The Headmasters
How do you learn from the past if there isn't one?

Sixty years ago, something awful happened. Something that killed everyone except the people at Blue Ring. Something that caused the Headmasters to appear. But Maple doesn't know what it was. Because talking about the past is forbidden.

Everyone at Blue Ring has a Headmaster. They sink their sinewy coils into your skull and control you, using your body for backbreaking toil and your mind to communicate with each other. When someone dies, their Headmaster transfers to someone new. But so do the dead person's memories, and if one of those memories surfaces in the new host's mind, their brain breaks. That's why talking about the past is forbidden.

Maple hates this world where the past can't exist and the future promises only more suffering. And she hates the Headmasters for making it that way. But she doesn't know how to fight them - until memories start to surface in her mind from someone who long ago came close to defeating the Headmasters.

But whose memories are they? Why aren't they harming her? And how can she use them to defeat the Headmasters? Maple has to find the answers herself, unable to tell anyone what she's experiencing or planning-not even Thorn, the young man she's falling in love with. Thorn, who has some forbidden secrets of his own . . .

1143890125
The Headmasters
How do you learn from the past if there isn't one?

Sixty years ago, something awful happened. Something that killed everyone except the people at Blue Ring. Something that caused the Headmasters to appear. But Maple doesn't know what it was. Because talking about the past is forbidden.

Everyone at Blue Ring has a Headmaster. They sink their sinewy coils into your skull and control you, using your body for backbreaking toil and your mind to communicate with each other. When someone dies, their Headmaster transfers to someone new. But so do the dead person's memories, and if one of those memories surfaces in the new host's mind, their brain breaks. That's why talking about the past is forbidden.

Maple hates this world where the past can't exist and the future promises only more suffering. And she hates the Headmasters for making it that way. But she doesn't know how to fight them - until memories start to surface in her mind from someone who long ago came close to defeating the Headmasters.

But whose memories are they? Why aren't they harming her? And how can she use them to defeat the Headmasters? Maple has to find the answers herself, unable to tell anyone what she's experiencing or planning-not even Thorn, the young man she's falling in love with. Thorn, who has some forbidden secrets of his own . . .

19.99 In Stock
The Headmasters

The Headmasters

by Mark Morton
The Headmasters
Add to Wishlist
The Headmasters

The Headmasters

by Mark Morton

Overview

How do you learn from the past if there isn't one?

Sixty years ago, something awful happened. Something that killed everyone except the people at Blue Ring. Something that caused the Headmasters to appear. But Maple doesn't know what it was. Because talking about the past is forbidden.

Everyone at Blue Ring has a Headmaster. They sink their sinewy coils into your skull and control you, using your body for backbreaking toil and your mind to communicate with each other. When someone dies, their Headmaster transfers to someone new. But so do the dead person's memories, and if one of those memories surfaces in the new host's mind, their brain breaks. That's why talking about the past is forbidden.

Maple hates this world where the past can't exist and the future promises only more suffering. And she hates the Headmasters for making it that way. But she doesn't know how to fight them - until memories start to surface in her mind from someone who long ago came close to defeating the Headmasters.

But whose memories are they? Why aren't they harming her? And how can she use them to defeat the Headmasters? Maple has to find the answers herself, unable to tell anyone what she's experiencing or planning-not even Thorn, the young man she's falling in love with. Thorn, who has some forbidden secrets of his own . . .

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781989398845
Publisher: Shadowpaw Press
Publication date: 02/06/2024
Pages: 462
Product dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.05(d)
Age Range: 11 - 13 Years

About the Author

MARK MORTON is also the author of four works of nonfiction: Cupboard Love: A Dictionary of Culinary Curiosities (nominated for a Julia Child Award); The End: Closing Words for a Millennium (winner of the Alexander Isbister Award for nonfiction); The Lover's Tongue: A Merry Romp Through the Language of Love and Sex (republished in the UK as Dirty Words), and Cooking with Shakespeare. He's also the author of more than 50 columns for Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture (University of California Press) and has written and broadcast more than a hundred columns about language and culture for CBC Radio. Mark has a PhD in sixteenth-century literature from the University of Toronto and has taught at several universities in France and Canada. He currently works at the University of Waterloo. He and his wife, Melanie Cameron, (also an author) have four children, three dogs, one rabbit, and no time. The Headmasters is his first YA novel.

Read an Excerpt

They did the coupling in the Ward on a metal table with straps. I told Ivy and Knot I didn't need the straps. I wasn't going to fight what I knew had to happen. I lay face down on the scratched and rusty surface of the table, my head sideways on the stained pillow, and waited.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Knot reach into a dirty nylar bag and pull it out. About as big as a big man's hand. Black and glinting like the shell of a water beetle. Shaped like an engorged woodtick.

Knot told me he was sorry, then dropped it onto my back, right between my shoulder blades. It wriggled about, finding the right spot, and I sensed its cold suckers caressing my flesh, exploring, adjusting to the shape and size of its new host's small body. Suddenly, it felt like glowing embers were pressing against my skin. Every muscle in my body clenched but I didn't scream. I didn't even groan. I wasn't going to give it that satisfaction. Then I felt a new pain, much worse, a searing at the base of my skull — something burrowing in, something invading me.

* * *

"The hurt'll soon go away, Maple," murmured an old man, kneeling by my cot, as I slowly opened my eyes. I didn't say anything but raised my head slightly—wincing—and glanced around. I wasn't in the Ward anymore. I was in a small, dim room with bare, cracked walls and one high window. I could hear the wind pummelling the windowpane and felt a cold draft coming in through frame. Cobwebs fluttered in the ceiling corners, making the trapped dead flies dance up and down. Despite the draft, the room smelled like dead bugs. I'd never been here before, but I knew where I was. My cubicle, the place where I'd spend the darkenings for the rest of my life.

My back sang with pain and my head throbbed. I turned my eyes back to the old man beside my bed. Without saying anything, he put a cloth, wet with cool water, onto my forehead and gently rolled me from my back onto my side. The throbbing subsided slightly.

"Who are you?" I asked. My voice was low and scratchy, like I'd been eating sand.

"I'm your Papa," he told me. "You're my granddaughter. You'll remember tomorrow. Getting coupled makes you forget things for a while."

I nodded uncertainly. I didn't recognize the wrinkled face that peered out from behind his grey beard, but there was something about his voice that was familiar and soothing. His eyes were kind.

Coupled. Yes, that's what had happened. One of the Headmasters—one whose host had died a few days ago—had been attached to me. Twelve was young for that to happen. But they must have had their reasons.

Reading Group Guide

They did the coupling in the Ward on a metal table with straps. I told Ivy and Knot I didn't need the straps. I wasn't going to fight what I knew had to happen. I lay face down on the scratched and rusty surface of the table, my head sideways on the stained pillow, and waited.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Knot reach into a dirty nylar bag and pull it out. About as big as a big man's hand. Black and glinting like the shell of a water beetle. Shaped like an engorged woodtick.

Knot told me he was sorry, then dropped it onto my back, right between my shoulder blades. It wriggled about, finding the right spot, and I sensed its cold suckers caressing my flesh, exploring, adjusting to the shape and size of its new host's small body. Suddenly, it felt like glowing embers were pressing against my skin. Every muscle in my body clenched but I didn't scream. I didn't even groan. I wasn't going to give it that satisfaction. Then I felt a new pain, much worse, a searing at the base of my skull - something burrowing in, something invading me.

* * *

"The hurt'll soon go away, Maple," murmured an old man, kneeling by my cot, as I slowly opened my eyes. I didn't say anything but raised my head slightly-wincing-and glanced around. I wasn't in the Ward anymore. I was in a small, dim room with bare, cracked walls and one high window. I could hear the wind pummelling the windowpane and felt a cold draft coming in through frame. Cobwebs fluttered in the ceiling corners, making the trapped dead flies dance up and down. Despite the draft, the room smelled like dead bugs. I'd never been here before, but I knew where I was. My cubicle, the place where I'd spend the darkenings for the rest of my life.

My back sang with pain and my head throbbed. I turned my eyes back to the old man beside my bed. Without saying anything, he put a cloth, wet with cool water, onto my forehead and gently rolled me from my back onto my side. The throbbing subsided slightly.

"Who are you?" I asked. My voice was low and scratchy, like I'd been eating sand.

"I'm your Papa," he told me. "You're my granddaughter. You'll remember tomorrow. Getting coupled makes you forget things for a while."

I nodded uncertainly. I didn't recognize the wrinkled face that peered out from behind his grey beard, but there was something about his voice that was familiar and soothing. His eyes were kind.

Coupled. Yes, that's what had happened. One of the Headmasters-one whose host had died a few days ago-had been attached to me. Twelve was young for that to happen. But they must have had their reasons.

From the B&N Reads Blog
Page 1 of

Customer Reviews