#TeaserTrain : Teaser from “Wyndano’s Cloak” by A.R. Silverberry
I am delighted to be hosting A.R. Silverberry on my blog for #TeaserTrain. His novel “Wyndano’s Cloak” is the sort of enchanting fantasy story I loved to read as a preteen. It is recommended for young readers ages 10 and up. I have purchased this book and am looking forward to sharing it with my kids. It is the kind of story that is just as much fun for me to read as it is for my children to listen to. Please enjoy this excerpt and consider sharing this adventure with your young readers.
Alert, Jen backed away from the tree and studied it at a crouch. The air was still. The grass motionless. But the leaves stirred and fluttered. Words floated down. At first they were indistinct, as if someone called through a distant snowstorm. One word emerged clearly, and an icy finger traced down her spine.
She heard her name.
She backed away until she squatted on some rocks that extended into the pool. Every muscle—sun-hammered and wind-hardened like metal in a forge—was poised to spring. Phrases whispered down. The only sense she could make was that something was coming. Something dangerous.
She thought of her family. Fear tightened around her heart. She was a hair’s-breadth away from running to them. Her feet stayed rooted to the spot. Maybe she’d hear more.
A small splash made her look at the pond. Two more followed, as if someone had thrown pebbles. Nothing had fallen into the water. But ripples spread out and ran into each other. More splashes erupted like tiny volcanoes, until the whole pool was agitated with colliding rings. A circle of calm emerged below Jen’s feet, pushing the waves back. Pale and ghostly, a face rose from the muddy bottom of the pool until it floated just below the surface. Little hills and valleys lined the features of an old woman, as if olives lay under the skin.
“Medlara.” Jen spoke under her breath, unwilling to believe her friend could hear her.
Medlara smiled, but her expression hardened. Words whispered from the pool. Jen leaned forward, straining to hear. She got little more than fragments, as if a storyteller jumbled the pieces of a tale. One phrase repeated, like a riddle. “If you meet . . . a harp, you must . . . If the worst happens, seek the answers—”
Jen dropped to her knees, hoping to catch more. Medlara’s hands appeared just below her chin. She clasped them, and lifted her eyes as if she were imploring Jen. She mouthed two words. They might have been, “Forgive me.”
Streaks of blue snaked and flowered in the water, as if someone had dropped in dye. Tendrils of mist rose from the surface and licked the ring of rocks. Soon the whole pool was covered. Spilling over the edge, the cloudy vapor surrounded Jen. She backed onto the shore, but the stuff sprouted up on all sides, walling her in, and formed a ceiling above. It crept along the ground until it met her feet. There it paused like an undulating sea.
Jen studied the mist. “She’s trying to show me something. But what?”
There was no time to wonder. Fog rose before her like a giant shadow. Black. Forbidding . . .
She stepped back. Looked behind for an escape route. The fog surged forward and pulled her into the inky darkness. She could no longer feel the ground, as if everything solid and beautiful that she cared about was being ripped away. She tried to scream but terror rose from the pit of her stomach and froze in her throat.
The rest was a dizzy kaleidoscope of tilting and falling, of wandering lost, with no way out, no way home, no way back to a world of light and love, until the mist melted away and she collapsed, shaking in a pool of sweat.
Purchase this novel here: http://www.amazon.com/Wyndanos-Cloak-ebook/dp/B005CYYI6G/ref%3dtmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2
Dear Diary .... by Kellianne Sweeney 