Riley Whittle and the Curse of the Moon

By Payton E. Paice

My name is Riley Whittle and my story is a dark one. A story of betrayal, love, and choice. I will tell you this story. The story of how my life came to be, starting with the day when one mistake would change my life forever. And it all starts with my father, a promise, me, a Raven, and a curse, the curse of the moon. Blood will be shed, innocent people will be harmed, and I will be left with experiences that will never leave my mind. For people used to, and still do, turn without touching me. Especially the way my mother died. It made my father have to choose between me and the village, and of course… he chose them. I made an exception that I wouldn’t have any friends, but after the past few months of this stuff, I did have them. Ones I could trust, ones that wouldn’t turn their backs on me. Or would they?

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Apr 26, 2024
• ISBN: 9781649793225

Payton E. Paice

Payton E. Paice is living in Nevada, Overton, and lives with her grandparents, aunt, 1/10 of her half siblings, and has a little dog. Payton started writing stories in third grade. She was twelve when she wrote ‘Riley Whittle and the Curse of the Moon’. Payton loves the game Among Us. She likes goats, the color blue, and many different YouTubers. She has a group of loyal friends at school, a great family, and a good life. She is overall excited to spend her life creating something for this world, books, and stories that people will love and connect to.

Book preview

About the Author

Payton E. Paice is living in Nevada, Overton, and lives with her grandparents, aunt, 1/10 of her half siblings, and has a little dog.

Payton started writing stories in third grade. She was twelve when she wrote ‘Riley Whittle and the Curse of the Moon’. Payton loves the game Among Us. She likes goats, the color blue, and many different YouTubers. She has a group of loyal friends at school, a great family, and a good life. She is overall excited to spend her life creating something for this world, books, and stories that people will love and connect to.

Dedication

To my family, friends, and teachers who have supported and encouraged me with my writing and goal to be an author.

Copyright Information ©

Payton E. Paice 2024

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Ordering Information

Quantity sales: Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

Paice, Payton E.

Riley Whittle and the Curse of the Moon

ISBN 9781649793218 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781649793225 (ePub e-book)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023906373

www.austinmacauley.com/us

First Published 2024

Austin Macauley Publishers LLC

40 Wall Street, 33rd Floor, Suite 3302

New York, NY 10005

USA

[e-mail]

[phone]

Acknowledgment

I’d like to thank my family for helping and supporting me throughout this process and those teachers who encouraged me to follow my dreams.

Synopsis

Who would’ve thought being a magic holder would be this hard. Mistakes were made to save a loved one, it ultimately cost me my freedom for a while. My father kept things from me, about my life, mother, and magic. From a young age, people turned without touching me, I was different, they paid no attention. I was fine with that, no one noticed my sadness, until they noticed my biggest mistake of my life.

Riley Whittle and the Curse of the Moon

By Payton E. Paice

Prologue

Villains or heroes, we are all somewhere in between. In every person there is light and dark, we have a role in everyone’s life like a character in a story. You could be a friend, villain, random person who holds no purpose in the main characters story, but in your story you are the main character. In this story, through my eyes I am the main character. However, this is not my story.

Who am I? I’m a boy with a very unnatural placement in the world. Most are born with the ability to choose, a few of us however are not. Especially the followers of Kallan Headley. I was one of those. You may call me, the boy with the bamboo hat and a staff.

As I have said before this is not my story. In fact, just like a mentor, I’m just a small part of it. No, this is a story about a girl.

A girl with a connection to the moon. She was the magic expert of the Kingdom, Hurshingtown. A girl who was about to lose control of her life due to one mistake she made.

Who is this girl? Well—she is very kind, even if she herself doesn’t see it. She not only has taught me every important lesson of my life, but she also was one of my students.

I was not able to be with her for the entire journey, as my destiny was to die helping her. My path carved in stone. More carved than Raven’s.

Raven’s path was never clear from the beginning and a mix of unhealthy love and insanity brought her to the way she was. I know I might be sidetracking here but—I really hope that the girl and her prince in disguise are okay.

I hope someone finds this passage; It can’t tell you much; cause if we know too much about the future, it could be very dangerous.

I never wanted all those terrible things to happen to this girl, but like she said before I died; Everything I experience becomes a part of me, every trial pushes me further and makes me stronger.

I will never forget those words, even as my heart stopped beating. Well—anyway. Betrayal is brutal. The saddest thing about it is that it never comes from your enemies.

The girl learned that from the age of twelve. The girl with the messy black hair and baggy clothing. Her scrawny and short figure with knobby knees were some things I could never forget about here.

The girl was smart but made a few mistakes just like any other human being. From a young age, people treated her differently. She was a magic holder, different, an outcast in the eyes of everyone around her. It’s only when they needed her would they show kindness.

Her father, the only person to show love in her life, when choosing between the people and her; he’d choose the people. After the girl’s mother was killed, the girl’s father had never been the same.

She lived in a house in the village, a little bit away from the castle of Hurshingtown. The house looked creepy enough on the outside, it would send shivers down anyone’s spines; especially with the rumors that people whispered.

The whispers that, to the girl, were like screams she couldn’t ignore. The girl with no friends, the girl who works alone in the basement with nothing but potions around her, the girl who believes she is a bad kid, the girl who is believed to be trouble, the girl who thinks she must prove to her father that she is more than just a screw up who can’t do anything right.

Who is this girl? The girl with a mysterious hair stripe? The girl with a Curse resting inside her? The girl who was hated by all? The girl who wants nothing more than a proud father, and a friend or two by her side?

That girl is—Riley Whittle.

Chapter 1

The Scrawny Little Girl

Life is something potentially very dangerous. My story is not one for the faint-hearted. Who am I? I’ve been asking that question ever since the day that changed my life. I’m Riley Whittle and this is my story.

Ever since I was four, people made fun of me. One of the reasons was because of my appearance, which is still one of the reasons I get bullied. I am very short, about 4’11" one might say. I wore my father’s old clothes, but because of my skinniness, they would forever and always be baggy on me. His clothes consisted of a blue peasant shirt, a black belt, and brown pants.

Just like my father I have messy hair that remains untamed. There was something about my hair that was different, a blue hair stripe. I thought it was normal; as I’ve had it since birth, but every else told me it was strange and unnatural. The townsfolk even gave me the annoying nickname ‘hair stripe.’

Another weird thing was my gloves my dad gave me when I was four. He even told me that I had to wear them all the time. It was strange and unusual. But, he’s my dad. He said that I got almost everything from my mother. From the black hair and blue eyes to the freckles, we almost looked the same; although she was one hundred and ten percent prettier than I am. I have buck teeth, almost a dead looking skin tone of light olive, unhealthy skinniness, knobby knees, and my voice is deep and tends to crack.

There is a picture of me, my father, and my mother above the fireplace that was painted when I was a baby. Sometimes I would just stare at it and imagine what she was like before she died. It was the only picture that had her in it, the only thing to remember her by. My father was never the best at answering my many questions. Everything I would ask he would either put it off or simply just walk away.

In our house, we have a raccoon problem, almost every day there is a raccoon that sneaks into the basement of our house. The same one every day. I don’t know why he does this, but it has gotten out of hand. However, I found a humane solution to deal with him. A raccoon trap made up of a non-harmful potion.

In my village, I am known as ‘The Magic Expert’, and usually can help you with magic in any type of situation. Ever since I was four years old, I could do magic. My father even gave me books to help me know more about it. Originally, I was going to be burned at the stake for this. However, after I brought the Queen, who was a good friend of my father, back to life with a potion I call ‘Liquid Life’, they gave