The Family Tree

By B K Buis

Two siblings, Trudy and Tommy, move into their Great-Aunt's house and discover a wall painted with their family tree that transports them back into their medieval ancestor's time. There, they meet their Great-Aunt's brother Fered, who has been trapped in the medieval ages most of his life, Miss D'Alsace, who is faced with a horrendous marriage to the odious Sir Ulric, and Od, who bullies Tommy continuously.
As their challenges grow, both Trudy and Tommy find strengths within themselves to deal with their new situation and difficulties while all the time trying to return to their own time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: B K Buis
• Release date: Aug 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311950468

B K Buis

B.K. Buis has been a high school Language Arts and Theatre teacher for twenty-seven years. He's written many skits for Pioneer Drama., and The Family Tree is his first young adult novel. He also co-founded and ran a community theatre, The New London Theatre, in Snellville, Georgia.

Book preview

The

Family Tree

by

B.K. Buis

Published by Kirk Buis at Smashwords

Copyright 2010 Kirk Buis

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

For my first, second, and fifth grade teacher Mrs. Stovall,

Who told me I needed to write more.

I have, Mrs. Stovall. I have.

This is not intended to be an historical novel.

It’s only a story.

Table of Contents

Part One

Chapter One - A New Home

Chapter Two - The Family Tree Room

Chapter Three - The Key

Chapter Four - School Day

Part Two

Chapter One - A New Time

Chapter Two - Errands

Chapter Three - The Groom Arrives

Chapter Four - Sir Ulric’s Plans

Chapter Five - The Wedding Feast

Chapter Six - The Wedding Portrait

Chapter Seven - The Hunt

Chapter Eight - Araby and the Arrow

Chapter Nine - Surgery

Chapter Ten - Questions without Answers

Chapter Eleven - Home Plate

Chapter Twelve - Plans and Schemes

Chapter Thirteen - Accusations

Chapter Fourteen - Witchcraft

Chapter Fifteen - The Way In

Chapter Sixteen - Truth Serum

Chapter Seventeen - The Way Out

Part Three

Chapter One - Endings and Beginnings

Thanks

Preview of Book Two of The Family Tree series

Behind a tapestry

in a dusty room

near a scarred staircase

off a narrow antechamber

in a weathered house,

a wall has a secret.

Part One

1

A New Home

The large Victorian house, badly faded and ivy-clung, perched at the top of the hill as if waiting to pounce on the two children standing far below. Originally white but now nearly gray, the house had been built over two hundred years ago. Unseen by the children, one particular room of the house’s interior had actually been moved twice and was therefore many hundreds of years older even than that.

Thomas and Gertrudis Fleming each clutched a piece of luggage and carried an overstuffed bookbag on their backs. Tommy, thin with light brown hair, would turn eleven that week and held the seventh Harry Potter book close to his chest, while Trudy, fifteen with slight freckles that no one noticed but her, held her most prized possession, her journal, which she’d begun slightly more than four months ago.

Glumly, they stared up the plain, cement steps at the drab home of their Great-Aunt, with whom it had been arranged for them to live after the death of their parents. A deep porch meant for rocking chairs and lemonade wrapped around to the left side and a large window on the second floor above the front door seemed to peer down at them like some threatening Cyclops. The overcast sky hanging overhead waiting to pour at any moment did nothing to improve their spirits.

What’s the word? Trudy whispered.

After a moment’s thought, Tommy whispered back, Foreboding.

She studied the house thrusting itself into their lives and silently agreed. To him she said, Not your best, but it’ll do.

Tru, I don’t like it, Tommy whispered as much to himself as to Trudy. He was fidgeting from one foot to the other.

We haven’t much choice, have we? she replied. She paused before adding, Remember, who’s on first?

He glanced at her to make sure he’d heard correctly.

Who’s on first? she repeated.

After another moment, he replied, What’s on second? and then together, they said, I don’t know’s on third.

The government lady, an optimistically boisterous woman named Mrs. Hamilton who had driven them here then quickly disappeared inside, emerged from the darkness of the house and stood beaming with an overeager smile from the top step.

Well, it’s all settled, she practically yelled at them. Come on. She’s waiting for you. Says the light’s too bright out here.

She’s probably a vampire, Trudy muttered to Tommy, which, if it was possible, discouraged him even more. Trudy gave him a nudge and started up the steps, only slightly tugging Tommy along behind her.

Tru, I don’t like it, I tell you.

It doesn’t matter whether you like it or not. Stop being such a baby. She thought, not for the first time, that a younger sister would have been so much better.

I’m not, but he didn’t have time to say more as they reached the top of the stairs where Mrs. Hamilton waited, looking anxious to be rid of either them or the house, despite the smile still plastered on her face.

Now, there’s nothing to be afraid of. She just wants to size you up. Tommy thought of Mary Poppins measuring the children and then herself, but he didn’t believe this would be quite so enchanting. Mrs. Hamilton continued, It’s just a bit dark inside, but you’ll soon get used to that, and before either of the children could contradict her, she turned and strode back into the house, leaving the large, double doors open. The children looked at each other and steeled themselves before stepping past the large oaken doors into the gloomy foyer. Mrs. Hamilton had not exaggerated the ‘bit dark’ description of the house. Above their heads, an oversized chandelier hung by a frighteningly thin chain. On either side of the door stood two large suits of armor holding huge broadswords in front of them, guarding against what or whom neither of the children dared guess. Stairs on their right led up to the second floor, and there were other rooms hidden behind doors to their left and right. Everything, however, seemed diminished by the presence at the far end of the hall of a squat, slightly hunched figure whose eyes watched the children with a gaze more intense than they were used to. Even Mrs. Hamilton’s demeanor had shrunk once she’d gotten inside.

Children, Mrs. Hamilton quietly started, may I present to you your Great-Aunt, Agrippina Elizabeth Alsace Fiennes Spencer. She paused, but no one moved or said a word, so she continued. And these are…

I know who they are, interrupted the figure at the opposite end of the room. Thank you, Mrs. Hamilton, you may go.

As if she’d been dismissed (which she’d most certainly been), Mrs. Hamilton managed to chirp an Oh!, then made a slightly confused curtsey and exited, patting Tommy on the shoulder consolingly as she left. The children waited, standing unassuredly looking at the elderly woman whose complete face they had yet to see. The dim light from the hall behind her cast her shadow toward the children’s feet and seemed to make her lean menacingly toward them. It was not until the sound of Mrs. Hamilton’s car driving away that any of them seemed sure the children were actually staying.

Come here, their Great-Aunt Spencer said.

Trudy hesitantly stepped forward with Tommy half-hid behind her.

I’m sorry about your parents, their Great-Aunt said. I only met them twice, but I thought them fine people. Your things have been delivered. Gertrudis, your…

Abruptly, Trudy corrected her, Trudy. That’s my name. Not Gertrudis.

Without acknowledging that Trudy had even spoken, Mrs. Spencer continued, Your room is on the second floor toward the front. Thomas, yours is on the second floor to the back. Please don’t go to the third floor or the attic. You may arrange your rooms any way you like. In one hour, I expect to see you both back down here presentably dressed. She looked distastefully at Trudy’s high school drama sweatshirt and Tommy’s ‘Punk Rulz’ t-shirt. Any questions you have may be asked then. Have I made myself clear?

Both children nodded.

Then in an hour, I shall see you. Before exiting, she paused and with one eyebrow raised said, Remember, you are Spencers. With that cryptic message, she turned and left the room through a door under the stairs. The children watched her go, looked fearfully at each other, and then silently filed quickly up the worn wooden staircase with a faded runner to a landing on the second floor. Tommy peeked into his small, dark room straight ahead and saw a single bed, a small desk, and a chest of drawers along with many boxes on the floor. Trudy made her way along the landing that overlooked the hall towards her room at the front. If she’d tried, she could have reached out and brushed the few spider webs from the chandelier. The door to her bedroom stood open and, unlike all the other rooms she‘d seen thus far and despite the cloudy day, a bright light streamed out of it.

She walked inside and gasped. The entire rest of the house had been built with dark oak, but, despite even more boxes strewn on the floor than were in Tommy’s room, her bedroom, which was twice as large as his, was stunning. A large bay window, the same that had appeared so menacing from the outside, overlooked the front yard and stretched ten feet toward the high ceiling. Beneath it lay a cushioned window piled with soft pillows at either end. The walls were the palest pink and encircling a four-poster bed were sheer, white curtains, next to which stood a nightstand with a reading lamp. A white dresser and rocking chair on the left wall and a full-length, oval mirror by the foot of the bed completed the furniture. As she walked into the middle of the room, her feet sank into a soft, thick circular rug. She sat on the edge of the window seat and marveled at the disparity between her decorated room and the drabness of the rest of the house.

What’d she mean by Spencers? Tommy was saying until he stepped into her room and stopped wonderingly. Whoa!

I know, she said, and then to avoid sounding enthusiastic, added, It’s like someone decorated it for a four-year-old.

Still. It’s a lot better than my room or the rest of the house.

She couldn’t dispute that. I wonder what’s in all the boxes.

Stuff from home, Tommy replied. At least that’s what was in the two I opened.

She broke open the closest box to her and saw on top the winter coat her mother had bought for her just two weeks earlier. They’d spent the day shopping together while her Dad was coaching Tommy at a soccer game. The memory of the day spent with her mother suddenly made Trudy feel hollow, but before she had time to despair, Tommy asked again, What’d she mean by ‘Spencers’? Our last name’s Fleming.

We’re related, aren’t we? She’s a Spencer. We must be, too.

What do you think of her?

Don’t know. I s’pose it’s hard on her, all of a sudden having the two of us living here.

I don’t think she likes us.

She doesn’t know us. And, well, she hasn’t been mean or anything. She could have left us with the government lady. Did you put your clothes away?

Not yet. It made me too sad, like all of this was forever, not a, I don’t know, a dream or something.

Trudy understood how he felt. The last week had rushed past in a blur. From their parents’ funeral in a drizzling rain to spending the last week with a foster family more intent on their grammar than their feelings until their nearest relative was located. Both their parents had been only children, and the last of their grandparents had died several years ago. Now that they were actually moving their clothes into new chests of drawers instead of living out of their suitcases, the permanency of their situation was sinking in.

It isn’t forever, Trudy said hopefully. But we’ll make the best of it. Go and put your clothes away and change your shirt, and I’ll do the same and then we’ll go down together.

To meet the Dragon Lady, Tommy muttered.

To present ourselves, Trudy mildly cautioned him. Tommy! But he had already returned to his own small room. Trudy had a premonition the meeting with their Great-Aunt would not be a pleasant one.

2

The Family Tree Room

When they’d finished sorting several boxes of clothes each and then changing clothes, they met at the top of the stairs. A large grandfather clock ticked off the time next to them. Tommy, now in a plain white shirt and jeans with no holes in them, looked pale despite the fading light still emanating from Trudy’s room. Trudy had changed into one of the few dresses she actually owned, and she turned to him and said with a stiff upper lip, Remember, you are Spencers. After a shared half-smile, they started their silent journey downstairs.

Waiting on a flowery couch in the living room was Mrs. Spencer holding a steaming cup of hot tea. At least you’re punctual, she said upon their arrival. Sit down. Opposite her were two chairs (which they were quickly warned were Louis XV) and the children perched on the edges as she studied them. Trudy studied her Great-Aunt as well, but Tommy looked in every direction except where she magisterially sat.

Your life has just taken a drastic change, and, although I’m sure your parents loved you, I’m equally as sure that they spoiled you unnecessarily. Before either child could protest, she continued. If you are going to live here, you must first understand that an old woman like me is set in her ways. I have arranged things the way I want them and have little patience for change. I also have certain routines, which I expect you both to honor. However, she paused before continuing, I don’t want to be a complete ogress. I know there will be a period of adjustment for us all. With that in mind, I want to make sure we are clear about the rules of the house. I stated earlier that I don’t want you on either the third floor or the attic, and you deserve to know why. I have many valuable and delicate family heirlooms, and I don’t want you traipsing around up there breaking them. Some of them are quite dear. She seemed to hone in on Tommy, who squirmed even more in his seat. Also, there is one other room I need to discuss. It is the oldest room in the house and, by far, the most valuable, though it may not appear so to you immediately. As you are the only obvious heirs, you should know about it. Follow me.

After a last sip, she placed her teacup delicately on a side table and led the way out of the room to the door under the stairs, and then paused.

What I am about to show you has been in the family for over a thousand years. In fact, no one quite knows when it was first created, perhaps more than two thousand years. Growing up, my brother was always much more interested in it than I, but we were always told that it was moved here some two hundred years ago after the house it was in burned rather mysteriously to the ground.

Well, if the house was burned to the ground, how was this room still standing? Tommy asked.

She looked at him searchingly before answering, How indeed? From a deep pocket, she produced a large black key, opened the door, and led them in.

Mind your step, as she stepped down several inches, as if the room had settled. It felt slightly cooler and damp, like entering a cave, but there were no drips evident. After their Great-Aunt turned on a lamp, their eyes adjusted to the soft light, and they could see a narrow room, almost like a walk-in closet.

Why is it so cold in here? Trudy asked.

Odd, isn’t it? was the only explanation she received, and the children saw that the room was windowless and only seven or eight feet wide and twelve feet deep. A frayed rug that