Golden Mane, Book One of The Adventures of Sarah Coppernick

by SJB Gilmour

  Sarah stared at her uncle, gobsmacked. Then, with more guts than she’d guessed herself to have, she asked one more question. ‘What are the other ways?’

  ‘Usually if the original werewolf can’t be found…’ He shrugged. His eyes were sad. ‘Death. If that’s not an option… Well, let’s just say it’s possible, but not pleasant and not easy.’

  Silence. Sarah began to cry.

  Now Benjamin smiled at her reassuringly. That look always managed to make Sarah feel better.

  ‘Never mind, cub. If Mandy Kelly does turn, we’ll take care of it. I’ve some experience in the matter, so you needn’t worry.

  But Sarah was worried. Turn. There was that word again. It meant turn into a monster.

  Benjamin smiled again. ‘So, yes,’ he told her in an offhand way. ‘You probably did bite her. She had it coming, didn’t she?’

  Roberta put a gentle hand on her shoulder. ‘Never mind about Mandy Kelly just now Sarah,’ she told her. ‘There are other things you need to know.’

  ‘Like what?’ Sarah asked. She trusted her aunt and uncles completely, but this? This was really, really out there.

  ‘Full-blood werewolves like ourselves can change form any time we like, of course. That’s a given,’ she told her. ‘In wolf form, we’re usually quite strong and invulnerable. As humans, well,’ and she shrugged, ‘we’re robust, but not invincible.’

  Robert nodded in agreement. ‘If we’re hurt or sick as humans, it can take a while to recover. If we change form, then we normally recover quite quickly, especially in the sunshine.’

  ‘What about that stuff about full moons?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘Moonlight has some power,’ conceded Robert. ‘But not in the way you might think. Believe it or not, direct sunlight actually gives us more power than moonlight. Moonlight’s good for silver poisoning. It heals us. Silver seems to be attracted to it. If you have a cut or wound made by a silver blade, the traces of the stuff in your blood normally dissipate in moonlight.’

  ‘Like silver bullets?’

  Benjamin nodded seriously. ‘Regular bullets might sting a bit, but they won’t do you any serious harm.’ He shrugged. ‘I’ve never been shot by one of the high-powered guns they have now so I can’t say for sure. Silver bullets on the other paw…’ He waved his hand from side to side. ‘They’re a different kettle of carrots.’

  Sarah blinked at him. ‘Don’t you mean fish? And does that mean you have actually been shot before?’

  Benjamin looked surprised. ‘No?’ he said, ignoring her second question. ‘Who puts fish in a kettle? Boiled fish must taste awful! Boiled carrots… Now they’re delicious.’ He waved the matter off. ‘Sarah, silver is very nasty stuff. Silver or silver-edged or tipped weapons like bullets, arrows and blades can be nasty. Best to avoid them if you can.’

  ‘But why is all this happening to me now?’

  ‘Normally, the change comes on at puberty,’ Roberta started to explain.

  Sarah blushed. She didn’t want to discuss that at all, least of all in front of her two uncles!

  ‘So, my parents were werewolves too?’ she asked, burning with curiosity. Her tears had gone as fast as they had come.

  ‘Are’ corrected Robert. ‘And yep,’ he went on proudly. They’re two of the best ever.’

  ‘And you’re probably going to be quite a powerful werewolf yourself, Sarah.’ Roberta said. ‘Some werewolf bloodlines are more pure than others,’ she explained. ‘You see, your parents are both powerful werewolves with strong powers of sorcery. When they married and had you, their bloodlines converged.’

  ‘Your aunt is referring to the Golden Manes, a very rare order of werewolves with gold-coloured coats and vast powers,’ Benjamin said. ‘You noticed when we changed form, our coats were different colours?’

  Sarah nodded, absently twirling a strand of her own hair around her finger. A whole new world had suddenly opened up to her.

  ‘Well, your aunt and uncle here are Brown Coats, like your parents,’ Benjamin explained.

  Sarah looked at him. ‘What are you? Your coat was grey and black.’

  Benjamin nodded. ‘I’m a Silver Shroud, Sarah. We’re not as common as Browns or Blacks, but we’re usually more powerful and sometimes more intelligent.’

  Sarah felt herself bridle. The idea that Aunt Roberta and Uncle Robert were in some way un-intelligent did not sit well. They laughed, however.

  ‘It’s true dear, and it’s okay,’ Roberta assured her. ‘There are very few geniuses within any of the werewolf orders. Blacks and Browns like us have other talents that make up for any lack of grey matter.’

  ‘But back to you, Sarah,’ Robert interrupted. ‘We’ve seen your werewolf form when you’ve been asleep. We think that you might be a Golden Mane, but the only way to know for real is to take you to Wolfenvald.’

  ‘Wolfenvald?’ Sarah asked. The name seemed familiar to her for some reason.

  ‘It’s the place you’ve been dreaming of, Sarah,’ Benjamin told her. He smiled. ‘It’s a long, long way from here but it’s the home of all werewolves. We’ll take you there soon enough and when you arrive, the forest will greet you. Then you and every other werewolf alive will know what you are…’ His voice faded away and his eyes became haunted as if he remembered something rather unpleasant.

  ‘Enough for now,’ Roberta announced. ‘It’s time for lunch.’

  ‘Alright,’ Sarah said and she got up to leave. Before she could, another question came to her. She turned to Benjamin. ‘What really happened to my parents?’ she asked.

  Benjamin shared a long look with Robert and Roberta. ‘They were taken prisoner, Sarah,’ he told her seriously. ‘We’re not sure by whom or for what reason but we know they’re alive and that’s all.’

  Sarah blinked back tears. ‘Can’t we try to rescue them?’

  Benjamin nodded. ‘If we knew where they were, of course we would. As we speak, every werewolf alive is on the constant lookout for clues. We’ll find them one day.’ He smiled a little sadly and nodded at her. ‘Stubbornness is a very common werewolf trait. There are those among us who will never, ever give up searching until we find and free your parents.’

  This was awful and shocking news, but the way he told her so honestly and calmly made Sarah feel better somehow.

  After lunch, they went for a long ride so Sarah could enjoy her new bike. They rode along the bike track near their house until it joined the main one alongside the Yarra River. From there they rode around the Botanic Gardens. By the time they made it home in the early evening, Sarah was exhausted.

  Listening very carefully until she was sure Sarah was asleep, Roberta looked up seriously at Benjamin.

  ‘Something’s wrong,’ she declared, poking him in the chest with her finger. ‘You smelled it too. Something evil was nearby this morning. If that storm hadn’t come along, things might have turned ugly.’

  ‘It’s worse than that, gentle Roberta,’ Benjamin said seriously. ‘That storm wasn’t natural either. It was summoned, and I have no idea by whom.’

  ‘Is this the beginning you mentioned?’ Robert asked him. ‘Is this really why you’re bringing her into this?’

  Benjamin nodded. ‘Something evil was nearby us in that park. Whatever it was can’t be too powerful or confident enough yet to confront you both, especially now that you’re alerted to its presence. Sarah’s safe enough for now as long as you’re both by her side. We got her out of that school just in time. From now on, we’ll have to make doubly sure to keep our eyes sharp, ears pricked and snouts keen.’

  ‘What of the Kelly girl?’ Robert asked. ‘I know humans. They should be rounding up the police and lawyers as we speak to sue us. Instead, they’ve disappeared. They could have been taken by the hunters.’

  Benjamin was very grim when he answered. ‘Another reason I’ve brought Angela into this. To stop a thief, you hire a thief. To stop a killer…’

  Mandy Kelly had not been enjoying herself one little bit. First,
that horrible misfit Sarah Coppernick had bitten her on the arm just when she was about to really teach her a lesson. Then, after a very exhausting, embarrassing trip to the hospital, she had come home only to pass out. When she had woken up, she had discovered her hands and feet bound and some sort of thick canvas bag over her head.

  ‘Good morning,’ a voice she didn’t know said. It was male, and had a strange accent that she couldn’t place. It didn’t sound very nice at all.

  Mandy struggled against her bonds. It didn’t help. It just hurt. She began to cry.

  ‘You have no more need of those,’ the voice said.

  The cloth came off her head and her hands and feet were free to move again. It took a few moments for her eyes to become adjusted to the dim light. Then she could see that she, Mandy Kelly, of the Oakleigh Kelly’s was in a cage. The concrete floor was covered with straw. The only light was coming from a tiny window in the ceiling, several dozen metres above her head and the metal bars of her cage were as thick as her wrist. They were brown and black in places, but Mandy Kelly knew instantly what they were. Those bars were made of silver.

  Chapter Three

  Dressed in her awful school uniform, Sarah got out of the car grumpily. She didn’t see why she had to wear the silly uniform if she wasn’t in school any more. She had tried to explain the needlessness of it to Roberta. Roberta listened politely while Sarah made quite a reasonable and logical argument, then handed Sarah her lunch in a brown paper bag and kissed her on the forehead.

  ‘Hurry along now’ she said with a chuckle. ‘Uncle Robert will take you in to your new school!’

  So, poor Sarah slung her bag over her shoulder and walked up to the front door of the building. The building itself looked most ordinary. It was between a hospital and an apartment building on Punt Road in the very nice suburb of Prahran, just southeast of the city of Melbourne. The nearest corner was High Street. Benjamin’s office was an ordinary brown brick building with three storeys of windows, and big bluestone steps leading up to a big revolving glass door. Above the door was a weathered old brass sign.

  Heirogryph Publishers.

  Publishers of Educational Texts and Tomes.

  Sarah knew what texts were, but she had no idea about tomes. She assumed, like most rational-thinking people, that ‘tomes’ was just another word for books and Benjamin was just having a little joke when he named his business.

  Next to the sign was an old-fashioned coat of arms. It was of a large dog and a strange, winged lizard standing back-to-back with an open book between them and a large feather quill poised above the book.

  Nothing seemed in the least bit extraordinary about the building. Behind it, construction workers were busy with cranes and trucks. Men in overalls and hard hats were walking around, shouting at each other above the noise of their machinery. They seemed completely unaware that the building over the fence was the office of a werewolf.

  Sarah walked through the revolving door and into the foyer. She had no idea what to expect, and wasn’t exactly sure where to go or who to see. Benjamin had just told her to show up at eight-thirty in the morning with her usual school stuff and they’d get her started. Sarah didn’t even know who exactly ‘they’ were. As she walked into the reception area and up to the counter, she felt very small indeed.

  Behind the counter was one of the oddest sights Sarah had ever seen. A young, dark-haired woman was seated behind the counter, talking into a telephone. That part was quite normal. The odd part was that the woman was talking so quickly, her mouth seemed to blur and her words sounded very much like someone had pressed fast-forward. Whatever she was saying was impossible to understand.

  Sarah gaped at the woman and realised it wasn’t just her mouth that was moving very quickly. Papers shuffled about on the counter as her free hand moved like lightning. Her eyes too, flicked back and forth very rapidly. The last thing Sarah saw before this very odd woman disappeared in a whirl of disturbed papers was a brief glimpse of a nametag that read ‘Maddy’.

  Sarah stood, quite dumbstruck, with her mouth open and her head tilted slightly sideways, in the middle of the foyer of Benjamin’s office reception. Then another woman appeared out of thin air and took the seat so suddenly vacated. Sarah was almost disappointed when she picked up the phone and began talking quite normally.

  Perhaps because this second lady was not doing anything that wasn’t quite as bizarre as the first, Sarah relaxed a bit. She looked around both at the woman and the office around her. The lady seemed to be about the same age as Roberta and was quite pretty, Sarah thought. She was dressed in a well-tailored dark suit. Her lustrous black hair was tied back in a tight ponytail that looked as though it had just been trimmed. Now conscious that only mortals wore make-up, Sarah noticed that this woman wore no cosmetics at all.

  On the reception counter was a large glass bowl full of tiny silver feathers. Sarah peeked more closely at them and realised they were meant to be quills. Because they were so small, they resembled nothing more than tiny silver spoons with rough edges. Sarah assumed the quills were merely decoration and they were there because they fitted in with the whole business of being a publishing house.

  At the doorway was an old tarnished silver statue of what she now recognised to be a wolf. Two large bookshelves were on opposite sides of the room. One was neatly stacked with educational books published by Heirogryph. Sarah recognised a few from school and many looked like books for older students. The other bookshelf was not nearly so neat. It was dusty and contained, in no particular order that Sarah could see, dozens of musty old-looking leather-bound books with strange golden writing on their spines and covers. The odd thing about this bookcase, apart from the fact that it was so messy when its opposite was neat and tidy, was that it was completely closed off behind sliding glass doors. The doors were locked shut with a big brass padlock. It must be a display of antiques and curiosities, thought Sarah.

  Two enormous plush-looking leather couches were positioned comfortably on either side of the front counter. Towards the back of the reception area were two large glass doors through to the dispatch area. Sarah could see workers busily packing and unpacking boxes of books. Some books were obviously being wrapped up for posting to customers. Other workers were unpacking boxes that had been delivered to the rear of the building, where a large roller door allowed trucks access to back-in and offload their cargo. Everything seemed like business as usual.

  Sarah smiled to herself and flopped into one of the couches to wait. She wriggled into just the position that seemed to take up the whole couch. Just as she got really comfy, the woman behind the reception counter put the phone down and walked around to stand in front of her. Sarah squirmed awkwardly and just managed to get off the couch without falling over.

  The lady was very tall, and very slender. Her big dark blue eyes were bright and warm. Sarah felt very small in front of her and quite self-conscious. Her own appearance was quite scruffy, which was certainly not in the least bit out of the ordinary. Sarah’s hair, which had been so nice the day before, had reverted back to its normal shaggy state. She sighed to herself. Once, she thought. Just once, it’d be nice to be pretty.

  The tall woman bent forward so her eyes were the same height as Sarah’s. ‘Hello,’ she said brightly in a cultured English accent. ‘You must be Sarah Coppernick! It’s so lovely to meet you. I’m Miss Harding, but outside the classroom, you can call me Angela.’ She extended one hand to Sarah, who shook it nervously.

  ‘I’m glad you could make it so early, Sarah. Our receptionist told me you were here, of course, but I had to take care of that call first. I’m so sorry you had to wait.’

  ‘Hello,’ Sarah said, then went on bravely. ‘I wasn’t waiting long.’ She certainly didn’t want to cause any trouble, and the woman did seem to be very busy.

  Angela smiled, flashing some of the whitest, straightest teeth Sarah had ever seen.

  ‘It is always so nice to meet a young werewolf. They’re so polite!’ The
n she tilted her head understandingly. ‘I take it by your expression that you found Maddy a little strange?’

  Sarah nodded mutely.

  Again, Angela smiled. ‘She’s a quickling, dear. They’re related to elves, but much more polite and certainly more speedy workers when they need to be. It’s always a surprise to meet one for the very first time.’ She paused thoughtfully and made a slight disapproving sound with her tongue. ‘Far too overqualified to be a simple receptionist-come-proofreader, but then Master McConnell does like to take in strays like us.’ She patted Sarah on the shoulder warmly. ‘You and I are going to get on smashingly, I can just see it.’

  Sarah smiled in spite of herself. ‘I think so too,’ she said with much more confidence. Even though she wasn’t sure she was used to the idea of being a werewolf, she was glad this stranger didn’t think it was anything unusual. She was beginning to feel very curious about this strange new world.

  Then she noticed Angela’s earrings. They were little gold figurines of a man holding a drawn bow and arrow. Sarah was about to ask about them when Angela clapped her hands together.

  ‘Well, now you’re here and we’ve introduced ourselves, let’s show you around before we get started. This is quite a large building, and we can’t have you getting lost now, can we?’

  Angela then led Sarah through the building, pointing out various offices and corridors. Every spare section of wall was taken up with bookshelves, most of which were crammed full of all sorts of old-looking books.

  ‘It’s all just a front, you know,’ Angela confided to Sarah. ‘Master McConnell certainly is a publisher and his books are quite widely sold to schools and universities, however his real business is not with mortals.’

  ‘It isn’t?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘Of course not!’ Angela chuckled. Then she was more serious. ‘No, Master McConnell’s spellweaving trade has him very busy indeed.’