Other books by Holly Bell
Amanda Cadabra and The Hidey-Hole Truth (The Amanda Cadabra Cozy Paranormal Mysteries Book 1)
Amanda Cadabra and The Cellar of Secrets (The Amanda Cadabra Cozy Paranormal Mysteries Book 2)
Amanda Cadabra and The Flawless Plan (The Amanda Cadabra Cozy Paranormal Mysteries Book 3)
Amanda Cadabra and The Rise of Sunken Madley (The Amanda Cadabra Cozy Paranormal Mysteries Book 4)
Amanda Cadabra and The Hidden Depths (The Amanda Cadabra Cozy Paranormal Mysteries Book 5)
Other books published by Heypressto
50 Feel-better Films
50 Feel-better Songs: from Film and TV
25 Feel-better Free Downloads
Copyright © Holly Bell (2021). All rights reserved.
http://www.amandacadabra.com
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to real events, people or places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, places or people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Cover art by Daniel Becerril Ureña
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To Anton, Tamara and Chris
You never tire of the moor.
You cannot think the wonderful secrets
which it contains,
It is so vast, and so barren, and so mysterious.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1: The Road to Kernow
Chapter 2: What’s The Story
Chapter 3: About A Boy, and The Fall
Chapter 4: Parhayle
Chapter 5: Cal’s Proposal
Chapter 6: Amanda Makes a New Acquaintance
Chapter 7: Sir Philip’s Answer
Chapter 8: Vision on The Moor
Chapter 9: Farewells, and Installation
Chapter 10: Pasco, and Amanda Meets Nancarrow
Chapter 11: Fire — Inspector Hogarth Investigates
Chapter 12: The Lead, and The Oath
Chapter 13: The House of Lucy
Chapter 14: Return to the House of Lucy
Chapter 15: A Tale of Three Houses
Chapter 16: Hidden Extras
Chapter 17: Restless Night
Chapter 18: Money and Magic
Chapter 19: Over the Wall
Chapter 20: Crimson Lake
Chapter 21: The Missing Piece
Chapter 22: The End of the Line
Chapter 23: On the Stairs
Chapter 24: Feeling the Way
Chapter 25: Understanding Lucy
Chapter 26: Proposal
Chapter 27: Answer, and a New Puzzle
Chapter 28: The Unusual Suspects, and the Shore at Dawn
Chapter 29: Caught in the Act
Chapter 30: Chief Inspector Hogarth Investigates: Marielle and Zoe
Chapter 31: Chief Inspector Hogarth Investigates: Geoffrey, Elodie and Peter
Chapter 32: Between Friends
Chapter 33: The Trelawneys
Chapter 34: What Amanda Saw
Chapter 35: The One Who Told the Truth
Chapter 36: Flamgoyne
Chapter 37: Looking for Answers
Chapter 38: Flossie and Amanda on Bodmin
Chapter 39: The Missing Pieces
Chapter 40: Hogarth’s Plan
Chapter 41: Into the Past
Chapter 42: The Only Way
Chapter 43: Gearing Up
Chapter 44: Into the Fire
Chapter 45: The Wand of Agacine Flamgoyne
Chapter 46: Homecoming
Chapter 47: Whatever Happened To …?
Chapter 48: The Contracts
Chapter 49: Flamgoyne and Cardiubarn
Chapter 50: Revelation
Chapter 51: One More For The Road
Chapter 52: Sunken Madley
Chapter 53: Department 14
Chapter 54: M, Q, and Kindly Advice
Chapter 55: Visitors
Chapter 56: A Gift for Thomas
Chapter 57: Another Revelation, and Questions
Author’s Note
About the Author
Acknowledgements
About the Language
DID you know?
The Cornish Language
Questions for Reading Clubs
Glossary of British English
Accents and Wicc’yeth
Introduction
Please note that to enhance the reader’s experience of Amanda's world, this British-set story, by a British author, uses British English spelling, vocabulary, grammar and usage, and includes local and foreign accents, dialects and a magical language that vary from different versions of English as it is written and spoken in other parts of our wonderful, diverse world.
For your reading pleasure, there is a glossary of British English usage and vocabulary at the end of the book, followed by a note about accents and the magical language, Wicc’yeth.
Amanda Cadabra and The Strange Case of Lucy Penlowr
Holly Bell
Chapter 1
The Road to Kernow
‘The pretty mist,’ the old woman’s voice echoed in Amanda’s mind. It was hard to see through the fog that was now brown, now purple, now mustard yellow … sickly sweet. She stretched out her little three-year-old hand. Suddenly it was dark. She was outside on the Moor. Amanda knew it by the scents. But not entirely dark. Smoke was boiling up into the night. A building was aflame and then … a blinding flash.
With a gasp, Amanda woke up. Calm but concerned tones came from her right, asking,
‘Are you all right, Miss Cadabra?’
‘Er ....’ The sound of the familiar Ford Mondeo’s engine purred comfortingly. She looked with relief at the motorway, its green embankments flying by, and then turned her head. There was the pleasant face of Detective Inspector Thomas Trelawney of the Devon and Cornwall Police, at the wheel beside her. Amanda pushed her long mouse brown hair off her face and exhaled. ‘Yes, yes, thank you. I’m fine.’
‘Bad dream?’
‘Yes ... except ....’
‘Do you want to tell me? It might help.’
‘Thank you. I wonder ... I’m afraid I do have a tendency to fall asleep on long car journeys,’ Amanda admitted apologetically.
‘So I gather,’ said Trelawney with a smile, and a quick glance at her from hazel eyes, which then looked straight back at the road ahead. ‘That’s why I always make sure we’re equipped with a cushion.’
‘And most kind of you it is.’
‘My pleasure. Well? What was the “except ...”?’ he prompted.
‘I was back in that dungeon-crypt place at Cardiubarn Hall with my homicidal forebears. That day of the spell.’
‘When you were three? The spell designed to cause your asthma?’
‘That’s the one,’ confirmed Amanda. ‘And then suddenly I was on the Moor at night.’
‘Bodmin?’
‘Yes, and it was pitch dark, but then it wasn’t because there was smoke.
