by Holly Bell
Other books by Holly Bell
Amanda Cadabra and The Hidey-Hole Truth (The Amanda Cadabra Cozy Paranormal Mysteries Book 1)
Amanda Cadabra and The Cellar of Secrets (The Amanda Cadabra Cozy Paranormal Mysteries Book 2)
Other books published by Heypressto
50 Feel-better Films
50 Feel-better Songs: from Film and TV
25 Feel-better Free Downloads
Copyright © Holly Bell (2019). All rights reserved.
http://www.amandacadabra.com
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to real events, people or places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, places or people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
www.heypressto.com
Cover concept by Chartreuse at Heypressto
Cover art by Erik Patricio Lúa
[email protected]
To Alwyn and Philippa
There are more things
in heaven and earth, Horatio,
than are dreamt of
in your philosophy.
– William Shakespeare
Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1: Crypt and Cellar
Chapter 2: The Rector’s Plot
Chapter 3: Training Amanda
Chapter 4: Horace Bottle
Chapter 5: Anger
Chapter 6: Karma
Chapter 7: Thomas is Perturbed
Chapter 8: Penelope Enquires
Chapter 9: Class
Chapter 10: Flamgoyne and Cardiubarn
Chapter 11: Salon
Chapter 12: Goodwill
Chapter 13: Thomas Gets a Mission
Chapter 14: The Grapevine, and Recruiting Ruth
Chapter 15: The Space
Chapter 16: Setting Up
Chapter 17: Preparing, and Cast Off
Chapter 18: Hypothetical Situation
Chapter 19: Into the Past
Chapter 20: Cat and Mouse
Chapter 21: Theory, and Cover Story
Chapter 22: Truckled
Chapter 23: The Saboteurs
Chapter 24: First Class
Chapter 25: Manoeuvres
Chapter 26: Storm Warning
Chapter 27: Earworms
Chapter 28: What They Saw
Chapter 29: The Secret of Sunken Madley
Chapter 30: The Legend of St Ursula and The Bear
Chapter 31: Festive Spirit
Chapter 32: Delivery
Chapter 33: Amanda’s Statement
Chapter 34: Puzzle
Chapter 35: Thomas Does His Thing
Chapter 36: Apport, and Kytto
Chapter 37: Blocked
Chapter 38: Grist to the Mill
Chapter 39: Prints
Chapter 40: Warrant
Chapter 41: What Sophy Saw
Chapter 42: Indignation
Chapter 43: A First for Thomas
Chapter 44: The Scent is Up
Chapter 45: Tempest Goes Forth
Chapter 46: Christmas Eve Begins
Chapter 47: 1918
Chapter 48: Acid Rain
Chapter 49: Back from the Deep
Chapter 50: An Apologetic Visitor, and the Rector’s New Plot
Chapter 51: Hidden Cards
Chapter 52: Catch and Dispatch
Chapter 53: New Year
Chapter 54: A Gift, Percy, and Hope
Author’s Note
About the Author
Acknowledgements
About the Language
Questions for Reading Clubs
Glossary of British English
Accents and Wicc’yeth
Introduction
Please note that to enhance the reader’s experience of Amanda's world, this British-set story, by a British author, uses British English spelling, vocabulary, grammar and usage, and includes local and foreign accents, dialects and a magical language that vary from different versions of English as it is written and spoken in other parts of our wonderful, diverse world.
For your reading pleasure, there is a glossary of British English usage and vocabulary at the end of the book, followed by a note about accents and the magical language, Wicc’yeth.
Chapter 1
Crypt and Cellar
Amanda found her lying on the floor of the crypt. Her head was up against a medieval stone coffin where it must have struck. One arm was hidden beneath the long raised form of the sarcophagus.
She hurried down the stone steps, her soft soles silent as the grave.
‘Please, no, not another body, oh please no,’ she murmured, gazing in dismay at the sight of her friend’s black cassock-clad body.
Amanda knelt beside the fallen rector of Sunken Madley church. There was no blood in the dark brown bobbed hair. Perhaps there was still life. Amanda laid a hand on her shoulder.
‘Rector!’
The body convulsed. The head turned. The alarmed face of the shepherd of St Ursula-without-Barnet looked up with alarm.
‘Good heavens, Amanda! You gave me the shock of my life. You really mustn’t creep up on people like that.’
‘Oh Rector, I am sorry, I just saw you lying there, and I thought …’
‘Of course, dear, after that dreadful affair at … aha!’
The Reverend Jane Waygood withdrew her arm from beneath the sarcophagus and knelt up, looking at Amanda’s feet.
‘Yes. Trainers. I see why you apparently stealthed up. Well, you’re just the person I wanted to see, and even more so at this moment. I believe your arms are slightly longer, not to mention slimmer, than mine or, at least, those craftsperson’s fingers of yours may be more agile.’
‘You were trying to get something out from under there?’ asked Amanda, leaning down.
‘It’s the keys to the church hall. They slipped out of my fingers and slid away into inaccessibility, and I wanted to have them ready to take you down there. I’m hoping that you’ll be involved in my plot,’ said Jane, in mysterious but hopeful accents.
Amanda was mindful that 5th November, Guy Fawkes Night, was soon to be upon them, celebrating the attempt, or possibly failure, of a group of 15th-century activists to put paid to the Houses of Parliament by the use of then state-of-the-art explosives.
‘If you’re planning to blow it up, don’t you think we should visit it under cover of night?’ suggested Jane’s parishioner helpfully.
‘Oh, if only we could,’ sighed the rector wistfully. ‘Claim on the insurance and rebuild the wretched thing from scratch. Unfortunately, my calling prevents me from engaging in such deception even if it wasn’t a listed building. Meanwhile, do you think you could be a dear and get those keys out from under there?’
Amanda looked at the floor with concern.
‘It’s as clean as a whistle in here,’ Jane assured her. ‘You don’t need to worry about dust setting off your asthma. Mrs Scripps cleans down here regularly. You could eat your dinner off those flagstones. Not that anyone else comes down here but there’s always hope of a rare visitor.’
‘Then of course,’ Amanda replied cheerfully and lowered herself onto her stomach. She reached between the coffin’s carved bears’ feet.
‘Here,’ said Jane holding her phone with the torch app on shining a light into the narrow space.
‘I see them! Thank you, Rector.’ Amanda slid her arm in the direction of the glint. ‘Yes … oh, there’s something else … it’s small … I can reach both … ah! ... got them!’
Amanda pulled out her arm and stood up. She opened her hand, passed the keys to the rector and frowned down
at the remaining ite m sitting on her palm. ‘Whatever do you suppose ...?’
‘Bless my soul. It looks like a tiny little gold … cup or something. It’s quite thick, and look at all of these close-set wavy marks. Do you think it’s something to do with the sea? A fitting on an instrument that maybe was used on one of the old ships? An ornamental screw cover on a … sextant or something?’
‘Well, whatever it is, it’s the property of the church,’ said Amanda holding it out.
‘No,’ Jane replied thoughtfully. ‘No … you keep it. I have a feeling …. I think it’s an apport.’
‘A what?’
‘An apport. Hmmm. Ask your Aunt Amelia. She’ll tell you about them.’
‘Oh. Ok. Well, thank you, Rector.’
‘And now to business. You got word through the grapevine, yes?’
‘Sylvia said you wanted to see me about something.’
‘Well, thank you for popping in, dear. Got your car with you?’ asked Jane, leading the way up out of the artificially lit crypt into the daylight in a corner of the west end of the church.
‘Yes, as it happens.’
‘Good. Go and fetch a dust mask.’
‘Oh?’
‘I'm taking you down into the bowels!’
With the mask secured, they took the path between the mellow stones of the higgledy-piggledy graveyard to the hall at the boundary of the church property. The rector used one of the newly retrieved ornate keys to open the side door.
‘I had no idea that this door existed,’ commented Amanda.
‘I know, we always herd people through the front. But here we are now. Come inside so I can push the door to, and get to this.’ There, at right angles to it, was another one, also locked. The rector opened it, switched on a light and led the way down some wooden stairs into the space below.
With difficult progress and in insufficient light, they passed between old rolls of carpet and backdrops, cardboard and wooden installations, trunks, suitcases, boxes, crates, a basket of stage swords, a golf bag of spears, and a large vase of Japanese parasols, as well as all manner of paraphernalia that it was hard to identify.
It was unexpectedly high-ceilinged for a cellar, and roomier than the hall because there was no stage or anterooms as there were above. Eventually, they came to an area that was even more challenging to traverse. A group of upright posts of wood were set at intervals, piled around with crates and cases that barred the way.
‘Right,’ Jane began briskly, ‘look up there. See those joists?’
‘Yes.’
‘They’re rotten. Not too bad for most of it, but along this section here, they’re as weak as water. That’s why the hall has been closed for as long as it has. It’s all a bit unsolid, but here it was dangerous.’
‘I see,’ said Amanda.
‘Well, I’ve been wanting to repair and reopen this hall for years, but, of course, the church roof had to come first, and now it has … and, well, I didn’t want to ask the kind benefactors to put their hands in their pockets again, especially so soon, without some effort on my own part and contributions from the community, towards restoring this lovely old hall. Except … no one was interested.’
‘I suppose the church with its medieval pedigree and the famous St Ursula stained glass window —'
'— and the bell tower, yes,' concurred Jane. 'That was comparatively easy to attract donations to. Well, I said, “If you want this church to still be here for your enjoyment in 100 years, or even 50, you have to be willing to support it,” and so they were. But this hall. You see, it’s only late 1800s or even later and that’s no great shakes, is it?’
‘Not really,' agreed Amanda.
‘So, what would make people realise the worth of the hall?’
‘Using it?’
‘Yes, but what’s the most exciting thing people can do on a floor?’ asked the rector blithely.
‘Erm.’ Amanda was unprepared for the question, and her mind boggled.
‘Dance!’ uttered Jane enthusiastically.
‘Ah.’
‘But no one could dance on a dangerous floor. So … I had it repaired! See, these wooden posts are supporting that group of floorboards above? Taking over from where the joists are rotten.’
Amanda squinted into the gloom. 'I think I need a better light. Let me go up to the car and get a torch.’
‘No, no, you stay there,' Jane insisted. 'I’ll get one.’
The rector hurriedly picked her way across the stored goods and up the stairs. Amanda stood alone in the dusty silence, her breath contained and amplified by her mask. She felt a little dizzy, her vision fuzzed. Suddenly it was as if something shot down through the ceiling of floorboards above and would have hit her if she had not dodged back, tripping over a wooden case and stack of props. She got to her feet. But there was nothing there. Nothing above or below that had not been there before.
But now there was the faint sound of music. Maybe someone had a car radio on loudly nearby. And yet … there was singing too …. It was a waltz … an old song … Grandpa used to sing it … yes, to Granny … ‘Roses are shining in Picardy … in the hush of the silver dew’, and there was thumping above — no, not thumping exactly — feet ... walking — no, they must be dancing … waltzing across the boards above her head, and people singing their hearts out. It wasn’t frightening … there was something wonderful and free and heartbreaking about it all at once. She wanted to be up there with them ….
‘Here we are, dear!’ came the rector's voice, and, at once, it stopped. The music, the singing, the waltzing feet. As if it had never been.
Chapter 2
The Rector’s Plot
‘Rector, did you hear that?’ Amanda asked urgently.
‘The ambulance? Must be coming from the residential home. They do very occasionally come through the village if the A1000’s blocked up.’
‘No, the … the ….’ Amanda suddenly thought better of saying any more about her strange experience moments before. ‘Oh, yes, of course, that must have been it.’
‘Here’s the torch,’ said Jane. It flashed briefly over Amanda’s face. ‘You shine it where you want. Are you all right? Have you been away with the fairies while I was gone?’
Amanda gave an unsteady laugh. ‘Yes, I’m afraid so. Never mind. Let me have a look at this woodwork.’ She directed the beam along and up.
‘Er ….’ Amanda took a closer look at the supports. Each was made up of apparently random lengths of wood bracketed together to make a long post, tall enough to reach the floorboards above them. Amanda tested the stability, and they were wedged in tightly between the floor and ceiling of the cellar.
‘Rector, I don’t know much about building, but I’m pretty sure that this isn’t quite …’
‘Oh Amanda, I got all sorts of quotes, and they were all far more than I felt the church could afford. And then someone recommended these two lovely gentlemen, and they were so understanding and so affordable!’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, and they were all done in no time at all, and they only charged £40!’
‘What were the names of these “lovely gentlemen”, Rector?’ asked Amanda suspiciously.
‘Let me see, one was Ronald and the other was er … Philip.’
‘Ron and Phil?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Ronald Recket, by any chance?’ asked Amanda, fearing the worst.
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘Recket and Bogia? Rector, you didn’t!’ implored Amanda.
‘Why whatever’s wrong?’ asked Jane, anxiously.
‘I may not know much about building, but I know most of the builders around here. And those two are notorious scoundrels. This is almost certainly not the way to support a floor, and these bits of wood and the brackets were almost certainly not honestly come by.’
‘What! But … but, oh my, whatever will the bishop say?’
‘It’s all right,’ soothed Amanda. ‘These seem sturdy and
tight enough to do the job. It’s only temporary, and, once there’s enough money, the floor will be done properly, and no one need know.’
‘Oh, but I feel dreadful deceiving —’
‘You’re not deceiving anyone. If I thought for a moment that it wasn’t safe, I’d say so, but these are tight and will certainly hold, although you should ask Mr Branscombe to look at them because he is a builder and will know.’
‘Thank you, Amanda. Oh dear,’ Jane said mournfully.
‘So tell me your plan,’ she urged to give the rector’s thoughts a happier direction.
‘Well, I thought: dancing! Dancing classes and dances. The hall will cost nothing, and we just have to find a teacher who’ll be willing to charge a low rate, and then the extra will go the fund, and the dances will bring in a good bit. It may take a while, but we’ll, at least, be on our way to a brand new floor; a proper sprung floor, new joists and, new boards. Perhaps parquet flooring. And then we can hire it out for classes of all sorts.’
‘I think it’s a wonderful idea, Rector. But why have you honoured me with your confidence? To check the er …?’
