The Glass Dagger (Afterlife Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  The Glass Dagger

  The Afterlife

  Chronicles

  Book 1

  Written by Stephanie Hudson

  Illustrated by Caroline Fairbairn

  First Edition

  Copyright

  This book is copyright material, therefore its text and images must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the author and illustrator as allowed under terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text and images may be a direct infringement of the author's and illustrator’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Copyright © 2017 Stephanie Hudson

  Copyright © 2017 Caroline Fairbairn

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 9781973152927

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author and illustrator’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover and image design by: © Caroline Fairbairn

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to Amber, Marley, Ava and Jack, who are the shining lights in our creative souls.

  This poem is for you.

  Dear Love

  Putting my world to paper, I see my vision come to life on the pages,

  My stamp on the world, I hope will last throughout the ages,

  But then as I hold you in my arms, it is a beauty like no other,

  Our daughters and sons held in the arms for the first time as mother.

  The feeling of fear and emotions of love become a recipe for life,

  One you follow and live each day as a mother and a wife.

  A heart overflowing with utter joy, love and pride,

  With just one look at the beauty you made, all smiles and wide eyed.

  Your greatest creation, there for all the world to see,

  And as you grow into the lady and gentleman I know you will be,

  I thank the faith I held in the choices I made,

  And know them to be an everlasting love that will never fade.

  Dear Amber, I love your feisty nature and artistic flare,

  Your love in all things gothic and Doc Martins we share,

  The way you feel about great movies and books that come alive,

  And the way you always work your hardest to succeed in life and thrive.

  Dear Marley, I love your caring heart and all the things you share,

  The way you make me smile as you dance from here to there,

  Always on the move but never saying no to a hug from Mum,

  Then your dashing through the world again, living life to the beat of your own drum.

  Dear Ava, my little bird of joy and energy galore,

  You light up a room with your smile as soon as you enter through the door,

  You sing, you dance, and laugh a lot whilst stamping your two feet,

  And all the while you fill my heart with joy with every beat.

  Dear Jack, the second I first saw you, I felt my love reach out and bloom,

  From that first little smiles made and steps taken around the room,

  The innocence of love and cuddles you gift are quite simply adored,

  I wonder what you will be in life and what goals you will work toward.

  So, here’s to our young inventor and our beautiful artistic girl,

  To the song and dance of an Ava bird and a toddler in a whirl.

  Here’s to the kids of tomorrow and where our legacy really starts,

  Here’s to our perfect ending and the tomorrow days that fill our hearts.

  All our love

  Caroline and Stephanie

  Aka ‘The Mum’s’.

  About the Author

  &

  Illustrator

  Stephanie Hudson has dreamed of being a writer ever since her obsession with reading books at an early age. What first became a quest to overcome the boundaries set against her in the form of dyslexia has turned into a life's dream. She first started writing in the form of poetry and soon found a taste for horror and romance. The Afterlife saga is a series of eight books that kickstarted the Afterlife world in which the Chronicles is based.

  When not writing, Stephanie enjoys chatting with her fans and spending time with her friends. Being with her loving family as much as she can including her wonderful daughter Ava, son Jack and supportive husband and personal muse Blake, who is there for her no matter what.

  Caroline Fairbairn has always had a passion for all things creative and has being putting her beautiful stamp on the world since she could hold a pencil. Ordinally from London she trained as a ceramist but left the pottery world behind for a journey far more rewarding when she decided to create a family. Since then she has turned her artist hand to many colourful endeavours, some of which include painting Jane Austin book benches, rhino’s, life-sized zebras and pigs for charity auctions. She has also illustrated two children’s books, ‘Marching to a Royal Beat’ and ‘Noel’s Ark’ which are both aimed at a younger audience.

  When not holding a pencil, brush or manoeuvring giant fiberglass animals into her home, she enjoys spending quality time with her family and friends. She can always rely on the supportive help from her high school sweetheart, husband Jamie who has been there with her from the very beginning.

  Warning!

  This book has been written by a UK Author with a mad sense of humour. Which means the following story contains a mixture of Northern English slang, dialect, regional colloquialisms and other quirky spellings that have been intentionally included to make the story and dialogue more realistic for modern day characters.

  Thanks for reading x

  1

  Blind Truth

  ‘Our story begins in the not so distant future, when legends are written in the sands of time, like footsteps left there to follow. When the heroes of this world are children who rise above the strength of men and bend the will of their blind elders. For this story is only the beginning, so before you continue, you must ask yourself…

  Are you brave enough to take the first step into a frightening world of the unknown, without ever looking back?

  You are? Very well then, let us begin with the start of every great story, with our Hero…’

  “Yeah right, what a load of bull!” Theo said slamming the book shut and stuffing it back onto the shelf in the airport gift shop. He was trying to pass time before his long flight but even he wasn’t that desperate to wasting precious brain power on what he considered utter nonsense.

  “I believe that one is on sale and I hear it has a shocking ending.” An old woman said startling him as she nudged his arm. Theo took an automatic step back away from the woman making it obvious he didn’t appreciate the contact. He’d never really liked being touched by others ever since he was a child, as there were too many times he had accidently hurt people. It was something he could never fully explain but after years of being blamed for something he couldn’t control, well let’s just say he’d learned pretty quickly to keep his distance from people.

  “Sorry lady but I am not interested in books like that,” he told her honestly, even though at one time this would have been a lie. She gave him a toothless grin, causing her sagging cheeks to wrinkle around her eyes. She was dressed a little like an old gypsy woman you would have seen telling people’s fortunes and spinning tall tales hunched over a glass ball. Theo wanted to shiver
at just the sight of her as old people had always had an effect on him. He didn’t know if it was because some of them looked so close to death that he feared his accidental touch might cause more than a trip to the hospital and more like a one-way ticket to a funeral home instead.

  “Do you not believe there could be heroes in our world?” she asked still smiling that creepy smile of hers. Theo was taken aback by the question, thinking it odd from someone he didn’t know or more importantly, someone who didn’t know him.

  See Theo had a secret and it wasn’t only the unexplainable effects his touch could inflict on another but one he felt he had been cursed with. It was something that he wished for ever since he had been a small boy. In fact, it was his first memories when he arrived at the Children’s Home in London, when he was just a baby.

  Now I know that most people don’t remember anything from their first years on this earth and Theo knew this too but that didn’t mean that his memories weren’t real. For even then he’d dreamed of being a great Hero and saving the world even before he knew what it really meant. He’d seen the world differently from the start and it was only as he got older that he began to realise that others around him couldn’t see the things that he did.

  He would see the shadows around his crib, moving and playing with him, keeping him entertained when he couldn’t sleep. Smiling adoring faces would wink at him from inside the mirror when the room he was in was empty.

  Whispers from a different but wonderful world that awaited him would echo around the walls like wind blowing through his curtains when his window was shut.

  Now these sound like scary things to happen to a child but he was never afraid. In fact, there wasn’t anything Theo was afraid of other than the

  thought of hurting innocent people. All his life he’d felt as if his brain had been hard wired to protect people. So much so that Theo spent all of his free time growing up reading and researching all about the Heroes of our history. But one day that all changed.

  Theo suddenly shook these thoughts from his mind as if seeing his past playing out in the reflection of the shop window and answered the old woman.

  “I don’t exactly believe in fairy tales.” The old woman laughed at Theo’s response.

  “Now that is a shame…” she said turning away from him and before he could stop himself he asked,

  “Why?” The old woman stopped in her tracks just before leaving through the shop’s exit and looked over her hunched shoulder at him.

  “Because, they believe in you,” she whispered cryptically. Theo frowned and shook his head a little trying to make sense of what she meant by that.

  “Now listen to old Nesteemia and run along young hero, this is one fight you will not want to miss,” she added confusing Theo even more.

  “I think you meant to say flight,” Theo said correcting her but she gave him a cackling chuckle and said,

  “Did I now? We shall soon see young Theo…soon indeed.” Then the same book that he had been looking at suddenly flew off the shelf and landed at his feet. He looked down at the bent spine showing him the front cover that only held three words…

  ‘The Glass Dagger’

  “Wait, how did you know my…name?” His question tailed off when he looked back up and saw that the old woman had disappeared and was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘How did she know?’ he asked himself again but his thoughts were abruptly cut off when a woman’s voice came over the tannoy informing passengers that this was the last call for his flight. In the end, he didn’t have too much time to think about the strange gypsy woman he had encountered as he ended up running to catch his flight, and thankfully he was a fast runner.

  It was over a ten-hour flight to Portland’s International airport in Maine and Theo had little trouble sleeping through most of it. Even if his dreams had been of a creepy gypsy woman who had lured a young blonde girl from her family at a fairground. Theo had jarred awake when he heard a child crying further down the aisle of the plane. It was a scream that had mirrored the young girl’s scream in his dream.

  He tried to shake away the memory of seeing the gypsy’s silver dragon ring turn into something real and sinister when it bit down hard into the innocent girl’s hand.

  She must have been no more than six or seven years old. Theo couldn’t help but feel something for her as he usually did whenever he felt an injustice had happened in the world. But no matter how he tried, the uneasy feeling clung to him like oil on his skin as he made his way off the plane and into yet another busy airport.

  He didn’t know what to expect would happen when he arrived there as vague was the only word that came to mind when he was first told he had to leave the Boy’s home in East London, where he grew up. It wasn’t easy growing up as an orphan with no idea of where you came from. And it was that age-old story of being left on a doorstep as a baby that wasn’t just a cliché in Theo’s case, but more a way of life. In fact, he was the only one without any clue as to who he was other than the boy that had been there the longest and had never been adopted for reasons he still to this day didn’t know.

  Most had, at the very least, some sort of background story to tell and the more stories he heard over the years, the less he started to feel sorry for himself and instead considered himself lucky. He had heard it all in his sixteen years, so much so that he left that place being thankful he wasn’t walking away with his own ‘woe is me’ story following him like a dark shadow.

  No, the only story he had to tell now was the next chapter of his life and that was something he had little clue about. He clutched onto the letter he had crumpled in his jacket pocket as if it brought him some comfort. It was the only reason he was here now and even though he had read it what felt like a thousand times, it still held no clues as to why him?

  Theo wasn’t considered much by his teachers in school or by the other students for that matter. But don’t be fooled. This wasn’t because he wasn’t smart, which he was or because he wasn’t athletic, which once again, he was…extremely. It was because he hid away any side of him that would draw unwanted attention by his fellow students and even his teachers. So he played himself down in front of everyone.

  He became good at being the loner. The living ghost of the school because he chose to be that way. So, if a girl came up to speak to him, he appeared rude and disinterested. If he was picked for a team he would purposely play badly, so he wasn’t ever picked again. And he never raised his hand in class, no matter how much he knew his answer was correct. He simply blended into the background knowing it was what was best for everyone because he could never risk himself getting close to someone…not again.

  He decided the only thing left to do now was to pick up the hand me down suitcase his guardian had fished out of the attic for him and make his way to the arrivals lounge in hopes that someone would be there waiting for him. He couldn’t help but wish he had demanded for some more information from his guardian the day he was asked into his office and handed the letter, one he knew would change his life forever. No, instead he simply walked out the door feeling different and gripping onto the letter he held now.

  The one addressed to him personally…

  AdVitam Academy.

  Dear Theo Quinn,

  I have the greatest honour and privilege to inform you that you have been selected for a full academic and financial scholarship at the AdVitam Academy for the gifted youths of our time.

  If you choose to accept this scholarship you will find your flight details and tickets enclosed within. An Academy delegate will be waiting for you when you land, ready to escort you and your fellow candidates to your new school.

  We wish you a safe journey and look forward to welcoming you to your new home.

  Yours sincerely.

  Dominic Draven,

  Headmaster and Scholarship Benefactor.

  …And with those few cryptic words, that was it, he was shipped off saying goodbye to all he had ever known with everything he owned fitting into j
ust one bag and shamefully, one with room to spare.

  “Great, what now.” He muttered to himself looking around not knowing what to expect. He also couldn’t help but wonder since receiving that letter, who this Dominic Draven was? He knew he was obviously the Headmaster and one footing the bill in all this, as the letter had stated but the main question was why?

  Or more to the point, why him exactly?

  “Theo Quinn?” Hearing his name coming from behind him made him stop abruptly so that one of the other passengers bumped into him accidently. Theo sidestepped quickly getting out of the man’s way and cringed when he saw the man put a hand to his forehead as if he suddenly felt ill. He watched a few seconds longer just to be sure the small contact didn’t have any lasting effects on the man. Theo released a held breath when he saw him meeting up with what must have been his family, knowing that the man had gotten off lightly and must have shaken off the moment of weakness.

  “It is Theo…right?” Theo turned his attention back to the short skater girl that had called his name. She definitely wasn’t the type of person he had been expecting to see and he had to wonder if the school had sent one of the older students to meet him instead of a teacher like he would have thought.

  She looked no older than seventeen, maybe eighteen years old and she wasn’t exactly wearing a school uniform. She wore an old band T shirt that had a skeleton demon playing guitar and looked as if it had been bought new back in the eighties. She wore this with combat trousers that had been cut off just below the knee, a studded belt and Doc Martin boots in worn, scratched up cherry red.