It’s #bookqw and something mysterious & ‘cold’ has caught Fern on a magical island.
More of the excerpt:
Fern tried pulling her feet free of some scrubby bush. Her right ankle was stuck and numb. It didn’t hurt, but it was super cold, colder than the rest of her. She couldn’t see what held her trapped, and a buzz of panic rose, intensifying her struggle. She put more muscle into it and felt something pulling on it, on her.
Fingers tingling, she clutched the tree, using it and all her strength to haul her leg free. It was like dragging a bag of mulch. Her numb foot was coated in murky slime. Strings of it stretched back to the bushes, pulling at her like a bungee cord.
She scrunched to the tree, got a better hold on it and looped one arm under her leg to hold it against the slime’s pull. I just need to lose the shoe. No way was she touching the slime, so she dug her heel in and wiggled. The laces were tight. A stick to loosen them would help. She reached—
“He wouldn’t be wrong, so she has to be here,” said a male voice. “Keep looking for a gap.”
Fern sat up fast. The slime yanked on her leg, nearly jerking her free from the tree. She held on. No one was in sight, but she heard erratic breathing between the kite’s weoo calls. Leaves rustled from two different directions as something moved closer… A guy crawled into view. Her breath caught, and he pivoted, close enough to touch if her arm hadn’t been around the tree. His rusty-red hair fell in curling waves around his face. Freckles dusted his cheeks.
“Hey, lass, there you be. Raven?” he called over his shoulder. “This way.”
For a moment, she just stared, because—geez—one second she’d been alone, and the next here was this big guy. He looked in his late teens, with green eyes and an accent. Scottish, or Irish, she didn’t know, but he wore some kind of traditional clothes, a pullover shirt with laces at the neck. He crouched on his heels, taking her in from wet hair to her slimed foot.
“Ach, that’s nae good,” he said.
~~~
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The Witch of the Meadows is available to buy on Amazon. Or read free with your Kindle Unlimited subscription.
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