The Secret of Spellshadow Manor 5 by Bella Forrest (book series for 10 year olds .TXT) 📕

he knew it was the only option he had. Praying he wasn’t about to end up as human mulch, he took a deep breath and sprang backwards, away from the safety of the handholds.

Anticipating a long fall into the darkness, he was surprised when the ground met him relatively quickly, after a split second in fact. Landing awkwardly, his knees buckling with the unexpectedly instant impact, he realized he was at the bottom, and no worse for it. No broken bones, no human pulp, nothing.

Looking around at where he stood, he found that he could make out some shapes by the light of tiny, luminescent lichens that were growing all along the basin. Where he had landed, the lichens branched out beneath his feet, glowing brighter each time he pressed his foot into the ground, sending shockwaves of light across the basin floor. They pulsed with a dim blue light, which cast an eerie shadow on everything it touched, but Alex was glad of at least something to see by.

In the center of the cavern floor was the distinct cuboid shape of a box, too deliberately placed to be anything else, though there were some disturbing white shapes scattered around it that he didn’t wish to know the origins of. They looked alarmingly like bones, left to rot and decay. Picking his way around the piles of nasty detritus, Alex made his way toward the box.

Suddenly, a figure rose up from the glow of a nearby lichen, its body transparent, its ghostly skin a thin, gauzy gray. Alex’s heart sank. His mother stood before him, her eyes black and unseeing, her phantom arms trailing out toward him. There was an expression of such sadness on her face that Alex could hardly breathe. It hurt to look at her.

“Don’t open the box, my darling boy,” she whispered, her voice a ghostly echo.

“Mom?” Alex gasped, holding his chest.

“Don’t open the box, my darling boy,” she repeated, raising her arms to him once more.

“Mom, is that really you?” he asked, his voice choked with emotion. Did you die? Did you die while I wasn’t there to help you? Tears sprang to his eyes, and he reached out for her, but his hand passed through her body, the image flickering for a moment. She was just an illusion, like the ground that covered the pit.

“Don’t open the box, my darling boy,” the mirage wailed, the image wavering out of focus again.

“You aren’t my mother,” said Alex quietly. “And I will open this box.”

With a piercing scream, the phantom rushed through Alex and disappeared into the wall of the cavern.

Shaking off the tears, trying not to let it cloud his mind, he stepped toward the box. There was no lock, only a lid, which Alex lifted easily to reveal the contents within. Inside, several pieces of golden clockwork gleamed, though they were half covered by tangled masses of damp black moss. Thrilled by the sight, Alex picked up the gears and bolts, careful not to miss any, before putting them into his pockets for safe-keeping. They clinked against the mouse he always kept about his person as something of a lucky charm, and the beetle beacon he’d more recently added to his clockwork collection. He hoped he had all that he needed to complete task one.

After taking a second look in the box, just to be sure, Alex ran back toward the spot on the wall where the handholds were, and saw that there was a stone plinth just beneath them to assist in the ascent back up the rock face. He jumped up onto it, and reached for the lowest groove, hauling himself up with as much strength as he could muster.

Once he was comfortable with his handholds and footholds, he began to climb back up to the top of the ravine, making good time, as the lip soon appeared ahead of him. The faces of his friends peered down, and the sight made him smile, helping him forget the miserable scene replaying in his mind. In his heart, he knew she was still alive—if she had passed on, something deep inside him would know about it, he was sure. Grasping for the edge, he let Ellabell and Aamir drag him back onto solid ground, where he lay for a moment, catching his breath.

“Did you find anything?” Aamir asked.

“I got these,” Alex said, retrieving the clockwork pieces from his pocket.

“You found them?” Lintz cried, holding out his hand for the missing parts.

“They were in a box at the bottom of the pit,” replied Alex, saying nothing of the ghost.

“Excellent!” Lintz scurried off toward the golden bar, the pieces clutched in his plump fingers.

Once Alex’s breathing had returned to normal, he got up and followed the others to where Lintz was beavering away, making quick work of the clockwork puzzle. With a deft efficiency that still surprised Alex, the professor fitted the cogs and parts into place on the clockwork arm that stuck out of the rock face. With the last piece tucked into place, Lintz turned the small handle that protruded from it. A whirring sound emanated from the clockwork, gathering speed, until finally, with a loud scrape of metal on metal, a golden bridge shot out across the crevasse, slamming hard into the adjoining slot on the other side.

“Task one complete!” Lintz bellowed.

Alex patted the professor on the shoulder. “Nice work, Professor.”

“A team effort, I’d say,” the professor said brightly, returning to his feet.

“Yes, if you regard a close call and sheer serendipity as a team effort,” Aamir muttered.

With that, Alex and the others ran over the newly forged bridge, feeling only a slight shiver of trepidation that it might be a trick. They let out a collective sigh of relief as they reached the other side. Another door lay within the rocks. It didn’t appear to have any lock on it, and they walked into the space beyond.

The room that met them was brightly lit, stinging their eyes after the hazy luminosity