All That Glitters: A Maggie Power Adventure (Maggie Power #2) *Unedited version*

All That Glitters - A Maggie Power Adventure (unedited version)

This is an unedited version of my new novel. I estimate that it will only spend a few months or so up on this site. Once I have completed serialising the novel here, I will take it down and redraft ready for publication. Think of this, then, as an ARC (advance reading copy) serialised here exclusively on Wattpad.

For those who have read Dark Remains, I have included the final chapter here as a reminder, if you wish to reacquaint yourself with how that particular novel ended. All That Glitters opens a couple months after the final scene of the first novel.

If you have not read Dark Remains, it is now back on Wattpad. (see my profile)

If you have the time, I would really appreciate any feedback that you can manage – negative and positive as I begin to serialise this story.

Thanks.

Happy reading.

Sean.

***

 

From Dark Remains

Chapter 31 - The Power Papers

They had been back in London nearly a week and had found refuge at a safe house within lodgings near Snow Hill. Maggie, Tom, Jack and her father were in one room and the two men who accompanied them on horseback to London in another room near by.

Most days her father left early in the morning and returned when it was near dark. Maggie was awoken at precisely the same time each morning by a light tapping upon the door - like some secret code - and would watch as her father rushed to finish his cup of tea, and left the room in the company of the two men who rescued them.

Without her father knowing, she would lie half-awake on the bed and study him as he left at first light. She doubted she would have recognise him if, unknown to her, he had passed her on a busy street a week or so beforehand. He was leaner and fitter now - his hair longer and unkempt, and a full beard covered a great proportion of his face. He dressed like a man of the lowest labouring classes, too: a far cry from the smartly dressed man who led important political meetings back home in Liverpool.

The excitement of being reunited with their father had vanished within a couple of days. In her mind at least, she envisioned leaving the city and going on long walks, visiting travelling fairs, as they engaged in long conversations and reminisces about their past lives, their time apart and, of course, their mother. But Power seemed to live every moment for the cause he was once more at the centre of, and seemed to spend little time grieving for his dead wife - even after Maggie and Tom had explained the lives they had been forced to lead after his transportation.

It wasn’t she thought him unfeeling to the pain of that tragic event, but that he seemed to have other things on his mind. Rather than concentrate on that particular event for any length of time, he seemed busy planning for the future. Maybe it was because she had yet to tell him (and Tom for that matter) the whole truth about mother’s death; the full and true circumstances of it, which still haunted her most nights. What was it exactly that kept her silent? she asked herself: the shame? The horror? The guilt for failing to act promptly and save her?

Power had forbidden the children to leave the room and saw to it they had enough food and water to get through the day.

Another prison, Maggie thought.

Just as the mud of the Thames had imprisoned them, as they scavenged day after day; just as they had been locked away from view in Charlie Deptford’s hideout - to avoid capture; and just as they had been trapped by the Countess - in a large, open-air prison at Little Serrant. The latter of these was the worst, she reasoned, for there they had dared to imagine they were truly free.