EXTRACTS FROM THE WITCH’S SHADOW – 6

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The Witch’s Shadow, the 2^nd in the Mind Traveller series, is available now from Amazon.  To give you a flavour of Rosie’s adventures into Mind Space here is an extract from chapter 2.

Extracts will continue every Wednesday and Saturday.

Extract from Chapter 2

The Ministry of Procedures

Beneath the bedcovers Rosie held trainers to the tee-shirt she wore over grey flannel pyjamas.  About her neck hung the time locket and on her wrist a Mind Traveller’s charm bracelet, both inherited from her mother.

In the darkened dormitory she waited for Miss Swinton’s routine visit, knowing three roommates read books by torchlight beneath their quilts.  Chimes from the bell tower of St Monica’s chapel struck 10.30 and beyond the curtains, clouds closed over the moon to hide the last of its silver glow.

Rosie had no idea what Elissa intended and no idea where they were going.  To save the world seemed a little exaggerated.  No matter how determined, fifteen-year-old schoolgirls didn’t save the world without a lot of help.  Once more fear crept across her mind, only held at bay by a sense of duty and determination.

 “Are you still awake?” Elissa whispered into Rosie’s thoughts.

“Awake and ready.  Let’s not mess about.  I’m on school holiday tomorrow and you said immediate action,” Rosie whispered in return, then fell silent when footsteps sounded from the corridor.  Eyes tight shut, she heard the door open and Miss Swinton’s voice.

“Torches out, no more reading.  Come on girls, early start tomorrow.”

The teacher re-closed the door and Rosie heard the other girls shuffle bedclothes while putting their books and torches away.

“You sure this is safe?” Rosie spoke into her thoughts again.

“In Mind Space, nothing is safe.  You ready?”

Beneath the sheets Rosie slipped her trainers on and fastened the Velcro straps.

“What do I think of?” she asked.

“A great tower of a building called the Ministry of Procedures, a sort of cross between a spaceship and a castle high in the clouds.  That’s where the Time Co-ordinator has his Library of Shadows.  Also where them that make the rules live in a thing called Grubalot.”

“Thing?”

“You’ll see. So, let’s do it.”

She tried to visualise what Elissa had described, the sky and clouds were fine but a castle like a spaceship proved more difficult.  Eyes shut, she felt a jolt and the next instant the bottom of her bed opened, dropping her into a grey shaft of light which spiralled out into white and golden clouds.  Tumbling as she fell, Rosie heard Elissa’s voice shouting over the rush of air.

“Stabilise, stabilise.  Spread your arms and fly.”

Rosie did as instructed, remembering the lessons she had been taught during her first adventure into Mind Space, where she had first joined the White Angels to become a Warrior of the Light, enabling her to do battle against the Dark Angels.  Slowly she stopped turning, the wind tearing at her face, hair and body, her arms spread like wings, her legs and feet like a tail.  Then suddenly she swooped to the left and upwards.  She could fly, she could fly.

“Elissa,” she screamed.  “I’m back, I’m back.”

“Good on you, girl.”  Elissa flew alongside, her fist clenched in victory. “So fly to that cloud formation ahead.  Inside is the Ministry of Procedures where Grubalot is waiting.

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EXTRACTS FROM THE WITCH’S SHADOW – 5

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books, childrens books, enjoy reading, good read, James McKenna

The Witch’s Shadow, the 2^nd in the Mind Traveller series, is available now from Amazon.  To give you a flavour of Rosie’s adventures into Mind Space here is an extract from the opening  chapter.

Extracts will continue every Wednesday and Saturday.

 Extract from Chapter 1

Even as Elissa spoke, the flap of angry wings entered the cellar with the fury of a trapped crow.  A presence layered in black feathers materialised beyond the steamer trunks, its breath harsh and rasping as it turned towards them.

“Gizeda,” Elissa whispered and scrambled something from her pocket.

Metamorphosing from Dark Angel to her earthly form, Gizeda the witch crouched on her four arms and four legs, revealing the shadow of a grotesque spider, her wrinkled and scabby face turning this way and that until her eyes found Rosie.

“What do we do?” Rosie squeaked and backed away.

“Return to real time, like now,” Elissa yelled.

The witch darted forward, reaching her scaly arms for Rosie’s neck the same moment Elissa threw liquid from a small bottle.  The resulting scream resounded through the cellar as smoke and fumes fizzled through Gizeda’s garments sending her into a frantic flurry of arms and legs.

“Go, go,” Elissa yelled.

Rosie shut her eyes to concentrate on the last act of her race, on the stride which carried her to mid hurdle.  She saw the finishing line, the cheering girls.  Next instant she bowled over on the grass track, twisting instantly back to her feet, but too late to be first.

“What happened?” Miss Swinton, her housemistress asked at the finish.  “You were winning.”

“Don’t know, just tripped.”

“And jewellery is forbidden,” the teacher said, pointing to the time locket.  “One hundred lines by six tonight.”

“My lucky charm,” Rosie said, touching the necklace.

“You need speed not luck and rules are rules.”

After writing her lines, Rosie handed them in, then showered and changed into a tracksuit.  With no sign of Elissa since the race and with this new information about place leaping, only one question burned into her mind

If a Mind Traveller could place leap without wearing a time locket, had her mother and father done the same?  Doing aerobatics in a two-seater aircraft was crazy, but then her father had always been crazy.  No bodies were found, so maybe as a Mind Traveller Mum had shifted herself and Dad to Mind Space.  Maybe them that make the rules would know?  Whatever new mission they gave her, she had to find the truth.

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EXTRACTS FROM THE WITCH’S SHADOW – 4

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books, childrens books, enjoy reading, good read, James McKenna

The Witch’s Shadow, the 2^nd in the Mind Traveller series, is available now from Amazon.  To give you a flavour of Rosie’s adventures into Mind Space here is another extract from the opening chapter.

Extracts will continue every Wednesday and Saturday.

Extract from Chapter 1

“Did we throw him?” she yelled into space.

“The creppin, no problem,” Elissa shouted back.  “Just watch out for Gizeda the witch.  The creppin will report to her, she won’t like this.  Neither will Health and Safety.”

“What are we going to do?”  No answer came as Rosie found herself skidding over the cellar floor of her uncle’s manor house, bashing into a line of cabin trunks left from a time when the Haston family explored the world in steamships.

“Ouch.”  Rosie rubbed her knees and pushed herself up.  “Hey, Elissa, I did it, I did it.   I leapt from one place to another.”

“No time to mess, get your time locket.”  Elissa materialised beside her.  Around the same age as Rosie, Elissa stood with her wings neatly folded, her short blonde hair a bob of curls.  Dressed in white leggings and top under a silver breastplate, she carried a short broadsword at her waist, plus a bow and quiver of arrows on her shoulder, her whole presence casting an ethereal glow into the dark cellar.  Normally Rosie figured Elissa quite cute in an angelic, boyish sort of way, but with grazed knees and immediate danger this was no time for pleasantries.

“I thought you couldn’t materialise in real time,” Rosie said, hurrying down the line of cabin trunks in search of her mother’s old wicker school case.

“This may look like real time to you, but it’s not.  You left real time in midstride over a hurdle.  You’re still there, locked in transition between parallel zones, zones split between time, thought and resulting action.  Or more simply, the infinity of Mind Space.  I thought you were reading up on quantum mechanics?”

“Does that mean the dark side is here?”

“Gizeda the witch, her creppins, her scrowlers, the lot.  So move your backside, girl, because this angel don’t want to end as a spider in hell.”

“Why a spider?”

“Because that’s what Gizeda’s bite will turn you into.  Then as a spider you will be doomed to follow her and do whatever she demands.  She maybe conceited and stupid but she makes up for it with pure nastiness.  Her genetic makeup is from a species of venomous spiders.  Her bite is lethal.”

“That’s scary,” Rosie said as she found the basket.  “I have no key.”

Elissa produced a hairpin from her curls and in seconds the case stood open.

“A White Angel who can pick locks?”

“I’m Special Angel Service, SAS, not one of the Holy Bunch.”

Rosie grabbed up the pouch containing the locket inherited from her mother and shook the contents into her hand.  For a moment, light from Elissa’s ethereal glow reflected from the silver chain and pendant while a mild electric current circled Rosie’s palm, reminding her of the extraordinary power held within, power which allowed her to mind travel.  The same moment a door slammed in the house above and a draught flurried dust over the cellar floor.

“My uncle,” Rosie squeaked and quickly fastened the locket around her neck.

“He’s out, we’re in time past so I was able to check.  But something else just arrived and believe me, we don’t want to find out what.”

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EXTRACTS FROM THE WITCH’S SHADOW – 3

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The Witch’s Shadow, the 2^nd in the Mind Traveller series, is available now from Amazon.  To give you a flavour of Rosie’s adventures into Mind Space here is another extract from the opening chapter.

Extracts will continue every Wednesday and Saturday.

 Extract from Chapter 1

“You know, you hear these things.  I can only guess.  You’re a Mind Traveller, you inherited your mother’s ability and time locket.  The only way to find out is to do it … ’course, if you don’t want to save the world and find another segment from the White Dove of Peace.”

Rosie heard Elissa huff breath and imagined her angelic but wicked little smile.  “The White Dove,” Rosie repeated, knowing it was yet another duty to fulfil, another quest left unfinished by her mother.  “OK, but only for my mother.  I have to know, I have to know if they escaped.”

“Before the last hurdle, when your mind and body are at full stretch, I want you to focus all thoughts on the cellar of Haston Manor.  The darkness, cobwebs, spiders and grime.  Don’t worry about light, I’ll provide that.”

“What about the key to my mother’s case?  I don’t have it.”

“No problem, in the SAS you learn a few tricks.”

“You fit, Rosie?” one of her team mates called.

“Sure, just trying some inner meditation, it helps me focus.”

“Oh, I thought you were talking to yourself.”

“That too.  I’m told mad people run faster.”

Amidst encouraging cheers Rosie trotted over the grass towards the start line, unsure of what she faced.  Everyone was shouting, cheering.  A corridor opened between supporters of the different houses, teachers, parents, families of day pupils.  Rosie allowed the noise to pump her adrenaline and determination, trying to ignore the sadness that her own parents were never there.  But then no one cheered from the grave; they were dead.  Or were they?  If her mother could transport herself from one place and time to another, then why not from a crashing aeroplane?  Maybe she had not been an orphan for eight years, maybe.  Only one way to find out.

“You sure this will work in front of all these people?” Rosie spoke in her thoughts and received Elissa’s reply in the same way, her angelic outline no longer visible.

“You’re going into a time vacuum.  No one watching will realise you even left.”

“They will if I don’t come back.”

“Trust me.”

Crouched in the start position, Rosie listened to the babble of spectators die away.  Head up she looked to the eight hurdles spread over three hundred metres.  Muscles tensed, mind centred, she raised her hips.  “I go on the last hurdle, OK?” she whispered.  Then she saw him.  A small, long coated figure with a domed hat pulled down to his eyebrows and over the tops of his ears.

“Creppin,” she yelled, the same instant a starting pistol cracked the air with a single shot.  Tensed muscles sent Rosie leaping forwards amidst an explosive volume of cheering.  Without time for fear, sounds became a blur of noise as her mind centred on the first jump which flashed beneath her.  The fleeting contact of feet on track sped her ever onwards in a pounding of blood and breath through body and mind.  Every thirty metres she lifted her legs to fly effortlessly over a hurdle.

Creppin, creppin.  She could not shout, could not even think.  Elissa’s warning had materialised.  The dark side had arrived.  And they wouldn’t do that unless they considered her a threat.  Duty to the White Angels now became paramount.  The countryside, other competitors, spectators and sounds all fused into a single tunnel of Mind Space as hurdle after hurdle passed beneath her.  Central to her vision appeared the stone mass of Haston Manor, then the darkness of its cellars where her mother’s old school basket lay containing the time locket and diaries.  All hovered as if held at the end of a tunnel above the final hurdle, the scene expanding larger and larger with each forward pace.  She sensed the rhythmic pounding of her body slow to a single pulse.  The moment she lifted her legs to leap the vision before her transformed into a kaleidoscope of spinning colours.  No longer running she flew over clouds of rolling space dust.  Before her, crackled lighting spread cobweb fingers and lit the approaching shape of Haston Manor, its Norman tower and Gothic chimneys stained with the wear of time.

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EXTRACTS FROM THE WITCH’S SHADOW – 2

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books, childrens books, enjoy reading, good read, James McKenna

The Witch’s Shadow, the 2^nd in the Mind Traveller series, is available now from Amazon.  To give you a flavour of Rosie’s adventures into Mind Space here is an extract from the opening  chapter.

Extracts will continue every Wednesday and Saturday.

Extract from Chapter 1

Good Angels, Bad Angels

Rosie stood.  “I don’t want to get involved, I’m going on holiday,” she said, while knowing duty must now overcome fear.  “Aren’t their other Mind Travellers?”

“Not in your sector, that’s why you’re central to their plan.  That’s why in anticipation of developments they got your uncle to rent Larkins Cottage.”

Rosie leapt in the air and came down flat-footed with fists clenched.  “For goodness sake, who are they?”

“I told you, them that make the rules, consequently resulting in cause and effect.  They subconsciously influenced your uncle to book the cottage by using subliminal hypnosis over the internet.  Poor old dear thought it was all his own idea.  Humans.”  She raised barely visible arms and shook her head.

“OK, I admit it.  I don’t think I’m capable and I’m scared.  Look what happened last time, near disaster.”

“Rosie, I’ve seen you in action.  Scared or not you’ll do it.  Besides, this time there will be no boys, and you’ll have me, Grade 4, Special Angel Service.”

“Impossible.  One, I don’t have my time locket, it’s in the cellar of Haston Manor and two, I’m about to compete in the three hundred metres hurdle.”  She began running on the spot, her eyes averted to the distance.  “I can’t just walk off.”

“So you don’t want to know about mind and body relocation?  How you could pick up your locket and be back in a nanosecond?  Even if people are staring at you, no one will realise.  Remember, a nanosecond in real time is hours in Mind Space.”

“So there’s your answer, I don’t know how to relocate,” Rosie said, teeth clenched.

“Your mother did, but then she read her philosophy and quantum mechanics.  Hasn’t Uncle Hugo taught you anything?”

Rosie placed her hands on her hips, her eyes questioning, realising the possibility of being verbally manoeuvred into a corner.  “I think, therefore I am, and everything I see and experience only happens through the interpretations of my thoughts.  Without my mind, the universe I see cannot exist.”

“So,” Elissa said, her voice hinting triumph.  “In your universe where are the cellars of Haston Manor right now?”

“In my memory, in my mind.”

“Precisely, same as all the events happening around you.  They only happen by the experience of your mind, a mind that exists in the flow of time future into time past.  So being a Mind Traveller you can be in past, present and future simultaneously.”

“Exactly,” Rosie emphasized, seeing a way to turn the tables.  “So, how do I leave time present when theoretically I’m also in two other places?”

“Oh I see, being clever are we?”  Elissa flapped her wings.  “So tell me, if there are three of you in three dimensions, where does Haston Manor exist?”

“In my memory of course, in my Mind Space.”

“Excellent, because that’s how you’re able to bodily relocate; through your mind.  It’s simple, if mind and body are in future, present and past simultaneously, all you need to do is mentally disengage from this location in time present and relocate to Haston Manor in time past.  You then carry out what is necessary before re-engaging your mind with your physical body waiting in the dimension of time future, that way you flow into time present and back where you started.  Simple.”

“Simple,” Rosie repeated, her mouth open.

“Just read the Mind Traveller’s Manual.  If quantum mechanics can have a photon in two locations at the same instant, why can’t thought be in two places while still engaging with the body?  It’s what mind travel is all about.”

“Is it?”

“So let’s try it.”  Elissa put out her hands in encouragement.

“How do you know all this?”

“Because I’m doing my course for White Angel SAS Grade 3.  That means I attend lectures by the Time Co-ordinator and reading up in the Library of Shadows.”

Rosie swung her arms in agitation.  “You’re worse than Uncle Hugo.  Look, I’m going to concentrate everything on this race.  I can’t back out, my team is relying on me, and that’s final.”

“Centred, focussed, great, because to place leap concentration is paramount.  Your mother knew that.  I’m told she was brilliant, used to place leap just for the fun of it.”

Rosie sensed her fear start to curl and evaporate.  “Who told you that?  I’ve never heard that before.”  She took a step towards the apparition.  “If she could place leap, what about from a crashing aeroplane?”

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EXTRACTS FROM THE WITCH’S SHADOW – 1

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books, childrens books, enjoy reading, good read, James McKenna

The Witch’s Shadow, the 2^nd in the Mind Traveller series, is available now from Amazon.  To give you a flavour of Rosie’s adventures into Mind Space here is an extract from the opening  chapter.

Go to my Amazon Author’s Page http://tinyurl.com/c9ultl3

CHAPTER 1

Good Angels, Bad Angels

“Immediate action.  They want you and they want you now.”  A soft yet urgent voice sounded unexpectedly from above.

Rosie paused on the point of press-up number twenty.  Warm afternoon air on her cheeks became agitated in a flurry of beating wings, as if some feathered presence hovered before landing.  From the school running track shouts of encouragement pushed on competitors.  Rosie straightened her arms and tried to stay centred on the forthcoming race.

“Who are they?” she asked, distinguishing the vague outline of Elissa, her guardian angel under a dappled light cast through trees.

“Them that make the rules.  Your world is in danger of attack by scrowlers, demons hatched up by Hisdrillo, Prince of the Dark Angels.  Come with me, we got big problems.”

Rosie huffed and jerked her legs to a kneeling position then swung from side to side, stretching her back.  Ten metres away her team mates let out another yell along with parents and pupils of St Monica’s Boarding School for Girls.  All were in carnival mood and gave no sense of impending doom, yet Rosie already sensed fear.

Going with Elissa meant entering Mind Space and the parallel world in the parallel universes, places full of horrible creatures, danger and the unexpected.  To cover her fear she tried to bluff.

“Elissa, the world looks perfectly normal to me,” she said in near silent whisper.  “I’m on the verge of half-term, of going to the seaside, Southwold, Suffolk with my dear Uncle Hugo.  I’m fifteen going on sixteen and I’m looking to have fun. The world’s OK.”

Elissa flapped her wings, the sunlight forming a halo over her translucent outline, until something unseen cast a passing shadow.

“What was that?” Rosie said.

“Creatures from the other side, a gremlin or creppin sent by one of the Dark Angels.  My guess, Gizeda the Witch.  Beware Rosie, they’re watching us.”

 

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EXTRACTS FROM THE MIND TRAVELLER – 8

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The Mind Traveller series book 2, The Witch’s Shadow, will be published on Amazon and Kindle tomorrow, 4^th June.  To give you a taste, here is the final extract from Chapter 2 of The Mind Traveller.

Extract from CHAPTER 2 

She didn’t want to answer.  Instead she stood and gave Uncle Hugo a hug, one question churning on her lips.  The one question she could never ask without betraying the letter.  Why had her mother written it?  She must have known something was going to happen.  “I’m off to the woods.  Maybe I can meet a ground spirit by the old oak.”

“As you wish.”

She watched him sag a little and she scraped a foot on the path, her thumbs hooked in her pockets.  “But I’m intrigued by inner space and time dilation.  Sometime, will you explain them to me?  I’ll do my summer essay on quantum mechanics.  That’ll make my teachers sit up.”

He smiled then.  “Certainly, my little contessa.  Then maybe we can put ground spirits to rest.  Quantum mechanics is far more outrageous.”

Siggy at her feet, Rosie left the vegetable garden and entered the meadow beyond.  A dozen cows munched lazily beneath the warm sun and with arms stretched she flipped two cartwheels then looked up at the clear blue sky, up to where the huge raven circled on silent wings.

“I don’t like you,” she whispered to herself, watching it descend across the meadow in a long downward glide.   Siggy pressed against her ankles.  “It’s heading for the old oak.  If only you were big enough you could see it off,” she said to the cat, at the same time catching sight of a stunted figure scurrying through the field close to where the raven passed.  “And now a trespasser trampling the corn.”  She looked down at Siggy and found him with arched back, his tail rigid.  “We need to challenge this fellow, only an ignoramus would walk on a growing crop.”  She put her fists on her hips as Siggy drew back.  “Look super cat, no one puts a hand on Rosie Barcelos, OK.”  She cartwheeled, sprang into a backward somersault then leapt to deliver a double drop kick.  “I do kick-boxing at school, year champion.”  Siggy looked unimpressed.  “All right, I’ll be careful.  But we’re on a mission, so let’s go,” she said, stepping out.

Siggy stayed close as she reached the shadows of Haston Manor woods, a wide band of trees bordering the perimeter of the walled estate.  Movement caught her eye.  Something flitted like a dark shadow, then was gone.  She moved closer to investigate.  At the same time a loud, frantic flapping of wings sounded from the tree behind, as if monster birds fought over a perch.  Rosie turned but she couldn’t see any birds and no wind stirred the leaves.  She shivered and watched a single black feather float to the ground, long, curved and shiny.  Out of nowhere and so unreal it drew her closer, until curiosity made her reach to pick it up.

“Don’t touch.”  The girl’s voice came sharp and sudden across her mind.  Siggy shied away.

“You hear that?” she said to him, edging round the feather.  “Flower child or what?  Someone shouted at me.”  But Siggy stood, hackles raised, fur standing rigid while he stared at a figure lurking in the trees twenty metres away.

Rosie stepped back and balled her fists.  The guy was short and bullish with a square face, grey rubbery skin, yellow eyes and pointed ears; more goblin than person.  He beckoned her.

“Now, that is definitely a weirdo,” she said to Siggy as she retreated another step.  Not taking her eyes from the trespasser, she realised she was alone in the woods with the high tower of Haston Manor a long way off.

“Come to us, Rosie.”  A gravelly voice entered her thoughts and again the creature beckoned.

“So maybe we exercise caution here.”   She glanced to the cat.  “Better let Mr Cranshaw the estate manager sort this one.  Trespasser or bogeyman, he doesn’t look nice.”

In reply Siggy squealed and streaked off towards the Manor.  Rosie turned, glancing back to see if the thing followed, but it had vanished as mysteriously as it had appeared.  Voices in the cellar of the old house were one thing, voices and spooky men in the woods were too real.  She quickened her pace home.

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