The Knight the Witch Came Home

The Knight

The Witch

Came Home

IAN RICHARDSON

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© 2021 Ian Richardson. All rights reserved.

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Published by AuthorHouse   07/23/2021

ISBN: 978-1-6655-8283-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-8282-7 (e)

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty One

Chapter Twenty Two

Chapter Twenty Three

Chapter Twenty Four

Chapter Twenty Five

Chapter Twenty Six

For Aitchy and Our Girls.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

F irstly, I couldn’t begin without thanking the people that this book is for, my girls. To my amazing wife Helen who has supported the dream of me producing a book and put up with me twittering on about it. Allowing me to get it ticked off my bucket list is so appreciated, you will never know. To my two beautiful and strong girls, I am so proud of you and love the fact that you have always wanted me to make up stories for you even though I think I enjoyed it most. You amaze me every day.

To my wider family, thank you for reading drafts, for the smiles and tears that you have shed along the way and the support that you have shown to me with words of compliment and pushing me to get it finished when I faltered.

I would also like to thank my Costa Fam, to Jo, Gem, Loz, Nancy and the rest of the guys, without moving to work with you and the change in my life I don’t think that I would have had the opportunity to write and spend the time that I needed with my girls.

To anyone who has had to suffer with my bleating about plot lines, character developments or even me leaving draft papers lying around messing up the place, I would like to say thank you.

CHAPTER ONE

S unday was Neve’s favourite day, for as long as she could remember it had always been her favourite. Sure she could go down to town shopping with her friends on a Saturday or hang about in Barnes Park after school on a week day playing in the overgrown grass or seeing how high a sixteen year old can go on a tyre swing, but Sunday was her favourite for sure.

It was that one day of the week the entire family would go out together, her Mam and Dad were always first up and insisted on having an early breakfast so they could get straight out, Orla who was a couple of years younger than Neve usually dragged herself from her pit last of everyone. Surely everyone could guess how annoying a younger teenage sister can be, then there was Lunar the dog, she was always awake like a canine insomniac who paced the downstairs, back and forth, back and forth shedding her wonderfully white husky fur everywhere as she went.

As soon as breakfast was done with, Neve would normally wolf down a bowl of golden syrup porridge because it was her favourite in double time, stinging the roof of her mouth with the heat. They would all jump into the car and head off to the beach, Neve always felt lucky that she lived on the coast, and having the beach just a short five minute drive away was a luxury that many people didn’t have. They had the same routine too, as soon as they parked the car at the Gypsies Field, they would dive out of their doors and congregate around the boot to make sure that Lunar wouldn’t leap out and run off in excitement.

Eventually, after strokes and some calming words Lunar would settle enough for Neve to get her lead on and she would jump down from the boot of the car sending plumes of fur into the air like a smoke bomb going off. They would stroll from the car and let Lunar run off some of her energy before crossing the busy road to the seaside promenade. In a private cove was a coffee shop where they would order a latte for Mam, a flat white for Dad as he loves his coffee and hot chocolate for Neve and Orla naturally with lashings of whipped cream. They would sit in their hideaway and stare out across the North Sea looking out for the dolphins who visited quite religiously until their drinks had settled. Then they would go for a swim in the freezing cold water that lapped against the Seaburn shore.

The weather was always cool in the North East and swimming in the sea in the winter was never the best of ideas, although plenty of people did it for charity at the annual Boxing Day dip. Luckily it was the summer so the temperature was nice and warm, the sea however, was as cool as always. Even Lunar who loved the water would only stand it for a little while until she huffed and stropped out of the sea. When that happened everyone knew what it meant and that was ice cream time. Federico’s Italian Ice Cream Parlour did the most amazing flavours, Neve liked vanilla with sprinkles, plain and simple. Orla loved bubble-gum flavour with lashings of blue sauce, whereas Mam and Dad changed their choices to whatever Federico’s weekly special was, this week it was Iron-Bru flavour.

The family would then huddle together wrapped tightly in their towels to hide from the breeze that always existed on the Sunderland coast, no matter how calm it was there was always a breeze that bit at their cheeks while they ate their ice cream. Lunar would inevitably finish off her Dads before they all shuffled off back to the car to take the short trip home.

It was the family time together that Neve loved and the simple little things that they did as a group that made her love Sunday’s and it was a Sunday when everything changed, everything changed forever.

CHAPTER TWO

T he noise came from everywhere and the roar was unreal, it was like a jet engine taking off and the utter surprise that came with it forced Neve’s eyes to open. She was lying on her back facing the Sun which blurred her vision as her eyes flashed open in shock, ‘Don’t look at the Sun you’ll go blind’ her Mams voice was saying in her head. Quickly Neve rubbed her eyes trying to make the multi-coloured floating spots disappear, all she could see around her was dune after dune of sand, it wasn’t even a beach that she knew or was used to spending time on. Her beach at Seaburn was flat and didn’t have a ripple of sand yet here she was on a beach and swirling around below her feet in a mini cyclone of grains of sand there was a snickers wrapper that danced in the wind.

Gingerly she stood, and slowly climbed to the top of the nearest dune, every footstep falling away in the loose sand. Struggling to grip she eventually reached the grassy mound at the top of the dune and stood looking outward over the crashing waves along a shore line that suddenly came into view. The crash of waves was almost deafening. She looked around searching for her family, they had just spent a wonderful day at Seaburn beach together with games and ice cream and now she had woken up on a beach which she did not know.

She was just about to call for her parents when something dripped on her lap, Oh typical she said out loud, thinking that only she could be caught up in a sun shower, while looking around there was nothing and she had no idea of where to go for shelter. Then she looked upwards there was not a cloud in the sky, no way that there could be rain about, looking down she saw the raindrop was a strange colour a dark purple droplet lay on her t-shirt, it was then that she realised it was not rain but a small smear of indigo blood that had dropped from above.

Worriedly she put her hand to her head and found that her palm was covered smeared in blood. She had no recollection of how it had happened, then suddenly she was hit with a cold chill, her family were nowhere to be found and Neve was injured, she needed help so screamed Mam, Dad and Orla hoping that her parents or her sister would answer but all there was, was silence. She could see nothing that was familiar around her, the shore line that she knew so well had disappeared, there was no Ice cream parlour, no chip shops or the hideaway café had disappeared it was just this foreign beach.

She staggered to the shore and followed the swashing waves for what seemed like an age, occasionally resting by sitting on the warm beach when the pain in her head increased. Neve still couldn’t figure out how she had injured her head or where her family were, but she knew that she had to keep moving, she could feel it in the pit of her stomach.

Far in the distance there came a shimmering light, the kind you see in all of the old films where people want to show a mirage in the desert, except this was different, it seemed real. It wasn’t her imagination, was it the bump to her head causing her to hallucinate she asked herself. As she grew closer towards the mirage she started to make out more and more of its detail. It seemed as if it was hovering above the sea, there was a large red and white topped tent about a quarter of a mile out from the shore and then as she got even closer she realised it was sat atop of a pier, an old wooden pier.

Brighton and Blackpool had one, Sunderland didn’t and this rickety structure was not next to a town or a city it was sprouting out in the middle of nowhere. There were no sign posts or roads leading to it but it was the only sign of civilisation that Neve had seen for what seemed like an eternity and knew that she had to see if there was anyone there who could help her try fix the injury to her head and to get in touch with her parents.

She climbed the last dune that lead to the pier and stepped lightly onto the sea washed boards, they creaked which did not fill her with confidence. Slowly, being careful to avoid any holes in the floor Neve made her way forward towards the tent. The pier seemed very old, the white paint that had once covered the whole pier was flaking and had been for some time, there were patches where the wind had blown away wooden sections and where the saltwater