The Amulet's Curse E-Book

Ayn O'Reilly Walters

• Herausgeber: Grosvenor House Publishing
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 256

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

A year after her discovery of magic trees in their local park, Isabel and best friend Jess are on a school excursion to Kew Gardens.  They come across Kew Palace and, knowing nothing about its history, decide to sneak into the library. A painting on the wall in the library catches Isabel's eye and she realises the man in the painting is wearing the amulet.  When they head for home to tell Isabel's brother, William, Jess disappears!  Isabel must find Jess but who is the man wearing the amulet? The Amulet's Curse is the second adventure for the Pritchard children in the hugely successful Between the Trees series.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

In This Series

Prologue

2014

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Copyright

IN THIS SERIES

Between the Trees

The Amulet’s Curse

The Chest of Spells

The Stone of Destiny

PROLOGUE

The fleshy mortal,

one of three,

shall nay home to nest,

shall never be free.

2014

CHAPTER 1

Life was returning to normal for the Pritchard children following their recent adventure and were settling back into the routine of family life. William had turned 17 and continued to do well in his studies, and 13-year-old Isabel was now in year eight and spent her Sunday mornings working with a local charity by helping out in a flower shop just down the road from her home. Her favourite subjects were history and music. She played the violin, and loved being on the school swim team, just like her father when he was at university. She still didn’t know what she wanted to do when she finished school but thought of studying history at university. After all, her travels through the trees would make learning much easier and more fun as her in-depth knowledge of history would surely earn her top marks. But for now she was content getting through secondary school and passing her grades. She spent just about all of her spare time with Jess, her best friend, whom she had met in primary school. They were inseparable and Jess seemed to fill the void of her father’s absence, whom she missed so desperately. Jess had a passion for music and was a gifted pianist. Often Isabel tagged along to Jess’s music recitals, and they performed duets at school concerts. She was there to encourage Jess when she felt nervous performing her solo numbers. They declared that they would be best friends for the rest of their lives, and nothing would ever separate them.

On Sunday mornings when Isabel worked at her local flower shop, she got to know the locals very well and she loved seeing the joy on their faces when she made up their bouquets of flowers. Lilies, chrysanthemums, orchards, tulips and freesias filled the shop with colour. When the shop door opened, the sweet smell of jasmine made Isabel think of the scented flowers that filled her own garden.

The Pritchard family had recently bought a lovely home in Richmond, a lively borough just outside London on the River Thames. For the first time, they had a big garden and Isabel filled it with all sorts of colourful shrubs and flowers. The windows at the front of the house had window boxes and every spring Isabel planted daffodils. Her mum was happy for her to do as she pleased and the whole garden looked lovely. However, one thing was missing that you would usually find in a garden. There were no trees. After her travels through the trees in Bishop’s Park, Isabel had a profound dislike of trees, especially big oaks. She used to think the big oaks in Bishop’s Park looked lovely in the summer as they swayed back and forth in the gentle wind. In autumn she would watch the leaves turn golden to brown as they fell from the branches onto the dewy grass on her way to school in the morning. Something so wonderful and pretty that gave life to the small animals that made the trees their home now became an aspect of nature she absolutely loathed. She hoped that one day she might overcome this feeling of dread and fear, but in the meantime, it was the sweet-smelling flowers that made her happy.

Early one Sunday morning, Isabel went about her usual business of watering the plants in the shop. She swept up the leaves and petals from the floor and scooped them into a rubbish bag. While she tidied up the shop, she wondered what Mother would be cooking for dinner that evening.

When she finished, Isabel grabbed her coat and headed for the door, saying goodbye to the owner of the shop, Mrs Petunia, on her way out. Of course, Mrs Petunia wasn’t her real name, but everybody called her that because she loved petunias and personally delivered them to the hospital and local care homes. She had done this for almost 20 years and one day as she dropped off the flowers at the hospital, a little boy was visiting his sick brother. He bumped into Mrs Petunia, and her flowers fell to the floor. The little boy helped pick them up and loved how the colours burst from the stems. He asked the woman the names of the flowers and she told him they were petunias. When the boy had finished helping pick up the flowers, he said “Goodbye, Mrs Petunia” and darted back into his brother’s room. And so the name Mrs Petunia had stuck.

When Isabel opened the shop door to leave, a big cold gust of wind blew in and it made her shiver. She pulled the door against the heavy wind and slammed it shut. When she turned and took her first steps, she felt a tap on her shoulder. She ignored it, thinking it was just the wind. Another tap followed, although this tap felt more like a push or a shove. It almost pushed her into the door, and she quickly spun around. Nobody was there. She stood on the step and looked left and right down the street and all she saw was an old lady pushing a shopping cart. The feeling of being pushed frightened her, for she knew it wasn’t really a gust of wind. Normally Isabel walked the 15-minute trip home, but today she decided to catch the bus, so she hurriedly walked across the road and waited at the bus stop. She was relieved to see the Number 33 in the distance rumbling down the road and she began to feel safe again. On the bus she sat behind a little girl and her mother. The little girl turned around and gave Isabel a steely glare. Isabel winked at the girl and cheekily poked her tongue out. The little girl grinned sheepishly and nestled into her mother’s arms. How cute! thought Isabel.

Arriving at home, Isabel hung her coat and bag and found Mother in the kitchen.

“Ooooh… what’s for dinner?” she asked as she gave her mother a big hug.

“Oh, just a little dish I’m whipping up.”

“Homemade lasagne. My favourite!” squealed Isabel. “You know that I love you more and more each…”

“…Each and every time I cook your favourite meals.” Mother laughed.

There was no doubt about Mother’s cooking. She cooked pancakes for breakfast and prepared banquets for dinner. No matter how busy the Pritchards were, they always made sure they were home in the evenings to have their family meals together.

“How was your day?” Mother asked.

“Pretty quiet. Although I had the strangest feeling that I was followed home.”

“Oh dear,” replied Mother.

“Oh no, it’s okay, really.” Isabel saw the concern on Mother’s face. “It was just a weird feeling. Nobody actually followed me home. I guess I’m just a bit tired.”

“Well, that’s a relief.” Mother sighed.

Isabel decided not to tell Mother about the strange shove she felt as she left the shop. It would worry her to no end and after what the family had been through, the last thing any of them needed was worry. Isabel convinced herself that her mind was playing tricks on her because she felt tired. Since she last travelled through the trees, she had become quite jumpy at the slightest thing and didn’t much like being on her own.

That evening, the family sat down to a delicious lasagne together. They chatted about their day. William talked about his studies and how pressured he felt in preparing for his final school exams as he needed straight A’s to get into medical school. However, every time he thought about life at university, he felt incredibly sad that his dad couldn’t be there to help him, to answer all the complex questions about the human body, and to have someone to spend time with and chat endlessly about sport and all the stuff that boys and their dads talk about.

“Have you everything ready for school tomorrow?” Mother asked Isabel.

“There’s no homework. We have the excursion to Kew Gardens.”

“Of course! I completely forgot. That sounds lovely.”

“I told Mrs Petunia I’d bring some flower seeds for the shop.”

“My darling,” replied Mother. “Always thinking of others.”

The following morning, Isabel arrived at school and lined up with the rest of her class in the courtyard as they waited for the bus to take them to Kew Gardens. Jess sprinted into the school grounds, late as usual, and ran to the line. Her hair was bobbing up and down and her laces were untied, but she managed not to trip over them as she ran, which made her look rather funny trying to navigate her way around the laces as they flopped this way and that on the ground. The girls were so close that Jess often popped into the flower shop every so often and the two chatted about everything. They chose the same classes at school so they could sit next to each other. Isabel never told Jess about the family’s time travel through the trees, for it was a family secret that must remain that way forever, or so she thought.

“Izzy!” said Jess, puffing and panting. The bus had arrived, and the children all hopped on.

“You’re always late!” Isabel laughed. “Don’t you have an alarm?”

“Oh yeah, Mum’s my alarm! She comes in and shakes the bed and I say I’m coming and then when she leaves, I turn over and go back to sleep. And you know how much I love to sleep.”

“How could I forget! Remember that time you missed the bus for swimming trials last year? I had to pretend that you were actually on the bus so you wouldn’t get detention.”

“Ha ha,” laughed Jess. “I remember that! Mum had to drive me to the aquatic centre, and I had to sneak in and pretend I’d just finished the first race.”

After a noisy bus ride on the oldest school bus that possibly existed in the whole of England, the children had arrived at Kew Gardens. At the entrance gate, the teacher ushered the children through and followed the path towards the glasshouse. As Isabel stood on the steps outside the glasshouse, she remembered the Crystal Palace at the Great Exhibition of 1851 and how similar they looked. Both had a big glass dome in the centre and hundreds of panels of glass on either side of the big rectangular structure. However, the glasshouse at Kew Gardens was dwarfed in size compared to the gigantic Crystal Palace that Prince Albert had painstakingly commissioned. A gust of warm air surged into Isabel’s face when the doors were opened. The glasshouse was filled with tropical plants from the world’s warmest climates and the room was warm and humid from the underground heating system that had been installed in the early 19th century.

“Hello there!” came a nearby voice. “Pop yourselves over here.” The children shuffled slowly towards the woman. “Hurry up now. We have a lot to learn,” said the voice enthusiastically.

A woman with an apron around her waist and a pair of secateurs in her hand stood at a bench. The children mingled around the bench with their pens and paper and the woman introduced herself as Mrs Struber.

“Good morning, class, I’m Mrs Struber and the building you are in is called ‘Temperate House’. It was built in 1862, is 628 feet long and houses over 1500 species of plants.” She continued telling the class about the tropical plants and how they came to be in Kew Gardens.

“When Joseph Banks travelled the world on the Endeavour with James Cook in 1768, he brought back thousands of species of plants and seeds, many of which were planted right here,” hollered Mrs Struber. “The enormous glass and iron structure was not only the largest greenhouse in the world, but home to plants and trees from Australia, the Pacific Islands and the Americas to name just a few.”

As the children stood there, they looked utterly bored. Some fidgeted with their smart phones, some looked out of the glasshouse windows behind Mrs Struber and watched the gardeners carrying plants in wheelbarrows around the pathways, and some children just stood silently, probably counting down the days until the end of term or wondering what they were planning to do on the weekend.

By lunchtime the class had made their way over to the Orangery Cafe, a long white building with rows of arched windows along the front. The children sat at tables scattered around the cafe and ate their lunch from their backpacks. As they ate their lunch, they chatted in little groups while Mrs Struber ate her lunch with the class teacher. When lunch had finished, the children were free to roam the gardens and meet back at the entrance to return to school. They had one hour to find a plant and research all they could as part of their homework.

Isabel and Jess decided to walk over to the other side of the gardens and see what they could find. It was a beautiful day to be outside, for the sky was blue and the flowers in Kew Gardens were in full bloom. It was lovely to walk past rows of yellow daffodils as people wandered around the gardens chatting happily.

The pair walked around the gardens arm in arm. Jess pulled a bag of sweets from her purse, and they ate them as they walked. They stopped when they found themselves in front of a big red house. The grand house was three storeys tall, had more than 20 windows and no less than 15 chimney pots on the roof. It was massive and looked even bigger as it stood alongside the banks of the River Thames. When the sun shone over the house, it changed in colour to a bright terracotta.

“What’s that over there?” asked Jess.

“Not sure. Looks like a big old house.”

“A bit odd in the middle of a park. I wonder if anyone lives there.”

“I wouldn’t think so,” said Isabel. “Maybe a few hundred years ago.”

“It’s quite beautiful, don’t you think?”

“Yes, it’s very pretty. Shall we have a look?”

The two girls walked up to the grand house and stepped inside. A rope intertwined on metal poles had cordoned off sections of the house. It looked somewhat like a museum and the girls walked into the first room on the left, which had obviously been used as a library in a bygone era. A mahogany desk sat in the corner with a big leather chair behind it. The room smelled old and musty. Isabel noticed some paintings on the walls. One grand painting showed a regal-looking man wearing a military uniform while other smaller paintings showed a mother and her children sitting around her. Judging from the clothes they were wearing, Isabel assumed the paintings were at least 200 years old. The little boys wore knickerbockers, and the men wore tights. They had enormous white wigs perched on their heads.

Isabel pored her eyes admiringly over all of the faces in the paintings. She was fascinated with all of the people, and when she slowly moved past the painting, it was as though they were also looking back at her. In the far corner of the room, another painting caught her attention. She walked closer to it and, all of a sudden, she began trembling. The man in the painting wore long red robes and a gold crown sat neatly on his head. It was clear he was a king. He proudly showed off the shiny rings on his fingers as he clutched the sceptre. He looked very important, and he held his head high. Isabel stopped and stared. There was something about this painting that felt odd. She couldn’t put her finger on it, so she stood back and looked at it from a different angle.

“Oh my!” she shrieked.

“What is it?” asked Jess, startled.

“Oh my!” was all Isabel could say. She was in complete and utter shock. She took a closer look and there it was again, as clear as daylight.

As Isabel stood there in shock, and Jess was wondering what on earth was going on, a man entered the room.

“Who are you?” he bellowed. “What are you doing in here?” With his hands on his hips, he waited for an answer. Isabel was in so much shock she didn’t even notice the man standing there.

“Errr… we were just leaving,” stammered Jess as she grabbed hold of Isabel’s hand and pulled her away from the picture. “Come on, Izzy, let’s go.”

The girls scurried past the man and out the front door.

“What was that about?” asked Jess.

“I’m sorry, Jess, I have to get home. I can’t explain it. I just need to go.”

The girls ran through the gardens and back into the glasshouse. As soon as they were inside, they stopped to catch their breath.

“Right,” said Jess. “You can tell me what’s going on later. The nearest exit is through those doors and straight back to the bus.”

“I can’t wait for the bus!” cried Isabel. “I have to get home now! I need to see William!”

Isabel ran through the glasshouse and pushed the doors open at the other end.

Jess ran behind her. “Wait!” she said. “We have to wait for the class! We can’t just leave!”

Isabel ignored Jess and kept running towards the exit. She ran around a tree and literally ran into a gardener.

“I’m really sorry,” said Isabel as the gardener looked nonplussed.

“Look where you’re going,” he muttered and walked off with his wheelbarrow.

Isabel continued running and soon started to feel tired. Her legs felt heavy, and she began dragging her feet. She ran past a tree and tripped over its roots, ending up face down on the ground. Jess soon caught up with her. “Are you okay?” she asked, puffing and panting.

“I’m okay, I just tripped over these stupid roots. Stupid tree.”

“Let me help,” said Jess. “Here, give me your hand and I’ll pull you up.”

As Jess tried to heave Isabel up from the ground, she also fell down and burst out laughing.

“It’s not funny!” Isabel was quite upset that Jess thought the whole incident was so entertaining.

“Sorry,” replied Jess. “I know you need to get home. Come on, let’s go.”

Around Isabel’s neck was a small vial of liquid which was given to her by Mother, who instructed her to take it everywhere she went. The liquid was a very special potion that Mother had created. It was the only potion she had made since she went through the trees as a young girl and decided to live a normal life as a mortal. Isabel and William didn’t need magic potions to travel through the trees, but Mother often wondered how long the trees would be open for the children to travel through. When William couldn’t get back home from 1851 because Raven had wickedly removed his tree, Mother wasted no time in ensuring the safety of her children. So she made up her own spell and the potion was created. If the children ever got stuck without their tree, it could be used to travel. Isabel carried the vial around her neck and although she never used it, she felt safe knowing that it would always be there, just in case.

Isabel didn’t notice that the vial of liquid had cracked for she was too preoccupied with what she had seen at the big red house. Jess grabbed Isabel’s arm, and when the girls managed to stand up, Jess placed her hands on the tree to balance herself.

Isabel eventually found her feet, and when she stood up, she brushed the dirt and grass from her trousers.

“Right. Let’s get out of here,” Isabel said as she scooped her backpack up off the ground.

When Jess didn’t respond, Isabel looked around.

“Jess?”

She looked here and there, but Jess wasn’t anywhere.

“Jess!” hollered Isabel. “Jess! Where are you?”

Where is she? she wondered as she looked around the gardens. She can’t have gone far.

How strange, thought Isabel. Then she realised the collar of her top was damp. She quickly pulled the chain from under her top and opened her hands. The vial was broken, and small shards of glass glistened in her hand. The liquid was all gone.

“Nooooooo! No… no… no… no!!!” was the only word Isabel could speak when she looked up and saw the tree. She then realised that Jess had travelled. To where, she had no clue. All she knew was that she had to find Jess and bring her home. She could be anywhere, in any century. What a predicament! She had to find Jess, who had no knowledge of travelling through the trees and who would be absolutely distraught by now. Isabel could go through the same tree and bring her home, but what if something awful happened and she couldn’t get back? She would never be able to see her mother again and her family would never know what had happened to her.

Regardless of the danger she was faced with, she knew what she had to do.

CHAPTER 2

Isabel opened her eyes and found herself lying on a patch of soft grass. She had no clue where she was, and when she sat up and looked around, everything looked the same, except she was wearing a lovely gown. Looking in the distance, she saw the big red house exactly as it was when she snuck in with Jess. She began walking towards the house and saw a little boy playing in the garden. He must have been about 10 for he was playing with wooden dolls dressed as soldiers.

Isabel walked along the grass. Her beautiful gown, yellow in colour, almost looked like a big ballooned wedding dress. Unlike the women whose gowns went all the way down to their shoes, Isabel’s dress hung just below her knees and a big ribbon was tied neatly around the back of her waist. Under the top layer of her dress, whale bone held the shape of the dress in position, and it felt tight and uncomfortable around her chest. She wore dainty little slippers on her feet, the same colour as the yellow gown, with a robe over her shoulders.

“Pow pow,” said the little boy as he aimed the soldiers towards each other. Isabel stopped and watched him.

“You’re dead!” he muttered and thrashed the soldiers about. Then a young girl came running out of the house towards the boy.

“George! Mama said it’s time for tea. You must come inside at once!”

The girl stood on the grass waiting for the young boy. She didn’t look much older than him, probably a year or so, and she had dark curly hair tied in ringlets that hung neatly over her shoulders. She, too, was wearing a dress similar to Isabel’s, although hers was made of pure silk, and it glimmered under the sun.

The boy scooped up his soldiers. “I’m coming, Augusta,” he cried and scurried off.

Isabel walked up to the big red house and peered inside the front window. It was the room that she and Jess had walked into before they were ushered out by the man. The room looked the same; the big old desk was there, although it was now sitting in the middle of the room instead of the corner. Isabel walked around the side of the house and looked through another window. The room was empty. Just then she heard a splash, and all of a sudden, a voice cried out. It sounded like someone was in trouble. Isabel spun around and ran back to the front of the house. The little boy was nowhere to be seen.

“Help!” came the voice again.

Isabel ran towards a group of trees where she found a pond and noticed two arms thrashing about in the water.

“Oh gosh!” She sprinted over to the pond and jumped in. The boy who was playing with his soldiers had fallen into the pond. Isabel grabbed hold of him and pulled him up to the surface. The boy became limp, and his arms fell to his sides. Isabel dragged him over the side, but her dress was heavy and her robe, which was drenched with water, kept pulling her back under. She tugged at it furiously and pulled it off, then rolled the boy over the edge of the pond and lay him flat on the grass.

The boy was not moving, and his face was turning blue. For the first time ever, Isabel put her swimming training skills into practice. She tilted his head back and placed her mouth over his. She pinched his nose very slightly and blew into his mouth. How many times? she wondered. That’s it, five times. Isabel was so preoccupied with saving the boy she didn’t notice a gardener had also heard his screams. He dropped his rake and by the time he made it to the pond, Isabel had started chest compressions. She pushed her hands down onto his chest and began pumping. “One two three, one two three,” she repeated over and over again. “Come on! Come on!” she cried. The gardener didn’t know what to think. He knelt down next to Isabel and waited, willing the young boy to make it through. The boy lay still, so Isabel began the process all over again while the gardener just stared at her in sheer confusion at the goings-on of which he had never seen before.

Then all of a sudden, the boy coughed. She sat him up and slapped his back several times. A big gulp of water exploded from the boy’s mouth, and he began gasping. Isabel threw her arms around him and held him tight as he began crying. “It’s alright,” she said. “You’re okay. You just went for a little swim!”

“Mama,” cried the boy as his cheeks returned to a pinkish hue.

The gardener scooped up the boy and they ran to the house with the boy still crying from the utterly frightening experience he’d just been through.

Isabel grabbed hold of his hand. “Come on, I’ll take you to your mama. Everything will be alright.”

The adrenaline coursed throughout Isabel’s body. Her heart was thumping when she realised she had just saved someone’s life.

“You’re such a brave boy,” she reassured him. “Almost home now.”

When Isabel arrived at the house, she threw the big doors open and a butler came scurrying out of a nearby room. He was aghast to see someone burst through the doors and soon enough a flurry of activity was underway. Maids and butlers ran to the boy’s aid and helped carry him into the house. They pushed people out of the way as they entered a sitting room. A maid dressed in black shoved two sleeping dogs from a couch and propped up some pillows and the gardener gently lay him down. “Get the doctor!” came a voice. As Isabel stood in this grand sitting room dripping wet, all manner of things were happening. People were running in and out of the room asking what had happened, the man who ordered the doctor was now in the hallway shouting at someone, who then shouted at someone else, who ran out of a side door, jumped onto a horse and galloped off, with dust flying everywhere.

As blankets were wrapped around the little boy, a woman ran into the room. Her hair was tied up in a neat little bun on top of her head with delicate jewels and beads on either side. Her skin was as white as the pearls that hung around her neck. As she walked over to the little boy, her bright blue silk dress sashayed and lit up the room as the sun shone through the enormous windows.

“My dear boy” she sobbed as she bent down and held him close. Isabel knew that kind of hug, a loving tight embrace, for she had felt that with her own mother.

“Oh Mama,” cried the boy. “I was drowning.”

“Oh my goodness. What happened?” said the boy’s mother as she kept him nestled under her breast. She looked around for someone to answer.

Everyone was looking at the gardener.

“He drowned” said he. “And this kind girl jumped into the pond and saved his life. Don’t know what she did, but he was as good as dead, and she brought him back to life.”

Then all of a sudden, everyone was looking at Isabel, who was standing in the corner of the room shivering and soaking wet.

“Are you alright, my darling?”

“Oh no, Mama, I am cold.”

“Doctor is on his way. Not long to wait.”

“I drowned in that pond,” said the boy. “She saved me.”

The boy poked his head up from the pillow and turned towards Isabel. The beautifully dressed woman walked over to Isabel and took her hands. “Thank you, from all of us.” She smiled.

“You’re v…v…very welcome,” stammered Isabel. “Now that I see your son is alright, I do need to be on my way.” Isabel began walking towards the door.

“But you are wet,” said the woman. “My mistress will fetch some dry clothes. For now, you must wait until you are dry and comfortable enough to leave.”

Isabel was handed a new dress, a fine dress made from silk that belonged to Augusta and she was grateful to change into the warm, dry clothes. As she changed, her thoughts quickly turned to Jess and the panic began to set in again. She had lost precious time helping the little boy and she couldn’t spend any longer in this house. She had to find Jess.

When she passed the room to leave the house, the little boy tilted his head off the pillow. “Wait! I must say goodbye.”

Isabel sat on the couch next to the boy.