The Chrysalid Conspiracy Read Online Free Page A

a little jealous. She won everything on the sports field and the others gave up trying.
    The net result was that she soon found herself ostracised from normal social interaction, and that’s when the bullying had started. Her mother’s complaints to the School Board had resulted in a cursory investigation and it was decided there was no evidence to support her claims. Open season on Amelia Jaxson was inevitable.
    Mother and daughter grew closer during those years. She owed her very existence to her mother. Everything she was and everything she would be belonged to her and it went far deeper and was much more precious than the much sought after student loan. If Molly was off and she didn’t get a birthday then she would have to lump it. After all, it was just another day really. Whatever happened, her mother came first and she vowed that, come what may, she would never, ever, let her down.
    Amelia Jayne Jaxson was fortunately unaware that, before she was much older, her vow would be tested beyond the limits of even her own vivid imagination.

Chapter Two
    The bus journey usually took about fifteen minutes but, with the wind and the rain conspiring to let them know that winter was on its way, it was going to take a lot longer this morning. After a few heart-stopping miles, with the normally non-committal driver struggling and swearing non-stop, they reached the fork where the bus swung left, up the hill towards its destination. Amelia heard several gasps from the other children. Someone said, “Oh no!” and a few “Wows!” and expletives came from the back seats.
    Where the road forked left up the hill towards Warem Down stood the Moonraker pub. It was an impressive old building rumoured to be haunted and once a smuggler’s den, complete with the pond which supported its name. Large and misshapen where many and varied additions and alterations had been carried out over the centuries. Everyone was looking at the huge old oak tree that had stood next to it. Now a victim of the storm it lay like some mortally wounded creature, its branches writhing and lashing out its death throes in futile defiance at the storm. The thought came to her that, one day, her life would be over too, and Amelia Jayne Jaxson had her first glimpse of her own mortality.
    The tree disappeared from sight and she sat down, feeling a strange uneasiness. The old oak tree was said to be over five hundred years old and she thought about its life and all the things it had seen. Generations of children playing in and around it, war, peace, young lovers, old lovers; gone, forever. It reminded her of her mother’s words of not so long ago. ‘ Everything changes, Amelia. Nothing stays the same. Get used to it, you can never go back ’. Had there been a touch of bitterness in her words? She didn’t know, but sadness wormed its way into her thoughts, extending her mood.
    Her mind wandered into the twists and turns of time. Yesterday that tree was where it had always been, and tomorrow it will never be there again. She would always think of this as a personal ‘before’ and ‘after’ with that bit in the middle as the marker for change.
    I hope the change from child to adult is not so traumatic, she thought, and was still wondering about growing up being for better or for worse when the bus stopped.
    ***
    St Margaret’s Catholic School was a large ugly building in the early Victorian Gothic revivalist style. The slate roof did nothing to enhance its architectural appeal,
    Hesitating on the bottom step, wondering whether to jump the large puddle the driver had found or to walk through it with her already wet shoes Amelia was suddenly pitched forward when somebody collided with her from behind. Falling forward into the puddle she landed on her hands and knees, feeling the crumbling tarmac ruining her school uniform green tights and raking her skin. Whoever it was landed on her back and they both ended up lying face down in half an inch of dirty water with