Clocksworth Academy Read online

  CLOCKSWORTH ACADEMY

  by

  Penny BroJacquie

  CLOCKSWORTH ACADEMY

  Copyright ©2020 Penny BroJacquie

  All Rights Reserved

  Editing: Learning To Fly

  Cover Art: Cosmic Cream

  All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Clocksworth Academy (The Order of the Black Rose, #1)

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  PENNY BROJACQUIE’S BOOKS

  Acknowledgments

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  In loving memory of my grandfather, Yannis Triantafyllou

  CHAPTER 1

  *

  A cheeseburger lathered in thousand island and grilled onions. That was what Floriana wanted for her last meal.

  The thought came to her as she saw the lion lunge for her - all nails and teeth. She wondered if she would taste as delicious as a burger.

  Floriana managed to roll out of the lion’s way, but it still caught the flesh of her shoulder which tore as easily as wrapping paper on Christmas morning. A strong scent of metal filled her nostrils and she knew that even though adrenaline prevented her from feeling the injury just yet, the bleeding was substantial enough to be serious.

  An excited crowd of Romans cheered loudly in anticipation; to them, death was a form of entertainment.

  Drops of sweat rolled down her forehead; she swung her head from left to right to get rid of them. Her heart was pounding like a wild animal in a cage; she took a deep breath to help her inner beast calm down.

  “Is this a dream?” she whispered to herself as she looked around trying to figure out where exactly she was and what that place was.

  Apparently, she was standing under the hot sun in the center of the sand stage of what looked like an ancient Roman amphitheater. Hundreds of men wearing beautiful draped togas and women in colorful stolas occupied the seating tiers that surrounded the central performance area.

  “Is this some kind of cosplay event?” she wondered as she looked down at her legs. Her skinny jeans and leather sneakers were in stunning contrast with the audience’s roman costumes.

  As much as she tried, Floriana couldn’t understand what she was doing there. She couldn’t even remember how she found herself in that arena. The last thing she remembered was her being in the attic of her aunt’s house, hoping to discover any objects that belonged to her parents before they had passed away when she was a child.

  However, there was one thing she was sure about; she had to get out of there immediately. She should retain her calmness and clear thinking even if nothing made sense to her.

  The roar of the lion made her realize that her life was still in danger. The animal was alive and very hungry. What kind of cosplay event would allow a wild animal to threaten an attendee?

  The crowd clapped and yelled, as the trapdoor in the floor of the arena opened, and a leopard rushed on the stage.

  “Damnatio ad bestias. Condemnation to beasts. Daniel in the lions' den.”

  Floriana’s heart thudded in her chest as she realized that she was the protagonist of a Roman-like spectacle in which a condemned criminal was killed by lions or other wild big cats.

  “What the heck l am I doing here?”

  The blood pounded in her ears. She needed to find a way to get free. She had to act fast, run fast. And she ran away from the animals, to the stone wall behind. But there was no way out.

  With her firsts she hit the wall, hoping that she would make a couple of stones to fall down. It was her last desperate attempt to survive. She wasn’t ready to die. She had dreams to fulfill. This couldn’t be the end. Next month she would turn eighteen years old and her journey into adulthood would start. The future laid in front of her in full glow. She frantically punched another stone, and then another, and then another.

  The starved animals bounded toward her, when a heavy iron door opened with an awful terrifying sound and two men entered the stage.

  The first one wore a loincloth along with a belt and a gaiter on his right leg. His helmet was decorated with a fish on the crest, his arms were covered by arm guards and his feet with thick golden wrappings. He was a well-built man and carried a gladius.

  The other one wore a broad-rimmed helmet that enclosed his entire head. His chest armor was decorated with a stylized griffin, and he wore thigh-length greaves. He had a curved sword in his hand which he wielded playfully to show off how little he was afraid of the two wild animals that were already in the arena.

  They were gladiators, armed combatants who fought to the death with other gladiators, wild animals, and condemned criminals for the enjoyment of the audience.

  As the two gladiators circled the lion and the leopard, Floriana slowly stepped back close to the iron gate.

  Suddenly, the gladiator who carried the gladius attacked the leopard and a sound of excitement came from the audience. It was a short-lived sentiment though, as the wild cat jumped over the man’s body and plunged its teeth into his neck. A stream of blood sprang from the wound and slowly took the man’s soul away.

  Floriana hadn’t overcome the shock from the gladiator’s agonizing death just a few meters away from her, when a quick motion at the other end of the arena stage drew her attention. The fierce lion had made a spring towards the other man and jumped on him. The two bodies crashed against each other and the curved sword dropped from the gladiator’s grip.

  Moving fast, Floriana approached the fighting duo, grabbed the sword from the ground and slipped back away. She turned the weapon to the leopard, although the beast was still nibbling on the dead gladiator’s body.

  Without his sword, the man seemed doomed. Before the lion dipped its teeth into his flesh, the man rapidly wrapped his hand in his cloak and plunged it in the lion’s mouth. Seizing fast hold of the lion’s tongue, the man killed the mighty beast. A deafening cheer rose from the crowd when the fierce gladiator lifted his hands up and waved at them. He was now their hero and they would demand his reward for this extraordinary bravery.

  Floriana looked at the curved sword in her hands. The golden symbol Λ was beautifully crafted its silver handle.

  “This is Lambda, the letter of the Greek alphabet. It was widely known as a Spartan symbol because it stood for Laconia or Lacedaemon and was painted on the Spartans' shields. What is going on here? Where am I? Or should I say ‘when’ am I?�
��

  She pinched herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming.

  “Maybe I’m stuck in a dream.”

  She scratched her skin with the curved edge of the sword until a drop of blood surfaced. The sensations assured her the surreal situation was really happening.

  “Am I really in ancient Sparta? How could that be real?”

  She lifted her eyes up to the gladiator who was still being cheered by the exuberant crowd and a crazy idea popped into her head.

  “Could this Λ be the initial letter of a name?”

  Floriana’s eyes bugged out as they darted between the man and his curved sword.

  “His face reminds of someone; someone I have never met before as he existed before my time. Could he really be... could he really be... Lysimachus?” she muttered to herself right before the leopard jumped onto her and she whirled down into a vortex that dragged her down into darkness.

  CHAPTER 2

  *

  Dipped into an abyss, Floriana floated in pitch black, surrounded by darkness and silence.

  All of a sudden, bright red dots appeared in the dark, moving steadily towards her as she moved her hand in front of her and lifted it closer to her face.

  “It’s the ring,” she whispered as she stared at the silver ring with the black agate stone which she had found in her auntie’s attic right before she had inexplicably found herself in an ancient Roman arena facing a wild beast. In the attic of her aunt’s house she hoped to discover any objects that had belonged to her parents before they passed away when she was a child.

  Her father had died after a short illness when she was two years old. She didn’t even remember his face. Everything she knew about him came from stories her mother had told her and some photographs she had given to her.

  When Floriana was eight years old, her mother joined a humanitarian mission in Colombia as a volunteer doctor. The car she was in fell off a cliff and caught fire. Her mother was burned alive. Floriana was then sent to live with her mother’s sister, Dora. Her mother trusted Dora so much that she had appointed her to be Floriana’s guardian in her will. After the funeral, Floriana went to live with her aunt in her house in London.

  They had been living there for the last ten years, but it was the first time that Floriana had decided to sneak into the attic in search of her family’s keepsakes. She had already spent a couple of hours, battling against dust and spider-webs, looking at old photos of her mom and dad and feeling the sensation of their old clothes on her cheek, when she discovered a small ring box inside in an old wooden chest underneath a pile of blue and green woolen blankets.

  She felt queasy the moment she put the ring on her finger. Everything started to swirl until everything was black and she plunged into darkness. There was no ceiling, no floor, no walls; she was whirling into the void.

  Suddenly, a red light flashed brightly. Floriana plunged again, this time into a bright vortex. Her rapid descend stopped abruptly as she landed on hard soil with a sandy surface.

  She was standing in the middle of a Roman arena, facing a lion that looked at her as if she were his next snack. And she would have become that if she hadn’t been drawn into another vortex that led her to the dark void she was now floating in.

  “Does this have something to do with that Λ symbol on that gladiator’s shield? Was it a symbol indeed or it was the Greek letter Λ? I jumped from that arena to where-the-frak I’m now right when I set my eyes on that symbol.” She tried to connect the dots.

  “Or... or was it the name?” The black ring flashed a red ray as she moved her hands as if swimming. “It was when I said ‘Lysimachus’ out loud that I jumped. How on earth did this happen? Why is this happening to me? And how? This is all so surreal. I can’t believe this is happening to me.” She looked at the hand where the black ring was still flashing red. Could this be the key to solve the mystery?

  “Tell me what your secret is.”

  Bright red dots appeared in the dark. Gleaming, they started out as being tiny but grew bigger and bigger as they moved steadily toward her. When they reached the size of a palm, Floriana noticed that they were in fact symbols. Trying to balance in the air, she reached out her hand to catch one of those symbols.

  When her fingers almost touched one of them, all the bright red symbols started swirling around her. Her body started to swirl around clockwise, in the opposite direction to the symbols which now had an illuminating red color, like flames in the darkness.

  A symbol resembling the English letter C passed by; and then a symbol that looked like an upside-down fishing hook.

  “These are letters. And runes. Or just runes, I don’t know.” She fumbled for the symbols in reach of her hands. They didn’t only depict letters and runes; there were also birds, animals, and objects. However, it was a coin that drew her attention and she grabbed it with her hand as it passed by in front of her.

  “A tetradrachm,” she said astonished as she examined what looked like an ancient Greek coin. If it was an authentic one, it would have been made of silver. However, that one was made of a hard material that was glowing in the dark. And it looked exactly like the ancient coins she had once seen in the Monetary Museum she had visited with Dora. The image of a horned Alexander the Great was imprinted on the one side. On the other side, a Greek inscription read ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΛΥΣΙΜΑΧΟΥ, which meant “of King Lysimachus”.

  Before she could blink, the bright red coin exploded with a loud noise and a huge black hole appeared in front of her.

  The blast wave caused a powerful wind, which, with a loud whistle, grabbed Floriana and carried her away through a dark vent.

  “OUCH!”

  Floriana cried out in pain as she fell on the ground after a long ride falling through the dark vent. She slowly stood up in pain. Her eyes watered trying to adjust to the bright sunlight.

  She stood confused on a mosaic floor portraying a lion hunt and Dionysus riding a panther. A long sequence of paired columns led to a palace on the top of a hill.

  Best case scenario, she was a victim of a prank. That would not have been a first; she was accustomed to being bullied at school for her curly red hair and freckles.

  Worst case scenario, everything she had been through so far was freaking real. And she had no idea how to deal with it.

  She looked around; she was in the middle of a courtyard circled by large buildings of white marble.

  “An ancient Roman or Greek scenery again.”

  There must have been a connection between that courtyard and the arena where she had found herself earlier. Finding out what the connection was seemed to be the only way to find her way back home.

  She walked through an astonishing gateway with a six-columned Doric façade of white and grey marble on either side. The ceiling was painted blue with gold stars, and marble statues were lined across the entire hall. The walls were painted with brightly colored frescoes. Well-crafted couches and side tables were placed next to the walls, were decorated with white and gold cushions. Men and women were reclined on golden divans, eating, drinking and engaging in powerful debates.

  They were all dressed in white Grecian style, and everyone seemed too drunk to be bothered by her 21st century attire with skinny jeans and sneakers.

  “When the wine is in, the wit is out”.

  She grabbed a light blue veil from a divan and covered her hair and torso.

  Slaves were serving big silver plates with cheese, onions, and olives, along with mashed beans and lentils. The guests were eating bite-size pieces of meat with their fingers which then they wiped on slices of bread to clean them up. Plates with grapes, figs, and honey-based sweets, along with kraters with white and red wine were placed on the tables.

  The aristocratic host was lying on his golden divan on a platform across the chamber. It was covered with zebra and leopard skins. The man’s white tunic was pinned with a golden porpe, and an elaborated golden oak wreath adorned his blond short curly hair. He wasn’t in a happy mood th
ough.

  He was sitting with his neck bent slightly to the left and he was looking at a man who was standing upward at an angle in front of him. His frame was small but well-built and his face was clean shaved. However, it was the melting glance of his eyes that caught her attention.

  One iris was a different color from the other. “He has one blue and one brown eye, a high complexion and a harsh voice.”

  Floriana felt that she had seen pictures of him in that history book Dora had bought for her last Christmas.

  “Could he be...? Nah!”

  The young aristocrat was having a quarrel with a man in front of him. Floriana took a silver plate with figs and chestnuts in her hands and moved closer. She almost dropped the plate when the man, disappointed by the turn his conversation with the aristocrat had taken, turned his back and his face was revealed. He was the man Floriana had encountered earlier in that ancient roman arena. The man she had identified as Lysimachus. Which would only mean one thing; the young king with one blue and one brown eye was no other than Alexander III of Macedon.

  “Alexander the Great,” she whispered, and a ray of bright red light emitted from her ring and once again Floriana was dragged down into a dark whirling abyss.

  CHAPTER 3

  *

  A harrowing dead-stick landing followed Floriana’s downwards flight into the dim vortex.

  She opened her eyes and tried to put her hand onto her ailing head. Her limb was on a handlock attached to a heavy chain that clanged eerily when she tried to free herself. It was so dark and so hot. Hot as hell.

  Her other three limbs were free: no shackles on them. “What on earth is going on?” she muttered, as she blinked to adjust her eyes to the darkness. She was sitting on a cobblestone floor, a few inches away from a wall. She fumbled for the iron shackle where her hand was locked in, but the metal was so hot that she had to retract her fingers.