Phyllis Wong and the Crumpled Stranger (The Phyllis Wong Mysteries, Book 7) by Geoffrey McSkimming

Release date: June 2, 2020

Subgenre: Children's mystery, Paranormal mystery

About Phyllis Wong and the Crumpled Stranger:

 

 When Phyllis Wong, that brilliant young magician and clever sleuth, discovers a mysterious stranger who keeps appearing by the rotunda in City Park, little does she know that the Time he brings with him will lead her into a world of danger, intrigue and undiscovered threats from the past!

Will Phyllis’s magic be enough to save her from the perils that will cross her path? Will she be able to solve the riddle of the stranger and the place from which he comes?

A haunting story, swirling through the world of words and the ticking of time!

The seventh Phyllis Wong: Time Detective mystery.

 

Excerpt:

 

Chapter One: BY THE ROTUNDA

 PHYLLIS WONG, that brilliant young magician and clever sleuth, was walking her small dog Daisy in City Park one crisp February morning when they encountered the crumpled stranger.

The man was half-sitting, half-lying on one of the park’s benches, not far from the old Victorian rotunda. Phyllis noticed him as Daisy was leading her along a path. Being an obs-ervant person (an excellent trait for a stage magician, which is what Phyllis excelled at being), Phyllis observed three things about the man.

The first thing was that he appeared to be dishevelled. His black coat looked as if it were smudged with dirt and caked-on mud. His burgundy-coloured waistcoat was undone, his collar was skew-whiff to one side of his neck, his dark grey trousers torn below one knee. His shoes, like his coat, were encrusted with dried mud.

The second thing Phyllis registered was that the man was mumbling. He was moving his head forward and back, and repeating phrases over and over. Phyllis wasn’t close enough to hear exactly what the man was saying, but some words carried across the path: ‘ … to recognise … recognise it all … not have my words … ’

At first Phyllis thought that the man might be drunk; perhaps coming out of a rough night and trying to regain his senses. Sometimes she saw drunk people here in the park, passed out on benches or on the grass, or rambling incoherently, and she knew to keep a wide berth of them. She would have walked on today, with that thought in her mind, and she would have dismissed this man from her memory had it not been for the third thing she observed.

The third thing made Phyllis stop—pulling Daisy to an unexpected halt—and stare at the man. This fellow was not drunk; Phyllis now knew that straightaway. Cautiously she came closer to the bench. When she was nearer to the man, she saw something that made her heart beat faster: sunken against his sallow skin, the man’s eyes—the whites of his eyes and his pupils—were glowing and throbbing with a bright, iridescent green.

 Phyllis knew that that green, and the way that allparts of his eyes were inflicted by it, could only mean one thing: this crumpled stranger was not of this Time.

He, like her, was a Transiter.

Chapter Two: WATCHING

 PHYLLIS SCOOPED Daisy up and ducked behind a tall hedge, where she could still see the man on the bench.

So another one’s appeared, she thought as she watched the man. She wondered how many more Transiters might be here right now, in her Time.

Ever since Phyllis had discovered the sec-rets of Transiting—of being able to move between this Time and Times past, by ways of hidden blemishes in the fabric of Time which she called TimePockets—she had been wary about meeting other people who possessed the Transiting gift. Some of the Transiters she’d come across had been harmless people—people whose actions were motivated by good things. But there had been others … there had been some outright wicked, nasty Transiters, the likes of whom Phyllis did not want to meet again.

Warily, she kept observing the man on the bench.

He was thin, with dark hair pushed back off his forehead and a full, dark moustache. The length of his hair and the style of his moustache—unkempt though they appeared—suggested to Phyllis that the man might perhaps have been spending much of his Time in the nineteenth century. His coat and waistcoat and the style of his boots—narrow-tipped boots that buttoned up past the ankles—also gave Phyllis that impression.

His eyes continued to glow with the bright, glowing Transiter’s Green.

Now that she was a bit closer, Phyllis could hear more of the stranger’s ramblings. She patted Daisy as she listened carefully, committing the words to her memory: ‘You shall not succeed … boil … escape may be but a temporary solution … but you shall not succeed. Recognise me … you shall not snatch that from me … no, boil, no! Not have my words … why, oh why, did she leave me?’

Then, abruptly, the man stopped his mutterings. He looked all around, warily, up and down the nearby paths, as if he were sensing the approach of someone, or something. He seemed to look right past Phyllis and Daisy. Whatever it was he was sensing, it made him even more agitated. He lurched to his feet and swayed back and forth for several seconds.

Phyllis thought that the man might fall, may even faint there on the path before her. Instinctively she started forward, out from behind the bush to aid him, but the man did not fall. Instead, he ran a hand through his hair, emitted a half-choked sound like an agonised groan, then turned and hurried, weaving and stumbling, towards the rotunda.

Apart from Phyllis and Daisy, there was no one else in this area of City Park. The rotunda was empty; the only movement in there was from a few clumps of leaves skittering across the wooden floor as they were being blown about by the wind.

The man stopped before he got to the rot-unda. Cautiously Phyllis came nearer to him from behind. His attention was concentrated on the six steps leading up to the rotunda’s floor.

Phyllis knew what he was watching for. She stopped, patting Daisy in her arms to keep her still and silent, and focussed on the steps.

And it emerged: silently, shimmeringly, at the top of the steps, a big almond-shape of darkness, bordered by small, twinkling diamond pinpricks of light. Phyllis held her breath as the TimePocket hovered there.

The stranger teetered forward, then seemed to regain some of his balance. ‘No, boil, no!’ he exclaimed hoarsely. The darkness above started to thicken, and now a colour was emerging through it—a slowly swirling dark purple. Flashes of brilliant green speared through the purple as the TimePocket grew stronger and deeper.

Phyllis felt a sudden gust of wind shooting down the steps, towards the man and past him. The wind was strong enough to blow Phyllis’s long hair back off her shoulders, and she squinted to keep her vision from going blurry.

Then, with a sudden cry—a loud, abandoned cry of desperation, it seemed to Phyllis—the stranger threw back his head and charged full-pelt towards the steps. He bounded up them swiftly, keeping his balance. When he came to the top he disappeared into the gusty void.

The twinkling lights and the swirling purple and flashing green and the gusts of wind stopped instantly, as if a switch had all at once been turned off. The TimePocket was gone.

Phyllis stood there, watching the spot whence the man had Transited. Daisy, who had also seen all that had gone on, gave a small but not surprised bark. It was not the first TimePocket the small dog had encountered with Phyllis.

‘Time to go home, Miss Daisy,’ Phyllis said presently. ‘Time to make some notes.’

 

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About Geoffrey McSkimming:

Geoffrey McSkimming is the author of the bestselling 19 volume Cairo Jim chronicles (published worldwide from 1991 -- 2008) and now the new Phyllis Wong mysteries, featuring the brilliant young magician and clever sleuth, Phyllis Wong. Phyllis Wong and the Forgotten Secrets of Mr Okyto, Phyllis Wong and the Return of the Conjuror, Phyllis Wong and the Waking of the Wizard and Phyllis Wong and the Girl who Danced with Lightning have appeared to widespread acclaim and much enjoyment. The sixth Phyllis Wong mystery will be published in 2018.

All of the Cairo Jim chronicles are now being e-published by 9 Diamonds Press, available through Amazon's Kindle platform. A brand new Cairo Jim story will appear in 2018.

When he is not writing stories of magic, mystery and adventure, Geoffrey appears at Phyllis Wong author shows with his wife, world-renowned magician Sue-Anne Webster. Together they bring the magic of story and the story of magic to life before their audiences' very eyes!

Author Website | Series Website | 9 Diamonds Press | Facebook | YouTube