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    Summer Hayes & The Idol of Neuworth
    Summer Hayes & The Idol of Neuworth
    Summer Hayes & The Idol of Neuworth
    Ebook92 pages1 hour

    Summer Hayes & The Idol of Neuworth

    By Ashlee Craft

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    About this ebook

    When teenaged adventurer Summer Hayes finds the Idol of Neuworth, an antique gold sculpture that has been lost for many years, she gets more than she bargained for. Just days after her discovery, her parents are kidnapped and held hostage. Their captors want the Idol of Neuworth as ransom for them, and Summer has only twenty-four hours to deliver it or her parents will be tortured and killed. To make matters worse, the kidnapper's rivals are trying to get the Idol for themselves and will stop at nothing to prevent Summer from delivering the Idol and saving her parents. Will Summer Hayes be able to save her parents in time?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAshlee Craft
    Release dateSep 28, 2012
    ISBN9781301245857
    Summer Hayes & The Idol of Neuworth
    Author

    Ashlee Craft

    Ashlee Craft is an author, poet, artist, musician, filmmaker, & photographer. She has written more than 45 books in a variety of genres, & publishes a monthly art & poetry zine called Assemblage. Ashlee is also the CEO of the publishing company Freedom Meadow Media, & has been featured in a segment on Fox News. She can be found writing on her blog, Ashlee Craft's World, creating art, & living by her life-is-a-playground ideology.

    Read more from Ashlee Craft

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      Book preview

      Summer Hayes & The Idol of Neuworth - Ashlee Craft

      Summer Hayes

      &

      The Idol of Neuworth

      Ashlee Craft

      Copyright 2012 Ashlee Craft

      Smashwords Edition

      Text copyright © 2012 by Ashlee Craft

      All rights reserved.

      No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the author.

      All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

      Cover art by Ashlee Craft

      Chapter 1

      The earthy smell of the deep forest surrounded us as we walked towards our destination. The forest seemed unnaturally silent, almost as if it were waiting for something.

      I led the way. Robin Mackall, the girl who had originally told me of the treasure, followed close behind me, holding a compass, which she would look at every once in a while to make sure we stayed on course.

      Although the midday sun shone brightly, the air was reasonably cold due to the fact that it was the end of March. The snow had melted away, leaving the ground cold and bare. Despite the cool temperature, my jeans stuck to my legs with sweat. We had been walking for over an hour, meticulously following each twist and turn specified on the map to be sure we ended up in exactly the right place. After all of our hard work over the past few months, we were so close to finding the treasure we had sought.

      Around six months ago, I'd met Robin Mackall at a party. She was several years older than me, and when I struck up a conversation with her, she told me of a golden idol dating from two hundred years ago. The Idol of Neuworth, it was called.

      According to legend, a rich European merchant named John Neuworth owned many precious jewels, including a flawless diamond about an inch and a half in diameter. His adversaries soon learned about the diamond he had in his possession and planned to steal the diamond and the rest of his jewels. John Neuworth was warned of this plan by one of his neighbors, who had overheard the adversaries talking about the heist. As Neuworth was a lonely man and his wealth was his happiness, he realized the best way to protect his riches was to disguise them. Without hesitation, Neuworth had a local artist build a special mold for his plan. He paid the artist so well for this job that the artist never had to work again. Then Neuworth took his prized diamond, best jewels, and a few gold bars to a local blacksmith. The blacksmith melted the gold into the artist’s mold using a special technique, placing the giant diamond in the center of the human-shaped idol. The other jewels were placed in random places amongst the gold statue. Although all of the jewels were originally concealed, the last time the Idol had been seen, bits of the gold had chipped and eroded away, revealing several of the jewels.

      John Neuworth had then painted the golden idol so that it would appear to be a stone sculpture rather than gold, then hid it somewhere on his property. Not long afterwards, John Neuworth was tracked down by his adversaries and went into hiding. In his frantic attempt to escape, the Idol of Neuworth was left on his property. Although Neuworth planned on coming back for the Idol, he was never heard from again.

      When Neuworth’s enemies searched the property, they found the Idol of Neuworth, although none of them realized its value at the time. They ended up dividing these items amongst their group.

      Just days later, the man who had ended up with the Idol of Neuworth dropped it onto the ground, chipping off a flake of paint and revealing the solid gold sculpture beneath. Two days later, when he was on his way to sell the Idol of Neuworth in town, he mysteriously drowned in the river, taking the Idol down with him.

      Years later, the Idol was found covered in algae at the bottom of the river by a young boy. The boy cleaned it up the best he could, but the Idol still remained slightly disheveled. He kept the Idol for several years, then unknowingly gave it to a band of criminals when they posed as experts in antique restoration and stole it from him.

      Two weeks later, the bandits were killed by muggers along the road as they traveled down the coast of England.

      Through the years, the Idol was lost and stolen many times. It found its way onto American soil and was lost and stolen many more times.

      Around seventy-five years ago, a man named Richard Payne discovered the Idol buried in the forest. After contemplating how much money he could sell the Idol for, he brought it to town.

      That evening, before the Idol could be appraised, Richard Payne was killed in a bar fight.

      The Idol of Neuworth seemed to be cursed in a way. If someone found it and kept it for reasons unrelated to greed, no harm became them, but someone always ended up stealing the Idol from them eventually. Every single person who came to possess the Idol by thievery or deceit ended up dead shortly after acquiring it.

      Robin and I reached the spot where the map indicated the Idol of Neuworth was hidden. Robin had inherited the map from her grandfather, who had died just weeks before I met her. The map was tattered and yellowed, but still readable.

      I kneeled on the ground, quickly pulling my brown hair into a ponytail to keep it out of my eyes. I was wearing two thin jackets to keep warm, a black jean jacket on the outside, and underneath that, a blue cotton sweater. Both jackets had been unzipped as the day warmed. My hands were slightly chilled, so I rubbed them together. Robin brushed a cobweb off of her coat and checked both her blue jeans and red cowboy boots for spiders.

      Robin and I removed our small folding shovels from our bags and began digging.

      Minutes later, my shovel hit something hard. A muted metallic sound rang out from the shallow hole.

      Hurriedly, Robin and I cleared dirt off the top of the object.

      I lifted a metal box from the hole. The box was about nine inches long, five inches wide, and four inches thick, and weighed several pounds; the exterior was covered in rust spots. It felt cold and damp against my skin.

      I gently set the box on the ground in front of me. I noticed that the lid had hinges on it, but no padlock. I tried to open it, but it wouldn’t budge.

      Quickly, I reached into my pocket and removed my multi-tool, something I always kept on me. Carefully, I unfolded the multi-tool’s awl and wedged it under the rim of the box, then pried upwards.

      With a creaking and groaning sound, the lid abruptly

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