Previews Ghostly Echoes by Mai Griffin | Page 7

Ghostly Echoes Prologue Bewildered and filled with dread, the boy opened his eyes and slowly sat up. He put a hand to his brow – the agony had been fleeting but surely, it must be bruised or cut. He pressed gently over his eyes and across the smooth unbroken skin of his forehead. How could that be...? Incredulity changed to relief until his hand moved higher …and his fingers sank into a deep cavity, matted with blood and hair. Sickened with revulsion, he collapsed again, stunned into insensibility. In fleeting flashes of awareness, realising he was not in pain, he felt calmer. The grass was cool beneath him and he could see treetops laced against blue sky above, so surely things couldn’t be as bad as he’d thought! Cautiously, he risked feeling his head again, but it felt so shockingly unfamiliar that his stomach lurched and he lapsed into a troubled dream, having no conception of time as his mind drifted. Sometimes he shouted for help but no one came. Gradually gaining a small measure of coherent thought, he tried to deal with the weird jigsaw of emotions – anxiety, fear and fury – which consumed him. Although his head didn’t ache, he could not bring himself to examine it again and was reluctant to move from where he lay, supine on the soft ground. The physical pain had been mercifully brief but an indefinable anguish tormented him, as if he had done something bad. He felt guilty ...but of what? 5