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  Willowcombe Clatford. The perfect place to live. A village with standards. A village with morals. A village where everyone knows what is best for you...

  Fourteen year old Pandora Laskaris moves with her family to Willowcombe Clatford, an idyllic village full of friendly neighbours and upright citizens, where the children are always well behaved, there are never any disagreements, and crime doesn’t exist.

  Yet within this calm and beautiful place, Pandora comes to recognise that there is something wrong. What is happening behind the scenes at the village? Why do those who defy village opinion disappear? What part does Pandora’s traditionalist aunt, Mabel Whitemarsh, play in the sinister atmosphere that keeps the village quiet and obedient? And what is the link to the legendary Pandora’s Box of Greek mythology?

  Willowcombe Clatford. The perfect place to live. A village with standards. A village with morals. A village where everyone knows what is best for you...

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Pandora

  Copyright © 2013 Arabella Wyatt

  ISBN: 978-1-77111-698-5

  Cover art by Latrisha Waters

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Devine Destinies

  An imprint of eXtasy Books

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  www.devinedestinies.com

  Pandora

  By

  Arabella Wyatt

  Prologue

  Pandora Laskaris moved along the darkened tunnel. She didn’t know where she was, nor did she have any memory of how she got there. All she knew was that she had to keep walking, one foot after the other, through the darkness, which was illuminated every ten yards or so by blazing torches set in the wall.

  Pandora looked at the walls as she passed the flickering flames. They were made of enormous blocks of solid stone. The roof and floor were the same. Thousands of blocks, huge and heavy, deadening the senses. She continued to walk, turning randomly down side tunnels which looked no different from the one she had started in. How could anyone find their way in this labyrinth?

  She reached another junction where an unexpected stench of damp fur and body heat washed over her. There was something close by, something animal, something big if the odour was any indication. Pandora wasn’t sure she wanted to find out, but she was unable to stop walking. She looked down at her legs, wondering why they kept moving, and was surprised to see she was wearing some sort of skirt. She hardly ever wore a skirt.

  A closer inspection at the next guttering flame revealed she was dressed in a toga, of the sort usually seen in films set in ancient Rome. Pandora rubbed a hand over her brow and found she had a garland of flowers in her hair. She was so surprised she forgot about the animal smell, which meant the shock was all the stronger as she turned another corner and something reared up in front of her.

  Time slowed as the creature turned, holding something in its hands.

  Pandora realised in horror it was a bloodied skull. She tried to scream, but her throat restricted in terror as she took in every detail in front of her.

  Saliva stretched from the skull to the mouth of the creature. Huge tusks, smeared with blood, leered over the black lips. The creature discarded the skull in favour of the fresh meat which had walked so willingly into its den.

  Pandora, frozen in dread, saw the shaggy hair around the protruding snout, the horns growing from the top of the head, the strong legs ending in hooves instead of feet. Behind it, a tail swished in the dark air. Pandora looked into the black eyes of the creature and saw the face of a huge, angry bull, yet a bull somehow mixed with human features. She now knew what it was and where she was. She was a sacrifice to the Minotaur.

  The Minotaur stepped forward, reaching out to its victim, but stopped as the flames illuminated Pandora’s face. It seemed both surprised and angry. Rearing upright, it bellowed in rage, its chest muscles heaving, arms outstretched, filling the passageway before lunging forward with incredible speed, grabbing Pandora and dragging her to within inches of its huge, slobbering jaws.

  The hot stench of raw meat and fresh blood washed over the terrified girl as the Minotaur growled, pushing saliva and splintered human bones around its mouth before speaking, shaking Pandora with every word.

  “Release me,” snarled the creature. “Release all of us. Open the box. Let us feast on the living and consume the bones of their children! Open the box!”

  A strange blue light appeared over the creature, pulsing with every word, growing brighter and brighter each time the monster spoke.

  “Open the box!” demanded the Minotaur again.

  The blue light flared, so bright it was almost white, and then blackness rushed in.

  Chapter One

  Pandora’s eyes snapped open. She was sitting on the wall outside number fifty-three, Tenbury Street, the bushes of which offered some protection from the weather and prying eyes. She had perched herself there ten minutes ago to escape the sudden squall of rain. Somehow, she must have dozed off.

  This was surprising. Pandora was always careful when she was out. Lowell wasn’t a safe place to be, even in the day. You had to stay alert at all times; otherwise, you’d be finished. Druggies, alkies, thugs–they all roamed the streets looking for prey. Despite this, Pandora had to get out of the house whenever she could. She disliked the stifling home atmosphere, the arguments and the hysterics that occurred on a daily basis. Sneaking out for a few hours was her only respite.

  Sometimes, Pandora would walk along the ring road, past the few streetlights that were still working. Other times, she’d wander the side streets, the tatty residential areas falling apart from neglect and vandalism. She avoided the canal, the playing fields and the centre of town where the real trouble was, though trouble could find you even out here, on the edge, but Pandora could take care of herself. The wall of number fifty-three was a favourite, with its overgrown branches and bushes providing a refuge to hide in.

  Pandora glanced at her phone. It was almost midnight. Her parents would hopefully be asleep in bed, unaware that their eldest daughter was out. She uncurled herself from her spot, carefully ensuring no one was around to see her, and slid away in the shadows, the strange dream already fading from her mind. It didn’t take long to get back home. She eased open the kitchen window she had unlatched before sneaking out, used a bucket as a step to boost herself up and wriggled through onto the kitchen work surface.

  It was becoming a tight squeeze. Pandora was growing, getting ever taller and filling out around the chest and hips. They’d had a film at school called Puberty and Your Changing Body, which hadn’t really explained much. The film had been decades old–it was on videocassette–and almost unwatchable in places because the tape was so warped. Pandora’s school had little money, hope or distinction. Much like the rest of the town.

  Pandora slipped her trainers off and crept up the stairs. Her bedroom was on
the left of the landing, but as usual she went to her younger sisters’ room. Despite the late hour, Pandora knew they would be awake, lying in the dark, holding hands tightly, too scared to sleep for fear of nightmares. Only Pandora could ease their fears by telling them that there was nothing dangerous outside. Their parents just didn’t understand the reassurance the young, imaginative twins needed.

  “Is that you, Pan?” asked a small, muffled voice from the bed in the corner of the room as Pandora quietly entered.

  “It’s me, Sarah,” whispered Pandora. She turned on the bedside light and smiled as her sisters’ small, frightened faces appeared from under the safety of the duvet. The girls were seven years old, and in contrast to Pandora, who resembled her dark Greek father, the twins took after their pale, brown-haired English mother.

  “Was anything out there?” demanded Anne eagerly. Despite their fears, the twins always wanted to know what was lurking outside the front door.

  “Nothing at all,” said Pandora gently. Both girls were highly inventive and could conjure all manner of fear if not reassured. “How’s your latest story going?” she asked to change the subject.

  “Great,” responded Sarah with enthusiasm, leaping out of bed and pulling out the large box in which the twins kept their papers, paints and crayons. She pulled several sheets of paper out and spread them over the bed. Pandora was back, there was nothing outside and their night terrors were already fading.

  “Biscuit has got to the enchanted sea,” said Anne, holding up one of the pictures so Pandora could see. On it, a pink unicorn was looking out over a vast expanse of water. Biscuit the Unicorn was the twins’ favourite character.

  “Only she can’t get to the Magic Island without a boat,” explained Sarah, pointing to Biscuit’s puzzled expression.

  “But then the mermaids swim along and say they have a boat,” continued Anne, pulling out the next picture in the sequence.

  “And the mermaids pull Biscuit over the sea,” finished Sarah in triumph, proudly holding up the final painting. Oversized fish swam around the smudgy unicorn as some larger fishes with human arms and heads pulled the boat along.

  “But on the Magical Island is the Evil Wizard,” said Anne with a voice full of foreboding. “Only, we haven’t done that bit yet,” she added in her normal tones.

  Pandora laughed. “These are brilliant,” she said, marvelling at the twins’ imagination.

  “So you like the story then?” asked Anne eagerly.

  “It’s fantastic,” said Pandora as the bedroom door opened and their mother looked suspiciously into the room.

  Chapter Two

  “What on earth are you doing in here at this time of night?” demanded Mrs Laskaris of her eldest daughter. “And why aren’t you two asleep?”

  “We couldn’t,” said Sarah.

  “We had night terrors,” said Anne. They often finished each other’s sentences.

  “Pan was making us feel better,” continued Sarah.

  “Night terrors,” shrieked Mrs Laskaris, clutching the folds of her food-encrusted nightgown around her. “More night terrors!”

  “What’s going on?” mumbled Mr Laskaris, stumbling into the room. His hair was tousled, and his normally smooth moustache looked like a disturbed hedgehog. Even after living in England for so many years, he still retained a noticeable Greek accent.

  “The girls have been suffering night terrors again,” wailed Mrs Laskaris.

  Pandora rolled her eyes. Her mother was a complete drama queen. Living with her was emotionally draining.

  “We’re all right now,” said Sarah quickly, recognising the classic symptoms of a frenzied wailing fit.

  Mrs Laskaris looked slightly put out at the twins’ protestations and looked for another target.

  “Why are you in your clothes?” she demanded of Pandora. “You should have been in bed hours ago.”

  “I was chilly,” said Pandora, saying the first thing that came into her head.

  “Why are you wet?” asked Mr Laskaris.

  Pandora groaned inwardly. Her mother could be fobbed off with a convenient statement, but her father had a tendency to look more closely into things.

  “Have you been outside in the rain?”

  “Just in the garden,” replied Pandora. “It was a bit stuffy, so I had some fresh air.”

  “The garden!” wailed her mother, apparently viewing the small square of faded grass as an area of vice and danger. “The twins are suffering night terrors again, and Pandora is sneaking out of the house in the dead of night!”

  “But I’m back now and everything is all right,” said Pandora desperately.

  “All right?” repeated her mother, her voice rising. “The girls are suffering night after night, you’re sneaking out of the house and you say it’s all right? It’s this area! It’s Lowell; it’s that school; we’ve been too lenient with you,” she burbled, words pouring from her like a waterfall.

  “Focussing on the important matter, everyone is now inside and safe,” interrupted her husband, trying to stem the flow. He glared at Pandora, which was disquieting. The two usually got on well, but Pandora’s admission of leaving the house had worried him enormously.

  “Safe?” screeched Mrs Laskaris, thoroughly enjoying herself as she became the centre of attention, though she would never admit such a thing, even to herself. “You call this safe? Living in this place, with crimes and drugs all around, and Pandora sneaking out and the twins in mortal fear? How long will we be safe in Lowell? How long before we’re murdered in our beds!”

  “That is not going to help the girls settle, is it?” pointed out Mr Laskaris.

  His wife looked taken aback but rallied by snatching a rumpled letter from out of her dressing gown pocket. “No, but this will!” she exclaimed. “It’s another letter from Aunt Mabel in Willowcombe Clatford, a lovely, peaceful village. She rents out a house there and her tenant has left, and she says that we can have first refusal on the house!”

  “We’ve already discussed this,” sighed Mr Laskaris. “My work is here, it would mean uprooting the girls—”

  “Pooh!” exclaimed Mrs Laskaris. “It will be a new start for all of us in a lovely countryside village. I remember the place from my summer holidays. It’s beautiful! So quiet, with a real village school and a cricket team and a post office and tea rooms and nothing but fields and woods all around.” She paused, panting for breath.

  “My work—” began Mr Laskaris, before being cut off with another explosive “Pooh!”

  “There’s a new retail and industrial park not more than ten miles away which is crying out for new people. Aunt Mabel says so. There are jobs there and new people are moving to the village because they’ve got work at the park. You could get a job there easily!”

  “It’s not that simple,” muttered Mr Laskaris, aware of the problems of a hundred applications for every vacancy, plus he was well on the wrong side of forty to be looking for a new job. Employers wanted young blood.

  “Think of the girls,” said Mrs Laskaris, playing her trump card. “How much better life will be for them. We need to move for their sake.”

  Pandora looked at the indecision on her father’s face, and despite his lingering objections, she guessed that soon the family would be moving. She found herself wondering about Willowcombe Clatford. Could it really offer a better life, as her mother believed?

  Chapter Three

  Martin Tooke lay on his bed, his arms folded across his chest, staring at the model spaceship that hung down from the ceiling. It was very late, and normally he would be asleep, but he was too upset.

  That day, at school, the unthinkable had happened. He had answered back. It had happened at lunch. Someone–he had no idea who–had left their plate overhanging the side of one of the dinner tables. As Martin had walked toward the door, the plate had wobbled and fallen, smashing on the floor, and he’d been blamed for it by one of the teachers. Just because he was closest
, it was assumed he was the guilty person, despite the fact he was a good two feet away at the time. What made him really angry was the fact that this was the third time he’d been blamed for something he hadn’t done.

  The door to his room opened, and his father looked in on him. “Why is your light still on?” Martin didn’t answer, and Mr Tooke sighed. “Are you still brooding about that plate?”

  “You don’t know what it’s like there,” snapped Martin. “We get blamed for everything.”

  “We?”

  “The new people, those who weren’t born in the village. They all look down on us and blame us for everything. Just because we’re not local. I hate it at St Hilda’s. I want to go back home.”

  “You know we can’t do that,” replied his father. “We moved here for a better life.”

  “My life isn’t better,” said Martin angrily. “They’ve got it in for me.”

  “Who have?”

  “The teachers. Especially that headmistress, Miss Hill. She made out it was all my fault. She believed Mrs Talbot when she said I’d broken that plate. She never gave me a chance.”

  “And that was when you called Mrs Talbot a liar and got detention?” Mr Tooke already knew what had happened, but he realised Martin was still upset and needed to release his frustration.

  “She is a liar!” said Martin emphatically. “I hadn’t even reached the plate! How could I have knocked it off? It must have been the vibrations from everyone else walking around. But Talbot said it was me, because I was the closest and I’m not one of the locals!”

  “I know, I know,” soothed Mr Tooke. “Look, forget about it for now. Try and get some sleep. It’s senseless getting yourself worked up. In the morning, I’ll phone Miss Hill and ask for a meeting and we can get this sorted. All right?”