Golden Key

Johannes Steuck

Description

A stranger at a railway station, secretly slips Ara a golden key. Moments later he is arrested by the much feared, security police. The key unlocks gateways into other worlds of wisdom beauty and terror.A totalitarian regime and a pandemic grip the world, threatening freedom, and human survival. Ara and two friends are propelled into the forefront of the struggle. Each is endowed with a special magical ability: the intuition of the moment, glimpses of the future and memories of times long past.The certainty of their mission is almost extinguished. A fluke accident and the shadow of death puts them back on track. White magic meets black, courage and self-sacrifice struggle against illicit knowledge and a lust for power.Love is the most potent weapon against evil, but will it be their undoing?

Sujets

• Fantasy (canción de Mariah Carey)
• Fantasy

Informations

• Publié par: Distributed by eBookpartnership
• Date de parution: 19 mai 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781839524325
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

First published 2022
Copyright © Johannes Steuck 2022
The right of Johannes Steuck to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the copyright holder.
Published under licence by Brown Dog Books and
The Self-Publishing Partnership Ltd,
10b Greenway Farm, Bath Rd, Wick, nr. Bath BS30 5RL
www.selfpublishingpartnership.co.uk

ISBN printed book: 978-1-83952-431-8
ISBN e-book: 978-1-83952-432-5
Written by Johannes Steuck
Illustrations by Martin Steuck
Cover and internal design by Andrew Prescott
Printed and bound in the UK
This book is printed on FSC certified paper
I dedicate this story to my grandchildren
Contents
Foreword
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
About the Author
Other works by the author
About the Illustrator
Foreword
This story grew in the telling. For quite some time Martin and I had imagined a collaborative project of image and writing, the time never seemed quite right. Coronavirus lockdown found him housebound in Glasgow, and me looking after my elderly parents in Ireland. The time was right!
One small nugget of imagination grew into a mountain. Every new strand of story impelled Martin into incredible artistic activity and inspired me into pushing the tale further.
The story digs deeply into our collective mythology as well as having a strong contemporary resonance.
In wintertime, when deep snow lay on the ground, a poor boy was forced to go out and fetch wood. When he had gathered it together, and packed it, he wished, as he was frozen with cold, not to go home at once, but to light a fire and warm himself a little. So, he scraped away the snow, and as he was thus clearing the ground, he found a tiny, golden key. Hereupon he thought that where the key was, the lock must be also, and dug in the ground and found an iron chest. ‘If the key does but fit it!’ thought he; ‘no doubt there are precious things in that little box.’ He searched, but no keyhole was there. At last, he discovered one, but so small that it was hardly visible. He tried it, and the key fitted it exactly. Then he turned it once round, and now he must wait until he has quite unlocked it and opened the lid, and then we shall learn what wonderful things were lying in the box .
Grimm’s Fairy Tales
Part 1.
The Station
She’s seven years old. She’s at the railway station with her mum waiting to meet Dad. She needs the loo really badly. Mum says okay, it’s just over there, I’ll wait for you here. She runs across the waiting area, comes to a complete stop. Somebody is watching her from a bench, an oldish looking man. She can’t take her eyes off him, stares mesmerised. Almost against her will she walks towards him. His clothes are old and worn out, shoes scuffed, trousers patched. But there’s something about his face that attracts her, it’s almost as if she’s seen him before. His eyes are warm and friendly, he reaches out his hand, involuntarily she stretches out hers. He passes her something small and hard and says very quietly, ‘Never show this to anybody, use it when you must.’

The spell is broken. Tightly clasping the thing she runs to the loo, locks herself in the cubicle and opens her hand. In it there is a tiny golden key, the shaft ends with a strange symbol. When she’s finished she goes out. Two men in dark clothes approach the man, force him off the bench and escort him away. They seem very cold and scary.

Dad arrives. She loves her parents; they are very wise and understanding. She feels a little awkward. She has never really kept any secrets from them, but somehow, she knows not to tell them about the key. They get into the car outside the station. Mum drives, they go home.

Pillow Talk
At bedtime, when she’s been kissed goodnight, she looks at the key. She gets out her little box of treasures. The little pink stone, the jay’s feather, a handful of sequins, the thin gold chain she got for her last birthday and a piece of blue and white pottery with two flying birds painted on it. Something makes her put the key under her pillow – she’ll put it in the box tomorrow morning. She falls asleep.

Dream
She’s alone in a small dark place. Then a wrenching sound as a door opens. Big strong hands lift her off the ground. Something is burning, there are great flickering flames in the sky. She hears loud bangs, screams, people running around. Then darkness. She wakes up with a beating heart, terrified.
The Party
She goes to a birthday party of Zoe, one of her school friends. There’s a lucky-dip bucket by the door as they go in. All the kids have to reach in and get something out, a piece of paper telling them what do: sing a song, do a little skit, tell a joke, do a trick. She gets the guessing game.
The party food is great, cake, jelly and ice cream. Zoe starts. She hands around little biscuits she’s made. Steve tells a really silly joke, Cloe sings, Charlie does a skit – no one quite knows what it’s about. Then it’s her turn. She has to sit in a circle with the others, blindfolded, and guess what they are holding up. She gets three goes, after that it’s somebody else’s turn. Joe calls out, ‘What is it? What is it? Guess away, guess away or come again some other day.’
She doesn’t even have to try; she knows straight away. ’Dustpan,’ she says. Next it’s Clair with a spoon and then Ollie with a bit of string. Right every time. The children get restless and angry, she hears, ‘Cheat, Cheat,’ being chanted. Sue, Zoe’s mum comes over and reties the blindfold, she says, ‘Okay, one more go.’ Steve holds up a bit of Lego from his pocket. She gets it right. No one wants to play anymore. They have drinks and leave.

She’s upset and wants to run home, she only lives around the corner. Outside, Charlie’s mum stops her. Charlie is a small shy boy with a very round head and big eyes. Charlie’s mum is very friendly and says, ‘I know what you did, I know you didn’t cheat. You must be careful, lots of other people don’t understand. If you ever need someone to talk to, come to me. Charlie is like you. Goodbye.’
The Cupboard
Things are not good at school. Even her best friend Zoe doesn’t like her anymore. At play time everybody ignores her. She feels sad and lonely. Charlie watches her from a distance.
One day just before going home time, it’s her turn to sweep the classroom. She goes to get the broom and dustpan from the cupboard. A bunch of five kids sneak up on her and push her in. She hears the key turn in the lock. It’s pitch dark. She hears laughter, ‘Weirdo, Weirdo,’ and footsteps running away.
She freezes, doesn’t call out, clamps up in a ball. What’s she waiting for? She knows someone will come, he promised, but it seems an awfully long time. Yes, he promised and said he would give her a little present, the man at the station. No – now she remembers, he’s lying in the snow, dead. It’s very dark.
The door opens. It’s Charlie, he says, ‘Mum’s just outside, you can come home with us and have tea.’ They stop off at her house to make sure it’s okay.
Tea at Charlie’s
Charlie’s house is big and spacious. They have tea. Charlie says, ‘You’re not a weirdo, I sometimes know what’s going to happen. Dad says there are many people like us, that we are sort of different, new.’
Charlie’s mum says, ‘I think it’s a little like a jump, or like children growing up, for a time nothing much seems to happen and then suddenly there’s a big change. Humans are going through a big change right now. For now, it’s probably better not to stand out. I know it’s difficult, but just pretend you’re like everybody else. Don’t worry, you will find each other, you will know who your friends are!’
Four years later.
Mrs Leggit
They are tormenting her again, the thin straggly woman with the odd clothes, shouting abuse and throwing things. As she and Charlie came around the corner, Shorty was just throwing a half-empty Coke can at the thin stooped figure. The whole gang was there, Wretch, Froggie, Spam and Crocker, catcalls and fag-ends fly through the air.

She ran up with Charlie and shouted, ‘You should be ashamed of yourselves, ganging up on a poor defenceless old woman.’

They all stopped, turned and stared, then Shorty said sneeringly: ‘Oh, look it’s the weirdos.’ Things might have turned nasty if two security policemen hadn’t appeared at the end of the street. The gang fled.

Charlie said, ‘Let me help you with that bag.’ He picked up the plastic bag and looked at Mrs Leggit. That wasn’t really her name, nobody knew what she was really called. She didn’t seem that old and she was smiling warmly.
‘Great, carry it home for me, we need to talk.’
They trudged through the dingy streets and came to a nondescript house. Mrs Leggit lived on the third floor. It was a wretched flat, run down and in need of a coat of paint, but there was something different, special about it. She had some beautiful things, seashells, crystals, bits of twisted wood, interesting pictures. And then Ara saw it, the little golden key identical to her own, hanging from a golden chain around a candle stick. It was as if somebody had struck her hard in the stomach, a cold shiver went down her spine.

Mrs Leggit said, ‘Yes well, that’s why I brought you here.’ She motioned them to sit down on the hard sofa. ‘You see, I was the One before you dear, that key was given to me, oh, sixty years ago, before it all started. I suppose I better tell you a bit more: the world wasn’t always like this, so fearful and un-free. It started with the riots and ended with the peacemakers. The peacemakers brought order and fear. We all woke up one morning and nothing was the same. You had to be very