Silverdream & Bloodfire Chapter 1

Here's the first chapter of my fantasy novel. This will be a real-world chapter instead of a fantasy world chapter like the prologue. I hope you enjoy reading. Any comments or suggestions are welcome. Thanks for taking the time to read.

Chapter 1


Amanda Jennings had heard about the place a few months before from Dr. Frederick Carlaisle, Professor of American History. He had told her about it after he had learned that, although working on her Masters degree in Sociology, she also took courses in parapsychology.

Professor Carlaisle thought Amanda Jennings was a remarkable young woman. Despite being disabled and in a wheelchair from a birth defect, she excelled as a student and she never had let the disability hold her back from anything she wanted to do.

They sat in his small but well-kept office. Professor Carlaisle sat behind his oak desk with Amanda on the other side, in her wheelchair. On his desk lay a huge pile of papers, notebooks and folders from his classes. He knew he should start grading them. However, the pages in his hands distracted him.

They contained the notes he had written about the house they were discussing. According to the professor, a Dr. Harcort had contracted to have the house built around 1888. “The men who actually built the house believed Harcort was unbalanced.”

“Unbalanced? How?” Amanda inquired as she sat forward in her wheelchair and looked at him closely. The professor knew he had intrigued her. He did not realize that it was more than his information about Dr. Harcort that had caught her interest.

Amanda had signed up for his class not only because it was a requirement but also because she thought of him as an attractive man, even if almost twice her age. He kind of reminded her of Russell Crowe, although his dark hair was graying at the temples. Even so, that seemed to enhance his looks.

“The notes indicate the workmen said he was always raving about doors. Who knows what that was all about? At any rate, the rumor was, his research notes are hidden somewhere in the house.”

“You mean nobody has ever tried to find them?”

“The people in the area think the house is dangerous, a fire trap or whatever. At any rate, they won’t go near it and caution their children to stay away from the place.”

“Sounds pretty cliché to me.”

The professor just smiled and said, “It does, doesn’t it?” He leaned over his desk toward her, as if they were conjuring up a conspiracy. “Be fun for you to find out, don’t you think?”

Carlaisle also told Amanda that, late in his life, Harcort had been confined to a wheelchair. The more they talked about it, the more Amanda became eager to find the house and see it for herself.

Before she left his office, she asked her professor if he thought it would be a good idea for her to visit the place. He laughed and said, “Sounds to me like a good subject for your next end-of-the-semester report in parapsych.”

After leaving the university on a beautiful, sunny but cold afternoon with the notes that Dr. Carlaisle had given her, Amanda contacted a real estate agency in the area. The agent, Jessica Cummings, informed her Dr. Harcort’s estate owned the house, passed down through the generations, and was available for rent and had been for some time. The agent admitted, reluctantly, that no one had rented the house because it looked old, musty and creepy for most people, and the ones interested in renting it were undesirables who she and her clients felt would turn it into a drug house. Amanda told her that she wanted to go look at the place, and the agent, not seeming that interested in pursuing a wasted cause, encouraged her to do so.

She called a friend of hers, Larry Braden, told him what she was up to and asked if he would accompany her in case she needed his help around the property. The two had known each other all their lives. They had even dated for a while but it had not worked out. Although a nice guy, she found that his arrogance overshadowed his good looks.

She had thought about asking Jack Santiago, her lover for the past year. She knew Jack was not into fantasy and science fiction like Larry and she. She thought Jack would probably help her, but she knew he would probably think the whole thing silly and make annoying comments the whole time. She was not up for that. However, if she had to, she would ask. Fortunately, Larry agreed to meet her at the estate that evening and she gave him directions.

After changing into her Levi’s, top-of-the-line Reeboks—she liked designer shoes even though she could not walk—and a mint green sweatshirt, Amanda got her purse, digital camera, a small pad of paper for notes and a tape recorder, just in case she needed it. With the directions to the house in her jeans pocket, she got into her red van with a lift and hand controls, excited about seeing the place for herself.


As she drove up the long dirt lane, guarded on both sides by huge, lifeless oaks, Amanda got a good look at the Victorian house, which was framed by the fading sun. The gray house looked darker, larger, and, to her, maybe a little spookier than she had expected. Nobody had lived in the house for several decades. Even so, the place looked well preserved. The bushes and tiny evergreen trees around the front of the house looked neatly trimmed, as did the lawn. Amanda presumed the real estate agent had contracted someone to look after the grounds because it would be easier to rent if it did not appear run down.

Larry sat in his Ford pickup, waiting for her. When he saw her, he got out of his truck, opened the iron gate and waved her through. Amanda smiled at him as she passed. Still as good looking as always, she thought. As a boy, Larry had looked kind of scrawny, but over the years he had bulked up and gotten muscular. His well-styled dark brown hair and fierce brown eyes, not to mention the great tan he had acquired from all the outdoor activities he was fond of could easily make a woman do a double take. Jack and he were both good-looking guys. She felt pleased at herself for having two such good-looking men in her life.

A massive stone wall disappeared behind the small wooded area behind the house. She presumed it encompassed the whole estate. The driveway to the house looked like part bluestone and part grass with just enough stone to keep it from becoming a muddy mess during bad weather. After she entered the gate, she rolled down the window on the driver’s side. As she drove up to the house, she kept staring at it, almost feeling someone watching her. She knew that was crazy. She had noticed something else odd, too. Although the crisp breeze brought her the clean odor of the mown grass and trees awaiting a warm spell so they could bloom, she had heard no sounds except the wind whispering and moaning in the trees. No birds. No insects. She heard nothing.

As Larry walked over to the van, he watched Amanda ride down the van’s lift. While growing up, he seldom saw her around the neighborhood. It always seemed that she was in a hospital somewhere. Sometimes she would be away for several months. He had even heard her dad refer to the hospital as being her second home. When they did spend time together, he found her a lot of fun and she could almost get around in her braces as well as many of the other kids. They even played kick ball a few times together. With other kids in the neighborhood, he had always tried to act macho. But, with Amanda, he could always be himself. Although a few months younger than she, he had always felt like an older brother.

Their friendship had solidified after some new kids had moved into the neighborhood. Larry happened to come upon the kids picking on Amanda. When it was over, they never bothered Amanda again. The next day for no reason at all, he asked her if he could be her boyfriend. She had shrugged her shoulders and said, “Sure. Why not?”

But, he would always remember her compassion when his older brother had died a few years later. He could never open up to anybody else except her, and that day he had spent hours talking to her about the good times he had spent with his brother. He had cried and felt foolish, but she had told him it was okay. When she had wanted to end their boyfriend-girlfriend relationship, it had upset him but he felt glad they could still be friends. At that age, friendship was the most important thing.

Larry came up to her and gave her a hug. “How ya been? I’m just down the road a bit and I haven’t seen you or heard from you in ages.” He tried to look hurt as he straightened up but Amanda knew him better.

“Pretty good. I’ve just been really busy with classes and work.”

“So, what’s this all about? What’s this place?”

Larry leaned back against her van as Amanda explained what she knew about the estate. Larry already knew of her interest in the paranormal. While kids, she always talked about the science fiction, fantasy, horror and mystery stories she read. He noticed how her face lit up as she talked about what she wanted to accomplish at the estate.

When she finished, she said, “So, I’m happy you’ve agreed to help me get around this evening.”

“Okay. I see how it is. I haven’t heard from you in months. Now, you just want me here to help push you around this place. That about it?” He half grinned, half frowned as he pushed away from the van.

“Oh please,” Amanda said. “It’ll be fun. And, we can catch up on some things since we haven’t talked in a while.”

“Yeah, yeah. Okay. So, where do you want to start?”

Amanda asked Larry to grab her camera and purse from the front seat of the van. She placed the camera in the purse. She kept the purse on her lap while he pulled her up the front steps of the house. They looked rickety, but felt solid. She took a deep breath. With the sun very low in the sky, the house looked and felt even darker and more ominous.

She found the front porch wide enough for her to turn around in her wheelchair. While Larry leaned against one of the posts at the top of the stairs, Amanda rolled up to the big front door which had one large arch-shaped pane of glass. Etched on the wooden frame around the glass as well as on the glass itself, she saw bizarre patterns and animals. A large spiral design with a yellow circle in its center sat in the center of the glass. At the two bottom corners of the glass and the two sides of the arch at the top, she saw profiles of figures facing the design. She studied each profile in turn, intently.

At the top, on the left, one of the profiles looked like an eagle with its beak open. Across from it, she saw another profile that looked like a man with long flowing hair. Beneath the eagle, in the bottom left corner, she saw the profile of a canine face with sharp upright ears. In the other bottom corner, she saw a feline face with teeth bared. She also saw lines etched in the glass from the central design to each face, as if each drew strength from the spiral. She found it all odd, beautiful and almost spiritual. She took a picture of the door and then went up and tried the doorknob. As she expected, it was locked. She tried to peer inside. She raised up in her wheelchair as far as she could. But, she could not raise up high enough to see anything. She asked Larry to look inside and tell her what he saw.

Larry found it tough to see details in the diffused light but he relayed to Amanda what he could see. A chandelier with four tiers of candles and teardrop crystals hung in the center of the wide corridor. At the other end of the hallway, he saw two stairwells that curled up toward the second floor. In the entranceway, he found sparse nondescript furniture and decorative objects scattered about. Paintings hung on the walls of the hallway, but Larry could not tell what they portrayed.

“Going to have to get inside if you want to know more,” he said. She agreed and he maneuvered Amanda down the front steps.

When they got to her van, she turned around and held up the camera. After putting the camera back in her purse, she backed up and once again retrieved the camera and refocused on the entire mansion, from the top of the turret on the left to the bottom of the front steps. When she had it all in the camera’s screen, she pressed the button to take the picture. She then took a good look at the image on the camera’s playback screen: The tall white Ionic columns, the elaborate white decorations around the façade and each empty dark window along the front.

Amanda did a double take. In a small window on the third floor, she saw what looked like a face, as if someone stood at the window, watching them. Then again, she thought, maybe it’s just some kind of glare or a spot in the picture. Had someone broken into the house? Certainly no one lived there. She looked up at the window, then again at the camera screen, shrugged, turned the camera off and started to slip it into the middle compartment of her purse.

“Hey, what’s up? You had a strange look on your face.”

“It’s probably just some kinda glare on the picture but take a look.” Amanda turned on the camera again and displayed the picture of the mansion. Larry studied it from over her shoulder.

“Hmmm. That is odd. You’ll probably see it better when you get it printed. You were planning on printing these out, right?”

“Sure.” She looked at the image again and shrugged. “Maybe it’s nothing.”

The porch wrapped around the right side of the house. She pushed her wheelchair around to the side and stopped in front of it, taking in every detail. As Larry took her up the side steps, he complained, “We should’ve stayed on the porch.”

“I couldn’t have taken my picture from there,” she reminded him with a smile.

The steps led to a side door and she sat there with her camera and purse on her lap, wondering if she could see anything inside from where she sat. She saw the same curious design from the front door etched on the side door as well. As she stared at it, even under the darkening sky, she became filled with a sense of excitement, fear, and curiosity.

Instead of trying the doorknob, as before, she had Larry take her down the steps. She rolled backwards through the grass and, using the flash, snapped another picture. When she studied the dark image on the screen, she saw no faces in any of the windows. After slipping the camera back inside her purse, Larry and she went around to the back of the house.

Amanda thought it odd that the rear of the house was not as decorated. She saw just plain glass in the door and no carvings anywhere. She took a picture anyway, using her flash, as darkness was closing in on them.

She spied a path leading from the back of the house to a copse of tall evergreen trees. As they strolled along it, the gravel crunched under Larry’s shoes. That and the feeling someone might be watching her made her more than a little nervous. Having some trouble pushing herself through the gravel, Amanda let Larry take over and push her the rest of the way.

They stopped just inside the small thicket, letting their eyes adjust to the dusk, before moving on. She berated herself for not thinking to bring a flashlight. The gravel path led into a clearing where a small, brown cottage stood. She wished they had come earlier. She thought about taking another picture, but decided that even with the flash she would not get much.

As they approached the front of the cottage, Amanda found the feelings of excitement and fear so powerful she sensed every nerve in her body tingle. The cottage was not fancy like the mansion. In fact, it almost looked like an ordinary storage shed. The path led up to the front door. Except for a brass knocker and a doorknob, she saw nothing special about the door. Since she had no steps to deal with, she could move right up to one of the windows to the right of the door. She peered through the glass, even though the darkness inside made it hard to see anything. Sighing, she turned to leave when she heard it. At first, it sounded soft and low, almost like the whisper of the wind in the trees. It was the first noise she had heard since entering the property. She sat quiet and listened again. It sounded like a chorus of voices, drifting on the night air.

“Do you hear that?” She looked at Larry for confirmation.

“What? I don’t hearing anything.”

“I’m not quite sure what it is. Almost like whispering voices but I can’t make them out.”

“It’s just a breeze that’s come up,” Larry said.

Amanda listened again, then shrugged. “I guess you’re right. That image in the window has me spooked.”

“Maybe it’s a good time to leave,” Larry suggested. “It’s too dark to see anything anyway.”

“I guess you’re right,” Amanda said. “We can come back another time. Tomorrow maybe.”

She wasted no time getting to her van. When she started the engine, she looked back at the dark foreboding place. In the same third-floor window where the face in the picture had appeared, she thought she saw the flickering of a light as if someone had lit a candle. A knot formed in her abdomen and she sped out of there, taking half the time to drive home that it had taken for her to get there. Larry followed her home and stayed with her for a few hours, making sure she was all right.


It took several days for Amanda to get her thoughts together. During that time, she stayed away from her classes. She saw and talked to no one, except for Jack and to ask her boss, Mrs. Julie Carter, if she could have a few weeks off from her part-time secretarial job. During that time, terrible dreams harassed her of people clawing at her, clinging to her and calling to her. When the nightmares and feelings of dread left, she pulled herself together and resumed her studies. She also became determined to find as much information on the Harcort estate as possible.

Over the following weeks, Amanda spent most of her free time at both the university and local libraries trying to learn as much as she could about Dr. Harcort and his creepy estate. She learned very little. She found an old picture of Harcort, which she had copied. She knew her friends, and especially Jack, were concerned about her, but she felt that doing the research would help her get over her fear of the place. Time not spent at one of the libraries was spent in her apartment alone staring at the four pictures she had taken. She knew she was becoming obsessed with the house, but she could not help herself. Once Amanda had all the information she could find, she made an appointment with her parapsychology professor, Dr. Michael Stevenson. He had expressed a great deal of interest in the subject, especially when she had told him that she had actually seen the place and had taken pictures.


“You won’t believe the information I found on this man, Professor,” she said as the tall, gray-haired, neatly dressed sixty-three-year-old man ushered her into his office. He moved the straight-backed chair in front of his black marble-topped wooden desk and she maneuvered her wheelchair in its place. Amanda could never sort it out in her mind why but, ever since she had started attending his classes, she had mixed feelings about him. As an instructor, she found him quite good. He addressed each topic in a serious and thorough manner. However, as a person, she found him rather standoffish. She also knew about his ambition. She wanted him to help her look for Harcort’s research notes for that very reason. She knew finding them would give the professor notoriety as a scholar. Something he always talked about.

“I’m quite sure you’ve found some fascinating information on Dr. James Harcort. But, first let’s see those pictures and tell me about your visit to his grand estate.” He sat behind his desk and looked at Amanda expectantly with his gray eyes.

“Of course, Dr. Stevenson. I found a photo of the scientist, too.” She placed the copy of the picture of Dr. Harcort on the desk in front of the professor. The old photo showed a man in his sixties with thinning, white hair, and wire-framed glasses.

“Yes. He’s a very distinguished-looking gentleman,” Stevenson said with only a cursory glance at the photograph. “Now, tell me about your visit to his estate.” He looked at the young woman, eagerly listening to everything she said as she showed him the pictures. She talked about the estate while he closely studied each picture. Reluctant to point out the shadowy face in the first picture, she decided if he noticed anything, she would act innocent about it. She also decided not to tell him about the voices near the little cottage or about the light she had seen before leaving the mansion. Maybe she had just imagined all that. She did not want to sound like a stupid girl in front of the professor.

“That’s about it, Dr. Stevenson.” Amanda started to retrieve the pictures from the desk, but froze when the professor spoke.

“What’s this in the window? Did someone go inside the house?”

“Uh...No, sir. No one was there but me.” Amanda looked at the picture that had grabbed the old man’s attention. She was unsure why she did not mention that Larry had helped her there. “Do you really see something?” The minute she asked, she wished she had kept her mouth shut. She tried her best not to look guilty.

“Yes, I do, Ms. Jennings.” Dr. Stevenson looked at her closely. “Are you sure you’ve told me everything?”

She sat in front of the desk with the pictures in her hands, her hands on her lap, nervously shuffling them. “I’m not sure what it was. I just figured it was something from the printing process. There was nobody in the house. I looked in the windows.” She was glad she had not told him about the other things that had happened. She did not feel like being interrogated about something she did not even understand.

“I see. Very well. Now, tell me what you found out about Dr. Harcort.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. Even so, Stevenson looked at Amanda suspiciously. He sat forward in his chair and waited for Amanda Jennings to begin. The professor felt sure his brightest student was omitting something very important about her visit. But, he would not press too hard at the moment. He felt positive that, in time, he would find out what information she withheld.

“Okay. Most of the information I found came from psychic journals. He was born in 1842 in Massachusetts. As a boy, he was a loner, but he also had a vivid imagination. Around the age of ten, he began having dreams about people who used magic and about unusual animals that could communicate with people. He began thinking, after a while, that these were more than dreams. That these were real people. Real beings. He also believed that there was another world where magic was genuine. Was honored. Was a way of life.

“He was much older when he went into science, but he didn’t last long in it because nobody believed his suppositions and he had no way to prove them. He sensed that, if he could find the right place to build a house, to live in it, to conduct his experiments there, he’d prove to them his ideas had merit.”

“That’s when he found the property where he had the house built, right?” the professor asked, folding his hands on top of his desk.

“That’s right,” Amanda replied. “The only thing is, a few years after the house was built, about 1902, nothing more was heard of him. The last information I found about him was that, after he built the house, he was confined to a wheelchair. Then, that’s it.”

“Well,” the professor interrupted. “It looks like you and the pseudo scientist have something in common.”

Amanda flushed from the comment. She found it rude and uncalled for, but she felt she needed the professor’s help, so she made no reply. “He was supposed to have kept research notes on his experiments, but they’ve never been seen.”

The professor smiled at her uncomfortableness. “They could’ve been in the house somewhere.” He pushed his chair back, stood up and looked over the several pages of notes Amanda had written. “Maybe in a hidden room, behind a wall, or someplace where no one’s ever looked,” he mumbled to himself.

“A hidden room?” Amanda looked up from her notes to Dr. Stevenson nervously, almost expecting, fearing, that he would ask her more about her visit to the estate.

“Oh, nothing. Just thinking aloud. Have you found out anything else?” He crossed his thin arms over his narrow chest, looking across his desk at the attractive, intelligent, yet naïve, helpless, disabled child sitting in his office, just right for him to manipulate.

“No, but I’ve been thinking of actually going inside and looking around. Maybe I could rent the house for a while. It would give me plenty of time to search the place, and if I don’t find anything, I’ll move out. And, I’d be honored if you’d help me, sir.” Amanda spoke with trepidation, yet feeling she needed his assistance. She placed her notes into her small brown briefcase, feeling relief that the interview was about over.

Michael Stevenson showed her to the door. “Of course. I’d be delighted to help. And, if you do happen to find his notes, what a treasure that would be.”

“Yes, I know! I’ll call the agency and see if I can rent it tomorrow.”

“Don’t you already have campus housing?”

“Yes, but it’s prepaid for the rest of the semester. And, I suspect the rental fee for the Harcort place won’t be too much. It’s not in very good shape and hasn’t had any tenants.” Then she added, “And, I’ll come around and check on the campus apartment from time to time. I won’t be able to take everything over to the old house and will have to pick up stuff periodically anyway.”

Stevenson tuned her out. He wished he had not asked her about her personal business. He began fiddling around with papers on his desk when he heard, “I’ll let you know. Thanks for your help.”

“Ah...not at all, Ms. Jennings,” the professor said. “Ah...just let me know when you’d like to start your search.”

After all the years of working hard to gain prominence, he knew that, if those notes could be found and the late scientist’s theory exploited in the form of a book, Dr. Michael Stevenson would finally get his name out there. He watched Amanda roll down the corridor in her wheelchair. A thin smile formed on his lips. He would find out what information she held back. After all, she was a mere girl. He was a doctor, a professor and a well-learned and respected man.