Arietta curled into a ball and sobbed. How could this happen?
Her feelings for Hale had all vanished. Her only pain was from the loss of a sister. She felt so weak, so helpless, but anger drove her from her bed. She stumbled out of her room and down the halls to the front doors.
Her lady in waiting rushed to her side and helped her sit at the palace entrance.
“M’lady what are you doing out of bed, you’re too weak. Please rest and recover.”
“No Lilla, I need my carriage.” Arietta replied firmly.
“But King Hale…”
“Damn King Hale. I must fix this!” Arietta cut her off. “Help me,” she pleaded with her servant.
Lilla grabbed a cloak from the closet and wrapped it around Arietta.
“We must hurry then your majesty, before he awakes.” She guided Arietta to the carriage and put her safely inside. Arietta’s life was waning, but she ordered the coach to the Swamplands and rested while she still could.
The dirty waters of the swamp soaked into her cloak and made it heavy on her shoulders as she waded through the swamp looking for Tirik.
Arietta didn’t know how she was still walking. Sometimes she fell, and getting back up was the most painful part. But she continued to fight her way through the murky Swamplands.
She’d told the carriage to return to the castle. It must return before dawn, or Hale would know of her escape and make those who had helped her suffer.
“Tirik!” She shouted in desperation. “Where are you?”
She stumbled onto a rocky incline and fell onto the harder ground. She tried to stand, but couldn’t raise herself off the ground. Hale has taken all her energy, there was nothing left.
“Tirik…” she cried sadly and forced herself to crawl further forward.
Then she saw her, Tirik’s body, unmoving on the ground a few feet away. Her throat had been ripped out and she was most certainly dead. Arietta gritted her teeth and reached out her hand to grasp her sister’s. The skin was cold to touch.
“No, no, no…” Arietta closed her eyes defeated. Then she felt it. A tiny spark of power, she squeezed her sister’s hand. I will fix this. She sent all her power into her sister’s body, her life force, every essence of her being.
The sparkle faded from Arietta’s eyes as she died beside the empty shell that had once been her sister, and Destiny watched the light leave her.
“You cannot raise the dead, fallen Queen. But I will take your offering and do your bidding” Destiny told her body.
Light shot from Destiny’s hands and streamed out over the lands in a thousand strands. Each strand hit a Rhecknaw female, and imbued them with the powers of a dead queen.
A final strand hit King Hale squarely in the chest and he exploded with such a force the left wing of the palace crumbled around him.
“This path was not destined. The future is uncertain.” Destiny looked sadly at Arietta’s body as she faded away.
The End
Whatever Became of the Squishies | Preview
SHE'S JUST INHERITED SUPERPOWERS, OF...ER, SARCASM?
She’s wild, outspoken, trouble follows Carla Mainston wherever she goes. But what do you expect from a purple outcast living in a green colony? She's the last girl on the planet who should be inheriting special powers.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, there's a deadly disease spreading faster than a dirty joke in the playground and when Carla’s brother Joe becomes infected, she has to find a cure before it’s too late.
With the assistance of a muscle-bound scientist called Parklon and a dealer in illegal books called Bob, Carla discovers that superpowers don’t come without a price. With a murderer on her heels, Carla has to use every trick in the book. That’s if she doesn’t get arrested, or end up having the life sucked out of her by her new boyfriend.
Read the first two chapters on the next page.
Find out more about the books series at: www.wbots.co.uk
One | School’s Out
Carla Mainston woke up suddenly, when her lilac skin slapped onto the classroom floor with a loud smack. She found herself lying beside her overturned chair and surrounded by green-skinned students, all smirking at her.
She wished the floor would swallow her up. She hated being the centre of attention. She scowled when she noticed that Prudence and Donna weren’t even bothering to smirk at her. They were staring through her as though she wasn’t there. She checked behind her, but the walls were the usual gleaming white. She absolutely despised those girls. Come break time they’d regret not noticing her glare.
She blinked, wincing at the sharp pain in her nose. Her eyes were watering and she didn’t feel normal, but that wasn’t really a new feeling. She rarely felt normal or part of anything. Everything in her life was strange and familiar at the same time.
She had begun the morning, sat at her desk in Ms Kaladin's bathroom cleaner class, with her pen poised to take notes. Unfortunately when she'd begun to doze off from boredom, her head or to be exact, her nose, had sank lower, closer and closer to the end of her pen. When she inevitably slumped over in a dreamy sleep, her nose had dropped on to the green biro, causing an excruciating pain in her nose that had woken her. Luckily for Carla, waking up in such a manner had made her fall off her chair, and her encounter with the floor had dislodged the offending biro.
She looked up from her sprawled place on the classroom floor and smiled weakly at Ms Kaladin, whose face was rapidly changing from one of annoyance to one of pure horror. Carla looked around the classroom to see the same look of horror on the faces of her fellow pupils. In a moment that appeared to be timeless, a huge blob of red blood fell from her face and splattered on the tiles in front of her. Uh oh, nosebleed.
Ms Kaladin went into a purple rage, which clashed with her usual complexion of lime green. She ordered Carla out of her classroom, while handing her a paper towel and a detention slip. Carla just managed to grab her satchel and coat, while several of the other pupils ran to her aid and began vigorously scrubbing the marred classroom floor. Carla was very happy to leave when she heard Ms Kaladin's raspy tones order Jemima Stiller to do extra homework on the properties of stain devil for attempting to use a stain devil on the tiled floor.
Carla first went to the girl's toilets to see what kind of a mess she was in before heading to the headmaster's office. She looked in the mirror mounted on the white-tiled wall above a pristine white sink. Her nose seemed more purple than normal and her usually lilac skin was more a puce colour around her nose area. Her hair was sticking out all over the place in a wild mass of black curls. Her eyes seemed even greener than normal, but then they always did when she had just woken up.
She held a green, rough feeling paper towel to her nose and tipped her head back until the bleeding slowed and eventually stopped. She looked in the mirror and let out a sad sigh. Why did these things always happen to her? She glanced down and saw a blob of blood on the front of her bright white blouse. She quickly scrubbed it until it was reduced to a brownish stain. "Great!" she muttered to herself. "Just perfect!" she said slamming her bag on the floor and scowled at the detention slip in her hand.
It was a small, lime green piece of folded paper with red writing on it. Addressed to, ‘Headmaster Saunderson’. Carla frowned, it wasn't usually written in red. She opened it. Typed in bold red print were the words:
'Carla Mainston is sent to Headmaster Saunderson for misbehaviour... and written in blue ink was Ms Kaladin's unmistakable handwritten words: in Ms Kaladin's BSC class'.
Carla frowned, they'd printed out a batch of these especially for her! It was only week one of her fifth year. They didn't have very high expectations of her, did they? She shook her head and with a sad expression looked at the letters BSC. A BSC was a Basic Scrubbing and Cleaning qualification in the small colony of Derobmi and the lowest qualification the education system had to offer. Carla sighed again and picked up her bag and set off for the Administration Office.
The Adm
inistration Office was an impressive building dating back hundreds of years. It had originally been the main hall of the Dunmount Boys School, before the school had been merged with the Winghill Girls School to create the current Dunghill Secondary Modern. The main building of the school was now used as a base for the staff to use for 'administrative procedures' (which meant sitting and drinking cups of tea). Meanwhile the students were left to learn in ugly portable cabins that were dotted around the grounds, which had barely any heating in winter and were sweatshops in the summer months.
Carla winced when she noticed a tall blond boy heading towards her. It was her perfect brother Joe. “Hey,” she waved at him lamely.
“Hey Carla, what are you doing here?” Joe enquired. “You’re not in trouble already are you?”
“Umm what? No, don’t be silly. I’m just dropping something off for Ms Kaladin,” Carla lied through her teeth. Joe was great, perfect even, and he never did anything wrong. She had no complaints having him as her big brother. He was always standing up for her, and watching out for her. But she hated telling him she was in trouble. The worried look on his face always brought about a range of guilty feelings that she didn’t really want to feel. “What brings you here?” She asked.
“The coach wanted to talk about this year’s Jimble season,” Joe replied. “So everything’s okay so far then?”
“Yep, all good,” she said. Joe looked tired today. Normally he was bright and beautiful. But today he seemed a bit pale.
She didn’t see him as often now he’d graduated to begin college, even though the college was on the same grounds as the school. Maybe they were working him too hard, all the extra activities he did all the time had to tire him out at some point. Joe was the polar opposite of Carla. He was green, popular and everyone’s favourite. But he was a good guy, and probably the only person in Derobmi who ever defended Carla when she got in trouble. “Don’t let them work you too hard,” she told him warmly, “and take a day off you look beat today.”
“Yeah I think I’m getting the flu or something,” Joe replied, “I’m heading home right now actually, see you later.” He gave her a quick wink and walked towards the big entrance gates of the school grounds.
Carla watched him for a while and wondered how he managed to please everyone so easily. Probably because he doesn’t lie through his teeth very often, she sighed and climbed the pristine stone steps to the main door of the impressive manor house. She walked into a huge hall that had marble floors and intricately painted ceilings.
She had always been fascinated by religious murals painted on the ceiling in the old hall that depicted the Gods of Derobmi in all of their mighty glory. There was the almighty Ajax with a golden duster, Jif brandishing a steely toilet brush and beside him, Mr Muscle brought serenity to an oven. Carla stared in awe for a few minutes at the bright colours and intricate details of the lovingly painted ceiling and sighed with the knowledge that her future didn’t hold anything that beautiful in it.
She began to climb the green marble staircase up to the headmaster's office, with a sense of defeat. She’d had big hopes and dreams about her future until the school’s Careers Day. She had wanted to do something creative and interesting with her life, to help people develop, and grow. Maybe paint inspirational ceilings or advertise multi-purpose mops, when she left school. She didn't want to end up working in the local washing up liquid factory or serving coffees at the local Starbucks (they really are everywhere). She wanted a career, something she believed in and could make a difference doing, something where she could meet amazing people and do amazing things. She was sure there were amazing people out there, there just had to be!
"Miss Mainston!" A voice roared her out of her reverie and Carla realised she'd reached the top of the stairs and the headmaster's office door.
"Err...Yes?" She replied to Headmaster Saunderson's loud bellow.
"It's only week one, what are you doing here?" Saunderson lowered his voice slightly, so the walls didn't seem to shake anymore. He was a very tall and thin man with wispy grey hair in some places on his head and horn rimmed glasses, which were severely black framed around a pair of tired green eyes. Carla held up her slip of paper and handed it to him, then waited for him to read it.
"Right," he said and added, "in my office." He pointed through the doorway. She walked in looking slightly apprehensive and sat in the uncomfortable plastic chair facing his desk. He sat behind the desk in a deep green leather wing-backed chair and absent-mindedly shuffled some papers, before leaning forward with his pen tapping against the green slip of paper.
"Carla, Carla, Carla," he said condescendingly in a singsong tone. "What are we going to do with you?"
"Err?" Carla replied, not entirely sure if the question was rhetorical or not.
“I’ve got a report here from Mr Perkins in Religious Education,” Saunderson continued. “Did you really ask him why the Gods Persil and Ajax got married and blaspheme in his classroom?”
“But, Bold is a better match for Persil,” Carla protested her innocence, after all shouldn’t she question things that made no sense, wasn’t that part of learning? It seemed unless you just accepted everything you were told, you’d never get very far in this world.
“It’s blasphemy! And you also put it on your exams last year,” Saunderson seemed appalled with her. “Do you know how upset the examinations board were with seeing that? They’re blaming the school for it.”
“I was only trying to explore the relationship between the Gods, like the question asked,” Carla mumbled, while looking at her feet.
"Look... I realise your background is culturally different," he said rubbing his green chin. "But this incessant misbehaviour cannot be accepted. You're in your final year now and it's time you learnt to behave."
"Err..." Carla frowned, "Culturally different?"
"Well you know," Saunderson replied, smiling. "One of them."
"Them?" Carla was beginning to get annoyed. She was used to people thinking she was foreign due to her different coloured skin, but she'd been at this school for nearly eleven years now!
"Actually I've never heard of one your kind with such a good Derobmi accent before, suppose your parents taught you?" Headmaster Saunderson continued, completely oblivious to Carla's rapidly growing annoyance.
"Mr Saunderson I was born here! That's why my accent is Derobmi," Carla gritted her teeth when she spoke.
"Yes well, no doubt, but regardless of that," he continued, "I don't know what you people do over there in purple-land, but here in Derobmi you'll have to learn to live by our laws, okay?" He spoke slowly as if she was mentally impaired by her colour.
Carla snapped, "Yes, well do let me know when they outlaw stereotyping won't you?" She stormed out of his office and slammed the door behind her so hard that the hinges gave way and the door crashed into the office behind her.
Carla paused outside the broken doorway as she overheard voices coming from it.
"Blimey," she heard the Headmaster’s matronly secretary say. "What happened in ere?"
"Oh that Mainston girl, always trouble with that one," Saunderson replied.
"Well I suppose she can't help it, it's in her genes init? You know what that sort's like," the secretary said, and then asked. "Cup of tea headmaster?"
"Oh, that'd be lovely," Headmaster Saunderson said pleasantly.
Carla scowled and stormed all the way off the campus and kept going.
Two | Wrong Turn
A small orb of light flickered in the distance, growing larger and blinking faster and faster as it drew closer to Parklon Eldemf. He shrank back silently against the cold concrete wall of the underground car park, vanishing almost into the shadows. He peered around the corner of the security hut, his deep blue eyes, hidden under the rim of a dark coloured hat. A low humming sound could be heard, as the flickering light drew closer.
In spite of the damp cold air, beads of sweat formed on his skin. Why hadn’t he left the minute he’d parke
d his car? Instead, he stood around in a badly lit car park admiring the cleanliness of the place, too far from his rental car for it to be of any use to him. He had no idea what he was seeing. He felt a shiver run down his spine. The place was too quiet, too desolate, and the light, why was it heading straight towards him?
The journey had been long and he’d been so excited to finally get here. So he’d stopped to explore his new surroundings. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, to stretch his legs and get his bearings, before the final leg of his journey to his new home.
The elevator doors ten feet to the left of him opened with a loud clunk, shattering the silence. A stout figured Derobmi, dressed in a black suit, walked out of the elevator, towards the whining hum and flickering light. Parklon tried to disappear into the shadows by pressing himself against the wall. The freezing temperature of the wall seeped through his clothing, causing him to shake a little and he felt goose bumps pop up all over his body. He wanted to run, but his fear and curiosity held him pinned to the wall. He was thankful to be cloaked in shadows, while he watched the scene before him unfold.
The Fallen Queen Page 2
