Chapter One
The Hidden Book
Read an opening excerpt. Text may change before publication.
Long before Teddy opened his eyes that morning, Hawthorn Hill was already awake.
It did not wake in a hurry. The towns beyond the Blue Hills might begin their days with rattling carts, banging shutters and voices calling across cobbled streets, but Hawthorn Hill preferred a gentler arrangement. It allowed the mist to lift from the meadow at its own speed. It let the old trees loosen their leaves one by one. It gave the birds first claim on the morning.
Mrs. Finch took that responsibility very seriously.
She stood high in the great oak above the valley, red chest puffed out, beak tilted towards the eastern sky. She had greeted the sunrise from that branch for years, and by now she considered herself less a witness to morning than its supervisor.
She examined the horizon, gave a brisk nod and announced, “Three minutes late.”
A sleepy voice rose from beneath the oak roots.
“The sun isn’t late.”
Mrs. Finch peered down. Mr. Bramble’s striped nose poked from the ferns outside his burrow.
“It most certainly is.”
“It arrives when it arrives.”
“It arrives,” said Mrs. Finch, “when I decide morning has begun.”
The old badger considered this.
“I’ve always suspected you think rather highly of yourself before breakfast.”
“I think accurately.”
Mr. Bramble chuckled and disappeared back into his burrow. Mrs. Finch watched him go, satisfied. Some arguments were worth repeating every day, especially when one was clearly right.
Inside the cottage, morning had begun in its usual way.
The kitchen woke first. A small fire glowed in the old range, copper pans caught the sunlight from the windows, and bunches of rosemary, thyme and lavender hung from the oak beams.
Arthur was already at the table, sleeves rolled above his forelegs, slicing a warm loaf with careful paws. He was a broad ginger-and-cream tom cat with kind eyes, flour on one cuff and the look of someone who believed a good breakfast could solve at least half the world’s problems.
Celeste stood beside the stove pouring tea. She was a pale cream-and-white cat with silver in her fur and a calmness that made even busy mornings feel easier. She glanced at the four mugs waiting on the table. None of them matched. One had a chip Arthur always promised to fix. Another carried a faded bluebird that Teddy insisted was still a bluebird, while Luna maintained it had become a blueberry through years of washing.
Arthur refused to take sides. He was wise enough to know some family debates were best left alive.
He sliced the loaf and smiled at the crackle of the crust. Bread, he often said, was a patient sort of magic. You could not bully it into rising. You could only give it warmth, time and the right conditions, then hope it became generous.
The scent of bread drifted from the kitchen, slipped under doors, climbed the staircase and found Teddy in the library at the top of the house.
Breakfast had always been talented that way.
Teddy became aware of warmth first. Sunlight lay across his white muzzle, coaxing him from a dream involving mountains, a rope bridge and a question he could no longer remember. He stretched on the window seat, one white-tipped black foreleg, then the other, his tail curling lazily behind him. Teddy was a young tuxedo cat, with short black fur and a white chest.
End of preview excerpt.
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