ElsBeth and the Call of the Castle Ghosties, Book III in the Cape Cod Witch Series , livre ebook

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108 pages

English

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Recipient of the prestigious Mom's Choice Award honoring excellence, a Moonbeam Children's Book Award medal winner and a 2015-2016 New Book Award winner, and described by Midwest Book Review as "about as fine a middle school fantasy as you could get: vivid, packed with ghosts and mystery, and yet tempered with an attention to interpersonal depth that is rare and inviting."

ElsBeth and the Call of the Castle Ghosties is set in the present on Cape Cod and the Scottish Highlands and is the coming-of-age tale of a young witch with a family legacy to protect the natural world.

When their ancestral lands in the Highlands are threatened, three ancient ghosts of the castle need one of their clan from the living world. They call the young Cape witch across the sea.

ElsBeth has a personal calling to protect the natural world, and her own need to know more about the family line. Drawn deep into the present danger, and into the mysteries of the old country and of her family heritage, she is in well above her magic level. Includes seventeen original color illustrations.

Storyteller Ink: "I want to very highly recommend ElsBeth and the Call of the Castle Ghosties. I found it humorous and entertaining. The story caught my interest quickly due to the character development. There is a sense of adventure, responsibility and fun in this book.

One of my favorite things was the way the kids in the story worked together to understand and solve a problem, which helped others. I love stories that have a positive outcome due to the inventiveness and courage of kids! And this book is rich in this quality. Read it and spread the word. This one is really enjoyable!!!"

Sujets

Jeunesse Aventure

Juvenilee Fiction

Adventure

Action

Mythes et fables

Informations

Publié par	eBookIt.com
Date de parution	06 janvier 2016
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781456620806
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	9 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0150€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

E LS B ETH AND THE
C ALL OF THE C ASTLE G HOSTIES

Cape Cod Witch Series
Book III

Written by
J Bean Palmer and Chris Palmer

Illustrated by
Melanie Therrien

Copyright 2015 by J Bean Palmer and Chris Palmer
Artwork Copyright 2015 by Melanie Therrien
All Rights Reserved

Holly Hill Press
Post Office Box 662
Farmington, Maine 04938

ISBN 978-1-4566-2080-6

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

The Story of ElsBeth Amelia Thistle,
Cape Cod’s Youngest Witch

When their ancestral home is threatened like never before in battles past, three ancient Highland ghosts need one of their clan from the living world.

Calling on the Winds, they summon the young Cape Cod witch across the sea to the old country.

ElsBeth has her own calling to protect the natural world, and a need to find out more about the family mysteries, but soon finds she is in well above her magic level.

THE CALL
Present Time, Scottish Highlands, the Castle

Durst was not upset about being dead.
But he was upset, mightily so.
His homeland was threatened.
Not for the first time over the ages. But while past threats had come from fierce soldiers he had fought with fiery passion and honor, this danger came in the smooth words and slippery smile from the one known as “Gorgeous.” And though Durst was now a cold ghost, it chilled him.
From a rough-hewn cavern beneath the dungeon, Durst’s vaporous form rose up and up, until he was high above the tower walls. Below him the castle’s grey stones gleamed softly in the weak moonlight.
A fog lifted slowly from the rocky cliff that bordered his land and overlooked a restless inland sea.
An owl swooped past in search of prey. A lone wolf howled. Other creatures of the night went about their quiet business.
This land must not be destroyed!
***
Durst returned to his solitary chamber deep underground.
He rubbed the flat edge of his stone knife back and forth, back and forth, against his pale blue cheek.
Done then with thinking, he stabbed the blade overhead, and a single crash of thunder quaked the Highland dark, summoning two other unearthly guardians of the castle.
In their own times and in their own ways each of them had devoted their living days to these lands — the proud mountains and their valleys of sweet heather, on which even a god could lie and rest his head and drink from bottomless, clear lakes.
The ghosts shifted in the small space, uncomfortable together. They were not friends. But they were bound by a love of their homeland that could not be bounded by a short earthly life.
Now they needed one from the living world. One with the purpose ... and the magic ... to protect this sacred place.
Durst took up the length of sapwood from the sacred alder tree on which he had carved the old symbols, and with the stone knife cut the final notch of a simple flute.
The three touched, a spark flew, and it grew until their shimmering forms blazed in a cold, white-gold fire.
Durst’s ancient ghostly lips met the living wood.
He breathed in all their hopes and fears, and sent forth to the Four Winds a sweet, sharp song. His command was clear: “Carry here the youngest of the clan, the youngest Thistle.”
A future was cast.

Chapter 1
Boys Versus Girls
Present Time, Cape Cod

ElsBeth Amelia Thistle caught two-year-old Winston as he ran past and lifted him high in the air. He laughed and reached over into her thick, dark-blonde hair. His fingers stuck, and she didn’t think the stickiness was from something in her hair. But she laughed, too, taking in his sweat-and-sweet-strawberry, little boy scent, before she set him down and left to join her friends.
Having survived their weekly morning at Library Story Hour, the four exhausted volunteers waved to Mrs. Wattle, the librarian, who kept a gentle but firm hand on the wickedly grinning, two-foot-tall Mr. Winston Nickerson, everyone’s favorite toddler terror.
ElsBeth blew him a kiss good-bye.
She and her friends stepped down the cobblestone walk in a bubble of chatter, when a cold breeze suddenly chilled her, and ElsBeth felt a shift in the space she thought of as her world.
She glanced back at the library. Instead of the cheery, salmon-pink, converted sea captain’s mansion, she saw a bleak castle, veiled in mist, backed by a darkening sky. She had the idea someone was there ... someone evil, and at the same time ... “gorgeous.”
She felt nervous. Like some danger had just sailed up and dropped anchor in her future.
Hardly anyone knew she was a witch — this was just something that wasn’t discussed. A good, almost eleven-year-old witch, granted, but a witch nonetheless. She knew her perceptions of the world were sometimes a little different, and they didn’t exactly ask her permission to come in on her. And she definitely didn’t always understand them.
But this wasn’t just different or strange. Something in her world was wrong , and it didn’t feel like it was going to get back to right anytime soon.
She blinked twice, and when she looked back this time there was only the weathered-shingle library, cozy and familiar, precisely where it was supposed to be.
She felt the solid ground below her feet. She sighed, and lifted her face to another glorious end-of-summer day on the Cape — pale blue skies and puffy white clouds above the distant sparkling blue-green waters, the air salty-fresh.
ElsBeth shook the remnants of the meddlesome castle image from her head and caught up with her friends, who had stopped to wait for her under the gold-lettered street signs at the corner of Main and Sea.
“I’m going to the beach,” Amy said. “I need to lie in the sun for a while. Then I want to get some more shells and sea glass for bracelets. Want to come?”
Amy looked like a golden beach herself with long yellow hair, tan skin, and pink blossoms on her sandy-colored dress, just like Cape roses on the dunes. Amy was terribly sweet, but in a good way.
“Like, no, Amy. Shopping, ” Veronica said. “Think about it. There’re only a couple weeks left before school.” Hands on hips, Veronica looked at Amy more like she was from an unknowable alien race than one of her best friends since kindergarten.
Amy flushed pink, matching the roses on her dress, but just for a moment. She wasn’t thrown off long by Veronica’s sharpness, which came with the territory. Veronica’s beauty could sometimes make you forget her fierce honesty, but that would be a mistake. Amy smiled, raised a hand in a half-wave, and skipped off.
Lisa Lee pushed square glasses up on her nose and set a smile on her face. ElsBeth could tell the last thing Lisa Lee wanted to do was go shopping.
“The marsh ecosystem changes every day,” she said to the space between ElsBeth and Veronica. “I need to take notes.” Her shiny, straight black hair waved good-bye as she turned and made her own way to the shore.
Some people felt Lisa Lee was a know-it-all and didn’t like to hang around with her. But she pretty much did know everything, and that, ElsBeth had found out on more than one occasion, was pretty useful.
“Come on.” ElsBeth tugged at Veronica. “Not everyone loves shopping the way you do.”
“That still doesn’t mean they’re right .” Veronica grinned, and gave ElsBeth’s wild hair a quick pull.
But ElsBeth ignored her. A small funnel cloud had formed up ahead, swirling together some sand, a few saltwater taffy wrappers, and a cardboard clam roll holder. It danced in the distance, slowly at first then faster and faster.
The pale cloud whipped around and rushed straight at them. Squealing seagulls circled above, beaks snapping.
Veronica squawked and flapped her arms, and the screeching gulls took off.
“Nasty things. By end of summer they’re so used to people-food they have no fear.”
ElsBeth just stared, still as stone. Something unnatural was definitely in play, but she hadn’t a clue what.
She shook her head again, uneasy now, and moved forward with her friend down the street toward the sea.
***
Not far away, Robert Hillman-Jones and the boys were also out and about this fine morning.
Hillman-Jones turned the corner, shook the longish brown hair off his eyes and frowned. He threw out his arm to halt the others. “Guys, it’s Veronica and ElsBeth.”
“We’d better take the other way to the marina,” said Johnny, his Wampanoag friend. “Those two will totally want to know what we’re doing.”
“Yeah, and they’ll want to be involved.” Robert squinted at them. “My plans definitely don’t include any girls. Come on.”
The pack of wild boys raced down Crescent Drive to Quahog Way, over to Queen Ann Road, and had just turned the corner back toward Main Street when ... smack. Robert ran dead into ElsBeth.
She bounced off him and hit the brick sidewalk. Hard.
“Oh, sorry, ElsBeth.” Hillman-Jones was so surprised he was actually polite for once.
***
Pooped out from chasing Winston Nickerson and starting to feel hungry, ElsBeth was not feeling polite back.
She was often a little touchy where Hillman-Jones was concerned … and pooped out and cranky, and knocked over by Robert Hillman-Jones, she was pretty near at her worst.
With ElsBeth Amelia Thistle, at her worst or not, there was always the complicating factor that she was a witch. And though she was mostly a helpful witch — she tried to be anyway — it would have to be said she had a bit of a temper.
A young witch with something of a temper, hungry and exhausted from herding toddlers at Library Story Hour, was probably not something any twelve-year-old boy would want to confront. With Robert Hillman-Jones it was trouble times ten. Because ElsBeth and he just didn’t mix. They had a history.
Which probably accounted for her charged reaction