The Test

By Miriam Sarin

Power from the gods. Myths, legends, and a forgotten world.

Bek is sixteen and life is hard... in an ordinary kind of way. School is tough; home is worse, and she wishes things would change. And for once, change comes. 

Bek unwittingly sets an ancient test in motion, imbuing her with godlike powers and opening her eyes to an unseen world.

Finally liberated from her dismal reality, this exciting discovery takes a darker turn as Bek is thrust into the middle of a primordial war between the natural and the supernatural.

She may have the power, but for how long?

Forced into a quest for survival, being hunted by creatures she cannot comprehend, Bek must learn to trust others with her life. 

She must choose whether to run and hide, or stand and fight.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Jul 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9781398495098

Miriam Sarin

Miriam grew up in the bracing seaside town of Skegness. She inherited her love of story from her grandad, whose Christmas tradition was a glorious and giant sack full of books to dive into. Storytime evolved into a career as an actor; touring theatre, a tight-knit, fast-paced industry in which she was given the opportunity to write, direct and examine story from every angle. After an exhilarating decade, she left performance work to pursue her growing passion for creative writing, driving her adventure onwards to a Masters in Writing at Birmingham City University. And there, the idea for The Test sparked and a new chapter opened…

Book preview

About the Author

Miriam grew up in the bracing seaside town of Skegness. She inherited her love of story from her grandad, whose Christmas tradition was a glorious and giant sack full of books to dive into. Storytime evolved into a career as an actor; touring theatre, a tight-knit, fast-paced industry in which she was given the opportunity to write, direct and examine story from every angle. After an exhilarating decade, she left performance work to pursue her growing passion for creative writing, driving her adventure onwards to a Masters in Writing at Birmingham City University. And there, the idea for The Test sparked and a new chapter opened…

Dedication

To Dr Gregory Leadbetter who challenged me to write this when

I didn’t feel able.

Copyright Information ©

Miriam Sarin 2023

The right of Miriam Sarin to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781398495081 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398495098 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2023

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Acknowledgement

A huge thank you to Hannah Mukuka, Michelle Davies and Anna Boon. You have all my gratitude for the support you gave. And thank you to my Jon, for making this possible.

Prologue

Bek plunged face-first into the icy water, the black surface slapping her with a stinging smack. Her garbling cry rose in a rush of freezing bubbles as precious air was forced from her lungs. Ears roaring, chest burning, she travelled deeper and deeper into the lake.

The creature gripped her; its hands clawing at her, grasping at her shoulders, fingers digging like talons into her flesh.

Eyes snapping wide open, Bek twisted wildly to try and get free, spending her breath on every movement. She kicked and hit in a blind panic, unable to see the creature through the murky water; they had sunk far enough that the daylight was of little help. She pushed out in front of her, her hands connecting with something solid. She punched it.

For a blessed second, the creature relaxed its grip and Bek took her chance to try and wriggle free. Lungs straining for air, she propelled herself forward into the blackness, kicking frantically.

She slowed—

A sickening feeling surged into her gut; she had no idea which way was up. It was too dark; there was no light; she was too deep.

She stopped kicking and hung limply, helplessly, as her body slowly revolved in the water. Her chest felt as though it was on fire, raging inevitably as her body used up the last of her air.

A hand grabbed her ankle. Somehow, it had found her again through the darkness and she no longer had the strength to fight back.

So, this is it, she thought, this is how I die.

Chapter One

The Alcove

Bek jumped down the old concrete boat slope, landing heavily on the white beach. Scrambling to her feet with sand spilling into her worn trainers, she started to run across the seashore, panting with the exertion. Uncomfortably hot, she wrestled to take her coat off, refusing to pause whilst she ran and throwing herself off-balance in the process. Her sleeves stuck to her arms forcing her to shake the garment loose, irritating her that, like everything else she owned, it was too small.

The wind took her by surprise. A salty, hot punch from the side, buffeting her almost off her feet and forcing her to stop running. She came to a gasping halt, breathing heavily, hands on her knees. The gusts pushed at her in fits and starts as if trying to knock her over. She laughed at the freedom, exhilarated, the gleeful sounds snatched away from her mouth by the catching wind. Straightening up she hastily re-tied the elastic band that barely held her short black hair out of her eyes.

The wide expanse of beach and sea stretched out before her; a large secluded bay, enclosed by looming rocky cliffs that stood sentinel around a shimmering turquoise jewel. There was no other living soul in sight. There rarely was. For a moment, Bek forgot her purpose, her eyes lost on the glittering vista. She felt her mind calm, her breath returning to normal.

The waves crashed.

The gulls cried.

She breathed deeply, grinning. This place was hers. And here, she couldn’t be seen.

She glanced to her right where the great rocks marked the edge of the cove. At some point in some prehistoric period, those rocks had broken from the cliff, tumbling down, creating this impassable, beautiful barrier between her and the rest of the world, separating this quiet space from the popular beach beyond.

Where the teachers were.

It hadn’t been hard to duck away from the school trip; the blazing sunshine had sapped the will to work. Students had begun, half-heartedly poking around in the surf for plastics and snapping a few pictures of the rock formations, but when the teachers started to doze at the top of the beach, permission whispered from their snoozing forms.

A jolt of excitement had struck her chest at the unexpected freedom and the thrill of breaking the rules. Students had quickly dispersed and she along with them. They towards the ice-creams and slot machines, her towards seclusion and privacy.

Something moved in her periphery.

She wasn’t alone; there were people on her beach. She stilled, fearing she had been discovered by some irritatingly observant teacher.

But she wasn’t. A group of girls were gathering at the base of the cliffs, to the far left-hand side of the beach.

A strange lurching feeling travelled through her stomach and Bek took an involuntary few steps towards them. It was Hayley and her gang. She could see them shifting their attention between gazing up at cliffs and then focusing on someone in the midst of them.

Theresa. Bek groaned inwardly, wishing that Theresa would learn to not draw attention to herself; learn how to fade into the background, unnoticed, like she had. Especially from Hayley.

An uninvited memory pierced her senses: laughing faces, a damp bundle of clothes clutched in her young arms, the stale smell of urine wafting—

She booted her memory aside, violent in her rejection of it. She’d worked hard since then to remain unnoticed, even took pride in how good she was at it. Theresa—was not good at it; she seemed to draw unwanted attention like a magnet.

Why is she with them? Despite the risks, Bek snuck closer, her curiosity piqued. There was a strange energy about the girls; anticipation sparked and she couldn’t see why.

Theresa was often the favoured recipient of Hayley’s attention; an unpleasant position to be in. The group would seek her out to intimidate and manipulate her, mainly with the flimsy design of having a laugh. There was nothing particularly warranting of this abuse; Theresa wasn’t ugly or stupid or lacking in any way, but at some vague point in their school lives, it had been decided that she would be the victim and Hayley and her girls would be the victors. No one knew why. It just was.

Bek had tried to encourage Theresa to change her habits; to walk a different route to class or walk a different way home, to hide better. But either she didn’t have the knack for being alert, as Bek did, or she wasn’t trying hard enough. Bek resolved to give her another talking to later.

She huffed and, unwillingly, moved closer again, until she was within earshot. Every fibre of her being screamed, don’t be seen, but she couldn’t seem to move away. The closer she came, the stronger the buzz of excitement felt, filling the air, like electricity.

‘Go on, do it. I dare you,’ Hayley was saying.

‘It’s too high. I’ll fall!’ Theresa fretted, flushing bright red to match her hair and fiddling with the cuff of her faded blue cardigan.

‘You’ll be fine. I swear,’ Hayley smirked.

‘I can’t, I’ll get a d—detention,’ Theresa stuttered, floundering for an excuse and sounding more and more desperate.

‘Oh my God, you’re such a coward,’ muttered another girl in a spiteful whisper intended to be heard.

Bek ground her teeth, her fists clenching. She was barely two metres from them now. She slid gratefully behind a rock, her stomach churning in anger at what she was hearing, at the girls, at Theresa for not standing up for herself. And at herself, for not weighing in.

It’s not my problem. I should leave now while I can. She stayed.

Hayley lost her smirk. Stepping closer, she stuck her face an inch from Theresa’s. ‘If you don’t climb up there—I’ll send this to everyone.’ She thrust her phone in Theresa’s face.

Theresa’s eyes widened in shock at something on the screen. ‘Wh—where did you get that?’

‘In gym,’ came the smug reply. The girls tittered chorally.

‘Please, don’t do that.’ Theresa was crying now, her voice shaking.

Hayley growled, ‘Then get up that cliff. Now.’

‘Please. I don’t want to do this,’ Theresa whispered.

‘Aw,’ crowed one of the girls, ‘she’s scared of heights.’

Hayley held the phone out, her finger hovering theatrically over the screen. Theresa jumped back towards the cliff, tripping in her haste and falling against the rock. The girls laughed as one.

Driven by fear Theresa scrambled shakily up the cliff, which, it turned out, wasn’t as hard as it looked from below. About halfway up she disappeared over a ledge.

The girls looked at each other, then fixed their gaze upwards, like sharks catching a scent. Hayley smiled coldly and said, ‘It’s safe, c’mon then’ and scampered up.

Then everything changed.

As Bek watched them go, something lurched within her stomach as if she had been caught by a fishhook in the navel. A tingling sensation, like pins and needles, shot from her gut to her fingertips. Without consulting her, her body moved and she found herself climbing the cliff after the girls. Part way, she regained enough sense to switch to a different, hidden route that brought her out about two metres higher than the girls on the ledge.

The rocky platform was secluded from view by the cliffs behind, the sea ahead and large boulders to the sides, like a private stone clearing. The wind whistled strangely around the outside of the stones, creating a silent vortex in the centre.

Bek peered cautiously over the rock, feeling bewildered at why she was there and why she was shaking with inexplicable anticipation.

As she peeked, Hayley and her girls came clambering over the ledge and entered the clearing.

Theresa was standing alone and very still before a small alcove in a rock that was closest to the sea. This particular rock was smaller than the rest and was an odd shape, all knobbly and tall, almost like a totem pole. Theresa’s attention was completely fixed on it.

The air crackled.

Bek held her breath.

As they entered the arena, the girls also became still, one by one; their attention held by some invisible force. All of them stared, transfixed, at the alcove. Bek shivered. The place felt unreal as if it had been stolen from some myth or legend. Time seemed suspended or perhaps that was just the eerie silence. Her palms tingled.

Something had brought them here, drawn them all here.

Slowly, deliberately, Theresa knelt and started to reach into the alcove.

‘Stop!’ Hayley’s screech broke the tension. She strode forward, grabbing Theresa roughly by the shoulder and yanking her up. ‘Get away from that,’ she growled, thrusting her roughly towards her gang at the edge of the stone clearing.

Theresa fell against them. One girl shoved her to the floor and she scrapped her knee on the rock with a gasp. Hayley moved as if to strike her.

‘Hey!’

Bek really really hadn’t meant to speak aloud.

The girls all whipped their heads around and up, towards the voice, clocking Bek’s hiding place instantly.

She was seen.

‘What the—!’ yelled Hayley, in surprise and anger. ‘Get her down,’ she commanded her girls. ‘No not you, you idiot,’ she growled at the girl nearest Theresa, about to abandon her. ‘Hold onto her.’

The tall and intimidatingly strong looking girl obediently held Theresa, twisting her arms behind her back until she whimpered in pain.

Bek was yanked ruthlessly from her perch and dragged into the centre of the chaos; the one place she tried to never be. Hands dug painfully into her shoulders and arms, holding her fast. Someone kicked her pettily in the ankle.

Theresa’s tear-stained eyes ogled wildly at her. Bek interpreted the what are you doing here expression easily enough and replied with panicked helplessness. She had no idea.

‘What are you doing here?’ Hayley demanded, much more aggressively. Bek’s eyes slid involuntarily to the alcove, still untouched.

As if on cue, they all turned to look, transfixed once more. The alcove was smooth and worn in texture; it could’ve been man-made. It felt ancient, out of place.

‘Weird,’ one of the girls breathed.

Eyes fevered with excitement; Hayley stepped forward towards her goal. Bek saw her hand tremble as she reached out and slowly felt inside the dark recess.

She lifted out a small black box, dirty and battered by time, holding it high in reverence. It was smooth and rounded as if it had been tumbling in the surf with the rest of the seashore pebbles.

Everyone was quiet. Only the wind echoed around the rock. Distant waves crashed on the shore, distorted, unreal.

Bek giggled, jittery. She wasn’t the only one. All anticipation, all excitement was brought into sharp relief in the presence of this box. The strange pull within her gut came from this place, this box and whatever was inside.

Hayley knelt, placing it down nervously. Her eyes flickered to the group. Bek detected a sharpness, a possessiveness in her expression that her whole being railed against as if Hayley was a thief and this thing belonged to her and her alone.

A surge of anger flooded Bek’s chest. How dare she? It’s not hers. The rage churned, inexplicable and irrational, whelming up from her gut and forcing her to fight hard to keep control, to not leap forward and snatch the box from her stupid hands. Their meddling felt violating, as though they had disturbed something sacred, but she couldn’t work out where that thought had come from. Why do I even care?

Hayley took a deep breath and opened the box. Bek’s heart thundered in her ears.

The group leaned forward.

A strange assortment of items presented itself in a ramshackle fashion. Bek thought she should feel disappointed but instead, excitement burned fiercer. There was a mermaid’s purse, a misshapen grey stone, a scroll of some kind and—

There.

Hayley lifted her trembling hand, holding a tiny green glass bottle with an even smaller cork stopper. She held it between forefinger and thumb; it was only about two inches big. An unidentifiable liquid remained in the bottom, thick with age. As she examined the bottle, silhouetting it against the ocean backdrop, it caught the light, fragmenting into a myriad of tiny prisms, mingling with the light reflecting off the ocean, blending and blinding and so brilliant.

The hairs rose on Bek’s arms. What is it?

A quiet whimper of pain to her right brought her attention back into focus. Hayley was carefully placing the bottle in her pocket.

Everyone’s attention was on that. This was their chance.

She felt the girl holding her slacken her grip slightly.

Without stopping to think, Bek wrenched herself free and threw herself bodily into the girl holding Theresa, crashing them both to the ground.

‘Go! Go now!’ she yelled at Theresa.

Theresa’s shocked expression lasted barely a millisecond before she was staggering backwards and disappearing back over the ledge, back to safety.

Bek lunged forward, intending to do the same, but the gang had quickly recovered their shock, shoving her roughly back into their midst.

She crouched, breathless with adrenaline, surrounded in a tight pack of bodies. No way out. Someone kicked her from behind and she staggered forward, swinging her right arm backwards, wildly, without aim and connected with someone. There was a screech of rage. Bek pushed the person in front of her as someone else—Hayley, she thought—grabbed her hair.

She cried out in pain. Reacting instinctively, she drew in closer to the attacker, blindly swinging her left arm upwards and landing a solid punch on the hair grabber, just as her right arm was being wrenched backwards and downwards. She was losing.

Then—‘Leave her. Just leave her.’

Hands released her and she collapsed gratefully to the ground, gasping for breath.

Hayley watched Bek as her girls retreated. She spat on the floor, nursing the side of her jaw. It looked red.

Bek felt a grim sense of satisfaction but tried not to smile; she didn’t want to risk a second attack.

Hayley smiled brightly. ‘We’ll wait for you at the bottom. If you come down that way, you’ll have to take us all on. Or—you could go home that way. It’s your choice.’ She pointed up the cliff.

Bek felt her stomach begin to churn. If she were to continue climbing up the cliff face, reaching the top she would be at the beginning of another path, one that led a different way home. It was a shorter route but not one that she had ever had the gall for. It led through Seir woods; a dark place no one liked to go. People had died in those woods, everyone knew that.

Hayley was watching Bek’s face with interest, enjoying her fear. She snorted smugly and sauntered off the ledge, leaving Bek sitting in the centre of the stone clearing.

Although sickened by the thought of getting home, Bek smiled to herself. Reaching her hand into her pocket, she pulled out the little green bottle.

The scuffle had hidden her moment of stealth; tightly packed bodies and high adrenaline had masked the moment. She had seen the opportunity and she had taken it.

She looked at the bottle, euphoric with victory. As she gazed at it, she felt that strange propulsion again. The feeling was like a force, like gravity. Her heart thudded loudly in her chest, a thunderous clock, counting down to—something.

She slowly stood, excitement building, holding the bottle up to the light as if she could discern its secrets. As she turned, something caught her eye.

Her heart stopped.

There was a man standing on the ledge.

Chapter Two

Change Comes

He was completely alone and standing very, very still. And he was looking directly at her. She didn’t move, she couldn’t move.

He didn’t move either; he just watched her. She stared back in frozen hiatus. A flash of gold flared in the sunlight and she noticed he was wearing a golden cloak—of sorts. She couldn’t place the material; it was changeable, somehow more liquid than clothing. It poured down from his shoulders, pooling on the rock, continually shifting and shimmering in the light.

He stood with his back to the ocean, the sun behind him creating a dark silhouette that shadowed his features.

Breathe.

The silence thudded in her eardrums, like the ticking of a great clock or heartbeat.

Tick, tock, tick—Nothing. The clock had stopped—no—not stopped, frozen, perhaps, like time was holding its breath with hers.

Breathe.

Then, the man raised his left arm, not to point, but simply holding it, palm facing upwards. Odd, but open and unthreatening. He made no move towards her. He didn’t feel dangerous. After a little while, her fear subsided enough to let her curiosity through. What does he want? She fingered the green bottle in her pocket.

Recklessly, ignoring the obvious dangers, she took a small step forward. There was something—different—peculiar about him. She hesitated, assessing him.

He was unusually tall in stature. Bek was five foot five inches and this man was definitely at least a foot taller than her. And he has very thin—probably not that strong, she thought, trying to reassure herself that she could fight him if she had to.

Something was—off—about his face. She couldn’t place his age. He was completely bald but looked young, perhaps not much older than her.

He tilted his face and the light shifted. The shadows moved and revealed what had been hidden. In horror, she realised that he didn’t have a mouth.

Yelling, Bek stumbled backwards, falling over, trying to scramble away, but she was too shaken and her limbs made weak ineffectual movements. She didn’t know if she was shouting or crying but it was loud and she was hoarse. She kicked feebly at the stone ground trying to get away, but she couldn’t seem to make her legs work; she wondered wildly if she was paralysed.

The man still hadn’t moved.

Unable to stop herself, she fixed her stare, wide-eyed at his face, her stomach churning unpleasantly. It wasn’t that he had a wound or that his mouth had been stitched up, there was simply no mouth where there should have been one. It was smooth as if there had never been a mouth there. His face was unbalanced—alien to everything that she knew, like some perverted fairy-tale creature. She shivered in disgust.

Then she saw his eyes; they were bright violet—like amethyst orbs, carrying their own light within. They glinted strangely in the light—and they looked hurt. It seemed that, despite his oddness, he was human enough to feel her disgust keenly.

‘S—sorry,’ she stuttered, her heart still thudding violently.

There was a pause and the man nodded once. She waited, alert, but it didn’t seem as though he was going to attack her. The feeling was returning to her limbs, so she slowly got up, her legs still a little wobbly.

‘Who—w—who are you?’ She took a careful, deliberate step backwards.

The man tilted his head to the side and then nodded once again. There was a slight delay as if he needed time to interpret what she was saying. His eyes smiled, although she thought she detected a slight nervousness.

‘Why are you here?’ she asked bluntly, without thinking. Idiot. How do you expect him to reply? Through his nose? Embarrassed, she glanced away. She wanted to ask about the mouth, but it didn’t seem appropriate. Her eyes snapped back to him.

He was looking at the alcove. Slowly he lifted his arm, pointing to it. As he did so, his sleeve drew back and she saw what looked like silvery tattoos wound around his arms in a complex pattern.

She opened her mouth to ask him what he was pointing at, but the question died on her lips. He couldn’t answer and she knew anyway. The strange pull that she and the girls had felt was not a random chance. Of course, he was here for the same reason she was; it was all about the box. It had to be.

She could sense something, a pull or pressure on her mind, something—building, relentlessly. Her heart started racing again in her chest. A change was coming. She didn’t know whether it was good or bad, but she knew she wanted it—needed it—and she would run full-pelt towards it as if there were no other choice in the world.

She gave a hard nod. He moved swiftly, nimbly to the alcove, his cloak fluttering strangely with a faint crackling sound rather than the usual rush of fabric. It made her stomach drop.

Holding the box, he quickly located the item he was looking for and held it out for her to see. The misshapen grey stone. She was confused as to why he wanted that. She opened her mouth to say so but then he was holding his hand out to her, looking at her pocket. He wanted the green bottle.

‘It’s mine,’ she said quickly.

He nodded reassuringly, his strange eyes alive with purpose. Curiosity reigned and she reluctantly consented, handing it over. He took it reverently as if her permission meant something—greater. He held the bottle delicately between his forefinger and thumb, just as she had done and in his other hand, he did the same with the grey stone. Popping the cork carefully from the bottle he quickly tipped the thick liquid over the stone.

She started forwards angrily, to stop him from desecrating her trophy by pouring away its contents but hesitated as she beheld the black sludgy fluid covering the whole stone, not messily, but clinging to it. In fascination, she saw that not a drop of it smeared on the man’s hands, despite him holding the liquid-covered stone in his palm. The liquid was surging around the stone, now changing colour, becoming less opaque, expanding and stretching before Bek’s shocked eyes, growing as if