The Miracle of Knotty Ash

By Jethro Codeine

It is late summer 1923 and young Tom Evans has written a letter to the Lord Mayor of Liverpool, asking him to stop developers from chopping down a horse chestnut tree, in which Tom and his pals have only just finished building a tree-house. When the kids receive word back that the Mayor has ordered the trees safekeeping, they organise a party to celebrate. However, when Tom sets out that night to a nearby allotment to pinch some apples for the party, a sinister presence has other ideas and unleashes supernatural forces that could lead to Toms own destruction.

Who, or what, will save Tom in his hour of need? Find out this and much more in Jethro Codeines past-and-present tale of magic and mystery. Exquisitely illustrated by Siobhan Griffiths and with an all-star, stellar cast straight out of your grocery basket, The Miracle of Knotty Ash is sure to leave you spellbound.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Dec 24, 2013
• ISBN: 9781491885437

Jethro Codeine

Not too concerned about saying anything about myself. I would prefer to remain anonymous if possible. My name is Gerard Williams (pen name Jethro Codeine), 49yrs, civil servant from Liverpool, graduate in French and German, but would really prefer anonymity. I would like to mention two charities, one for cancer and one for the Children’s Heart Association. Would this be possible?

Book preview

2013 Jethro Codeine. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,

or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 12/21/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4918-8561-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-8543-7 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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The author would like to mention the following charities –

The Terral Morgan Memorial Fund

The Fund aims to provide financial and personal support for people on the Wirral, England during illness. Terral was a good friend who was sadly struck by cancer. Typical of him, in his last days he remarked how lucky he was compared to people in the same position. He said – ‘’When I’m jarred off, I have to think of others. I’m counting my blessings because some people have got this and they’re on their own with it, whereas I’m cared for like a king.’’ This is a fitting epitaph for a really nice fella and the Fund is a suitable tribute. His wife, Mandy and his sister, Lyn set up the Fund to help those who Terral had in mind. Donations can be given by visiting the Fund’s website.

THE CHILDREN’S HEART ASSOCIATION

The Children’s Heart Association is a support group based in the North West of England and is run by families and friends of children with heart disorders. It has a sister charity, the Scottish Association for Children with Heart Disorders and works with Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, Liverpool and also The Manchester Children’s Hospital by arranging days out, parent information days and branch meetings. In this way, the children and their families realise that they are not alone and that there are others who understand what they are going through. As above, donations can be given by visiting the Association’s website.

Both of the above charities receive a percentage of the sales from this book.

Thank you. Jethro Codeine.

Table of Contents

1.)   IN THE NICK OF TIME

2.)   ORCHARD OF DOOM

3.)   GRUMBLE, RUMBLE

4.)   CAULIFLOWER CRUMBLE

5.)   FROM LIMERICK WITH LOVE

6.)   LAST EMBRACE

7.)   FROM TOKYO WITH TEARS

8.)   JURY AND JUDGE

9.)   THE TRIAL

10.)   RESCUE AND REDEMPTION

11.)   SILENT WITNESS

12.)   PARTY TIME IN KNOTTY ASH

13.)   A SECRET BROKEN

14.)   RESURRECTION

15.)   THE BRIDGE OF TIME

16.)   THE STORM

17.)   A LATE NIGHT FLIGHT

18.)   GULP!

19.)   NELSON’S EMPTY HORIZON

20.)   THE BLASTS FROM THE PAST

21.)   EPILOGUES ONE, TWO, TREE

22.)   P.S.

IN THE NICK OF TIME

In 1923 the Lord Mayor of Liverpool received a letter from an eight -year-old boy by the name of Thomas Evans, who pleaded with His Lordship to stop developers from chopping down a horse chestnut tree in Knotty Ash and building over a small park, in which it stood, in order to make way for a housing development. In the letter Tom had written that he and his friends were from poor families and that they didn’t have many toys and relied on the conkers of the tree for fun every autumn. He had added -

‘We have just spent weeks bilding a fantastick tree house and it is very un fair and we’ll have no were to play footy and cricket too. And my gran dad and his old mates wo’nt have any were to play bowls as well. So please tell them to bild there houses some were else. Thank You. On be half of The Knotty Ash Gang. Yours since early. Thomas Evans.’

So moved was the Mayor by the simple, childish innocence of the letter that he ordered the developers to leave the tree untouched and not to build within a two-hundred yard radius thereof. And so, the next Friday afternoon, Tom and his friends were overjoyed to hear the good news. At once they decided to have a party in the tree-house to celebrate and the day before this great event they all clubbed together their ha’pennies and pennies and, with the grand sum of three shillings and sixpence, they went along to the local shops and bought lemonade, cakes and sweets, which they duly deposited in the tree-house. They then passed a few hours making plans for the party before finally heading home.

They had only gone a short distance, however, when Tom had an idea to get some apples from nearby Cherry Blossom Orchard, with which his Mother could bake some pies for the party. His young pals would not go with him as it would soon be getting dark and they had a fair walk to get back home.

Be careful, Tom,’’ they warned him. Watch out for Old Grinder."

Tom told them not to worry. Old Grinder was too old and much too slow to catch him. Only the other day he had been to the orchard and filled his pockets with all manner of fruit and the old man had been nowhere to be seen.

‘Don’t worry,’ he told them cockily. ‘That old scarecrow has got more chance of catching me than Old Grinder has. I’ll catch up with you slowcoaches on the way back.’ And the others all set off for home; all, that is, except for the fair Amanda Robinson who stood her ground and folded her arms and stamped her feet in irritation.

‘Thomas Evans, why do you always have to annoy me? You are coming home right now, even if I have to drag you there, myself.’’

Tom looked into his young sweetheart’s usually doleful blue eyes to see that they now contained more than just a hint of anger. ‘Shush! Don’t be worrying. You go with the others. I won’t be long and I’ll run until I’ve caught you up. Go on. I’ll see you soon.’’ And off he went, twirling his favourite conker backwards and forwards around his finger and smiling cheekily as he looked back over his shoulder and winked at her.

‘You had better not be lying, young Master Evans,’ she glowered at him as they went their separate ways. ‘Humph!! Come on, Claudine,’ she said to the smiling, rosy-cheeked rag-doll she took with her everywhere. ‘We’re wasting our breath, aren’t we? He just never listens to us, does he?’ And off she stomped to another of her tantrums.

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ORCHARD OF DOOM

Elmo Grinder was the eighty two year old keeper of Cherry Blossom Orchard. As a child he had been bullied by his peers and he had harboured a deep grudge against children ever since. Embittered and cynical, his poisonous thoughts had gradually eaten away at his very soul, so that now in the twilight of his life he remained friendless and unloved. In his twisted world he had made money his only companion and he had hoarded a fortune that belied his meagre and frugal lifestyle. Lately, frustrated at his increasingly feeble and futile attempts to prevent those little brats from raiding the orchard, he had begun to study the black arts. Then, one day, whilst he had been mooching in a second-hand bookshop, he had found an old leather-bound volume entitled Magick of the Dark Ages - A Guide to the Animation of Botanical Life, chapter thirteen of which dealt with the topic of Incantations. Therein Grinder learnt that by eating a mixture of various rare plants and dead animals’ innards, he could attain the power to bestow the human attributes of movement, sight, speech, hearing, touch and reason upon plants and trees. All else he would have to do would be to intone an ancient and mystical spell three times by the light of a crescent moon. From a calendar he had noted that the next such moon would be appearing in a fortnight’s time, and so, for the past two weeks, this sad, old figure had set traps for the wildlife needed, traipsed over fields and meadows and foraged like a truffle-hunting hog through woods and forests, seeking out the necessary plants and animals.

Presently a crescent moon appeared in the night sky and Old Grinder set out with evil intent to perform his dastardly deed. Firstly he ate the foul-tasting concoction he had prepared, then he left his run-down shack at the edge of the orchard and made his wicked way to its centre. Now standing in front of the tree he knew to be the most popular with Tom and his friends, he twice chanted the ancient incantation of the book and then he traced a square with his walking stick in front of him. Lo and behold a square of electric-blue light appeared in the air through which his stick had just passed. Momentarily astounded at the apparition in front of him, he took a step back, but then he regathered his composure and recalled that this was just as the book had described. Reassured now that all was going to plan, he then traced a circle of red light within the blue square and next a triangle of green light within the red circle. Finally he brought his stick down and wafted the smoke of a piece of smouldering oak wood underneath his luminous creation, which at first glowed, then shimmered before it dimmed and eventually dissipated into the late evening air.

Satisfied with his first stab at sorcery, Grinder stood there for a few moments, smiling for the first time in ages. It was not, however, the happy smiling of a contented, well-intentioned man, but rather it was the fiendishly-sinister gloating of a godless and malevolent soul. Suddenly his smug reverie was disturbed by the sounds of whistling and approaching footsteps. Furtively he slunk away towards his shack, where, for the third and final time, he chanted the book’s incantation before peering intently through a cracked and dusty window at the scene he had just vacated.

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Meanwhile, young Tom had been making his carefree way to the orchard. He had dismissed his young pals’ warnings about Old Grinder. After all, how could a decrepit old man ever hope to catch a sprightly young thing such as he? Huh, the very idea! And so, he had sauntered along, whistling as he went, until he had come to the wall of the orchard, over which he now climbed and dropped from carefully to the other side, as he knew from memory that the ground was quite hard from the recent drought.

By now the late summer-early autumn sky was quite dark but the faint light of a crescent moon enabled him to negotiate his way through the strawberry and gooseberry bushes to the centre of the orchard, where was to be found the tree upon which grew the biggest and tastiest baking apples for miles around. On the way he stooped to pick up a pebble, which he loaded into his catapult and then he fired off a shot at the old scarecrow that stood near the cabbage patch. Bullseye! The missile hit its target right in the tummy, causing the blackbird nestled atop it to shriek and fly away in fright. Tom then pocketed his weapon of choice and, now approaching the apple tree, he had a quick look around and, seeing no sign of the old keeper, he reached out to pick an apple from the lowest branch. As he did so, pieces of bark and wood fell from the tree onto the grass in front of him. Alarmed, he took a step back at first, but then nonplussed after getting over the initial shock, he plucked the nearest apple and put it in his coat pocket. Soon enough all of his pockets were bursting at the seams and he made to turn to go home.

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The Apple Tree had stood silently in the centre of Cherry Blossom Orchard for seven score years and more. Over all that time he had dutifully given up his fruit to the people of the locality and passively allowed birds of many feathers to build nests and raise chicks within his branches. Children of many generations had clambered up and down him, picking his fruit without the merest murmur of protest, and each year his blossom had heralded the coming of spring in a riot of colour and an assault of perfumed aroma. But now, an unwholesome feeling stirred within; a mixture of rage and jealous pride rippled through him from his roots to his canopy. Halfway up his trunk, two rheumy eyes bulged their way through wood and bark, which then plummeted to the ground. The Apple Tree looked out and saw a young boy who took a step back upon hearing the unexpected clatter at his feet and who then stepped forward to take one of his apples, then another and then another. The Tree stared down and thought, How dare this young upstart enter my kingdom and steal my cherished fruit? Ablaze with fury, his lower branches assumed the shape of human arms, at the end of which stretched and formed gnarled hands and long, sinewy fingers. Quick as a flash, he reached out and grabbed the young lad around the waist just as he was turning to go. Simultaneously, the roots of the nearby Strawberry, Raspberry and Gooseberry bushes shot up out of the soil to slither along the ground and wrap themselves tightly around his legs. ‘Now,’ whispered the Apple Tree in a menacing tone. ‘You shall pay for your temerity and thieving."

Kill him! Kill him! pleaded the Bushes. "He has also ravaged our fruits. Make an example of him so that other such brats will fear to trespass into our kingdom and steal what is rightfully ours. Kill him right now!!’’

Young Tom screamed before nearly fainting with shock, but miraculously he just about managed to regain his senses. He tried to struggle free, but his young body was too weak against the mighty grip of the Apple Tree and, feeling his life ebbing away, he was beginning to give up all hope.

The Tree lifted him