Up, Pup and Away: A Paranormal Cozy Animal Mystery by Jeannie Wycherley

Author:Jeannie Wycherley [Wycherley, Jeannie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bark at the Moon Books
Published: 2024-03-29T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Gliding through the air so high above the ground was a mighty peculiar feeling. Toby couldn’t work out whether his brain or his stomach was more perturbed. For the most part, so far—bar when they’d been searching for Sal—the trip had been smooth. The wind—though high—and the air—pretty nippy—were at acceptable levels. Plus the quiet up here, away from the roads, and the birds come to that, was truly phenomenal.

An occasional seagull or kestrel flew by and eyed them suspiciously, but apart from that, nothing disturbed their progress.

With one eye firmly on the horizon, there could be no doubting that they were heading in the right direction. The problem was that behind them, the clouds were giving chase. And rather than the fluffy, white, friendly clouds of a children’s bedtime storybook, these were big, black and full of anger.

Toby had been fixated on the view in front of him, seeking the slightest advance peek of Blackwell Manor. He supposed the manor would be difficult to identify, surrounded as it was by trees. They probably wouldn’t catch their first sight of it until they were almost directly above it. Occasionally he worried that they must have been blown off course, but when he checked the sea view and the position of Seatown, he accepted that they hadn’t.

The balloon lurched.

“What was that?” Frank asked, the whites of his eyes showing.

“Nothing to worry about,” said Hedda, but from the look on her face, Toby suspected she was telling porky pies.

From somewhere far behind them came a deep, menacing boom.

“What was that?” Frank asked again, but this time his voice had risen three octaves.

Hedda peered back the way they’d come. “Oh,” she said.

“Oh?” Toby turned, curious to see what she was looking at. He half expected an aeroplane or something to be bearing down on them, but there was nothing but the clouds. They did seem to be much closer than they had been before.

And so incredibly dark, thought Toby. Brooding almost—

Toby caught his breath as a streak of bright light forked out of the cloud bank.

“Wha—?” He got no further. The booming came again.

“It’s a storm,” said Hedda, albeit unnecessarily. They were all clearly aware of that now. “We can outrun it. Not far to go—”

With that, the heavens opened.

“Should we be flying in a storm?” Frank asked, his voice quavering.

Toby hated Frank for asking the question, even though his knees were knocking too.

“If Miss Hedda thinks we’ll be fine, then we’ll be fine,” said Sal, with a self-conscious air of bravado.

“Of course,” said Toby and swallowed his nerves, facing forward once more. Everywhere he looked, the sky around them had grown heavier, and visibility had been reduced to virtually nothing. He concentrated on a lighter patch of ground way ahead of them where the storm had yet to reach.

“There!” he shouted.

Boom!

The noise exploded around them, so thunderous that Toby imagined his eardrums had burst. He dropped to the bottom of the basket, holding his paws over his ears. Rainwater flooded down

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