The Secret of the Lost Souls: Book 1

By Pete W Lewis

Isla and Jack Claremont think they are typical 13 and 12-year-olds. They bicker like sisters and brothers, hang out in their bedrooms with their friends, and consider their parents are embarrassing. So, what happens when a visitor from out of this world mysteriously appears, disrupting their ordinary lives? Well, magic, of course!Little do Isla

• Language: English
• Publisher: Peter Lewis
• Release date: Nov 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9780645612639

Pete W Lewis

Pete Lewis was born in 1977 in Upper Ferntree Gully, Melbourne. Being one of seven children, he knows the in's and out's of childhood craziness and the fun that includes. Revisiting his childhood adventures needs little encouragement, as those stories - slightly enhanced by his wild imagination - are told.The Children of the Magic Realm is Pete's first series.

Book preview

Prologue

Medieval England

    Thick clumps of autumn cloud hovered forebodingly throughout the cold October night sky, partially blocking the light of a full moon.

Fog shrouded the Buff Woods of Cambridgeshire in a haze that caught the moonlight’s beam and cast an eerie outlook throughout the woodlands.

The local story of a witch roaming the woods stopped people from visiting, allowing autumn’s fallen leaves to lie undisturbed upon the pathways. That was until tonight.

Hamon Wolff’s heart almost beat out of his chest.

Three men holding wooden torches in one hand and ferocious dogs in the other pursued him.

Hamon looked back as he ran, glimpsing the flickering flames between the multitude of tree trunks spread between him and his pursuers.

The gap gave Hamon a glimmer of hope to outrun the men until the unexpected happened.

WHACK! He did not see the low hanging branch. His head connected with the wood, causing his feet to fling out from underneath him and lose grip of a calico sack he carried.

He landed heavily on his bony back that had not an ounce of fat to provide any cushioning.

The sack flew through the air, landing in bushes, out of sight.

The small man tried to sit up, but being winded kept him as flat as a wooden plank on the ground.

Suddenly, his chest released, and he sucked air in and out a few times.

Where did the sack go?

Hearing the bark of the dogs getting louder, the search for the sack became more frantic.

‘Where are you?’ Hamon pleaded.

The sack could not be left behind. Its contents were too important and could not fall into the possession of the wrong people.

Hamon scampered around the wet undergrowth on hands and knees before catching a glimpse of the cream-coloured sack behind a bush.

His relief was short-lived. The approaching sound of the barking dogs were now accompanied by footsteps cracking down on twigs and bracken along the pathway. The men and their dogs were close.

Hamon’s shins stung from running through the prickly furze, and his feet ached from treading on the uneven ground. He decided to hide.

A short distance off the pathway stood a thick trunked tree. Its crown was missing after a dazzling lightning strike had blown it to smithereens.

Staying low, the little man ran through the shrubbery before slumping down behind the massive trunk.

He clasped the sack to his chest while taking in more deep breaths.

‘STOP!’ One of the men yelled, and the commotion of barking dogs and footsteps ceased.

‘He has left the path here.’

Hamon assumed his hiding spot had been discovered. Do I run, or do I stay?  His mind raced, but he sat still, riddled with despair.

‘That bush has broken branches. That little rat of a man has tried to hide from us. Spread out, keep the dogs quiet and listen for noises. The moment he tries to run, we’ll hear him and release the dogs.’

Hamon squeezed his eyes shut upon hearing the men leaving the pathway.

He expected to be found any moment. But, to his astonishment, the commotion from the group faded into the distance.

Why would they be going away from me?

It didn’t make sense at first, but then Hamon realised that when the sack had flown out from his grasp, it had landed on the other side of the walkway.

Branches of a bush broke off when Hamon retrieved the sack. This was the bush the men spotted.

It was a lucky break for Hamon.

As he peeked out from behind the tree, the men’s torchlight had faded to a distant flicker once again.

He breathed a sigh of relief. That was too close.

Chapter 1

Hidden Surprise

‘Jackson, I’m going to kill you!’ screamed Isla with such fury the house shook.

Isla’s extremely sacred boy band poster that had been so meticulously placed on her bedroom door had had an extra member added to it.

That extra member had been drawn onto a piece of paper in crayon. Their neck down to their feet was sketched with no accurate proportion or detail and then cut out and stuck onto the poster next to the other band members.

A close-up photo of Jack with his tongue flopped out the side of his mouth, one eye closed, and the other looking skyward was stuck onto the body.

The vandalising of the poster was enough to send thirteen-year-old Isla into meltdown. Just knowing her younger brother touched her shrine was enough to start the next world war, but to have that face looking straight back at her made her go on the hunt for his blood.

I’m going to kill him is all she could repeatedly think as she stormed down the stairs into the living room of her Melbourne home.

Jack and his best friend, Benny Baker, had heard the scream and knew it was time to get moving.

‘Benny, let’s get out of here. She’s coming.’ The boys were sitting on the trampoline in the backyard. ‘If she catches us, we’re both dead meat.’

The boys ran for their BMX bikes out the front of the house.

Due to the many previous escapes the boys had had to execute, they were experts in picking up their bikes off the ground without losing stride.

Both boys had made it down the road a couple of houses before Jack looked behind to see his older sister running down the driveway and come to a screeching halt at its end.

She pointed at him and made the sign of a knife cutting a throat by sliding two extended fingers across the front of her neck.

Jack thought he might stay away from Isla for a while.

*

Unseasonably warm late October temperatures continued with a forecast of 30 degrees, making the day feel like summer rather than spring.

Kerrie Periwinkle loved the heat because it made her morning pamphlet round a comfortable walk.

She also loved the local birds, some of which enthralled her this morning with the kookaburras laughing as the magpie families warbled to each other.

Kerrie missed a letterbox drop every now and then due to the distraction the birds created.

This morning though, there were other distractions called Jack and Benny. They yelled, ‘Kerrie Peri, Kerrie Peri,’ as they sped past her on their bikes.

Kerrie did not let the boys bother her. She had plenty of experience learning how to combat their mischievous ways with each visit to Isla’s home. Ignoring them seemed to have the best effect. She just needed to teach Isla that same skill.

As she reached down to take out what should have been the last pamphlet from her canvas-encased trolley, Kerrie’s eyes widened with surprise.

Isla and Jack’s letterbox should have been for the last pamphlet, but after delving into the trolley a little deeper, Kerrie lifted out another seven pamphlets.

She looked up to the sky and groaned. She had been really distracted today.

*

The doorbell rang, and Isla’s dad answered the door.

‘Oh, hello, Kerrie. I thought you may have been the boys.’

‘Hi, Mr Claremont. Nah, only me. The boys rode past me near the park. Is Isla home?’

‘Yes, she is. Be careful, though. Jack and Benny have just finished stirring her up.’ He let Kerrie inside. ‘I’ll give you something nice to eat to take upstairs with you. It might make Isla’s mood a little less … volatile.’ His last spoken word was followed by a wink and a smile.

Kerrie walked into Isla’s bedroom, carrying a pack of jam and cream-filled biscuits. She sat next to Isla on her bed, who was lying back on a couple of pillows.

Isla was reading, or more to the truth, studying famous boys' pictures in the latest Girls’ Zone magazine.

‘Hi Isla, what did they do today?’

‘Oh, Dad said something?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Have a look at the poster on the door. Oh, you’ve got some biscuits?’

Kerrie dumped the packet of biscuits next to Isla and walked over to the poster.

Upon realising how it had been vandalised, she started chuckling to herself and turned to Isla with a wry smile on her face. She could not help but burst out with laughter.

At first, Isla’s face scrunched up in disbelief, but she started to smile as Kerrie’s laughter became infectious.

‘Sorry, Isla,’ chuckled Kerrie. ‘It does look pretty funny.’

*

The girls sat on the bed, happily munching the biscuits while chatting.

‘Isla, Dad and I are heading out to the shops,’ yelled her mum from the bottom of the stairs. ‘We’ll be about an hour, so don’t do anything silly and try to save killing Jack until we get home.’

‘Yes, Mum.’

‘And keep the doors shut. It’s getting warm outside.’

‘Yeess, Muumm.’

Isla’s dad chipped in. ‘And if you do kill him, make sure you clean up afterwards. We’ve just finished cleaning the house.’

‘Okay, Dad.’

Kerrie sighed, ‘Your mum and dad have a weird sense of humour.’

‘Yeah, it can be embarrassing at times,’ groaned Isla.

*

Ten-year-old Mikey looked up to his older brother Benny. He thought both Benny and Jack were so big and cool, but he was nowhere near as annoying to Isla and Kerrie’s relief. He preferred to sit back and study the way the four older kids interacted.

The three boys rode up Jack’s driveway before dumping their bikes on the ground.

‘How do you think Isla is?’ asked Benny.

‘Dunno?’ replied Jack. ‘Mikey, scope the scene for us, can you? The girls won’t hurt you.’

Mikey nodded and left the two boys at the side gate.

He entered the house through the back door as Jack and Benny made their way to the backyard.

Before the children were born, the backyard was a steep block, sloping downward from one side of the house to the other.

The whole area was levelled out and made big enough to place a massive trampoline on it and have a small garden that ran along the back of the house.

Without this area, the backyard would have been virtually unusable, so the kids all appreciated the work done.

Jack and Benny stood at the edge of the backyard where some retaining walls stood. They called it The Drop Off because of a two-metre drop down to where the backyard naturally kept sloping.

‘Well, Isla isn’t down there,’ Jack commented after checking the favourite hangout of his sister’s. ‘She must be inside. C’mon, let’s dino-wrestle on the trampoline. I’ll be Velociraptor.’

Jack loved dinosaurs and dragged Benny into various dino-themed activities, much to his friend’s displeasure.

‘Hmm, if we have to. I’m T-Rex then.’

They both started jumping and performing spinning dino jump-kicks when Jack received an unexpected double bounce.

He sprung into the air with arms and legs flailing and, because the trampoline had no sides, landed with his body sprawled across the garden bed.

Well, at least his body landed in the garden. His face planted straight down into the mulch his parents had put down a few weeks before. It didn’t taste nice. In fact, it smelt like manure and tasted like it too.

After climbing to his elbows, Jack wiped his mouth and spat out little chunks of tanbark and other stuff he could only dread.

As he scooped away a gooey bit of something that was pressed onto the front of his teeth, he noticed something strange.

Where the garden bed touched the house, a piece of painted wood poked up just above the ground.

Jack cleared away some of the mulch.

‘Hey Jack, are you alright? What are you doing?’

The more mulch Jack moved, the more wood he uncovered.

‘Benny, help me out. There’s something here.’

Benny jumped off the trampoline and bent down next to Jack.

‘What is it?’

‘Dunno. Maybe a door frame or something?’

The two boys frantically dug deeper.

‘Benny, there’s a door in the ground!’

At that point, Isla, Kerrie and Mikey walked around the corner of the house. Isla’s mouth dropped open. ‘What are you two doing to the garden? Mum and Dad are going to kill …’

‘Have you seen what’s under the house?’ Jack cut in.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Have a look. It’s a door.’

Isla bent down to take a closer look. ‘Wow! It probably leads to a basement.’

‘Mum and Dad haven’t said anything about it before?’

‘No, they haven't.’ Isla was a little confused because she knew her mum and dad had built up the backyard to level it out. But to cover up a basement? Why would they do that?

‘Well, I say we get digging and see what’s in there,’ said Jack.

The others' silence was enough of an agreement for Jack, so he grabbed a mattock from the garden shed and started hacking into the ground.

Half an hour later, enough dirt was cleared away from the house to expose a wooden door. It was bolted and padlocked shut.

Isla gave the padlock a shake, hoping the rust that ate into it was enough to break it open. She was disappointed, ‘The lock isn’t moving.’

‘A hammer will fix that,’ replied Jack. ‘A hammer fixes everything.’ He ran off to the shed again and returned with a big smile on his face. ‘Go on, try giving it a whack.’

First, Isla and then Jack had a go at hitting the padlock as hard as they could. They only got as far as knocking inground dirt out of the lock’s barrel.

‘What are we going to do now?’ asked Jack. ‘Mum and Dad will be home soon, and we’ve just destroyed part of their garden and dented Dad’s new hammer. We haven’t even seen what’s inside.’

‘Relax, Jack,’ Isla replied. ‘We’ll just push the dirt back for the moment. It won’t take nearly as long as digging it out.’

As Isla was talking, Mikey got to his feet and casually walked to the garden shed.

A rummaging noise of toolboxes opening, metal clanging on metal and then the reappearance of the boy looking empty-handed had the other four kids perplexed.

Without a word, Mikey walked over to the trench, climbed into it and, with a small piece of wire in each hand, inserted them into the padlock’s barrel and jiggled the wire inside it.

‘Can someone please pull down