The Lands of Power

The Lands of Power: Part 1: Discovery now available from Amazon for Kindle and Kindle app. 


The Lands of Power tells the story of a young boy, Phil Granger who, after a family holiday in the South-West of Cornwall, England, acquires supernatural powers. However things go from strange and unknown to devastating as Phil's life, and all that he knew and held dear, is torn apart by the proceeding events. 

'Discovery' is the first part of an epic new series of short novellas. Read the first 4 chapters sample here and then please consider buying for only £1.03. Thank you, I hope you enjoy it, any comments please post them, I am open to criticism and I am still editing this part to constantly improve upon it. 

Harry Daniel. 

U.K.-http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Lands-Power-Discovery-ebook/dp/B007JKAISS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1332602690&sr=8-1 

U.S. - http://www.amazon.com/The-Lands-Power-Discovery-ebook/dp/B007JKAISS/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1348048516&sr=1-1&keywords=the+lands+of+power+harry+daniel 

The Lands of Power: Part 1: Discovery

In the early days of civilisation, some believed that certain areas around the world held special significance. That if they gave blood to the land at these places, they would be granted unfathomable powers. In later years these places were hallowed as sacred land and temples or monuments were erected upon them; the Mayan temples, Stonehenge and, eventually, the symbol of Christ. As the centuries wore on the hallowed lands were forgotten, replaced with the new age of science. Today memorials are made, placed in precarious or strange locations without any real knowledge to the public as to why they are put there specifically. The memorial creators are told where to put their statues, deities’ and symbols of Christ. Unbeknown to them, they are told to put them in the lands of power by a mysterious group of people. To mark the lands for all to see.

The ones that are marked hold the power.

Chapter One

High up on the hillside the wind behaved in a completely different manner to that of the wind you would be used to. The formation of the rocks, caves and boulders, in many cases, caused it to whistle in and out of the cracks and crevasses, with such strength, that anyone would have thought that it were blown by a jet engine. It whipped along the ground, blowing the grass and weeds with such strength it was an amazement in itself that they stayed in the muddy floor.

There was little up on the windy hillside, apart from a large memorial cross, darkened by pollution blown up from the town and old tin mines below and the collection of rocks, which gave the hill its name; The Hand of God.

The Hand of God was made up of a single large rock, one of the ones that would have suited a rock-climbing wall. Years of weathering had caused it to dip in the middle by about three foot, with a diameter of around ten foot. Towards the edge of the hand, the rocks angled upwards to create finger like entities. Although less hand-like now, you could see why it had the name. When it rained water collected in crystal clear pools in the ‘palm’ of the hand and as late as the 17^th Century people believed that drinking from the water would bring you luck. Rumour has it, when the cross was erected in the early 1950’s, the builders tried the water from the hand. Rather than luck they received a nasty case of cholera, many died as a result.

The only other things up on the hillside were grass, mud and a boy walking his dog. The boy was not as exceptional nor as note worthy as the cross or The Hand of God. He was average. Average face, average build, average intelligence, average brown hair that he constantly pulled back out of his eyes as the wind whipped it madly about, in its trade mark fashion. His black border collie was as average as he. It ran ahead of him a little, sniffing every puddle and blade of grass possible, squatting on its hind leg to urinate every now and then.

The boy was not an experienced walker. Although he and his family had had the dog for years and had holidayed in this area of England for as long as he could remember, it was only his second time up on this hill. His knackered trainers were constantly squelching through the thick mud, threatening to become stuck permanently with every step. He was fed up. The average boy had only ventured up the hillside after having an average teenage argument with his mum over something he didn’t even remember. As always things had escalated quickly and irrationally.

The boy had stormed up the muddy track, dragging the collie up whether he wanted to be there or not. He had calmed down even before he had reached the cross which lay just before the summit but decided to carry on up and over the hill in an act of defiance against his mum.

He made it no more than one hundred yards past the cross before he had to stop and rest. He stood resting on one of the few dry rocks doted about the ground, breathing in the cool, clean air.

He regretted leaving without his iPod, but he regretted breaking his top of the range phone more, as he pulled out the cheap, temporary phone he had been stuck with for the last two weeks.

He had hoped his mum would have text him saying sorry. She hadn’t, she never did. He was always the one to apologise, even when they both knew full well that it was her fault.

He had only one text and that was from his friend;

Hey Phil mate, ne chance u wna go cinema tonight? Tb xx

Phil quickly typed out a message saying that he couldn’t and that he was sorry, although he didn’t feel that sorry, the friend who text him had just been dumped and no one particularly fancied dealing with the post break blues that he was bound to suffer.   

Phil checked the time 6:07 it was already getting dark and knew that he should man up and head back to the cottage now before it was too dark to see. He slipped the phone back into his pocket. No sooner than he had done this the phone vibrated violently against his leg. Finally, the text from his mum saying how sorry she was, how it was all her fault...

Dinner will be in half an hour. Come back if you want it.

He almost threw his phone off the edge of the hill with the fury he felt for his mother. Instead he grumbled some of the more colourful words in his vocabulary and marched off towards the ‘summit’ of the hill. He wasn’t surprised at his mum’s response he just presumed that she would be more worried about him. Although he was nearly sixteen, they were on holiday and he’d hoped that she would want him back at the cottage safe with the family. His renewed anger seemed to overwhelm the fatigue he was suffering and within five minutes he had reached the top of the hill and The Hand of God rock.

Calming once more, Phil took in the site. From this angle, The Hand of God looked like any other rock face with a slightly larger rock jutting out to form something similar to a veranda roof. It was dark and grey, with bits of algae growing in clumps up the damp rock, which gave it its only colour. From here it was far from being an impressive site. Phil checked over to where he had last seen his dog and upon seeing it still sniffing the entire landscape with vigorous detail, he decided to climb up into the ‘palm’ to see if the rocks looked anything more like a hand up there. Anything to kill a bit more time before returning to the dragon’s keep.

Phil made it up the side of the rocks with relative ease despite his slippery trainers and clambered over the edge of the hand and rolling into the water that rested in the centre of the palm. As soon as he had made it to his feet inside the hand, Phil saw why the rocks had their name. He was standing in the centre of the rock, just out of the large puddle of water that filled most of the palm. The way the water had settled in the rocks through the years had shaped them, perfectly, into a hand. The parts which were the fingers were curved just enough to seem as though the hand belonged to someone who was asleep, in that slightly clenched manner.

Perhaps most amazing of all was the way the water had caused the rocks to crack and stain. Each split in the rock, or water smear which were made, seemed like the creases of the skin that a human hand has. Phil could replicate his hand to match the image that the rocks showed almost exactly.

As Phil starred down, his gaze flicking between The Hand of God and his own hand, a strong wind rolled in, splattering a thin spray of rain into his face with it. The mix of amazement and the cool spray of rain made Phil want to return home. He knew that it seemed silly to change moods so quickly because of some freak result of hundreds of years of weathering and a bit of cold water, but  then again, he had forgotten the reason he was up here in the first place, so reasoned it was for the best.

He took one final look at ‘The Hand’, wishing he had his top of the range phone so he could take a picture of it before climbing down. However without the phone or picture climbed back down to the ground taking a mental note to take a picture of it one day soon. He whistled for his collie, the high pitched shriek carrying across the top of the hill despite the growing winds.

He saw the top of his dogs head come bobbing over the edge of the hill almost instantly and was grateful. The rain had picked up already and was falling thick and fast. Phil was soaked through to his skin, and his clothes felt heavy on his cold body. The dog reached his feet and stuck its tongue out, panting, happy to be outside in a new place despite the weather.

The hill was nearly pitch black now, making the muddy floor impossible to see. The journey up here had been hard enough in the dry, but it would be suicidal in the dark and rain. Phil turned back to ‘The Hand’. The veranda type shelter created by the fingers looked dry and appealing in his situation, the rain was getting stronger by the minute and Phil was quickly loosing the sense of feeling in his hands.

As if sensing what Phil was thinking, his dog ran over to the shelter and shook her body madly about to dry off. Once shaken thoroughly dry, she stood there with her hair on end, cocked her head to the left and starred at Phil as if asking him why the hell he was still out in the rain, which was more like a down pour now. Phil starred back at his dog and smiled, she was getting old, almost 70 in dog years, but some how coming out to the cottage every year gave her some of her youth back. He laughed in the rain and ran to join her in the dry, he’d wait out the worst of the rain and venture back down the hill when he could take his time about it. Maybe a quick text to his dad just to let him know he was OK, he’d have asked for a lift but his dad would have probably had a couple of holiday drinks by that time of the evening.

No fewer than three steps from the natural shelter, Phil slipped. His worn out battered trainers finally gave up to the will of the mud. His right foot hit the ground and carried on going against the smooth surface, gliding across the muck with ease. His left foot was raised in the air, useless to prevent or to help the situation. Phil didn’t even have time to yelp as he skidded under the shelter and slammed head first into the cold rock face. He stumbled backwards and crashed to the floor with a squelching thud. Cold water and mud seeped through his jumper and t-shirt, chilling his skin even further. Phil could not feel his face, but was aware of his hands shaking wildly at his sides.

A flash of lightening filled the air, illuminating the hill with a wonderful blinding light. Phil saw his dog leaning over him, sniffing his face intently. He was unconscious by the time the thunder rolled in.

Chapter Two

Phil sat bolt up right in the pitch black. He cried out with the howl of a wolf, a searing explosion of unbearable pain filling his left shoulder. Tears streamed down his cheeks. He thought he had broken it, the throbbing socket gave the impression his bones had shattered into a million pieces under his skin. He couldn’t move. He daren’t look at the joint, he couldn’t bare to think of the destroyed part of his body.

He could feel his heart thumping wildly in its bone cage, threatening to break free at any giving moment. The pain was easing in his shoulder but he didn’t feel comfort from that, for all Phil knew that only meant he was loosing the feeling in the arm permanently. His head swam, full of adrenaline, pain, fear and shock. Then he remembered his fall, he remembered the collision with the wall, him collapsing. He touched his face lightly with a sweaty right hand, feeling more twinges of pain from the bruising he could already feel protruding onto his face.

He ran his hand over his lips, and up towards his nose. Both gave a warm sensation which passed over through his fingers and Phil knew it to be blood. When he was younger he often had severe nose bleeds, once resulting in his entire pillow turning red before he had woken up. As such Phil had become incredibly knowledgeable about how fresh warm blood felt on his hands, no matter how dark it happened to be. He traced the blood lines from his face and found them to flow over his cheeks and into his hair, mixing with mud from the ground in thick clumps.

The blood was not what scarred Phil the most. The fear came from the quality of his nose. Upon gentle inspection Phil could easily feel the break. Although he could not feel the pain, the thought of having a broken bone in his body caused him to give out another natural, shock filled scream.

The jolt which pulsated from Phil’s body made his shoulder act up again. The pain was back with double the destruction and Phil was certain that he would loose his arm. He finally dared to look down. His shoulder looked fine, a little off centre but that could be easily fixed. The panic receded slightly, along with the pain, a little. Then an almighty light burst fourth out of Phil’s shoulder, as though someone had just turned on a light bulb under his skin. The light shone bright onto the rock wall which made up the base of The Hand of God. Phil was overjoyed that he could still see and this brought further comfort about his injuries. At least he hadn’t been that badly damaged to lose his sight.

Then it slowly dawned upon Phil. There was a blinding light protruding from a shoulder that had, no longer than a few seconds before, seemed to have been utterly destroyed.

Phil in the least manly way possible collapsed again. He was unable to deal with the shock and pain any longer. As he fainted the light extinguished, leaving Phil’s unconscious body and the dog lying on the ground, in the dark.

Phil’s head bled into the mud as he slept, mixing with the blood from his nose and the dirt.

Chapter Three

Down the hillside, in a small cottage which was formally two homes, a school and a shop (in that order) there was a mother waiting for her son. The cottage had an old exterior, but internally was newly renovated. It had a living room to the left of the entrance, stairs to four bedrooms in front of the door, behind the stairs a doorway to the kitchen, dinning room and a bathroom. To the right of the front door there was a conservatory, a second dinning room and a small window seat. In this seat the woman sat. She was cradling a mug of tea which had long since lost its steam. She was in her late forties, brown hair, tied back in a pony tail and bore a worried stare upon her face as she looked out of the front window and down towards the foot of the hillside where she had last seen her eldest. He had stormed off in one of their silly little fights and being the stubborn minded person she was, she had refused to back down. But he had not returned that evening as per his routine.  She was worried something had happened to him.

She blamed herself for everything. He hadn’t wanted to come on holiday with them that year, but she had made him. She liked tradition and this holiday was part of it for the family.

The woman took a sip of her tea and seemed shocked when she realised it was cold, as if she hadn’t noticed that an hour and a half had passed since it had been made. She blinked in the morning light, trying desperately to stay awake. 

She was sick to her stomach with fear for her child, and could not bear the thought of him out there, on his own. He’d catch his death out all night in the cold; she just hoped he’d stayed in a hotel, or something, anything other than the wilderness.  Her husbands’ snores echoed loudly down the staircase from the master bedroom. She shook her head towards the stairs as if to say “I’m bloody glad someone can sleep whilst our child is missing!” That was the amazing thing about her husband, he could sleep through anything; physical or emotional he could switch it off at night along with the lights and get to sleep without a second thought.

She turned back to face the hillside, praying that he would saunter out of the car, to show that he was OK and that he hadn’t spent the night completely alone, outside in the freezing cold. He didn’t show. The woman thought she had seen him a couple of times, but realised that it was wishful thinking. She’d have to call somebody to help if her son didn’t return soon.

Amongst her worries she forgot to force herself to stay awake and allowed her eyes to close for just a second, which is all that they needed. She was asleep within seconds, her chin resting on her upper chest, rising and falling gently with her breath.

Chapter Four

The robin flew around in the bright February sky. It made great arcs with its body and seemed to glide effortlessly across the blue landscape, high above the hillside and even higher above the sleeping town. It chirped as it swung in the air, its tail feathers bristling in the cool winds that rustled everything on and above the hill.

It swept down towards the ground at a terrifying angle, coming dreadfully close to the floor before pulling up at the very last moment to resume its long effortless arcs in the air again. Eventually it landed on a rock that protruded from the ground near the base of The Hand of God. Chirping loudly as it did so.

It seemed to be happy on the hill, as if it belonged there. Content with its loud, high pitched bird song.

The robin stopped chirping every few seconds to look around at its surroundings, to search for food and to protect itself from any potential predators. It hopped down from its perch and made its way over to a body that lay on the floor, fluttering up to land on it as it did so.

The little Robin tracked mud across the clothing that the body wore as it bobbled around the torso, still searching for food.

A growl from somewhere stopped the Robin’s joyful song. It twisted its neck to the side listening again for the growl, for the sense of danger. Even the wind seemed to stop and listen along with the bird.

Without warning the robin took off, soaring high in the air once more.

***

Phil was forced awake when he felt a weight crash onto his stomach. He opened his eyes with a stifled “oomph”. To his shock he saw his dog standing on his chest in full pouncing position, staring towards the skies.

He pushed the dog off of him and then lay there, taking in everything that had happened, too startled and tired to move.

Phil moved his right hand up to his left shoulder. Despite the dread of touching the broken bone in fear of the pain returning, Phil gently caressed the joint. No pain came. Confused, Phil poked his shoulder a little harder, no pain, not even a little came from his shoulder.

Phil stood up in a single fluid motion. He took in a deep crisp breath of the cold February air and got out his phone and used the screen as a mirror. He looked at his face first. It was covered in blood stains. It appeared to have run from his nose, into his mouth and down the side of his face. His nose however, on closer inspection had not even a single break in it. He touched the back of his head, running his fingers through his hair, searching for the inevitable bump he would have gained from his fall. There was no lump, only dried mud and clots of blood where the two had combined, matting his hair in thick clumps.

Phil checked the time and saw that it was just approaching half past six. He decided he would question his apparent lack of injuries when he was home. If he left right now he could be home before his parents were even beginning to stir from their sleep. He patted his dog on the head, feeling its cold skin under the fur. He secured the lead to its collar and jauntily set off.

 As they made their way back down the hill, Phil asked himself why he wasn’t cold. Puzzled and without an answer the journey seemed to pass almost instantly, Phil was hardly aware that they had even reached the cottage.

He slipped his key into the door and then slipped in himself through the open door as quietly as he could.

“Phil...?” His mother had rumbled him already, so much for the sneaking in approach.

Phil dared not speak. He had been out all night without a call or even a text, away from the local area, under age and, worst of all, his mother knew nothing about his accident and he was rolling into the cottage with blood all over his face at half past six in the morning. This could only mean the worst for Phil.

Just as these thoughts were forming into guilt, Phil’s dog pushed past his knees and trotted over to Phil’s’ mother, who was slumped on the window seat, crumpled into a ball to saver her warmth. Her eyes were closed tight and the blanket which lay on her chest rose steadily with each shallow, sleeping breath.

Phil let out a melodramatic sigh of relief as he realised his mother was talking in her sleep again. He carefully closed the door behind him and tip-toed up stairs, one step at a time.

He turned once more on his mother to check that she was still asleep. The dog had cuddled up at her feet and a warm smile had passed over his mothers face. Phil knew he would have to deal with his running away in the morning, but for now he would clean himself up and get a few more hours sleep. He could think of an excuse when he woke up.

***

Phil awoke to three things in the morning. The first was a headache that could only be described with the aid of a ‘Saw’ trap to show the pain encompassed in his brain. The second was the thin sliver of sunlight that beamed in through the only gap in his blinds, directly onto his eyes, making it more difficult for him to wake up than it was on a school day. The third and final thing that Phil woke up to that day was the overwhelming smell of coco pops, in a bowl of milk.

Phil pushed up on his elbows and lay like this, back slumped against the pillows as he took in his surroundings and gathered his thoughts from the night before. He was in his room, in the cottage. The clothes he had been wearing yesterday evening before the fall, were pilled on top of the rest of his clothes from the holiday next to his bed. He reached across to his phone on the bedside table, which was plugged in and charging. He habitually checked for texts, none, signal, none (there never was due to the slate from the cottage as his father told him three years previously) and finally he checked for the time, the only real reason he picked his phone up in the first place. It was 10 a.m. exactly. He had had only three and a half hours of proper sleep last night and yet he was awake.

Phil rubbed his eyes heavily with the palms of his hands and slumped his feet over the side of the bed, pulling his body upwards with the moan of a teenage boy performing a task that he did not wish to do.

Phil coughed, which only made his head hurt more, he ruffled the blood clotted hair at the back of his head and checked his hand. A small clump of dried brown blood covered hair lay in his hand. He checked his head again but found nothing there apart from dried blood, neither a cut nor a bruise.

He thought quizzically for a moment, doubting his own memory of the events last night. He stood up and clumsily edged round his bed and dived into the pile of clothes to pull out an old hoodie and a pair of muddy jeans. He pulled the jeans on and then, when the hoodie was on, flicked the hood up as to hide the blood from his mother until he could have a shower and wash it out. Then remembering the amount of blood that had poured from his nose last night he quickly pulled out a wet wipe from his bag that his mum had insisted on packing and wiped off as much as he could. Any left he would just have to pass off as a burst spot.

He thought back to what he had been through the night before. What was he missing, what memory was eluding his mind?

Phil rolled his sleeves up and scratched his feet on the cheap worn out carpet. He then plodded, bare foot, down the stairs, the old wood creaking with every heavy footed step. Phil’s dad had always said that Phil must’ve been an elephant in his past life, that’s the only explanation for his less than graceful approach to walking. Phil never failed to point out that it was more likely to be something he picked up from his father, who himself, was far from having the step of an elegant ballerina.

Phil passed his youngest brother sitting at the dinning room table, who was deeply engaged in his Nintendo game. He walked down the two steps into the slightly submerged kitchen and found his other brother sitting on the worktop hunched over a bowl of cereal. Phil had almost forgotten about the smell that had awoken him, partially due to the fact that he thought he had imagined it. He took a glass out of the cupboard and poured a glass of water.

“Morning Phyllis! nice of you to call last night, mum’s soooooo happy with you!” He spoke with the sarcastic wavering tones of a newly pubescent teen. “Want some cereal?” He offered the bowl to Phil with a jeer of hate that one may feel for a sibling.

Phil nearly gagged with a mouthful of water, droplets spurting from his mouth as he forced his lips to remain tightly shut. “Sod off! You know I hate that rabbit shit!” And then, once again remembering the smell upon waking up, “And stay out of my room, specially when you’ve been having them ya little shit!” 

Phil turned on his heels and walked out of the kitchen, leaving his brother to shout out; “Shove off, I never been near your room today!” through a mouthful of mashed up coco pops.

As Phil walked back into the dinning room he was greeted by the ever welcoming whine of his 10-year-old brother, Peter’s voice, who had now miraculously returned to the real world in time to say; “Muuuuuuum! Phil swore again!” And within a second of Peter telling on him again, Phil’s mother came storming out of the conservatory, obviously more furious with Phil for something else other than the swearing. Phil guessed it was the fact he had stayed out all night, however unintentional that may have been.

“Phillip!” Phil’s dad poked his head round the corner of the conservatory door but came no further as that would mean standing up off of his armchair.

“Yes darling?” Replied Phil’s father, Phillip.

“Not you!” Bellowed back Phil’s mother. “I’m talking to your deviant son who stayed out all night without so much as a phone call in a foreign country!” Phil surprised a smirk for three reasons; the first is that he saw the face his father pulled as if to say “Alright you miserable old cow”. The second was that whenever Phil was in trouble he was suddenly his fathers’ son. And thirdly Phil wanted desperately to point out to his mother that Cornwall is not a country, but he felt it best to raise this issue at a better time. That was the thing about his mother, although she could be an incredibly kind and caring woman when she wasn’t angry, she was never very bright.  “How could you do that Phil! I was worried sick about you! Where were you?! You could’ve been killed! I was up half the night trembling, I couldn’t sleep, and you know what happens to me when I don’t get enough sleep! What happens Phil?!” Phil was almost too shocked at his mum’s outburst to speak. He hadn’t seen her this angry in an exceptionally long time.

Eventually he muttered a feeble, “You get sick...” which then spurred on his mothers tyrant of abuse.

“That’s right I get sick! Do you want me to be sick?! How could you be so selfish?! I’ve got the right mind to get you taken away, I can’t handle this any more! How could you be so selfish and do that to me?!” She held tears back behind a fierce stone face, willing with all her anger to stop her bottom lip from trembling.

They stared at each other for a very long time, both unwilling to make the first move. Then Phil’s mother couldn’t hold her bottom lip from trembling any more and with its release, a cascading waterfall of tears flowed down her cheeks.

With the tears rolling rapidly down his mothers cheeks, Phil gave in and gave her a hug, something he could sense that she was craving.

“My baby boy-“ stuttered his mum through the rivers of tears. “Where- where were YOU?” She burst out crying again, her chest heaving with the heavy breaths, which tried but failed to calm her down.

Phil was almost crying now too. “I’m sorry mum,” Was all he was able to utter before he started to properly cry himself. It was an emotional smoothie, the ingredients of which consisted of pain from his headache which had not ceased, sadness for his mother’s worry, guilt for being out all night and to some extent, uncertainty of his past, especially if his own memories had misguided him. “Mum, the-“ the tears had stopped for Phil now, they were but two wet streaks down his cheeks, but his mother was still crying so he had to choose his words carefully. “The reason I was out last night... It wasn’t because of you, it wasn’t your fault.”

“Oh God! What was it?” His mother cried.

“I was up on the hill, where the Hand of God thing is, walking Mila,” upon hearing her name, the dog looked lazily up from her tightly curled ball she had placed herself in. “And I slipped over, and... I don’t really know, I must’ve hit my head or something because I passed out... and,” Phil; whipped off his hood and turned around to show his mother his head.

She screamed in shock for a moment before her motherly instincts kicked in. “Oh my god Phil! Your head is red! Are you OK? Are you still bleeding, is the wound healed, did you compress it?” She ushered Phil to the dining room table, forcing him to sit onto a chair. She then went on a nit picking mission the way certain primates do. When she was certain that every inch of his head was checked she knelt down in front of Phil and looked directly into his eyes. By now Phil’s brothers and his dad had all gathered around him and his mum, drawn in by the eerie silence that had fallen over a usually nosey family. Phil starred back at his mother, worried. Silently Phillip came over to his wife and upon an indication of her shaking hand he also checked his sons hair, inch by inch.

His father spoke first. “Phil. Your head is covered in dry blood, like when you stop bleeding and it goes all scabby. But there is no lump, no cut, nothing that indicates that amount of blood. The only thing I found, as I’m sure your mother would have seen,” a quick glance to his wife, “maybe... is a thin, fully healed scar, as if you have cut your head open years ago.” He paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts. Phillip was a good thinker, much smarter than his wife was but only when he put his mind to it. Eventually, after what felt like hours to Phil, waiting anxiously, Phillip looked up into his sons eyes and laughed at him and his wife. “You silly sods,” he chuckled. “Phil you said you fell over yeah?”

“Yeah, I did, then I cut my head open or something and I blacked out.”

“No you didn’t,” he chortled. “The blood was already on the ground, must’ve been. Only explanation. Some rabbit or something like that, got its guts ripped out, slippery wet blood everywhere, you fall over and bang your head a bit.”

“Then why doesn’t he have a lump?” Asked his mother.

“Well...” This seemed to stump Phil’s dad. “He must’ve hit some grass or something, hard enough to knock him out, just not hard enough to give him a lump. Only explanation for it Sharon... Only explanation.” Phillip glanced at the crossword book he had tucked under his arm and then looked back at his son. “Go have a shower you grotty kid,” He gave his son a loving wink and then sauntered back into the conservatory, evidently pleased with his detective work.

Phil looked at his mum for approval. He still yearned for his parents praise. “Go on Phil, have a shower. I’m sorry for shouting at you, today and for yesterday, I’m just a bit tired.” She smiled at him again, obviously calmed by Phillips’ keen mind.

“But- I’m - there wasn’t any blood up there, I’m sure it was mine. I had some on my face too...”

“Then why is there not a cut on your face? Mila must have caught a bird or something, I don’t know, anything could’ve caused that. Like your father said Philly, it’s the only explanation. How else would you have had that much blood without any injury. It just makes sense what your dad says. Yeah?” She smiled again, forcing him to accept the answer that didn’t seem to fit the question.

Phil smiled as best he could and walked towards the stairs. He didn’t believe any of what they just said but he couldn’t think of a better answer than what he was given. He forced himself to forget it.

Drama over and Peter was back to playing with his Nintendo and Freddy ‘ coco pops boy’ Granger returned to the kitchen.

He glanced back over his shoulder at his mother when he reached the stairs and glimpsed, just for a second, a worried look upon her face, but by the time Phil could register the look it had disappeared behind a motherly smile, masking her true feelings as all great mothers do. He returned the smile and trotted off to his room to get a towel, his own thoughts racing through his mind.

Read on at:
 http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Lands-Power-Discovery-ebook/dp/B007JKAISS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1332602690&sr=8-1