Silver Hollow
SILVER HOLLOW
By
Jennifer Silverwood
Kindle Edition
Copyright 2012 Jennifer Silverwood
Edited By RJ Locksley
Cover Art by
Najla Qamber
http://najlaqamberdesigns.blogspot.com/
License Notes
All rights reserved including the right to produce this novella and or portions of it without specific permission from the author. This novella is a work of fiction, all names, characters, incidents and places are purely fictitious.
As much of this was derived, d
eep within the
mad musings of a young authoress,
that should be fairly obvious.
Table of Contents
Chapter 11-Possibly Impossible
Chapter 17-Dinners and Dalliances
Chapter 18-Midsummer Nightmare
Chapter 20-Dark & Stormy Night
Chapter 21-Educational Edifices
Chapter 24-Queens & Enchantments
Chapter 26-Forbidden Friendships
Chapter 28-Dastardly Villainess
Chapter 35-Beneath the Surface
Chapter 36-Between Light and Darkness
Chapter 42-Unseelie Strike Back
Chapter 46-Beginning of the End
Chapter 47-End of the Beginning
His arms wrapped round her frail, broken form. He trembled even as he gave her of his own life, his strength, and prayed it would be enough to see her eyes flutter open to him once again.
Cannons firing in the distance provided a symphony to the earth exploding on either side of the empty field. Her dress was tattered.
Could it have only been three hours since they had last c
lung to one another’s arms? Since she had declared her unwavering love for
him
?
‘Mary? Mary?’ His voice broke as he lifted her from the war-torn earth. Even now in the near distance, with the battle drawing ever towards them, he could hear the shouts of men, feel the heat of battle, see the smoke from their rifles create a—
Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep…
Amie’s
alarm rang with a particularly annoying jar, just enough to draw her mind and cramping fingers out of the War of 1812 and back to reality. Was it time already? She had sat down for another morning stint on her latest manuscript in her makeshift home office only a minute ago. A
brief
check and slap of her digital alarm proved how
quickly
a minute could turn into an hour. With a groan she snatched the folder and tripped on her way to the back door.
The moment shouldn’t have struck her as foreshadowing. After all, it should have been a morning like any other.
Texas heat fell over her like a wet second skin the moment she set foo
t outside her flat and onto the
top metal step. Cars mixed and splashed the aftermath of summer rain onto the pavement downtown, barely missing her sneakers when she exited the narrow alley to the sidewalk on Main Street. Town center looked relatively the same as it had the last hundred years or so. Shops lined the sleepy square and the old courthouse marked the grassy island in between. The jail above the courthouse had been turned into a museum fifty years before. At the shaded benches nearby old men played dominoes like they did every Saturday. While the purpose of
most shops in the historic city square now catered to tourism, the atmosphere of the small East Texan town remained the same.
She rushed past, sparing a nod to the usual folks, folder wrapped tight in her arms. Humidity and raw heat made her feel like she was breathing in a sauna, or through a snorkel mask underwater.
It was half past nine and she prayed the post office would be open
,
but she should have been here an hour ago. Allison was going to skewer her for being late
again
. Amie Wentworth knew her life was on the line. As in her career being chopped up by the vicious publishing house sharks and fed in scraps to the masses. At this rate she was never going to be done in time.
She picked up her pace and wished she exercised more than once a week. Being naturally skinny did not make her immune to this kind of heat. She felt every bit of
that
cinnamon roll she’d scarfed down for breakfast.
How does Jo handle running in this every day?
Clouds were gathering overhead, ready to break.
The world was silent against the pound of her heart in her ears.
She should have broken with tradition and woken up at an indecent hour!
If these pages come in late…
It was her editor’s fault for wanting her weekly progress faxed to her greedy hands and Amie’s fault for
picking someone adverse to
electronic
devices
, A.K.A
.
free mail.
But if she got an aneurysm from this it was definitely Allison’s fault. Procrastination had nothing to do with it. Amie just didn’t do well with deadlines. They were almost finished with this monstrosity and would have been if she were not under so much pressure.
“
Oof
!” She collided with a very tall wall that hadn’t been there two seconds before. The folder flew from her hands—
and oh yes
—the pages fluttered to soak up the rain coat
ing the
concrete. Scrambling off her sore bottom, on hands and knees she began to lurch for her most recent life’s work. “Oh no! Oh no, no, no!” Her own grumbling became incoherent and she frowned when a pair of hands joined her fishing.
“Here.” A very rough masculine voice met her ears. “So sorry, miss.” She couldn’t miss his odd accent, shadows of her dad’s Northern English…
She kept her head down, snatched the pages from his full hands and said, “Thanks a lot,” though her tone belied anything but gratitude.
That was the moment it happened, when she saw the silvery gleam of metal in the corner of her eye. One of her papers had half covered it, but there was no mistaking the shape. Excitement distracting her from the Englishman, Amie picked up the key and briefly studied it. She had been collecting keys ever since her father gave her one to her childhood diary. She had adored that old parchment-filled, leather-bound monstrosity, filled it up in only two years. Ever since he died she had taken to collecting keys, old and unique mostly. Each one represented a door or lock lost to the world. She used to fancy finding one of those lost doors one day. As a little girl she used to dream about keys, opening the doorway to heaven.
This particular piece of metal was different from anything she had found before, terrifying because the symbol engraved at its head was familiar.
“Where did this come from?” she said.
“Pardon me, miss?” the Englishman said. There was something in his tone she decidedly did not like, almost as if he was toying with her. Yet the opportunity to further scrutinize his motives was quickly dashed.
Another car eased by, spraying her clothes and pages afresh with water. Effectively jerked out of her reverie, she looked up, only to bump foreheads with her new best friend. “Ouch!” she groaned. Pushing a
dirty
palm to her forehead, Amie grimaced.
Doesn’t this guy know anything about personal space?
She was about ready to let him have it when he interrupted.
“Forgive me my clumsiness.” His tone was amused and drew Amie’s wrath once more.
She blinked rapidly past a frown to survey the man who had just potentially ruined her life. His eyes were black, or at least so dark the pupil blended well within its iris
’
shadow. Yet the longer she stared the more she saw hints and gleams of every color at their center.
“Mary? Mary?” His voice broke as he lifted her from the war-torn earth. Even now in the near distance, with the battle drawing ever towards them, he could hear the shouts of men, feel the heat of battle, see the smoke from their rifles create an eerie veil around them.
His fingers left bloody streaks upon her perfectly fashioned cheeks, blood yet pouring from the wound in her side. Tears blurred his vision until he could see little, until he could only see flashes of their time together in his mind…Until—
“Amie?” The knocks upon the side door of her apartment grew more insistent.
Her fingertips hovered above the keys of her laptop.
“Amie? Open the door! I know you’re in there!” If Jo pounded any harder the door would break down.
At the same moment Amie felt like she might possibly break down. She had tried to explain to her editor via phone why her pages were streaked and near impossible to edit an hour ago. After conceding at last to e-mail as replacement, her old friend
had
verbally sent her to work. She had tried to write more, really tried! But it was difficult to focus on fictional villains when her personal villain kept creeping into mind.
With a groan she pushed back her chair, wheels whirring upon the hardwood floor
,
and in a few quick bounds unlocked her door to meet a familiar pair of honest blue eyes.
Jo’s small arms crossed before her chest along with a fresh bundle of mail and without invitation she stepped inside. “What is it today, adventure on the high seas, the War of 1812, or some of the Tales?” Her eyes sparkled upon mention of the last.
Amie grinned as she took a seat opposite her old friend upon her well-worn sofa. Afternoon sunlight streamed in through the laced curtains from the nearby window, overlooking her small desk and untouched laptop. Memories immediately floated in of summers spent poring over the magical fantastical adventures of three women warriors, all fashioned after Amie and her two childhood best friends
,
of course. Jo and Faye were twins and the three girls
had
gr
own
up in the countryside entertaining themselves with such stories. Amie kept writing them occasionally, for Jo’s sake.