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

ignore it, Professor,” Alex insisted. Though he was still fearful, he knew he had to find the source of the crying. The tone of it was heartbreaking, driven from the depths of a tormented sadness. Taking a deep breath, he moved back through the crowd, following the sound of sorrow.

The others hovered in the doorway, evidently believing him to be out of his mind for wanting to weave back through the crowd of Noh masks. Alex didn’t blame them; he felt as if he must be mad too.

“Alex, come back!” Ellabell hissed. “It could be a trap!”

“I’ll be careful!” Alex replied, scanning the crowd of figures for anything unusual.

The sobs grew louder as he reached a particular individual, whose mask was unlike any of the others. This mask was painted in a bright red lacquer that shone like blood in the torchlight, with pointed demon horns that curved upward and sharp teeth painted around the twisted mouth. Head on, it looked terrifying, but as the wearer dipped their head upon Alex’s arrival, he saw that the mask took on a sorrowful expression instead. It was a trick of the eye, and one that made Alex feel slightly calmer.

He had found the person who was in such pain.

Chapter 10

“Are you okay?” Alex asked the red-masked individual.

The wearer dipped their head again, showing the sad expression. Not knowing what else to do, Alex removed his own mask, in the hopes it might encourage the crying person to remove theirs. He asked again if they were all right, and again the wearer dipped their head.

Does that mean they’re not okay? he wondered. It didn’t sound as if they were.

Hoping it wouldn’t result in terrible repercussions, Alex reached forward and removed the mask from the person’s face, lifting it gently off.

Beneath the mask was a ghostly woman, her eyes red with tears. She might once have been beautiful, but time had not been kind. There was a translucence to her body that made Alex think she was an actual ghost, and her sorrowful expression had him transfixed.

“I’m sorry,” he said, handing the mask back. In some defiance of physics, she took it from him, keeping hold of it in her faded hands. “Are you okay?” he asked again.

For a second, it seemed as if she wouldn’t speak, her voice lost after death. And then she did, in a tone so haunting it made tears spring to Alex’s eyes.

“Have you come to help me?” she breathed.

“I’ll try,” Alex replied solemnly.

“Kind boy, I am lost, and my child is starving,” she whispered. “Could you spare a coin so I might return to him? He is so hungry, and I have left him all alone. I need only a gift from the world beyond this place, and we shall be reunited. A simple coin. A token of value.”

Alex turned to see that the others had followed him and were standing nearby. Their faces reflected his own, after listening to the hauntingly sad voice of the phantom woman.

“Do you have a coin, or something valuable?” he asked the group. They checked their pockets, patting them down for stray treasures, but because the clothes were not their own, they didn’t carry any currency. They had nothing they could give. “I’m sorry,” said Alex, turning back to the woman.

She began to weep again, the sound undulating with an extra layer of hopelessness.

“All is not lost. You’ll see,” Alex said comfortingly as he checked his own pockets. All he had were the clockwork objects he had obtained on his travels. A thought occurred to him, and he removed the mouse, wondering if the gold-and-silver inlay might be a valuable enough token to buy food for her child, and to reunite them. He held it out to her, and her sad eyes went wide in surprise. Her spectral hands closed over it. With a whoosh of cold air, she disappeared, the red mask clattering to the ground.

On the air, Alex could swear he heard the whispered sound of “Thank you.”

Stooping low, he scooped the red mask from the ground and turned it over in his hands. Written on the inside was the word “Kindness.”

Lintz smiled. “The seventh virtue of Orpheus. That was a generous thing you did there, dear boy.”

“It was the least I could do,” replied Alex, knowing her face would haunt him for a long time to come.

As he turned, with his mask and the ghost’s mask in his hands, the rest of the Noh-masked people swept aside, bowing in a sort of reverence as the group passed on their way to the doorway.

Entering a passageway with a cavernous roof, dripping with stalactites, they saw two entrances ahead of them, though only one was open. The other had a heavy stone door blocking the way, with no obvious means of opening it. There was no lock, no keyhole, nothing, only the half-eroded face of an ancient bust, most of the features worn away.

“I guess we have to go this way, then?” said Alex, gesturing to the open passageway.

“Why don’t we scope it out first, you and I?” suggested Aamir.

Alex nodded. “We’ll be back in a second,” he promised Ellabell and Lintz. “Once we know the coast is clear.”

They headed through the open entrance, and as they paused at the lip where the tunnel stopped, Alex could sense something was wrong. The cavern beyond was filled with water, but it was not the kind of pool anyone would have wanted to swim in. Dark shapes weaved along the surface, pointed fins emerging and disappearing beneath the water. With a splash, a school of flying fish covered in barbs soared through the air, gnashing rows upon rows of vicious teeth. Alex could bet there was a moat creature in there somewhere, ready to lunge.

An enormous bird-like monster with vast, leathery wings swooped close to the cave’s entrance, sending the two young men staggering back from the edge. It was a hybrid of sorts, somewhere between a dragon and a bird,