Read Tara Duncan and the Spellbinders Online
Authors: Princess Sophie Audouin-Mamikonian
Tara Duncan and the Spellbinders
T
ARA
D
UNCAN
 S
PELLBINDERS
T
ARA
D
UNCAN
AND THE
S
PELLBINDERS
TRANSLATION BY
William Rodarmor
Sky Pony Press
NEW YORK
Copyright © 2012 by HRH Princess Sophie Audouin-Mamikonian; Translated by William Rodarmor
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Sky Pony Press, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.
Sky Pony Press books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fund-raising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Sky Pony Press, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018 or [email protected].
Sky Pony
®
is a registered trademark of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.
®
, a Delaware corporation.
Visit our website at
www.skyponypress.com
.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.
ISBN: 978-1-61608-733-3
Printed in the United States of America
ONTENTS
Chapter 2 A Midsummer Night's Scream
Chapter 5 Apprentice Spellbinders
Chapter 10 High Wizards and Evil Spells
Chapter 11 The Demon of Metaphors
Chapter 13 Magnificent Tingapore
Chapter 14 In the Bloodgraves' Lair
Chapter 16 The Swamps of Desolation
Chapter 20 All's Well that Ends Well, Sort Of
P
OWER AND
L
IES
S
he was in her nightgown, floating half a mile above the ground. It wasn't exactly what you would call a normal situation.
Tara swallowed and moved her feet a little. To her great relief, she didn't fall out of the sky.
That was something, anyway.
The dream she was having was bizarre, to say the least. She was flying above a highway. With a stab of fear, she abruptly descended and flew above a powerful black limousine, effortlessly matching the car's speed. It was night, and the peaceful sleeping towns and villages of the southwest were bathed in moonlight. Inside the car, four dark figures sat quietly, cautiously respecting the silence of the fifth, who startled them when he suddenly burst out laughing.
“At long last!” he said jubilantly. “What an honor and a pleasure to be the one to destroy the powerful Isabella Duncan! We'll reach Tagon in a couple of hours, and we attack tomorrow night. Be ready!”
Tara was shocked. Her grandmother, Isabella Duncan? She struggled to wake up, vaguely sensing the terrible danger emanating from the black car, but the dream was already fading, bearing the sleeping girl toward other shores.
As Tara stirred in her bed, the big limousine was eating up the miles, getting closer to the village of Tagon with every spin of its wheels. And the hiss of tires on the asphalt whispered
soon . . . soon . . . soon . . .
The magpie was late. Its golden, red-rimmed eyes glinting evilly, the bird chattered in frustration. Tara had once again escaped its surveillance. The bird anxiously scrutinized the village of Tagon as it passed beneath its black-and-white wings. If it didn't find the girl soon, it risked winding up roasted on a spit, something it really preferred to avoid.
The magpie suddenly dove. Whewâsaved! It had just spotted Tara's slim figure sprinting across the fields. The girl yanked a barn door open and slipped inside. The magpie cursed. Rats! What could it do now? It circled the old barn twice before catching sight of Tara's pursuer. He went into the barn too, and the bird flew in right behind him. It perched on the barn's ridge beam, where it could watch the action. Folding its wings, the magpie settled itself comfortably.
Hiding behind a big bale of hay, Tara held her breath. Her pursuer could arrive at any moment.
A creaking in the barn alerted her that he was there. He had followed her in. Tara pushed a little deeper into the hay, desperately struggling with an urge to sneeze.
A sudden deep chuckle made her jump.
“I know you're in here, Tara,” said a sinister voice. “I
feel
you're in here. And I'm finally going to get you!”
High above the scene, the magpie repressed a sarcastic cackle. It had a front row seat for the final actâgreat!
The person who'd spoken had yet to spot the girl, whose lightcolored clothes matched the hay enough to help her pass unnoticed.
Tara was watching as he turned on his heel, about to give up, when a field mouse clambered onto her left shoe. When it realized that the mountain it was climbing was alive, the mouse gave a discreet little “Eeek!” But Tara let out an “Aaaaaaahhh!” that rang through the whole barn. She shot out of the hay like a rocket, right into the arms of the person hunting her.
Realizing she was caught, Tara's reaction was completely instinctive and sent her attacker ten feet straight into the air. There he hung upside down, arms and legs flailing.
“Tara!” he yelled in protest. “You promised!”
“It was your fault,” claimed Tara disingenuously. “You scared me!”
“Well, that was sort of the idea,” a voice behind her murmured, making her jump.
“Betty!” exclaimed Tara in surprise. “Are you crazy, sneaking up on me like that? I almost had a heart attack.”
The chubby brunette smiled. Given her weight, Betty was amazingly light on her feet, and she moved like a cat.
“Tara!” yelled Fabrice, who was still hanging in midair. “Get me down!”
The girl snagged the strange white strand that stood out in her shock of golden hair, and started furiously chewing it.
“Ummm, the problem is that I don't know how.”
“What do you mean, you don't know how?” cried Fabrice in a panic. “I wanna get down! Do something!”
Tara concentrated with all her might, waved her hands, frowned fiercely, held her breath, and squinted her dark blue eyes. Nothing happened.
Stifling an imminent attack of the giggles, Betty tried to think of possible solutions.
In a complete panic, Tara turned to her.
“What are we gonna do? I can't even move him!”
Above them, the magpie was in no mood to laugh. Its eyes had practically bugged out of its head when it saw Tara levitate her opponent. By Demiderus,
the kid had the gift!
Wow, wow, wow. Things were about to get complicated. And the other two kids seemed to know all about it!
Fabrice quit struggling and let himself hover, glowering at Tara with dark eyes whose unusually long lashes drove the girls in Tagon half wild.
“Tara, try to remember,” said Betty calmly. “What were you feeling when you pushed him away?”
The girl thought carefully.
“Fear, anger . . . and some irritation at the mouse who mistook me for a hay bale.”
“All right,” exclaimed Fabrice. “What if I said you better get me down real fast because otherwise everybody's gonna learn about your gift and you'll wind up being dissected like a frog in some laboratory? What would you say then?”
“I'd say I still don't have the slightest idea how to do it,” she answered, her jaw tight.
Betty shook her brown curls and pointed to a neatly coiled rope hanging from a nail.
“What if we use that rope? We could pull Fabrice over to the hayloft. It isn't very far.”
In fact, he was floating just a few inches from the loft where his father's tenant farmers stored sacks of grain.
“You're right,” said Tara. “Let's try it.”
They took the rope and after several attempts managed to toss it to Fabrice, who tied it around his waist. Then they very carefully towed him over to the hayloft. He had barely touched the planking when all his weight suddenly returned. Caught unprepared, he almost fell. Then he raced down the ladder and planted himself in front of an embarrassed Tara, who was energetically chewing on her white forelock.
“All right, let's take it from the beginning,” he growled. “What did we agree on at the start of the game?”
“No levitation, no telekinesis, nothing,” she obediently recited.
“So please clear something up for me. When I was floating ten feet off the ground, what was that?”
“Levitation, no doubt about it,” said Betty with a chuckle.
“Listen, Tara,” Fabrice said, trying to keep his tone reasonable. “When you discovered you were some sort of mutant and told us about it, we all swore to keep it secret. But every time you use your gift, we've had problems. Like that time you wrecked the other barn and screwed up the tractor.”
“That wasn't my fault,” she grumbled. “Besides, you were the one driving the tractor.”
“Yeah, and I was the one who got punished. I'm happy to do experiments to try to understand what's going on with you, but not when we're just having fun.”
Practically in tears, Tara slumped to the floor.
“I don't know what to do anymore!” she moaned. “I don't want to be different! I don't want this stupid gift! And I especially don't want to send people flying whenever I get scared.”
Fabrice calmed her down.
“Come on now, this gift of yours is terrific. True, it's a little out of control right now, but that'll change, I'm sure of it. Listen, here's what I suggest: we'll have practice sessions every day. Vacation ends in two weeks, right? If between now and then we can't figure out what to do, we'll go see your grandmother and tell her everything.”
“Never!” snapped Tara savagely. “She's the very last person I'd want to talk about it with.”
“Why?” asked Fabrice, baffled by her anger.
“You know âBrutus,' don't you?”
“Pascal Gentard, the big bully? Of course. He tried to push me around, but since I'm as big as him, he wound up leaving me alone. Why?”
“In elementary school, he got his kicks cutting off girls' hair. So you can imagine, with that braid of mine, he couldn't resist.”