The Secret of Spellshadow Manor (Spellshadow Manor #1)

Glancing around, Alex soon realized “the gardens” must be an ironic term for this desolate place. If there had ever been proper greenery here, it had been long neglected. Untended trees grew wild, clawing at the sky with untamed branches that played host to the same gray ivy that seemed to blanket everything in the manor. Barren heaps of dirt might have once been flowerbeds, and what looked like old gravel paths now lay as flurries of scattered stones, as if they had been struck by a windstorm. Beyond the distant wall, the sky seemed to flicker, moonlight spinning out into a silvery cord that blended into sunlight in a sudden spray of gold.

Alex followed Aamir past blackened trees and benches reduced to shards of stone, over split, rotting logs, and around tangles of dry, thorny brambles. Aamir seemed to know exactly where they were headed, never slackening his pace, never glancing back to make sure Alex was keeping up. At least he really had taken him where he’d said he would, but it was far from what Alex had imagined. He observed his surroundings with mounting trepidation, sticking close to the older boy.

At last, Aamir stopped atop a small mound of earth overlooking a great field. In the middle of the field was a clearing, and Alex could see swirls of ash curling lightly in the breeze. Skeletons of toppled trees surrounded the place, looking as though they had all fallen outward, away from the clearing’s center. The moon’s pale light had a stark effect on the withered, upturned roots and the flat expanse alike, the shadows long and deep, the moonlit spots cold and still. Alex found himself shivering against the area’s hollow, haunted feel just as much as he did against the chill that had not yet left his bones.

After giving him a moment to take in the scene, Aamir spoke, his voice low and serious. He sounded strangely muted by the eerie landscape’s pressing atmosphere.

“What do you think happened here, Alex?”

Alex thought for a moment, his silence hanging in the chilly air as thickly as his breath did.

“It looks like something happened in the middle there, something devastating.”

Aamir nodded. “It does indeed look like that. Any theories?”

“Magic?” Alex suggested.

“Yes,” said Aamir, a hard edge to his voice now. “I think so too.”

“Why are you showing me this?” On the strange breeze, his own voice sounded thin and alien.

Aamir exhaled slowly and set his chin. “I do not think you take magic seriously, Alex Webber. It is not all conjuring leaves and glowing with pretty golden light. We can create marvels, yes. But there are those who also wield magic to destroy, and to destroy utterly.” His words drifted into the deadened landscape.

“I do take magic seriously,” Alex retorted. “Of course I do. I’ve seen how powerful it is. I saw what the Head can do.”

The older boy turned to face him and looked him deliberately in the eye, the moonlight casting half his face in darkest shadow.

“No, Alex. I do not believe you did.”

Alex paused. Had he been rushing headlong into a dangerous situation without considering the consequences? He didn’t think so. He felt he had played it pretty safe so far, and acknowledged that the manor was likely rife with unknown dangers. But he could see how Aamir could have gotten that impression. He had been secretive, and probably seemed reckless and desperate to the oddly rigid boy.

Aamir’s shoulders relaxed a little, his voice softening. “I don’t mean to frighten you. In fact, I completely understand. If you think you are the first student here to think of escape, you are mistaken.” He paused, gazing into the bleak distance. “I merely wanted to impress upon you the gravity of our situation, the power of the forces you contend with when you push too far.”

“What happened to the people who have tried in the past?”

Aamir shrugged. “Some never even find their way out here.”

“And those who do?”

“They fail.” He looked down. “I cannot stop you from trying, Alex. But please, tread carefully. I should not like to see harm befall you.”

A silence settled between them, interrupted only by the sound of dry branches rubbing against each other in the wind.

“You mentioned graduation earlier,” Alex said eventually, thinking of the only certain way out of Spellshadow.

Aamir stood a little straighter. “So I did.”

“What does that word mean here?”

“That,” said Aamir, “is the right question.”

“And that’s not an answer,” replied Alex.

A strange look stole over Aamir’s face. “All we know is that those who graduate vanish completely. We never hear from them again, and they are never spoken of.”

Alex wet his lip. “And you don’t think they’re just off making their way in the world?”

Aamir scoffed. “Wouldn’t we have heard of them? Wouldn’t one of them slip up somehow, lose control? Wouldn’t the professors boast of their favorite students’ success? Wouldn’t we have role models, positions to which we should aspire? Wouldn’t their names at least be spoken?” His eyes flashed in the moonlight, his expression grim and tight, carefully controlled. “No. I do not think they are off making their way in the world.”

And suddenly Aamir’s odd vehemence when discouraging Alex from finding trouble, from pushing boundaries, made perfect sense.

Aamir was afraid.





Chapter 15





Aamir led Alex through the gardens once again, stopping near a tree that looked like it had been ripped in half. He bent down, wiping some gravel and dirt away from a patch at his feet, and Alex saw a small wooden door there. Aamir eased it up, and they gazed down a wooden ladder into the darkness below.

“This place is secret, as far as we know,” said Aamir. “But let me go before you, just in case.”

He lowered himself carefully down the ladder, disappearing into what looked to be a dirt cave. Alex stood alone in the garden for a moment, the silence and the moonlight beating down upon him, their conversation reverberating in his mind. Musty smells of wet wood and dust drifted up through the hole to him.

“Come on,” Aamir called. “It is empty.”

Alex turned, grabbing the ladder and descending slowly.