Young Writers Society

Chapter One
Benjamin surveyed the crowded ballroom. His eyes lingered on the hostess of the party, Caroline Oxley. A servant carrying a tray of champagne passed him by and he stopped him with a touch on his arm.
“Excuse me, could you give this to Miss Oxley? Bring back one of her gloves if she wishes to dance with me,” Benjamin said in his American accent, handing the man a wedding ring.
“Certainly,” The servant headed off in the direction of Caroline. Benjamin knew the servant must be confused at what he had asked, but it was a credit to him that he did it anyway. Benjamin looked at his pocket watch; ten o’clock. It had been two hours since the body of Deborah Hillgrove had been found in the woods, brutally hacked with what appeared to have been an axe.
Benjamin averted his attention back to Caroline. The servant was talking to her when they both looked over in his direction. Caroline looked at Benjamin questioningly before accepting the ring. She looked over at him again and smiled, taking off her glove. As soon as the ring was in her bare hand, her face paled and became expressionless. The ring fell to the ground along with the glove and she turned and hurried from the ballroom, through the enormous double doors. Benjamin followed, picking up the ring and the glove on his way. He stopped behind a marble pillar when he saw Caroline talking to her maid in urgent whispers.
“What did you see, madam?” asked the maid.
“It was Deborah, she was lying dead in the woods!” The maid gasped in horror.
“How? When?”
“I don’t know, but it was probably just my imagination. I think I just need to lie down,” Caroline said.
“When have your visions ever been wrong?”
“I don’t know, Ivy! Just get me some water, I’m going to bed,” Caroline snapped and began pacing. Ivy curtseyed and scurried off to the kitchen. Benjamin emerged from behind the pillar once she was out of sight.
“Caroline,” he said gently, touching her shoulder. She jumped and whirled around.
“Oh, it’s just you,” she said, fanning herself with her hand. He offered her glove back to her and she stopped. “Where did you get that ring?”
He sighed. “I think you know.”
“What do you mean?” she asked nervously.
“I know what you can do, Caroline.” He flicked the ring in the air and caught it on the back of his hand. She snatched the glove back. “I overheard you talking to your maid.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” she said, turning on her heel and starting towards the stairs.
“It’s true, Caroline.” She froze. “Deborah is dead.” Caroline collapsed on the stairs, bursting into tears. Benjamin joined her, putting his arm around her to comfort her. Caroline sobbed into his arms, so distraught she forgot the proper way to act around men. Benjamin didn’t try to talk to her, even though he was extremely curious about her. He knew that there would be plenty of time for questions later, and right now she needed to mourn the loss of her friend. It wasn’t long before Ivy returned with the water. She stopped when she saw the pair embraced on the stairs.
“Miss Caroline?” Ivy said tentatively. Caroline took a deep breath before standing, brushing down her dress and continuing up the stairs, gesturing to Ivy to follow her, without a second glance at Benjamin.

Chapter Two
Caroline took off her sleep mask as Ivy opened the heavy curtains. It took a moment before she realised what the terrible feeling of dread she had in the pit of her stomach was, and the events of the night before came rushing back to her. Her best friend Deborah was dead.
Caroline remembered the excitement of getting ready for the ball that night. It was going to be Deborah and her husband, Gerald’s first formal appearance together since their wedding, a week ago. Caroline had seen Deborah only that afternoon, and she was sure she must have been the last one to see her, other than maybe her husband and household staff. And of course, the murderer. Caroline was sure Deborah must have been murdered. In her vision she’d seen her lying on her back in a pile of leaves, with several large gashes across her body. It was certainly no accident, someone had wanted Deborah dead. Caroline couldn’t imagine anyone who would wish Deborah harm, she’d never do anything to offend anyone.
Ivy cleared here throat to let Caroline know she was still in the room.
“Ivy…” Caroline started. What was she going to say? She couldn’t think of anything she could say or do to make this better.
“Madam, how are you feeling?” asked Ivy. Ivy was the only person who knew about Caroline’s gift. It was hard to hide anything from that girl. Caroline’s first memory of a vision was when she was five years old. Her mother had bought an incredibly expensive necklace from a woman who claimed it had belonged to a queen once upon a time. Caroline had picked it up and immediately she could see everywhere that necklace had ever been, which, unfortunately for her mother, was not around the neck of a queen. Caroline knew her parents suspected there was something special about her, but they pretended not to notice. They laughed it off, saying she was vague and silly, like everybody else thought she was. She preferred it that way. If people knew the truth about her they would avoid her and whisper unkind things about her, like that she was strange or even evil. Better everyone think she was just stupid.
Caroline didn’t answer Ivy’s question about her welfare, she just slid out of bed and Ivy went about dressing her. Ivy tried to make idle conversation while she brushed and curled Caroline’s long, dark blonde hair, but Caroline was miles away, staring blankly at her reflection in the vanity mirror. Ivy may as well have been talking to herself. Caroline picked up a brooch and images of Deborah and flooded her mind. It had been a gift from Deborah for her eighteenth birthday. Tears pricked her eyes and she stood up and pushed passed Ivy as she left the room.
“Wait, Miss Caroline, I haven’t pinned up your hair yet! Don’t go outside without your bonnet!” Ivy called out after her. Ignoring her, Caroline went out to the garden and lay down in the grass. She was shaded by rose bushes that also hid her from view of anyone approaching. Hopefully no one would find her there; she needed to be alone for a while. Unfortunately her peace was short lived as after only a few minutes of lying there, she heard her father calling her. If I just stay still and be quiet, he’ll go away, Caroline thought.
“Caroline! Caroline! There’s someone here to speak to you about… about Deborah!” he called. Eventually he gave up and went inside. Caroline sighed in relief. She didn’t want to talk to anyone about anything just yet, let alone about her best friend’s murder. What could she tell the police that would help them anyway? She closed her eyes and thought about Deborah. She let tears run down her cheeks as she remembered the times they had spent together since they’d been introduced at six years old.
Caroline couldn’t be sure how long she lay there, possibly only a few minutes, before she heard footsteps approaching. She lay perfectly still, with her eyes still closed, reassuring herself that no one knew she was there and no one could see her, thus no one would find her. But the footsteps kept getting closer until she was sure they must be standing right above her.
“Caroline,” a man with an American accent said. She only knew of one person in town from America, the man from last night. Regretfully, she opened her eyes and her suspicions were confirmed. Staring down at her was the man who claimed to know her secret, from the ball the previous evening. What could he possibly want? Did he want money? Was he going to threaten to tell everyone about what she could do? Instead of asking, or even getting up off the ground, like she knew would be the polite thing to do, she just stared back at him until either he told her why he was there or he went away. To her disappointment, he chose to tell her why he was there.
“Caroline, I need to speak with you, regarding the death of Deborah Hillgrove,” said the American. Caroline realised that she didn’t even know his name. She was silent for a while, deciding whether she should cooperate or tell him to leave her alone.
“Who are you?” she finally asked.
“Oh, I beg your pardon. I’m Detective Benjamin Adams,”
“Detective?” Caroline was incredulous.
“Yes, the police don’t wish to bother themselves with a murder, so they have asked me to step in.”
“So you’re going to find out who killed her?”
“That’s the plan.” A little more at ease now that she knew he didn’t want to out her secret, Caroline sat up. Benjamin held out his hand to help her up. She considered ignoring him and getting up by herself, but she realised now was not the time for childish games. After all, he was a good guy. He was going to bring Deborah’s murderer to justice. She took his hand and he pulled her to her feet. She straightened her dress and brushed the grass out of her hair. Benjamin raised an eyebrow at her dishevelled appearance. She glared at him. She wasn’t in the mood to be embarrassed or reprimanded about her untidy hair and lack of hat.
“What do you want to know?” she asked, getting straight down to business.
“I need you to tell me when the last time you saw Deborah was,”
“Yesterday afternoon, she left my house to go and get ready for the ball.”
“And then what did you do?”
“I got ready myself,” she said, as though it were obvious.
“And can anyone vouch for your whereabouts?” Benjamin asked, seemingly innocently. Caroline narrowed her eyes, knowing he was asking for her alibi, as if she may have committed the murder.
“My maid, Ivy,”
“Very well. I assume you knew everyone who was invited to the ball last night?”
“Yes, of course, I invited them myself.”
“Did you notice anyone missing?”
“Only Deborah. But there were so many people there, I couldn’t see them all at once.”
“Do you think you could provide me with a list of everyone who was supposed to be there last night?”
Caroline nodded.
“Do you know of anyone who would wish Deborah harm?”
Caroline shook her head.
“Did Deborah usually wear any kind of jewellery?”
“Not really, except she usually wore a necklace.”
“What kind of necklace?”
“Just a plain gold chain with a ruby pendant. It was given to her after her mother died.”
“Interesting…”
“Do you think it could have been a robbery?”
“The thought crossed my mind, but if it had been a robbery don’t you think they would’ve taken her wedding ring?”
“Yes I suppose you’re right.” The mention of the wedding ring gave Caroline a flashback to the night before and what she had seen when she held the ring in her hand. She wanted to ask Benjamin how he had known about what she could do, but she didn’t want to bring it up if he had forgotten all about it.
“One last question,” Benjamin broke into her thoughts.
“Yes?”
“How does it work?”
“How does what work?”
“You know, the thing you can do, with the touching and the seeing.” Great, he remembered. You don’t easily forget something strange like that, Caroline reasoned. Still, she wasn’t about to go admitting that there was something odd about her.
“That’s enough questions, go do your job now.”
“Come on, Caroline, are you really going to keep denying it?”
“Yes. Now please leave.”
“Fine, but you haven’t seen the last of me.” He was halfway across the garden when he turned around and called out, “You really should wear a hat, or you’ll get freckles.”
“Goodbye!” Caroline called back forcefully, giving him the hint that she was not amused. He laughed as he went back into her house. She breathed a sigh of relief as he closed the door behind him.

My first impressions of your writing is that it is a very unique storyline and that both the plot and the characters have lots of potential However, I thought that the story picked up pace very quickly, and so you might want to slow it down just a little before the different aspects become a little confusing. I liked the way that you focused more on the characters and the plot instead of dwelling on imense amounts of description, but you might just want to add a few more clues to the time period so that the story can develop a little more in it's surroundings. Also, I enjoyed the way that the story didn't focus fully on the murder, and that your other underlying plots, such as the vision ability, complimented the your other ideas without it becoming too dominant. Overall, I thought that this was a very good, dramatic opening, to a very unique and impressive novel!

thanks for the feedback!