The Gallery of Forgotten Dreams

By E.A. Owell

At 12, Eliza Reid discovered the Library of Broken Promises with its magical books and helped solve its mystery. But it turns out it was too soon to celebrate victory.
Something sinister is brooding in the depths of another place full of magic — the Gallery of Forgotten Dreams. Unnamed fear begins to spread among people. Nightmares come to haunt them at night. Eliza's own life and mental health are on the line.
It's time for Eliza to dive into another mystery, this time full of shadows and darkness. But she won't be alone. It is time to unite once again in the face of the unknown enemy!

• Language: English
• Publisher: E.A. Owell
• Release date: Jun 14, 2020

Book preview

Gallery of Forgotten Dreams

By

E.A. Owell

Chapter 1

Big snowflakes fell gently from the clouded sky. The day was wrapped in a soft grey light, while the ground lay covered with a blanket of white furry snow. It was January, and Eliza was in her room by the window, back from the holidays. The suitcase stood by the bed still only half-unpacked and many things were scattered around the room.

Eliza watched the snow fall slowly, as if it were unwilling to touch the ground and wanted to linger in the air that one fleeting moment longer. It covered everything: roofs, trees, cars, pavements. It seemed as if the world had grown tired of all colours and painted itself pristine white. It looked beautiful, almost otherworldly. And clean, too. Pity it would melt down soon, revealing the dull greyness it tried to mask.

With a sigh, Eliza tore her gaze off the window. She looked at the room – there was work to be done. She blamed it on her suitcase, which was like a Pandora’s Box of clothes and other things that kept creeping out and settling themselves in various spot’s of Eliza’s room. In fact, anywhere but for the spots all these things actually should be. It was happening in a suspiciously subtle way. The strangest thing was that it must have been Eliza herself who did it but she still failed to understand how this could have happened.

Whether there was a secret conspiracy of Eliza’s belongings against her or not, the room had to be tidied up. She promised. The past autumn had taught Eliza not to give promises lightly and, if given, stick to them. She knew that the consequences could be dire. Perhaps, not as a result of a messy room, but still. She judged she could do with some self-discipline.

Eliza switched on the light, which made the mess look even worse. Oh well. She bravely lunged into the process.

It began really well. Since the clothes were covering most of the space, she decided to deal with them first. It was a fairly easy task and Eliza felt invigorated by the successful start. However, the progress showed signs of faltering right after the first stage. Eliza began to go through holiday photographs and souvenirs and that was when she slowed down significantly.

You cannot simply pick up a photo and put it away. You need to look at it, see all the details, smile, reminisce about the moment when this photo was taken, and remember what you were doing and how much fun it was and how you wish you could do that again, for instance, right now.

And there is no way you are putting a souvenir on the shelf without fumbling with it first and revisiting the place you got it at in your mind and almost feeling again the warm sunshine on your skin and the light breeze on your face. All this takes time. A lot of time, as it turns out.

After about two hours Eliza finished. The room looked decent and there would be no new nasty line in her book of promises. Speaking of which: she should go to ‘Gregory’s Books’. Of course, they let her take a break for as long as she needed or wanted, and it’s not as if she had been absent for months, only a couple of weeks, and yet it seemed like a long time.

It was one of those feelings when you go away and, no matter how long you leave for, when you come back you expect things to be different, changed, only to find everything precisely or almost the same. And you get this mixture of slight disappointment and then contentment, because so often it feels good to return to the old ways.

Throughout her holidays, Eliza kept in touch with Tom and Rachael with the help of the Talking Parchment, which they had given to her for Christmas. She would tell them about what she had seen and where she had travelled, which they seemed to want to know about. In return, they gave her updates on the Library of Broken Promises and the state of things there, but it seemed that after the incident with Phil things were as normal as ever.

Naturally, people still talked about it but there were no more new rumours springing up every day. People pretty much exhausted their gossip resources in December, and now it was just harmless idle talk. Although, no doubt, this case will be remembered for a long-long time, if not forever.

Eliza intended to go back to her duties as the Chief Librarian’s secretary. Also, she liked borrowing books from the shop for free, as was agreed with Mr Wood.

She decided to go to ‘Gregory’s Books’ the next day, on Monday. Not that the Library of Broken Promises was closed any day of the week but it seemed more habitual to Eliza to do it this way. And, as usual, it would be after school.

Eliza’s attitude towards school had not changed much. She still wasn’t particularly fascinated by it but she learned to take it for what it was. She had come to terms with the fact that you should attend school and there was nothing else to it, really. Weirdly enough, this slight change of attitude helped a lot. It really did get easier to go to school every day and even do the homework. It was another daily routine, like brushing your teeth. Simple but quite effective way of looking at it.

Monday morning was clear and bright. The sun was shining upon the snow-covered town, making it glitter and sparkle. People in the street squinted and hid their noses in thick warm scarves, puffing little clouds of steam. If this wasn’t a glorious day, Eliza didn’t know what was.

The day at school flew by. Eliza barely noticed lessons at all. And not because she wasn’t paying attention, but simply because she met her friends after what seemed like a long while. Everyone had something to share from their time away from school.

Eliza heard all there was to hear about Emily’s time with her parents in Prague, which sounded really lovely. Nathan had an adventurous time in South America, and even though they suspected Nathan’s stories to be richly laced with his own imagination (he was somewhat known for telling tall tales), it was obvious he had enjoyed his time.

Eliza noticed there was a general positive vibe everywhere and in everyone, even the teachers. There was something blissful floating in the air that day. Maybe the weather had something to do with it. Everybody was having a good day. No wonder at the end of the classes Eliza felt something she hadn’t felt before – she actually was a tiny bit sad the school was over for the day. That was new.

After hanging out with her classmates and having a cheery snowball fight, Eliza finally headed to ‘Gregory’s Books’. She probably could not have been in a better mood. She thought seeing Mr Wood and Tom and Rachael would make her sing! She almost danced her way to the shabby red sign of the bookshop. She peered inside through the window: the place was conveniently empty. It was too early for it to get busy. Eliza pushed the door – the familiar bell tinkled, as she entered.

She looked around the sunlit shop – it appeared to be completely deserted. Tiny specks of dust hung almost motionless in the sun rays. At the back of the shop Eliza could see the familiar purple drape along the wall. She approached the drape and, making sure there was still nobody in the shop, drew it to the side. A door with the open book symbol on it was before Eliza's eyes once again. She pushed the symbol and stepped into the gloom through the opened door.

‘Well, well, well, if it isn't our young Miss Reid,’ Eliza heard a familiar voice say – Mr Wood sat at the desk by the door smiling at Eliza, his glasses glinting with the reflected light of the candles.

‘Mr Wood!’ Eliza hurried to the desk. ‘How great to see you!’

‘Absolutely likewise, dear Eliza,’ Mr Wood stood up and stretched his hand out to greet Eliza. She grasped the hand firmly and shook it assuredly.

‘How were your holidays?’ asked Mr Wood, motioning Eliza to take a seat in the chair opposite him.

Eliza told him what there was to tell about her Christmas break, while having tea with biscuits – the best way invented so far to tell stories.

‘You used your time very well, I take it. Good to hear. You deserved it,’ said Mr Wood.

‘What about you? How have you been? How are things with the Library?’ asked Eliza.

‘As a matter of fact, things have been very well after... after the whole thing last