Black Wood (A Witch Rising)

A Witch Rising Book One

JAYDE SCOTT

Cover art
photography by Georgina Hawkes,
[email protected]

Smashwords edition

ISBN
:
978-1-4660-6667-0

©Copyright 2011 Jayde Scott

The right of Jayde Scott to be identified as
the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this
publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission
of the author.

This is a work of fiction and any resemblance
between the characters and persons living or dead is purely
coincidental.

This eBook is
copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred,
distributed, leased,
licensed or publicly
performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in
writing by the author, as allowed under the terms and conditions
under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable
copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text
may be a direct infringement of the author's rights and those
responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

My gratitude goes to F. for the
inspiration and for loving this story just as much as I do.

A huge thank you to the highly
gifted photographer and model Georgina Hawkes for the amazing
digital art. I think everyone will agree she is extremely
talented.

Thank you to my fantastic
critique group, Patricia, Christine, June, Wanita, Holly and
Elizabeth, and last but not least a huge thank you to my invaluable
readers.

Emily walked up the cobblestone
path and peered at the tall Scottish mansion. Ravencourt Manor was
still as creepy as she remembered it: big and gloomy with a draft
in every corner. Taking in the old, murky walls with their peeling
plaster and dark-green honeysuckle, she shivered. The vine
stretching from the ground to the turrets and windows on the first
floor looked like a hand sucking the life out of the red brick. And
maybe it did, for the house seemed dead as a cemetery with its
iron-wrought gates, stone-mullioned sills and weeds raking out of
every crevice.

Dark clouds gathered in the
distance. A black crow swooped over her head and perched on the
cast iron roof. The scent of damp earth hung heavy in the chilly
December air. She squeezed her father’s hand when a crack of
thunder made her jump.

“I wish Mum and Sam were here,”
Emily whispered.

“You know that’s not possible.”
He opened the large wooden doors. “Now come along.”

The shutters on the first floor
buckled in the wind. With slow steps she entered the wide hallway
and followed her father to the kitchen. Her brother, Sam, had often
joked that drafts were ghosts creeping slowly toward one. Emily
knew it wasn’t true because her grandmother had called it nonsense.
But now, standing in the large kitchen with a cold breeze blowing
from beyond the closed door, the memory of Sam’s words made her
legs wobbly.

The room was dark given that it
was only midday. She lifted a finger and poked at a huge cobweb
hanging from the chipped mugs near the window as she glanced at the
large backyard with its high grass and thick bushes. Her
grandmother had always liked wild flowers, but the garden looked
like you could hide an elephant in there and no one would ever
notice.

“Everything okay?” her father
asked from the door, his arms straining with the weight of several
large bags.

“Yes, Dad,” she whispered, but
he was already gone, the sound of creaking floorboards and thuds
giving away that he was in the next room, opening and closing
windows and cupboards.

Emily climbed up the stairs to
her room and found her suitcases on the thick wool blanket that
covered her bed. She pulled down the zipper and placed her clothes
and her favourite teddy neatly inside the empty drawers of a brown
closet. She didn’t take her other stuffed animals and toys with her
because she knew she wouldn’t be staying in Inverness long. Her mum
and dad just needed some time apart. Besides, her room didn’t lack
much. On her rare visits, her grandmother used to buy her whatever
Emily desired.

She stood in front of a big
mirror, brushing her long, brown hair, as she took in her large
hazelnut eyes, thin nose and pink cheeks. Her father always said
she looked like her grandmother when she was younger. Except for
the hair. One day, she’d dye her hair orange just like her
grandmother's.

Her fingertips traced her
grandparents’ contours on the old picture frame in her hand when
she heard her father call.

“What?” Emily shouted back,
placing the picture frame back on the bedside table.

“I said, dinner’s ready,” her
father’s voice said, louder.

Emily sighed and blew her
smiling grandparents a kiss as her gaze turned toward the window to
the high, rounded tower perched on the hill in the distance.
Urquhart Caste with its grey walls and haunted grounds. Her
grandmother had told her about the narrow, overgrown trails
twisting through villages and woods leading to the castle, meant to
keep visitors away. Maybe her father would take her there if he
wasn’t too busy with work.

She put on her slippers and
hurried down the stairs, then froze in her tracks. The sound of
female laughter echoed from the kitchen.

Who was that? She frowned,
hesitating, before walking in. A pretty blonde woman watched her
father with a smile as she brushed the hair from the eyes of a boy
with very pale skin and hundreds of freckles covering his nose and
cheeks. The boy slumped in his chair, picking at a scab on his arm.
The smell of baked beans and sausages tickled Emily’s nose.

“Oh, good. Come here, Emily,”
her father said. “This is Aurelie.” He pointed at the woman. “And
that’s her nephew, Clifford. They’re our next door neighbours.”

“Hi, Emily. Your dad has told us
so much about you,” Aurelie said, smiling. She was a little short,
but slim, with pink cheeks and blue eyes. “You must miss your
brother terribly. How old is he?”

“Fifteen,” her father said.

Aurelie reached out to shake
Emily’s hand. Emily squeezed it and noticed that the woman’s skin
was dry and unpleasant, almost like a bar of soap. She dropped
Aurelie’s hand quickly. As she looked away, she spotted the strange
boy squinting at her through brown, sleepy eyes.

“Clifford, get up now,” Aurelie
said through gritted teeth, her mouth contorting as she tried to
keep her forced smile in place.

Her old Aunt Betty would smile
like that, and she wasn’t a very pleasant person to be around. Aunt
Betty said the meanest things and she always knew everything better
than everyone else. Like how you should sit at the table and how to
sip
your cup of tea instead of
slurping
.

The boy stood to shake Emily’s
hand. “How do you do?” His voice sounded as uninterested as his
half-shut eyes. Emily wondered how he had actually spoken with his
mouth closed.

“Well, my Clifford’s fourteen,
only a year older than you. You’ll be best friends,” Aurelie
said.

In spite of Aurelie’s stern
looks and pursed lips, Clifford didn’t say another word throughout
dinner, yet Emily noticed that, for some reason, he didn’t stop
staring at her. At first, she avoided his gaze, but soon she had
enough and stared back. Clifford’s face turned bright red like a
tomato. He lowered his eyes to his plate and started chewing on his
lips. What a weird boy. With a triumphant smile, Emily tuned back
in to the conversation between her father and their new
neighbour.

“My, what a shame the children
aren’t the same age. If they were, they’d be in the same class,”
said Aurelie with the same frozen smile on her face that Emily was
starting to dislike.

Emily snorted. Boy was she glad.
She couldn’t imagine having to bear Clifford’s spooky stares day
in, day out. She knew boys were strange. Just look at Sam and his
friends, and how they always screamed and punched at each other.
But this one was completely out of sorts.

“But since the children go to
the same school they will probably have the same afternoon
activities and will finish at the same time,” Aurelie
continued.

"Just stop calling me a child,"
Emily muttered.

Her father looked at her with
raised eyebrows. Aurelie took a sip of her Earl Grey tea and
carried on. “I don’t mind giving Emily a lift home when I pick
Clifford up. She can stay with us until you’re back from work.
Isn’t that a lovely idea, my dears?”

"Don't think so." This wasn’t a
good idea at all. Her father wouldn’t be home before six and her
school usually finished at three. How could she possibly spend
three hours in the presence of Aurelie and weird Clifford? Her
father would never agree. She looked up at him expectantly. He
wouldn’t, would he?

“I plan on employing a
babysitter,” her father said.

"Dad, you can't be serious,"
Emily whispered. "I'm almost fourteen."

"Almost," he whispered back.
"It's either a babysitter or Aurelie."

Given the choice, she knew which
one to take. She could deal with a babysitter. They weren’t that
bad.

“But, there’s no need,” Aurelie
said. “What a waste of money! You need to buy so many things for
the house.” She looked around, gesturing with her hands. “Maybe a
few rugs and proper curtains. And you know, letting a stranger into
your home is never a good idea, Edgar.”

Emily frowned. Why was this
woman calling her father by his first name? Aurelie was a stranger
too. So, what was she doing in their home? “I think a babysitter is
a great idea, Dad!”

“You’re too young to speak up
without being addressed first,” Aurelie said. Her thin lips were
still contorted in a smile, but her blue eyes shined unnaturally
now and her grin showed more teeth than before. Emily couldn’t help
but smile. Aurelie looked like one of those Chihuahua dogs with
fletched teeth. Only, not even half as cute.