside out. She was my best friend, I couldn't imagine a life without her.

I'd asked to go with her body to the morgue. I didn't want her to be alone, waiting in an unfamiliar place until we could be together again. They told me a morgue wasn't somewhere a child should go—Gracie was ten months older than me.

All these years later I'm finally seeing what happened to her once she left me. She wasn't alone. It's far worse than that.

She was getting measured.

"One hundred and twenty three pounds," the red haired man says.

My mom clears her throat. "Did you get that, Karma?"

"Pardon?" I jolt around.

Her hazel eyes, the same earthy shade as mine, are like ice. She blinks slow and hard. "Mr. Godfrey suggested tulips for the arrangement." When I don't respond she arches a brow and tilts her ballerina bun toward an elderly gentleman dressed in a tailored brown suit. "The funeral director." Her lips clap each syllable, that's how I know she's mad, real mad.

I scribble random words on my clipboard, hoping it will cover the shake in my hands. "Yes, tulips. Got it."

Her eyes don't soften.

I look away, push the toe of my boot across the polished cement floor. My uniform, a gothic pink and black striped dress—something you'd put on an antique doll—seems cartoonish as it swishes around my knees.

Mom continues her conversation, and my attention sweeps across the room, to the men, and the corpse.

 There's height.They lift a corner of the sheet, exposing an aged powder-blue foot. The older of the two yanks on the stiff big toe as he ties a red string to it. He hands the spool to his red haired assistant, who wretches it across the body.

"A five and a half footer will suit her just fine," the assistant says.

There's a soft pressure on my shoulder. I spin, my ponytail mops my porcelain cheek with its dark wave.

"What do you think, Karma?" It's my mom. "White or pink?" She motions to Mr. Godfrey.

"I, uh?" My eyes wander between her and the corpse.

She grabs my chin and twists me to face her—her eyes stare back like I'm a stranger. After a few moments she lets go with a final pinch. "The tulips for the funeral." She sighs.

I glance at my hands, specters that grip the clipboard and blend with the paper. "Oh. Uh—white."

"White it is." 

Mr. Godfrey watches me as he blows his nose into a hanky. "A most excellent choice, Mrs. Rose." He inspects the contents, then folds it, and sticks it in his jacket pocket.

I hold back a gag.

Mom knots her fingers over her midsection and somehow manages to keep a smile. "Please, call me Nicole." She motions to me. "And my daughter, Karma." Her heels find their natural place, resting together in a dancer's first position, her back's ramrod straight. She hasn't danced in years but her body refuses to forget.

There's time.I watch over her shoulder as the assistant's grip encircles a frail, wrinkled hand with long unkempt nails. He grunts, struggling to pry a ring off the index finger. Its absence leaves a thin white line of oxygen-deprived skin.

"One gold colored wedding band," he says, placing it in a plastic bag. He removes other items. A bracelet. A golden locket. Earrings. Each time he puts them in individual plastic bags.

I rub my thumb over the black jade bracelet my father brought back from his spiritual pilgrimage in India. A memory of our time apart preserved inside something beautiful. The old lady had many memories—her necklace, the earrings, the ring. I'm curious. Was she loved like how I loved my sister? Is her family wondering what's happening to her body too?

"What's her name?" I ask.

My mom chokes on whatever she was saying. Her mouth dangles, frozen mid word. Across the room, stillness falls, as the men stop measuring to watch.

Mr. Godfrey runs his hand down his jacket and takes a step forward. "What was that you said?"

"I..." My eyes wander to the mass hidden beneath the thin sheet. I take a deep breath. "What was her name?"

"The deceased?" His voice rises.

I nod, my eyes afraid to look at my mother. My hands shake.

He smiles, polite yet snub, and pats his jacket pocket. "I couldn't say. Besides, a young lady shouldn't concern herself with such matters." 

The clipboard slips through my fingers, falls to the ground, rocking painfully before settling with a slap. I grip my skirt.

Mom let's out an airy breath and bows to pick it up. As she rights herself she shoves it into my stomach. "What do you say to Mr. Godfrey?"

I haven't heard her use that tone since she made me apologize to the elementary school janitor for sticking chewing gum under my desk. I want to say that it's not right how people's lifetimes are reduced to a series of numbers. That this lady was so much more, my sister was so much more.

Mr. Godfrey watches me over his large nose.

I fumble to take the clipboard. "Right... sorry," I say. The truth is, I'd say almost anything to make him look away, and to shift the black-robed men's attention from me.

He nods once, and swings back to my mom, teeth clacking as he finishes instructions. "You'll have access to the venue an hour before..."

The assistant releases the lady's arm, it topples over her covered chest, presenting the faded skin on her ring finger. The men, even my mom, are so casual about the whole thing. It's like they've forgotten she meant something to someone.

"Does she have any family?" They should be here, she shouldn't have to go through this alone.

Mr. Godfrey's eyes narrow. Mom clears her throat.

I brave looking up. Her eyes are hard in warning and locked on me. Guilt prickles the back of my neck. I never realized how important this new business is to her.

Her hands stretch to Mr. Godfrey with both caution and determination. "Rose & Daughters Florists are thankful for this opportunity." She steers the old man to the door, and motions behind his back for me to join her, but I hesitate.If I leave now I'll never know the extent of what my sister went through when it was her time in the morgue—getting measured.

The door closes after them, stopping with a grunt. I'm alone with the two men, and the old lady hidden beneath the sheet.

One hundred and twenty three pounds.

           Five and a half feet.

                    A lifetime of memories.

"Excuse me, Miss?" the assistant says. He pauses with the lady's arm in his hands. "Miss," he repeats, this time waving the arm in my direction.

I point to my chest and shift my stance. "Me?" 

"The tour's over." He sets the arm down and adjusts his glove. "We're about to start embalming. You should go after your mother."

I don't move. I can't move—I need to know how this ends, I need to know everything that happened to my sister.

The men watch me, arms paused mid task. After many wasted minutes they continue their work. First they unveil the body, fold the sheet with army-like precision and place it on the counter. The lady lays exposed. In that moment I want to run to her and cover her, to rip the ring free from the plastic and place it back on her finger. But I don't move. I can't move.

They pour buckets of yellow fluid over her naked form. The room fills with the scent of sweet mothballs. The red haired man scrubs her with a wire brush while the other man showers off the chemicals. I expect her skin to be raw and red but it never changes its bluish hue.

They pull her to the side facing me as they clean her back— her eyes and mouth stay shut. Hanging skin pulls the corners, even in death she's fighting back a scream.

 "You best be on your way now, Miss," says the man with the unruly, salt and pepper hair, as he polishes a tool with his apron.

For a long moment the only sounds come from the wall clock's unhurried tick, the fluorescent's electric hum, feet scraping on the ground, my heavy breathing. Then he slices the silence with a sigh, his eyes narrow, his grey tresses flap as he nods for his assistant to continue. Without hesitation, the man with red hair pulls a large blade from the shelf and sets to work sharpening its edge—the room drowns in the screech of steel on stone.

My head spins, I blink hard and slow.

His red curls reflect the overhead lighting, giving the allusion of twirling flames. He turns up his nose, the side of his mouth twists into a strange smile. Our eyes meet at the frightful moment he presses the blade into the flesh above of the lady's vein. I'm unmoving, anchored—inside bile flips and spins in my stomach, threatening to push out the toast I had this morning.

Is this what happened to my sister?

He watches me with a dark curiosity as the old lady's tar-like liquid covers the blade's tip. He's cutting into human flesh, like a hunter cleaning another kill, or a taxidermist disemboweling some poor creature. It's routine, there's no concern for the lady, she's just a piece of meat. I want to scream at him that she is so much more, but my voice fails me. 

There's capacity.He drags the blade across the lady's forearm. Her life pours out and fills the lip of the gurney, surrounding her, one last hug, before it bleeds through the side of the table and plummets into a drain in the ground.

My lungs stop. The pressure seeps into my head. I falter back, one step, and another, until I'm against the wall.

Someone shouts.

A young man, not much older than I am, runs across the room. He's as wild as moonlight twisting through oak branches—and he's as striking too. He throws a worn leather coat over the lady and pulls her into his tattooed arms. They collapse to the ground, blocking the liquid from exiting the drain. Her life stains his shirt, his jeans, it forms a pool around him.

He hides his face in her neck, holds the jacket over her—all the while the red tar, the blood, so much blood, pours from her and covers him.

 "Gran, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." His voice is low and raspy, with a hint of an accent, and it seems to come all at once, from every corner of the room. He pulls back and runs a hand through his dark raven hair, wipes his cheek—bloody fingerprints muddy his olive skin.

The red haired man rounds the table with long determined steps. "We told you to stay away."

Teardrops faint over my cheek, a warning cry forms its ghost in my mouth. I want to tell him to leave them alone, to give them their goodbye, but my words catch in my throat and choke me.

The dark butcher nears the boy, his hands swing wide. "Look at this mess!"

The older man is on his feet now. He grabs the arm of the assistant, and nods in my direction.

I gasp out an exhale, which causes the boy, and his sepia eyes that contain a universe of emotion, to notice me.

"Who are you?" He asks it soft, a whisper, yet it surrounds me in a sorrowful embrace, and hangs in the air long after his words fade. I hold the clipboard in front of me, clinging to it like a lifeline.

"Karma...Karma Rose."

At the mention of my name he recoils, his shoulders and head seem to fold in, like he's protecting himself from me. I'm used to all sorts of reactions to my name, but this one, this one sinks like a weight to the bottom of my heart.

"I, uh. I'm doing the flowers for your Grandma's funeral."

His head snaps up, a tear escapes over his cheek, across the dried red fingerprints, and stops just before his jaw.

He rubs it away and returns to his grandmother.

"Briar roses," he says quietly. "For the funeral—she loved those." His haunted eyes pull from her and once again touch my own. Everything becomes poetry, even the sadness.

  I stare at my doodle of a tulip on the clipboard, trace my finger over it.

  "Miss?" the older man asks. "Are you alright?"

I glance up. The red haired man unfolds the sheet and lays it over the body, but the mysterious boy blocks his arm, keeping it from covering her fully. Unspoken words pass through the way his touch lingers on her face. His love for her is undeniable and I can't help but feel guilt for not being there for Gracie, like he is for his gran. I imagine his tattooed arms encircling my sister, comforting her when she needed it most.

"Miss?"

  The men are looking, waiting for an answer.

  "You alright?"

  I give them the only answer I know. "I-I'm not sure."  But what I don't say is that I may never be alright. Not now, not after seeing what my sister went through. How she was striped from her soul and reduced to a pile of measurable flesh, just like the old lady. The worst thing about it is—it's my fault Gracie died.

***

Thanks for reading guys! If you have any questions for me find me on twitter or wattpad, I'm always happy to help.

                                                                            XO-Rebecca (aka Red)

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Where You Can Find Rebecca "Red" Sky:

https://twitter.com/RebeccaSky

www.RebeccaSky.com

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