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  ABLAZE

  Book 4 in The Enchanted Castle Series

  by

  Chrissy Peebles

  Copyright 2015 by Chrissy Peebles

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

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  Chapter 1

  So many things had happened. I had closed the portal Miss Shila opened to let spirits come through for her own selfish gain, and she would have a hard time opening it ever again. Her only hope was to get her hands on a few precious ancient artifacts, and Mr. Geo was sure she’d never get her hands on all of them. Truth be told, our scandalous, greedy, power-hungry teacher was royally screwed.

  I paced the castle living room, weaving around the white couches beneath the huge chandelier. When Pam and Shantal walked in, I glanced up. “Hey. Have you seen Hunter?” I asked.

  “He was supposed to meet us down here,” Shantal said with a shrug. “He’s not here yet?”

  My stomach clenched as I shook my head. “Nope. He went off to get the principal to meet with us, but he should be back by now, and…”

  Suddenly, before I could even finish my sentence, I sensed a sinister force at hand. William appeared, fighting with another knight. As the knight flew at him, William deflected the brutal blow with his own sword, sending the enemy knight hurtling back into the wall.

  “What’s going on!?” I shouted.

  “They’re coming after you!” William warned.

  “They who?” Pam asked, looking around with wide eyes. “We closed the portal!”

  William sighed heavily and lifted his sword as the knight recuperated and charged at him again. “There are spirits and demons still here, but worry not, my dears. We will take care of the rubbish that remains.”

  Swords clanged a few more times before they disappeared from my view.

  “Great,” Shantal said. “We’re on the most-wanted list by all the evil stuck in this place.”

  I nodded. “True, but I’m sure we’ll be okay,” I assured her. “Alexander, Isabella, and William are slaying them as we speak. The portal is shut down so no new ones can creep back in.”

  “How many do you think are left?” Shantal asked.

  “Well, when I went over there, it was overrun. I guess it’s them against all those demons and spirits, but at least the spirits can’t call in reinforcements.” I blew out a breath. “I wish there was some way I could help them.”

  Pam looked out the curtain, into the dark night. “For starters, I wish I could see what’s going on.”

  “Trust me, you don’t,” I said, scrunching up my face at her. “They’re hideous.”

  CRASH!

  When the loud noise echoed through the huge room, I rushed out. “Hunter?” I said at the sound of a familiar yell, then followed his voice to another room. I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw Miss Shila holding a gun on my boyfriend. “Don’t! Don’t do it!” I cried.

  “She won’t shoot,” Pam asserted.

  Unfortunately, I couldn’t be so sure; I’d seen my vision in that exact room, when I first walked into the castle and Hunter on my very first day of school. The vision played back in my head whether I wanted it to or not…

  I ran my fingers across the lines in his hand, and a cold chill ran through my body. Flashes of light dotted my vision, and a loud crack echoed in my ears. Was that…a gunshot?

  Hunter clutched his heart as he collapsed to the ground, and I hugged him, weeping, as if I’d known him 100 years. “Y-You killed him!” I shouted up at someone I couldn’t see. “Why? Why did you have to do it?”

  “Zoey,” Hunter said, breaking into my thoughts, “are you okay?”

  I snapped out of it and peered around the room, confused. Everything was just the same as before, with no trace of blood or gore. “Yeah. I just…” My tongue stuck to the back of my throat, and I was unable to say another word. There was nothing I could tell him anyway. I didn’t want him to think I was crazy, some weird chick with an overactive imagination.

  I dropped his hand as I felt the blood drain from my face.

  “You’re fine. You’ll have a happy life, with two and a half kids and a white picket fence.”

  I snapped back into present time.

  At the time when I first saw the vision, it made no sense why a grown woman would be holding a gun on one of the students there. Also, I didn’t understand why I was so upset over a guy I didn’t know. In my vision, I was weeping and heartbroken. It all made perfect sense now though. He was my Hunter, the love of my life. Now I knew why I was sobbing. I saw what was going to happen, and I had to change it. I had to stop that premonition from becoming a reality, at all costs.

  The crazy teacher with the gun motioned Shantal, Pam, and me to stand by Hunter, near the fireplace. “You’ve ruined everything!” she said. “I won’t ever be able to reopen that portal, and it took me years and years to figure it out. I’m not getting any damn younger, and you nosy brats just threw away all my hard work!”

  “What did you expect us to do?” Pam spat. “You opened a portal to let spirits come in and inhabit us. We knew something was wrong and thought we were losing our minds. We put together all kinds of theories, but the truth turned out to be even stranger than fiction.”

  “It’s more than that,” I said, staring at Miss Shila with rage brewing in my eyes. “When you opened the portal, you couldn’t control what came through it. Others came, besides the ones you needed for your little project. There are all those ones who hate Isabella. You let King Geoffrey and his men in! How could you? They terrified the castle spirits and us, not to mention all the other evil lurking around and causing havoc.”

  “You had to know what was going on,” Shantal said. “Don’t even try to play dumb.”

  Miss Shila waved the gun around like a maniac. “About the haunting? Yeah, of course I knew. It was never my intention to let so many foul spirits in, but the ones I needed couldn’t get in without opening that portal. It was a risk I had to take.”

  “Just for your own gain,” Pam said. “We know what you were up to, letting spirits in to possess us.”

  “It wasn’t just for my gain,” Miss Shila argued. “Do you know what a treasure it would be to have authentic works from the greatest minds and artists who’ve ever walked the Earth? Because of you, we’ll never have that link to them again. You all had the opportunity to be vessels for something great, and you threw it all away because of your selfishness and pathetic fear.”

  “You were fencing the art!” Shantal said.

  “Why not turn a little profit? Who wouldn’t? A Picasso would fetch me 100 million at auction.”

  “But the canvas would prove it a fake,” I said.

  She shook her head. “We used blank canvas from that timeframe, and no one could ever deny his genuine signature.” She glared at me. “We also had new songs from Beethoven, beautiful melodies in his distinct style. That was sure to make millions for this school and—”

  “You don’
t even care about this school!” I interrupted. “You only took the job here so you’d have a way to handpick psychic students in order to do your evil bidding. Worse, you didn’t even care if it killed us. Those spirits are nasty and evil, but you make me even sicker than they do.”

  “I didn’t know it would hurt anyone,” she said, looking sadly at the floor for just a moment.

  “You didn’t stop when they collapsed and fell into a deep coma. You knew it was dangerous and kept using us without our consent, possessing us when we were sleeping, making us work all night and then go to school in the morning. Then you had the nerve to yell at us when we fall asleep in class,” Shantal said.

  “I had to play the role of teacher,” she said. “In reality, I’m a psychic myself, but I couldn’t handle the energy of so many ghosts. I had to look for others like me.”

  “You’re a liar! You told William you’d free him if he helped you.”

  Miss Shila laughed and waved her gun around again. “Pssh. That stupid specter will fall for anything. Between me and you, I think he’s been conked in the head one too many times with someone’s sword. You’re the only one who can free him. I know you want to. Have you figured out how yet?”

  “I’m working on it.”

  “Well, I’m afraid it’s time to put the pencils down on that little test. This wasn’t part of my plan, but I can’t risk you messing things up worse. We still have so much more work to do. I’ve got a few spirits in hiding. We’ll continue our mission as planned, only with three less zombies to help me.” She grimaced and pointed the gun at Hunter. “You’ll be first, Hunter. It’s nothing personal. I like you, but business is business, and it’s always best to take the strongest out first.”

  With that, Hunter jumped into action. As he lurched toward her, she pulled the trigger of the gun. I lifted my arms, and time suddenly slowed. The bullet flew toward Hunter at a snail’s pace, giving me time to bolt over and knock it out of the air, as easily as swatting a pesky housefly. With a swipe of his arm, Hunter knocked the gun out of Miss Shila’s hand.

  Suddenly, the principal darted into the room, his eyes widening in shock. “What’s going on here?” he demanded.

  “The teacher you hired!” I screamed. “She tried to shoot Hunter!”

  “She opened a portal to let all kinds of ghosts get in here!” Pam chimed in. “She let them possess us, hoping it would ultimately make her a rich…well, you know. She screened all of us for psychic abilities, and she couldn’t have cared less about our GPAs. This school is a façade, a joke, just a front for her greedy plot.”

  “Nonsense!” the principal responded, shaking his head in confusion. “Miss Shila came highly recommended, and she is—”

  “Highly recommended by who? The National Rifle Association?” Hunter cut in. “If you don’t believe us, ask her why she has a gun. This isn’t some field trip, sir, and none of us signed up for Forensics 101.”

  “Well?” he asked, turning to Miss Shila and looking at her suspiciously.

  “It’s for, uh…protection. I thought I heard somebody breaking in.”

  The principal looked back at us, then turned his head to stare at her again. “I don’t buy that. This is an old castle, Miss Shila, and you know there are bound to be a few bumps in the night. Whatever’s going on, you’re taking things way too far.”

  Hunter wrapped an arm around me. I looked at him in relief, happy that I’d managed to stop a grim vision from becoming an even grimmer reality. My hands still trembled at the thought of the horrible image I’d seen on my first day in the castle. I loved Hunter, and I never would have stopped weeping for him if the vision had come true.

  “Was that the vision you told me about?” he asked.

  “Yeah, but don’t worry. We rewrote that story with a much happier ending,” I said with a grin.

  He let out a long breath. “Well, happy endings are always best,” he said with a wink, then turned to walk me to my room.

  “What do we do now?” I asked as he walked through the door behind me.

  “I’m not sure, but we have a lot to discuss.”

  “Do we leave or stay?”

  “Hmm. Well, we’ve solved the puzzle. Miss Shila was behind our sleepwalking fiascos, and the portal’s been closed, so no more spirits can get back in. The rest are being destroyed and sent back to wherever they came from. The principal will surely fire Miss Shila, if not have her committed or arrested. I guess it will be pretty peaceful around here now.”

  “So you think we should stay and finish off the school year?”

  He gripped my hand. “Yes. I don’t want to go home.”

  “I don’t either. I want to stay here with you.”

  “Then let’s do it.”

  I shook my head and tried to stop a tear from dribbling down my cheek.

  “What is it?” Hunter asked softly, lifting my chin so I was looking right at him.

  “It’s just… What Miss Shila did was so awful. I don’t know if I’ll ever get over it. How can someone do that? She’s supposed to be an adult, a teacher, for goodness sake, but she was willing to use us up until we had nothing left to give her. We were nothing but pawns in her game, the means to her getting rich.”

  “Yeah, I know, but it doesn’t matter. It’s over now,” he said.

  I hugged him and never wanted him to let go.

  * * *

  The next day, I traveled to the other side, using the power of my necklace. I went through one of the portals in the castle, so I could see Elizabeth and William. “We got rid of Miss Shila,” I said. “She was fired and escorted off the premises.”

  Elizabeth smiled. “Very good! That’s one major problem off our hands. The chaos has ceased here as well. The place isn’t overrun any longer, and we have dispatched all the evil spirits. You have done quite well, my dear—quite well indeed.”

  “Well, I never could have done it alone,” I said, grinning at William, who smiled back at me.

  Chapter 2

  It was a frigid day in March when she appeared to me. It wasn’t a nightmare or any sort of noise that awoke me. I was just suddenly wide awake and found myself tossing and turning, desperate to doze off again so I might actually retain some of what I learned the next day. Slowly, it was becoming all the more apparent that it wasn’t going to happen. It was frustrating, because with Miss Shila out of the picture and no spirits to possess me at night, I had hoped I’d sleep like a baby. Realizing that instead of sawing logs, I was going to be up burning the midnight oil, I resigned myself to just staying up and napping later in the back of class, when nobody was watching. I sat up and reached over to turn on my light to do some reading, but then it struck me: My room was already illuminated. I traced the soft, white glow to its source. “Isabella?” I said.

  “Hello, Zoey,” she answered softly. She reminded me of a child’s imaginings of the Tooth Fairy, with her hair cascading over her shoulders and down her back, her delicate hands patiently folded before her as she waited for me to awaken.

  I jumped out of bed and grabbed my robe.

  When our eyes met again, she smiled faintly, so faintly I barely noticed it. Then she turned away and swept out of the room, floating on air.

  With my heart thumping, I left the room to follow her, shuffling my feet along the cold castle floors as quietly as possible. “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “I must help you speed things along.”

  “What things? What are you talking about?”

  “You know I mustn’t tell all, luv. I am forbidden from speaking of such things, but there is no written rule that disallows me from walking in a certain direction, even if your curiosity has you on my ghostly heels.”

  I grinned. “What girl wouldn’t be up for a wild ghost chase in the middle of the night?”

  She chuckled.

  In spite of the ghosts, the castle was creepy enough on its own at night. There was a consistent draft, whistling and swirling about the old corridors, and the echoes o
f my footsteps chased me down every twist and turn we took. To make matters worse, I always feared I might catch a glimpse of someone else’s face staring back at me from one of the antique mirrors or see a body disappearing around a corner. Such a horrific environment had most of the students waiting till morning to go to the bathroom, hiding their heads under their covers like kindergartners. Still, I followed, because I couldn’t help being insatiably curious, especially about the princess.

  As we crept from the dorms, she led me far past the bathrooms, up the stairs. I knew King Geoffrey was still on the loose, but I was certain he wouldn’t attack me in her royal presence. As my courage began to lift, I matched her pace. In response, she lifted a finger to her lips, still smiling in that gentle way. I allowed her to lead me up another flight and down another hall, one that wound past the teachers’ dormitories.

  My gratitude somewhat faded when Isabella vanished into a painting of herself and left me standing there all alone. I was following her so closely that I nearly stumbled right into the canvas and the brick wall behind it. I gasped softly as I stopped short, then glanced around, furrowing my brow. Where did she go exactly? I wondered. Why’d she bring me here? And why in the world would she desert me in such a creepy place?

  I took a few steps backward and glanced up at her portrait. She wore such a solemn, regal expression of startling beauty, perhaps rivaling Mona Lisa herself. I did not take her to be a whimsical woman, one who would wake me up and lead me through an empty castle for no reason. She wasn’t allowed to tell me anything, but I knew she’d led me to a clue she couldn’t blatantly reveal.

  I assumed the wall had to hold a secret. I gently touched the surface of the portrait, then ran my fingertips across the golden nameplate on the frame. As my fingers swept across her name, I felt a strange sensation, as if I had discovered something, even if I didn’t know what it was.

  Before I could give it a second thought, a growl echoed from down the hall, and my stomach twisted up tighter than the winding labyrinth that had led me there.