Dedication

Firstly, this book is dedicated to all my incredible fans and readers who’ve made this possible by reading all my books and encouraging me to keep writing. Such awesomeness is still so unbelievable!

Secondly, my ridiculously patient and supportive fiancé. The coolest, most creative, cleverest person I know, who always inspires me to be better. (And makes me lovely, colorful book covers for free.)

And lastly, and as freakishly fangirl-ishly as ever and always – Depeche Mode. Writing (and many other things) is just not possible without Mode on a musical loop.





About the author

Jo Watson is a South African-based author living in Johannesburg. Her first book, Burning Moon, won the Harlequin “So You Think You Can Write” Contest, earning her a three-book publishing contract. This has kept her super-busy ever since! She gravitates towards humor in her writing, because after all, laugher is the best medicine. Collectively, her books have over six million reads on the social media site Wattpad. Spurred on by this success, Jo decided to leave behind a ten-year career in TV scriptwriting, story-lining and copywriting to pursue her dream of writing books fulltime. She continues to work in theatre, and is contemplating writing her next play.

She lives in a green, leafy suburb, with her fiancé, two-year-old son and two small dogs that bark far too much. When she is not writing, she is running the South African Depeche Mode fan club and watching far too many TV series. She is a collector of all things colorful, kitsch and shiny, and loves to travel the world.







Prologue

The big ones





The universe is full of questions. Big questions. Strange questions. Wondrous, marvelous, magical questions that don’t have easy answers.

Who are we? Where do we come from? How did it all begin? Is there such a thing as destiny? Fate? Why is there never anything to watch on TV even though we have over 200 channels, and did ancient aliens really build the pyramids?

Well, that’s what this story is about and by the end of it, you will believe it all. (Perhaps not the thing about the aliens.)

Because there’s just no other possible explanation. How could two people like Marcus and Stormy-Rain have come together?

And who, pray tell, are Marcus and Stormy-Rain?

Why they are contradictions. Black and white. Night and day. Polar opposites who were brought together on a freakish collision course, in the strangest of ways, in the strangest of places and at the strangest of times (there’s a lot of strange in there – but you’ll soon see why).

Yes, this is a story about Fate. About inexplicable happenings and coincidences. About weird timings and uncanny events. This is a story about how the universe works in mysterious ways.

Very, very mysterious ways.





1

If humans were meant to fly

“Lilly, that’s totally tubular!” Stormy-Rain was probably the only person outside of the 1970s that still used the word “tubular”. And when she wasn’t using words that hadn’t been uttered in decades, she was making them up. A couple of months ago she’d tried to get the word “Funkadelic” circulating. For some reason, it hadn’t caught on.

“Yayness, I’m so happy for you guys,” Stormy said excitedly, feeling a genuine warm, fuzzy rush of happiness as she thought about her two favorite people getting married. “So when’s the big day?”

But as the words were out of her mouth, the phone’s speaker delivered a loud, angry hiss. This was an all-too-familiar sound that always forced her to run to the other end of her room. But when the hissy crackle continued to drown out their conversation, she resorted to sticking her head out the window of her tiny third-floor bachelor apartment. Her cell phone reception was always dodgy, which probably had something to do with the fact that her phone was a prehistoric relic from the 90s complete with jam-jar size buttons and an aerial that could easily take out someone’s eye – as everyone was so fond of pointing out. Not that she gave three continental hoots. Besides, she just didn’t understand everyone’s obsession with having the world at their fingertips 24/7, and on a phone of all things! Phones were for phoning. Not for Googling and Facebooking and You-Tweetering and GPSing – such technological things that were simply beyond her comprehension.