The House on the Horrid Hill

Chapter 6

Elsewhere, in his dark and gloomy castle, Ozax had been expecting this little boy to turn up for a long time but still he watched with surprise as Alfred experienced his first trip down inside the hill.

He could remember himself what it was like to set eyes upon the miraculous sights inside it. That was all so long ago now, back when he'd been a naive young boy fooled into believing that being an Arx was the most magical thing in the world.

Possil, a multi-coloured parrot with a green Mohican running from the top of her beak right to the tip of her tail, squawked loudly in his ear, interrupting his thoughts.

It was Possil who had helped him take his revenge all those years ago. Somehow, though, that revenge had never felt as good as he had expected it too. The hurt that he felt deep inside never went away and instead had continued to fester long after he had put his evil plan into action. It bubbled away, multiplying his wickedness a little more each day until it started to spill from the inside out. Once upon a time he had been a handsome young man but now he just looked like a scary old ogre who'd been cursed at birth. I suppose you could say that his reflection in the mirror had become a reflection of his true personality.

Nowadays, Possil was his only companion. She was all he needed though, with the parrot's ability to project visions from within the hill she was indeed an asset. While he wasn't quite sure you would call the pesky bird psychic, after a failed early experiment that was the power bestowed upon her and he thanked his lucky stars the experiment had indeed went wrong as she beamed the images of young Alfred onto the slimy castle walls.

Ozax wondered how long it would take the boy to learn the truth.