Imagine finding out that you aren't an ordinary girl, but a Princess!
A lost Princess... Someone your land has been looking forward to your whole life. But imagine you also have to defeat an evil and powerful woman who wants to murder you with her dark magic. And your only help comes from an old man and an old lady, a couple of talking animals and an irritating computer whizz.
A Fantasy with a Touch of South Africa...
“Sherryn, I need you to come with me,” a man said as I stepped off the escalator in front of Pick and Pay.
I stopped and stared at him. He was about fifty years old, with black hair and a beard that didn’t somehow go with the rest of him. I’m good at remembering faces, and I’d certainly never seen him before.
“Excuse me,” I said. “How do you know my name?”
“That isn’t important now,” he said. “My name is Mr Cole, and I need you to come with me. Farrie has been told of the cave under the Mountains of Ador, and we only have today to get through the entrance before her soldiers seal it up.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, wishing that I hadn’t stayed an extra half an hour at the Pavilion to look at those boots on sale. “You must have me mistaken for someone else.”
The man shook his head. “You are Sherryn, Crown Princess of Orientar.”
I laughed as I glanced around. Maybe my friends had contacted Leon Shuster, and I was the unwitting victim in one of his hidden camera movies.
“I’m sorry to disappoint you,” I said, after I didn’t spot anything suspicious. “I’m Sherryn Bradley of Westville. If you will excuse me, I must be going home.”
I had promised my two aunts that I would be back in time to help them finalise plans for my twenty-first birthday party on Sunday.
I turned and walked away from him, but he followed me. This was beyond a joke now, and I looked frantically for the nearest security guard.
“I’m sorry I have to do this,” the man said.
Before I could say, “Do what?” I felt a bolt of electricity shoot through my arm, and everything went black.
*
My head felt dizzy as I tried to sit up, and I saw that I was no longer in the Pavilion Shopping Centre, but a dank cave. I felt movement under me, and a soft warm thing around me, and realised that I was wrapped in a blanket in some sort of cart. The man was driving it.
“Good, you’re awake,” he said, looking back with a friendly smile.
“Where am I?” I cried out. “You jerk, you kidnapped me.” I tried to swing my handbag at his head, but I had no strength in my arm.
“I’m sorry about that,” he said, turning to face me while still keeping the cart moving. “I had no other choice. We needed to get in today or we would be too late.”
“Too late for what, you crazy man?” I shouted. “Take me back home.”
“My dear Sherryn, you are home.”
