Read Online Alfie Bloom and the Secrets of Hexbridge Castle by Gabrielle Kent - Free Book Online

spent two hours out there, waiting for news. That’s when I really started to think about this place. The people I had seen were wearing clothes from hundreds of years ago. I started to wonder if they were ghosts!
    â€œThe next time one of the women ran past, I asked how long people had been living in the castle. She said that it had been lived in since it was built fifteen years ago. When I told her that the castle was hundreds of years old, she laughed and said, “Well, of course you would say that, but here and now, it is fifteen years old.”
    â€œSo, what … you time travelled?” said Alfie. He half expected his dad to top it off by saying he had learned to fly too. “How? Was it something to do with the castle?”
    â€œI don’t know. I didn’t ask, because that’s when I heard you crying. The sound knocked every other thought clean out of my head. The ladies filed out of here and I came in to find your mum holding you all bundled up in a blanket. We couldn’t believe how perfect you were for something so tiny. A few minutes later there was a knock on the door.”
    â€œOrin Hopcraft?” whispered Alfie. His dad nodded. “What did he look like?”
    â€œHe was wearing a tunic and had thick, grey-brown hair tied back with a strip of leather and a long, plaited beard. It was difficult to tell his age; he seemed old but there was something very youthful about him.”
    â€œEmily said that he was a druid. Was he really?” asked Alfie. He had read about druids at school: they were teachers, magicians, astrologers, warriors and philosophers. He couldn’t believe his dad might have actually met one.
    â€œPerhaps the last, from what he told us. He said you were a child of two times, as much at home in his time as ours. But because your mother and I didn’t belong there, the universe wouldn’t let us stay much longer. Then he said that he had something to give you for safekeeping. His right hand glowed with a white light and he touched his fingertips to your forehead. The light seemed to be absorbed into you, and then everything around us started to fade.
    â€œI woke up in a hospital chair. Jenny was sleeping in a bed nearby with you tucked up in a cot beside her. If it hadn’t been for the blanket you had been wrapped in we might have thought we had imagined it all. The only person we told was your granny – she’s the only one that would have believed us. After your mum died, I hardly thought about it again. It was just a strange, hazy memory until a few days ago.”
    Alfie sat hugging his legs, chin resting on his knees. He had hardly moved during the tale and sat deep in thought trying to piece everything together.
    â€œSo, the thing he did with my head, did he tell you what it was?” asked Alfie.
    â€œThere wasn’t time. We thought it was some sort of blessing.”
    The amazing story whirled around Alfie’s head. A child of two times… He suddenly remembered their first meeting with Caspian. Hadn’t the solicitor said something about him timeslipping on the last day of term? Alfie decided it was time to tell his dad about the strange, misty place he had been transported to, but he strategically left out the fight with Vinnie and Weggis and the fact that he was nearly hit by a car.
    â€œThis is incredible,” said his dad. “Caspian was right. You must have timeslipped, back to before the city existed and most of the land was forest!”
    â€œYou’re seriously saying that you think I time travelled? How is that even possible?”
    â€œThink about it. Although you grew up in our time, you were born in Orin’s. Who knows? Perhaps this gave you some kind of natural ability to travel in time. The world is a magnificent, magical place with so much left to be discovered. The more you discover, the less you realize you know. Maybe Caspian can tell us more, although getting answers