The time is ten-fifteen-AM. Over the announcement system of the busy train station, a garbled message plays out.
"The train now arriving on Platform four is the ten-twenty-AM train to Brookfield. Please stand clear until the train comes to a complete stop."
A boy – although he is almost a man at fifteen – dodges through the gathered crowds at the station entrance. His ice-blond hair is tousled and still damp, and his clothes are bunched around his waist and shoulders. A hefty suitcase bumps along the cobbles behind him as he sprints towards the train, whose doors are merely open.
"No, no, no..." The boy grumbles, increasing his speed and almost tripping over his loosely fastened shoelaces in the process. Just when he thinks he won't make it – aha! His hand slips between the doors, and they pop back open. He hops up onto the train, stowing his suitcase above the first available seat.
He doesn't look at the person sat beside him; instead, he pulls on a pair of well-used headphones, blasting rock music into his ears. After the train starts moving, and his obnoxiously loud music has quashed the interest of his neighbour, he reaches into his rucksack and pulls out a wad of paperwork. He places each sheet down onto the tray-table, meticulously checking them over until he finds one in particular – a photocopy of a newspaper clipping, of an obituary.
'Heather Miller,' it reads. 'Date of death, 03/03/04. Last resting place, Crimson Hills Sanctuary, Brookfield, England.'
Brookfield, he thinks. That's where I'll start.
YOU ARE READING
Storm Clouds (Crimson Hills Chronicles Book 1)
Teen FictionKathryn Duncan is fifteen, starting her last year of secondary school, and her life has always been...normal. Well, not counting the fact that her mother disappeared when she was a baby, and her father and aunt died when she was barely 7 years old...
