Unedited Sample – Frozen Heart (Chapter 1) – Part 2
I hope you liked the first sample I posted of my magical supernatural romance Frozen Heart. If you did, here is the second and final part of chapter 1.
Jason looked at its pine coloured surface with a mixture of surprise, and sudden grief. If this had been sent to him, it could only mean that the oldest member of their family had finally passed away. Jason sighed as he opened the velvet lined box. He remembered looking through this veritable trove for many hours as a teenager, as his dear grandmother had recalled all of her memories. She might have been suffering from rudimentary dementia, but the stories she’d told were amazingly lucid and wonderful to hear.
With a shudder, Jason remembered how he had asked Nathan to help sort through the chest when Agatha had still been alive. It had only been three months since she had gone into a home, but his family had been pressuring him to find their supposed inheritance, so he didn’t want to do it alone.
“No bloody way,” was the response that came from his lover.
“If you think I’m sorting through a load of worthless junk for a bunch of needy old biddies, you can think again. Sell the crap on the Internet, then chuck the box on a skip.” At that point, Nathan had decided to go off on one of his “I’ll be back later, don’t wait up” modes, and slammed the door with a thump. Jason had then rung all of the people who wanted their items, and told them in no uncertain terms that he would let them know as soon as he found them. The fact that he decided to wait so long to start looking again, was neither here or there.
After watching a programme all about the dangers of dust, Agatha, known as Gathy to her friends, had wrapped all the items in the chest in varying amounts of the largest broadsheet newspaper she could find. It might have been slightly obscure, but no one could deny the woman was determined to ensure safety. Even if it made no sense. Sellotaped to the top of the box, was a wrinkled piece of paper with its supposed contents. Taking a sigh of resignation, he gently pulled it away and looked at the barely legible handwriting. The list was full of all the things he remembered, from the figures of the fairground houses, to the set of billiard balls she had claimed to have won from a raffle at the village fete.
There were about twenty items on the list, each one aligned alphabetically, and then by size. Looking down at the various newspaper covered shapes, Jason gave a real smile for the first time that day. The tape keeping the paper together was as thick as a double glazed window, and if he knew his grandmother like he thought he did, Jason would bet there would be a second layer of protection underneath the first, just for good measure.
The task took a bit longer than Jason expected, but the fascination of looking at his grandmother’s treasures was something that never changed. When he was halfway down the list, a shrill sound echoed through the room. Jumping a foot in the air, Jason was glad that he was holding tightly to a set of china plates he had just unearthed. Agatha claimed she had earned them from working part time at the local embassy, but anyone else would tell you she got them from a clearance sale at the local kitchen warehouse.
Jason got off the floor and picked up the phone.
“Started drinking tonight?” came a familiar voice.
He gave a small laugh, and put the phone to his other ear.
“Not yet” he replied.
“At half five? That must be a record for you,” the voice laughed.
Rolling his eyes, Jason walked into the kitchen with the phone in his hand.
“Thanks for the confidence Gary,” he said, making sure to neither sound offended or amused.
There was a stiff silence on the end of the phone, but it ended fairly quickly.
“You know I’m only pulling ya man. I know you drink far less than you used to. Even without help from Veronica.”
Jason sighed. He had started to go and see a councillor at the advice of his family and friends, but she didn’t seem to be helping. If anything, she was more of an addict than he was.
“Have you purposefully called to be a twat, or do you actually have something to say as my best friend?” he said. with his voice as dry as a bone.
“Me and a few of the guys are going out to get some, thought you might want to come along?”
It was a tempting offer, and certainly better than ringing up irate relatives to tell them he had found their ticket to easy street. Jason remembered he had just bought a bottle of vodka, but that could always keep. If he didn’t drink while he was out, he could do it when he got home.
“Sounds good man, when and where?”
“At the Carrot and Leek pub, know where that is?”
“I think so yeah.”
The truth was that Jason didn’t know, but he was sure he could look it up online.
“Sounds cool. Meet you there in two hours?”
“Ok man, see you there.”
Jason placed the phone back on the pod, and walked back to the chest. He could easily have this done in half an hour, then he could spend tomorrow morning on the phone. Lucky him. Eventually Jason was done to the final item on the list. Sighing, he looked in the box, and did a double take. There were two items in the box, not one. Although he could have been mistaken, he didn’t remember seeing this one before. It was wrapped in very loose newspaper, almost as if it had been placed inside at the last minute. Leaving the known item aside for now, he lifted the stranger gently from the box, and placed it on the coffee table.
It was a considerable weight, and spherical in shape. For a moment, Jason wondered if it was a crystal ball, because it was certainly explain that while Agatha had an imagination, she always knew everything that was going on. Even if the person involved didn’t. Seeing a loose piece of paper at the top of globe, Jason grabbed it and tugged at it. To his amazement, all the remaining paper seemed to fall away, and it revealed something that made him gasp with wonder.
The object in question was a snow globe. It was about one and half feet tall, with water that seemed to shimmer in the pale lights of the flat. Speckles of false snow drifted in the water, and several miniature pine trees scattered the ice covered ground. A small wooden cabin with windows and a door sat in the centre of the piece, and it must have been a trick of light, because he swore he could see a small light glowing in one of the windows.
The base of the globe was solid oak, shined to an immaculate finish with a golden plaque screwed onto the face. The same golden metal was stretched in a line over the globe, and a small brass stopper was placed into the centre. It formed something similar to a plug at the top of the globe, which Jason thought was strange, as this kind of thing was generally not needed in this type of object. But regardless of whether it made sense, the effect made the object both unique, and a mystery to all who beheld it.
In the back of his mind, Jason had to wonder who would decide that locking away such a beautiful object could be justified. He stared into the grime covered glass surface, as if he were trying to find some secret that gave it a purpose. But as could be expected of all his endeavours recently, he found nothing but false hope as a reward.
“There’s always the Internet I suppose,” he said with a drained laugh, feeling that for once Nathan was right. Giving the object another vacant glance, he decided that as it hadn’t been claimed, he would keep it for himself. Then after the Christmas sales had gone by, a quick trip to the antiques market would pay for another few months’ supply of his lifeblood. But before he would think of selling it, he would definitely need to clean it. Not that he particularly cared about its condition, but he imagined that no one would want to spend an excessive amount of money to take it off his hands, only to spend another fortune restoring it to its former glory.
Walking into the kitchen, he retrieved a dust cloth, along with a bottle of spray polish from under the sink. When he got back to the table, he pulled the sofa closer, grabbed the base of the globe itself, and then placed one of the cloths into his free hand. Gently squeezing the nozzle of the spray, a small amount of amber cream poured onto the rag. With a resigned expression, Jason steadied the globe on the centre of the table, and placed the wet cloth onto the surface of the glass. After checking the liquid didn’t dissolve the surface, he began to gently rub at the years of grime that had attached itself to the ornament.
The third time that Jason brushed the cloth over the object; he was startled to find that the snow inside was beginning to move. At first, he thought that it was due to the momentum caused by the polishing, but that illusion was quickly shattered. The snow began to spin faster, until Jason couldn’t see the cabin inside. He gasped as the table began to rattle, but then he realised it was the globe that was beginning to move. Although it was subtle at first, Jason realised that he suddenly felt very cold. Before he could do anything to warm himself up, a howling wind blew through the flat, causing the curtains to shake, and the bedroom door to swing wildly on its hinges.
Just as Jason was beginning to feel frightened, the wind seemed to calm, but a few seconds later, there was a tremendous popping sound. Looking in the direction it had come from, Jason saw to his astonishment that the brass ‘plug’ had been flung out of the top of the globe, leaving a hole in the top of the glass orb, and a small indent in the aertex on the ceiling. Another miniature hurricane swirled through the flat, but Jason’s attention was firmly fixed on the snow globe. Just as he wondered what was going to happen next, thin sky blue smoke combined with white and silver snowflakes began to pour out of the hole. It seemed to linger for a moment in the centre of the room, before it swirled round into a loosely shaped cylinder, and most of the mass began to thicken at its core.
After what seemed like an eternity, the mysterious snow mist slowly faded away, and revealed a large being that had appeared in the middle of the vortex. It was human in appearance, and he was the most handsome man that Jason had ever seen.
That’s all for now. Have a great 2015!
