The Starflash Opal

By Linda Talbot

Zophenas is an enchantress but is trapped in the Underearth. How can she escape? She has heard of three possible ways; to find the soul of Waldo the warlock, to secure the magic ointment made by a witch, enabling her to fly and to capture a woman who has turned into a two-tailed cat.
For these tasks she recruits two schoolchildren - Swot, with a gift for maths and his sister Gemma. They find Waldo, who recalls hiding his soul in a bird. But which one? They retrieve it but the ointment - guarded by giant toads - is still needed. Zophenas helps by turning the children briefly into black beetles. The ointment is secured and unbaptised babies, used to bind it - and now also black beetles - rescued from the home of Hagatha the witch. Swot and Gemma also capture the woman who turns into a two-tailed cat. But when Zophenas is freed and the children are offered the starflash opal and the wishes, they make a surprising and wise decision.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Linda Talbot
• Release date: Apr 22, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301724307

Linda Talbot

Linda Talbot has written fantasy for children and adults and for many years reviewed art, theatre and books in London. She now lives in Crete. She published "Fantasy Book of Food"; rhymes, stories and recipes for children and "Five Rides by a River" - about Suffolk, seen from a bicycle! She contributed a chapter to a book about Conroy Maddox, the British surrealist and features on art to "Topos" the German landscape magazine. She published short stories with the British Fantasy Society as well as stories and poetry in other magazines. And she launched "Wordweavers", an online supplement of poetry and fiction, published in conjunction with The Cretan International Community.

Book preview

The Starflash Opal

By Linda Talbot

Illustrations by Linda Talbot

Smashwords Edition

Copyright Linda Talbot 2013

Smashwords Edition, License Notes.

Thank you for downloading this free eBook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form.

If you enjoyed this book, please return to Smashwords.com to discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.

Contact blog: http://lindajtalbot.wordpress.com

List of Ilustrations

Waldo the Warlock

The Peacock

The Witch

The Two-Tailed Cat

Author's Note and Contact

THE STARFLASH OPAL

The golden rushes with hairy tousled heads, stir in the Underearth wind. They whisper inaudibly as Zophenas the Enchantress approaches from the Miasmic Sea. She grumbles, tossing her pale hair shot with pallid water reflections and flashes her strange green eyes in anger.

Look, she’s trapped! exclaim the rushes still in a whisper for fear of being spellbound.

Zophenas has heard there are three possible ways to rise from the Underearth:

1. To find the soul of Waldo the warlock who wants to die but cannot without the soul he has hidden but cannot remember where.

2. To secure the magic ointment made by a witch which enables her to fly, or

3. To capture a woman who has turned into a two-tailed cat.

She cannot imagine how the first and the last will help her rise from the rushes and the foul Miasmic Sea. Would the warlock levitate her in gratitude? Would she ride to Earth on the back of the two-tailed cat? The witch’s ointment seems the most likely means of escape.

To find out she will have to try all three. But how? She needs someone to carry out these tasks, the first in her name, for which Waldo should be grateful and the other two would entail the objects being brought to her.

Who could carry out the tasks? Someone small, lithe, able to get in and out of tight corners, to melt into mooonshine and run on the rain. Children.

Zophenas raises her piercing green eyes and