Unseelie

Ivelisse Housman is a Puerto Rican American author and illustrator. At all seven schools she attended throughout her childhood, she was infamously “that kid who gets in trouble for reading during class but refuses to stop.” She was diagnosed with autism at fifteen, which made everything make a lot more sense. When she isn’t writing, she can be found making soup or tending to her houseplants. She lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains with her high school sweetheart/archnemesis and their two rescue dogs.

Praise for Unseelie

“Housman’s stunning debut is the sort of love letter only an autistic author could write. Fae canon has been waiting for this one.”

—H.E. Edgmon, author of The Witch King

“Reminiscent of classic fairy tales yet brimming with a charm all its own.”

—Emily Lloyd-Jones, author of The Bone Houses

“Housman enchants readers with magical mischief, page-turning action, a tight-knit sisterhood, and secrets that forever change the way Seelie sees the faerie world…and herself.”

—Amparo Ortiz, author of Blazewrath Games

“This adventurous tale of sisterhood, found family, and wicked fae is a story told with authenticity and heart.”

—Lyndall Clipstone, author of Lakesedge and Forestfall

“Housman opens a portal to a world of glimmering fae and blistering magic where, to our autistic protagonist, humanity is just as daunting as the fantastical. Both meaningful and whirlwind fun, Unseelie sparkles with mystery, adventure, and enchantment.”

—Andrew Joseph White, New York Times bestselling author of Hell Followed with Us

Unseelie

Ivelisse Housman

For kids like me, and for those who help us find our place in an unwelcoming world—

Yes, especially you, Sam.

Stories tell of children stolen away by faeries, replaced by inhuman look-alikes.

These look-alikes, they say, could be identified by their strange speech or silence. They cried without reason or never showed any emotion at all, and struggled to relate to a world that seemed foreign to them. Folklorists theorize that these stories were early descriptions of autistic children—proof that autistic people have always been here.

But once, they called us changelings.

Contents

Part One

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Part Two

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Ffifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Part Three

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Author’s Note

Acknowledgments

PART ONE

chapter one

On the night the faerie world collides with ours, anything can happen and wishes come true—and right now, I’m wishing I had stayed home.

I struggle to keep up with my twin sister as we push our way through the crowd. Revelnox is summer’s closing act, when day and night balance perfectly on the edge of the world. In the smaller villages, where people lead calm, productive lives in predictable patterns—back home, I think, with an ache in my ribs—this means that children stay up late, bonfires are built in the middle of town, and offerings are left on the edges of the fields to prevent unwanted faerie mischief. There are special cakes, and the liquor flows freely, but all the merriment is a thin muzzle over the sharp teeth of the truth. You don’t go anywhere alone, and you don’t go into the forest.