Cam's Connection

Bellmount Wood Chapter 1 Deep in Bellmount Wood, many creatures scurried about gathering the plentiful harvest which lay about them. The warm sun of late summer beat down upon their backs. High in the clear blue sky birds trilled their melodious arias and a light breeze ruffled the leaves of the oaks, maples and beeches. Abraham the mouse, and his friend Rosetta were in the berry patches picking raspberries. In other rows of the garden, the nimble fingers of hares, badgers, hedgehogs, otters and squirrels stripped the bluberry, elderberry, gooseberry and currant bushes of their ripe fruit. At the entrance to the orchards a small pile was already beginning to form of woven reed baskets brimming with the summer’s harvest. Everywhere you looked you could see happy creatures talking and laughing as the gathered the bountiful harvest Mother Nature had provided. There was fruit in the orchards, nuts in the trees, fish in the millpond and produce in the ample gardens. From a high vantage point in the trees a tall figure watched the proceedings with a smile. She was Lady Bluebelle, the female badger guardian of Rowanbrooke Hall, the treetop village. In fact, she wasn’t just climbing any tree, she was the standing on a platform nailed to two wide limbs of a tall majestic rowan tree, everyone referred to as ‘The Grandfather’. In the center of the green meadows, rolling hills and hardwood forests of the surrounding countryside, this grandfather of all trees had stood for seasons too numerous to count. Carefully concealed in its massive trunk lay a door. Inside, there was an intricately carved staircase which led up through the hollowed out trunk to Rowanbrooke Hall. The hall was one of a kind. There was not another thing like it all across the land, except for the mythical village of Brockhall which existed only through whispered words beside quiet, smoky campfires. Manybeasts lived in the impressive granite block structure perched precariously over the strong branches of the tree. It was an architectural wonder - many wise owl philosophers had pondered the question of Rowanbrooke Hall for countless evenings. How could a large brick building that contained the kitchens, a school, the libraries, a hospice for the sick and homes for hundreds of its beastly residents sit atop a tree? And how could it resist countless waves of vermin attackers and counter the diabolical plots of many evil leaders? No one knew for sure, but one thing they did know was that Rowanbrooke Hall seemed to have something magical about it that let manybeasts live together in peace and harmony. Lady Bluebelle sighed in happiness as she swung on a thick vine of Ivy that had entwined itself around a branch of the Rowan. “I love this place!” she said out loud and in her heart made a silent vow to protect Rowanbrooke Hall and it’s inhabitants no matter what happened. Would her vows be tested sooner than she though? Chapter 2