Young Writers Society

Hello this is the first chapter of a 'novel' I have managed to finish. I am now beginning the long and difficult task of editing and would be grateful for any opinions. It's aimed at younger readers between the ages 9-12 years.

Chapter 1

Ally put the small blade back down onto the moth-eaten rug and held her hand aloft in the space between us. I reached out and took it, copying her as she squeezed tightly, pressing our palms together. I could feel the sticky warmth of blood as it bonded and felt dizzy with the excitement that it might actually work. A hot sting licked across the centre of my palm and I screwed my eyes tight shut. But furious with myself for breaking my promise to be brave like Ally, I quickly forced them open again.

Ally’s expression was serene; her lidded gaze firmly fixed on our whitening knuckles as she murmured incantations of her own creation under her breath. The fading sunlight filtering through the chewed lace curtains danced in reds and gold in her hair, creating a fiery frame for her pallid features. Dust hung like a mist in the long sunbeams draped across the rest of the room. To distract myself from my throbbing hand, as it was seized by another biting sting, I tried to count the individual fragments as they floated around each other. Then, as if it had all been in my imagination, the pain vanished and I felt her breath tickle the shell of my ear.

“It’s done.”

She sat back on her heels, watching me as I curiously eyed my palm and its jagged red line.

“Has it really worked?” I asked.

She clicked her tongue and rolled her eyes. “It’s magic George, of course it has worked.”

“Magic?” I breathed in wonderment.

She nodded, her emerald eyes sparkling. “Binding magic.”

I gazed at her with a faint disbelief I very quickly brushed aside.

‘Of course Ally can do magic,’ I thought. ‘Ally can do anything.’

I watched intrigued, as she carefully replaced the blade on the rug with a bowl full to the brim with a watery, murky concoction that reminded me of the mud pies we used to make in her garden. I’d watched her pound it together with her fist as we’d crouched in our cove earlier that day. She’d thrown in various leaves and petals we’d collected from the forest floor, as well as earth and seawater swimming with sand. I’d meant then to ask her what it was for, but she had seemed so lost in concentration that I hadn’t wanted to disturb her.

I opened my mouth to speak but she forestalled me.

“This is to help the magic; to seal it,” she said solemnly.

Then she scooped out a large gloop onto her finger and, poking her tongue out, licked it right off. My stomach lurched as she moved it about her mouth like a marble before swallowing it and smacking her lips.

“I think it’s ready.”

I blinked, bewildered. “What do we have to do?”

“It’s simple,” she replied. “All we have to do is breathe it in and wish hard for the magic to work.”

I sighed with relief; I would never have been able to put it in my mouth and eat it without being sick but I was sure I could manage a bit of breathing in.

She held the full bowl up to her eyes and peered into it. “It’s our little bowl of nature. All the nature around us mixed together because nature is the most powerful thing in the whole wide world.”

I frowned, “even more powerful than your magic?”

“It can be,” she shrugged, twirling the mixture around the sides of the bowl with her finger. “That’s why we need it as an extra help.”

I thought of the sea crashing against the walls of the cove, how it could swallow you whole and drag you into its watery depths in one big gulp. I thought of the wind shaking the pane of glass in my bedroom window on a stormy night, almost like it could break straight through. I thought of the tallest, strongest tress, how they could defy all other elements and remain standing for centuries. Then I met her eyes and nodded in agreement. If anything was to match Ally’s magic, I was sure only nature was big enough.

“Here,” she said quietly, offering me the bowl.

I shook my head and shrank back. “You go first.”

I wanted to see how it was done; I would only get it wrong otherwise.

“Okay, George,” she said and held the bowl to her chin.

She closed her eyes so her long eyelashes tickled the tops of her cheeks and breathed in deeply through her nose. I waited with baited breath; I did a lot of that with a best friend like Ally.

Eventually she slowly exhaled and opened her eyes. I released a breath I’d barely realised I was holding and took the bowl she silently held out to me.

“All you have to do is wish,” she said softly as I closed my eyes and breathed in.

The smell of salty earth flooded my nostrils, spinning around my head as I wished just like she’d said. I’d heard my parents talking about moving away and could think of nothing worse than being separated from Ally. She’d been the only friend I had ever really had; since we were born we’d shared everything together. The children at school never wanted to bother with me because I was a friend of ‘that Alice Gerrish’ and apparently that made me weird. I decided that if that were the case, then I liked being weird because to me Ally was wonderful.

I felt a cool hand on my wrist. Ally’s face was so close to mine all I could see were her large green eyes shining back at me.

“Time to go,” she whispered.

I nodded. “Okay.”

I put the bowl back down onto the rug and she picked up the blade and dropped it into the patchwork bag slung over her shoulder. She stole one last glance around the room with a small smile on her face before opening the door, letting the darkness of the rest of the house creep in through the crack.

I stood up but couldn’t move. She turned back around questioningly.

“Come on George, there’s nothing to be afraid of,” she said.

I swallowed hard past the anxious lump suddenly in my throat. “I’m not afraid.”

The room we were in, with its inexplicable glow, felt like a cocoon from the sinister gloom of the rest of the dilapidated building, which I was certain was crawling with all kinds of evil demons. As we’d climbed the squeaking staircase, I had been sure I’d heard strained whispers bounce from the walls.

Of course, Ally knew I was afraid; I could kid Ally no more than I could kid myself. But she didn’t say anything, she just pretended like I was telling the truth.

“Come on then, let’s go,” she said encouragingly.

I watched her disappear before pulling myself together and rushing after her. I kept my eyes close to the floor, following the backs of her thin ankles all the way, barely daring to breath in case the knot in my throat released a cry. She pulled back the front door and we went out onto the front step. I continued to march away with my eyes glued to the ground, trying to shake off the icy feel of the ghostly fingers I was certain I’d felt brush across my skin. I stopped suddenly with an inward groan as I realised Ally was no longer walking in front of me. Sighing, I turned back around.

She was gazing up at it; the ends of her long auburn hair almost tickling the backs of her knees as she tilted her back as far as it would go.

“We’ll come back tomorrow,” I promised, the words sticking in my throat.

I hurried up to the still open door and slammed it shut with a shudder. She considered me with a quizzical quirk of the lips as I jumped back off the front step. I avoided her knowing gaze, feeling my cheeks redden.

“It’s just like mum described,” she said dreamily. “Capturing the sunlight and holding it longer than any other room in the house.”

“Come on Ally,” I said tugging lightly at her sleeve, suddenly acutely aware of the sun sleepily settling on the horizon.

“Just look at it George,” she breathed, shrugging me off and slowly stepping backwards.

She walked with a slight limp; the clumpy black boot on her right foot making her taller, whilst the neat shoe with the red bow on her left made her shorter. I couldn’t help but smile at her deliberate mismatch. Stopping she fixed me with an intense stare, wiping the fond smile straight back off my face. I dropped my eyes and pretended to be examining my bleeding palm. But not so easily fooled, she walked back to meet me and wound her chalky fingers around my wrist bringing it back down gently.

The rusty iron gates moaned behind us as the wind threw itself against them. I shivered but not because of the chill of the wind. It was like somewhere from my worst nightmares had landed crash bang in my reality and there was no duvet to hide behind.

“Just look,” she breathed.

I tilted my head up and tried to look, to see what she did in the creepy old house looming above us. I hadn’t dared look at it properly when we first arrived. The only thing grounding me a second time was glancing across it, not letting my eyes focus on one shadowy spot of its blackened walls long enough to look at it properly.

The sky was darkening as the moon edged into place.

“Lets go now, yeah?” I suggested hopefully, bringing my eyes quickly back to hers before I reached the narrow tower snaking up the far side, mostly through fear of turning and running and never ever stopping.

“Okay,” she agreed.

She took one last look of her own before gently slipping her cut hand into mine.

“Ready?” I asked softly, wincing slightly at the sudden pressure against my tender skin.

She nodded and we ran out of the high gates, just as a particularly strong gust of wind swung one right back on its hinges.

As we ran clumsily down the lumpy hill she suddenly dropped my hand. I almost stopped but she grinned at me over her shoulder and yelled, “Race you!”

Then she sped off ahead, her hair swinging behind her, whipped up by the wind. I raced after her, the blanket of night that would normally have terrified me going unnoticed.

We reached the flat expanse of ground at the bottom and I managed to reach out and grab her around the middle, stumbling as I did so and pulling her down with me. We fell into a heap on the dewy grass.

My sides hurt from laughing as we struggled to stop the other from getting to their feet first. She managed to sit herself on my stomach, whooping triumphantly as I wriggled helplessly, feeling the soft damp earth against the back of my neck. Ally was small, but I was always smaller and inevitably lost when it came to games of strength. I reached out to push her off but my hands never met her.

Yet somehow, she had gone.