eBook
Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
Related collections and offers
Overview
The thrilling conclusion to the Ravenscliff trilogy and “its brew of New England Gothic, character driven suspense and childhood magic” (Christopher Rice, New York Times–bestselling author).
A returning threat roams the halls of Ravenscliff Manor—the mad sorceress Clarissa—but she is only one of many problems facing Devon March. His budding relationship with Cecily takes a hit when he discovers she might be his (gulp!) sister, while his pal Marcus is mysteriously linked with the savage, gorilla-like beast that turns up in Misery Point on nights of the full moon.
The only way to solve these mysteries is to take another trip down the Staircase Into Time, with Devon emerging at the Ravenscliff of thirty years ago. A time when his guardian Amanda and the mysterious Rolfe are toddlers, and the Madman, Jackson Muir, is very much alive.
Praise for the Ravenscliff series
“Seriously scary . . . Best described as Buffy meets teenage Goosebumps . . . Not for the squeamish!” —The Sunday Times
“The terror begins on page one and never stops! This is my kind of book—filled with magic and dozens of frightening surprises.” —R.L. Stine, New York Times–bestselling author
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781626810754 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Diversion Books |
| Publication date: | 09/01/2018 |
| Series: | The Ravenscliff Series , #3 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 260 |
| Sales rank: | 712,760 |
| File size: | 4 MB |
| Age Range: | 12 - 18 Years |
About the Author
Under other names, Huntington writes suspense and horror novels as well as many nonfiction titles.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Inside the Walls
Devon March swung the sledgehammer over his head and brought it crashing down into the wall.
"Whoever you are," he called, "we're about to finally meet!"
At last. The answer he'd been after for months. Just who lived behind this wall? Who was it that called his name, who seemed to hold the answer to the mystery of his past?
A woman, Devon thought, from the sound of her cries.
He had first heard her when she'd been kept in the tower of Ravenscliff, when he'd seen a light up there that was routinely denied by everyone else. Then he had seen her moved down here, to this sealed-off room in the basement with no door. And despite his powers — despite all the sorcery that was his birthright as part of the Order of the Sorcerers of the Nightwing — Devon had never been able to penetrate the wall.
That was why he'd had to resort to the sledgehammer.
The plaster crumbled easily under its weight. Devon lifted the hammer over his head and swung again. He broke through this time. He'd smashed a hole into the room.
"Back up," he called to whomever lived inside. "I don't want to hurt you."
But she was silent now. A moment ago she had been sobbing, and she had called him by his name.
Her name, however, remained a mystery despite the fact that Devon's Nightwing intuition — he used to call it the Voice — had told him that he knew her name already.
But what could that name be?
Once more Devon swung the sledgehammer over his head. One more blow and he would have a hole large enough to crawl through, even if he had to break more of the drywall with his hands. He readied himself to hit the plaster with his mightiest blow yet.
But all of a sudden he couldn't move his hands. The sledgehammer remained immobile over his head.
"You mustn't try," came a voice. "Please, please stop!"
Devon knew the voice. It belonged to Bjorn Forkbeard, the caretaker of Ravenscliff, a little gnome who was almost seven hundred years old. Devon twisted himself around and saw that Bjorn, standing on a wooden box, was holding the sledgehammer in place with his stubby but very strong hands.
"Let go, Bjorn!" Devon shouted.
"No, Master Devon! I was brought here to Ravenscliff to guard that room, and guard it I shall!"
Devon relented, loosening up on his grip on the hammer. Bjorn let go as well, jumping down from his box. Devon allowed the sledgehammer to fall to the concrete floor of the basement with a loud clang.
"So, it's just as I suspected," Devon said. "That was the reason Mrs. Crandall brought you here. To guard whoever it was she kept in the tower — and then had moved down here!"
"Well," said the little man, shrugging, "that and other reasons. Ravenscliff did need a caretaker, you know. And I'm a pretty good chief cook and bottlewasher, as you can attest yourself!"
Bjorn tried to laugh as he looked up at Devon, but the teen sorcerer refused to crack a smile. When he had first came to Ravenscliff, Bjorn had inspired a deep distrust within Devon. He had been unable to determine just whose side Bjorn was on, whether the gnome was good or bad. Too many things had happened in this house for Devon to trust anybody on first meeting.
But in the subsequent battle with Isobel — the renegade Nightwing witch from the fifteenth century — Bjorn had shown his true colors, and Devon now considered him an ally. He knew Bjorn was loyal, as all the gnomes were to the sorcerers of the Nightwing. Yet, ally or not, it was clear that the wily Bjorn still had a few secrets he'd been keeping from Devon.
"Who's behind that wall, Bjorn? And why am I not supposed to know?"
Devon lorded over the little man, who stood no taller than three and half feet. His skin was very pink, and his hair was white and unruly. A short beard forked in two under his chin. Hence his name.
"Answer me, Bjorn!" Devon poked his finger at the gnome's chest. "We've been through enough together now that the time for secrets is over!"
Bjorn's struggle with his loyalties betrayed itself on his flat pink face. "Ah, but I have told you, Master Devon. I may have been hired as her keeper, but I have never known her name — nor her history."
"Well," Devon said, turning back toward the wall, "we're about to find out."
"Mrs. Crandall will be furious," Bjorn warned him.
Devon smirked. "I've long stopped worrying about Mrs. Crandall's fury."
Whether that was completely true or not, it sounded good, Devon thought. He was tired of living under Mrs. Crandall's thumb. After all, he was the one -hundredth generation of Nightwing since the order's founder, Sargon the Great, and momentous things had been destined for him. It was about time he found out what they were — and he wasn't going to let Amanda Muir Crandall stand in his way any longer.
He reached into the hole in the wall and began breaking apart the plaster with his hands.
* * *
Ever since last fall, when he'd come to Ravenscliff to live, Devon had searched for the answers to his past. He'd grown up the son of Ted March, an ordinary auto mechanic — or so Devon had thought. But as his father had lain dying, he'd told Devon that he had been adopted. Not a word about who his real parents were, just the revelation that he was being sent to live with a family Devon had never heard of before: the Muirs. Losing Dad — who was the best father any kid could ever ask for — was hard enough, but to be sent away from his home, his school, and his friends made it ten times more difficult for Devon. A few days after the funeral, Dad's lawyer had placed Devon on a bus and sent him off to a windswept village on the rocky coast of Maine. The place was called Misery Point. Arriving in a raging thunderstorm, Devon had quickly grasped how the town had gotten its name.
Since then, Devon had lived in the mysterious dark house atop the cliff, and bit by bit, he had uncovered clues about who — and what — he was. For Devon had never been an ordinary boy. Since he was a toddler, he'd had supernatural powers: being able to levitate his dog, for example, or turn all the desks around in his classroom with just the merest thought. Dad had never explained why he had such powers, only that they were to be used for good. Neither did he explain the presence of the demons — those filthy, hideous beasts that lived in Devon's closet and periodically attempted to drag him down into the putrid chasm Dad called their Hell Hole. "You are stronger than they are," Dad had always told him. "Remember that, Devon. You are stronger."
Yeah, I'm stronger, all right, Devon thought now. I've proven that. I've been down a Hell Hole and emerged again to speak of it. Few people, even Nightwing, could make that claim.
Learning that he was a Sorcerer of the Nightwing had been the biggest revelation in Devon's fifteen years of life. He'd discovered that his father had been no simple auto mechanic, that he was, instead, a centuries-old Guardian who had raised and taught generations of Nightwing. Why, then, had he never told Devon the truth of his heritage?
The teenager had been forced to learn that on his own, with the help of Rolfe Montaigne — the sworn enemy of the Muir family who was, nonetheless, the son of a Guardian himself and who was, even now, trying to uncover as much as he could from his father's books to help Devon understand why Ted March had sent him to Ravenscliff.
Yet the answer to that question, Devon suspected, lay not in any book — but here, behind this wall.
Devon, the woman's voice had called to him many times. It is you! You have found me!
And now, Devon thought, I have found her.
"Hello?" he shouted through the hole in the wall, his voice echoing. "I'm coming through. Show yourself! Where are you?"
"Be careful, my young Nightwing master," Bjorn cautioned him from behind.
Devon took a deep breath. It was dark behind the wall. And still. As if no one was there, or ever was.
"Don't go quiet on me now," Devon called again. "After all these months of crying and calling my name."
He swung one leg over the broken drywall and pulled himself through the hole.
The dim candlelight from the cellar coming through the hole was not enough to illuminate the dark space behind the wall. Devon cupped his right hand and snapped his fingers. Instantly a glowing ball of white light appeared in his hand. He smiled to himself. When his Nightwing powers worked so effortlessly like this, it pleased him to no end. Sometimes they didn't work. But he was learning to master the powers that had once seemed so unruly and unpredictable.
He glanced around the room. The ball of light in his hand allowed him to see his surroundings very well. There was a bed, recently slept in, and a small table with a tray of dirty dishes sitting on top of it. Devon examined it: a bowl of soup, half eaten. Bread crumbs were scattered across a plate. And beside the plate, a worn, leather-bound book. Picking it up and bringing it close to the light, Devon looked at the cover. It read Prayers and Meditations. Opening to the front page, he read a signature in faded blue ink: Emily Day Muir.
"Emily Muir?" Devon asked out loud.
He'd seen the ghost of Emily Muir several times since coming to Ravenscliff, a pitiful spirit that had haunted the great house for more than thirty years now. Who would be reading her prayerbook — and why?
Devon turned around, looking back toward the hole. Bjorn was peering through it with anxious blue eyes.
"Someone is being kept prisoner in here," Devon said. "Who is it, Mr. Jailer? And why does she have Emily Muir's prayerbook?"
"I told you, Devon. I have never known her name."
"Then where is she now? How did she get out of here?"
The gnome moved away from the hole, wringing his little hands.
Devon looked around some more. An armoire with one door open. Clothes hung from hangers inside. Robes. And long sheathlike dresses.
"This is inhuman," Devon muttered. "Keeping someone in here like this."
But she was gone. Clearly there was another way in — and out.
"How did you bring her food?" Devon shouted back over his shoulder to Bjorn. But there was no answer forthcoming. The gnome was clearly torn between loyalty to Devon and service to his employer, Mrs. Crandall.
Then the teenager spotted something in the far corner of the room. A shadow. An outline of something.
He approached, holding the ball of light beside his face so he could see.
It was a door. A sliding panel that led from this room into another.
He slid the panel as far as it would move and stuck his face inside to get a good look around. It was completely dark. He moved the ball of light in closer.
And suddenly, revealed by the light, Devon saw a face, just inches from his own.
The face of a wild-eyed, crazy-haired woman, laughing silently at him.
"Whoa!" Devon gasped, taking one step backward.
Now the woman's laughter was heard. She seemed terribly amused that Devon had found her, as if they'd been playing a game of hide-and-seek. She cackled hysterically, then turned and darted off into the darkness behind her.
For a moment Devon was too shocked to follow. But once he'd shaken off his daze, he held the light out in front of him so he could see where she'd gone. He observed that the panel led not into another room but to a staircase, and he caught a glimpse of the woman's feet as she scurried up the steps. Her footsteps faded out as she climbed upward into the house.
"Don't follow her," came Bjorn's voice.
Devon looked over his shoulder. The gnome was leaning through the hole, distraught.
"Do you think I've come this far to just let her go?" Devon's voice was loud and insistent. "Bjorn, that woman knew my name! She clearly knows who I am!"
"She is mad," Bjorn warned him. "Insane. You can see it in her eyes."
That much was true. That face — it had been terrifying. Devon couldn't tell if the woman was twenty or ninety. Long white hair ... pale skin ... bulging eyes ... that maniacal laugh. Crazy she certainly was, and probably dangerous.
But his Nightwing intuition was telling him to pursue her. Danger there might be, but nothing he couldn't handle. He was Nightwing. One-hundredth generation and all that.
"Mrs. Crandall will be furious," Bjorn reminded him.
Devon turned and scowled at the gnome. "If it's your job you're worried about, Bjorn, I can't help you there." He looked back up the secret staircase that led somewhere into the great house. "This is just something I have to do."
"Oh, do be careful, my young friend," Bjorn fretted, his voice trembling.
"Look," Devon said, "in the last few months I've handled two renegade Nightwing and assorted demons of all shapes and sizes. I think I can handle one crazy lady."
But this one crazy lady seemed to know something that none of the others had.
She knew who Devon was, and where he came from.
Yes, he could handle her, Devon thought — but could he handle what she knew?
Somehow, his intuition told him, what I am about to learn will change my life.
With the ball of light held aloft, Devon started up the stairs.
* * *
He was inside the walls of Ravenscliff.
That was what he realized as he continued climbing the stairs. Narrow, twisting passageways, the space so small that he couldn't extend his arms fully in either direction. Looking around, he saw that the woman could have gone any which way. The stairs frequently veered off in different directions, leading all through the great house. By now Devon was certain that he must be on the second floor, as he'd been climbing for at least five minutes. His quarry could have taken a dozen routes different than he had. She might have been anywhere within these passageways. How would he ever find her?
He would use his sorcery, that was how.
He closed his eyes and visualized the house as it stood on the top of the hill, overlooking the sea on one side and the village of Misery Point on the other. It was a creepy old place, to be sure, but pretty majestic, too: floors made of marble, shiny black wood inset with stained glass and crystal. When Devon had first arrived at Ravenscliff, he had been awed by all the ornamentation, what Mrs. Crandall called the family's "trinkets." Suits of armor, crystal balls, carvings of shrunken heads — Devon would later learn that these were the souvenirs from the Muir family's many years of sorcery.
But most wondrous of all were the ravens — those black-eyed familiars of the Nightwing, which had long roosted all over the house, but which had disappeared when the Muirs had renounced their sorcery. That renunciation had come after a terrible event — a tragedy the Muirs called the "Cataclysm" — in which Mrs. Crandall's father had died in the Hell Hole that existed under the great house. The decision was made at that point to end the family's long association with the Nightwing. Accordingly, the ravens had flown off into the darkening skies that very night, with the belief that they would never return.
Yet they had. The ravens had come back. They had settled all over the house, taking up their former places of honor, when Devon March, his Nightwing powers intact, had come to Ravenscliff to live.
And Mrs. Crandall had been none too happy about it. More than once Devon had seen the lady of the house angrily shooing the birds away from the terrace. But she knew that so long as a Sorcerer of the Nightwing lived at Ravenscliff, the ravens would remain.
Good thing, too: the ravens had saved Devon from a demon attack not long ago. He'd come to feel a great fondness for the black birds with their shining dark eyes. They were his; they were part of who he was and where he came from.
If only they could talk.
For despite all that he had learned during these past several months at Ravenscliff, Devon still did not know the answer to the central mystery. If Ted March hadn't been his real father, then who was? And his mother — who was she? Had they both been Nightwing? What had happened to them? Why had they sent Devon away to be raised by Ted March? And why had Dad, on his deathbed, sent him here to Ravenscliff? What was the connection between this house and Devon's past?
She knows, his Nightwing intuition told him. The woman I'm pursuing now ... she knows. She knows who I am.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Blood Moon"
by .
Copyright © 2013 Geoffrey Huntington.
Excerpted by permission of Diversion Publishing Corp..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.