Witch Island

“This is most definitely the last case that we can take Ben”; “There really is not another inch of space left in the car”. Ben Flint grinned at his father, “Their not my bags dad Its Sophie as usual taking too many clothes”. “Sophie Flint pushed passed her brother and laughed, “Well some of us prefer not to look like Gypsies you know”, she said. “ That’s the lot dad anyway”; “I think we are ready to go now”. “ I will go round to next door and get Rob, he’s just making sure that his Guinea Pig is going to be looked after, you know what he’s like he thinks more of that animal than he does of us”.

            Steven Flint smiled and thought how much like her mother she sounded and how proud her mother would have been. Sadly their mother had died after an accident when the children were very young and Steven had since brought them up on his own with the help of their housekeeper Janice Wren.

            The Family lived in the country near a small market town in Buckinghamshire. Dr. Steven Flint and his small family were well known in the area and Steven worked at the local Hospital where he had buried himself in his work after his wife had died. At first he thought that he would have to leave the area because his memories were too painful, but the children were happy at their school and their friends were in the area and so they had stayed. Steven had needed to find a housekeeper to look after them all and had luckily found Janice Wren.

            Janice had fitted in from the day she had first come to the house. A round rosy cheeked, jolly lady she had taken to the children as if they were her own and they adored her. Janice or Jenny as the family called her had only one relative, a sister who lived in Wales. Every year she would wave goodbye to the family, hugging them all in turn, including Steven and with tears running down her cheeks, she would go off to Wales to holiday with her sister. She felt it her duty to visit her sister but at the same time she hated leaving them and always left them in floods of tears, much to their amusement.

            Steven backed the car out of the driveway and tooted the horn to hurry the children along. Ben quickly jumped in to the front seat beside his father and Sophie appeared from the neighbour’s house with Robert shuffling along behind her. The two of them had to squeeze into the back seat with bags around their feet and Sophie was quick to complain that as the only female she should have the front seat with her father. Ben just chuckled and said that he was going to navigate for his father and that would be far too difficult for his sister. “You can ride in the front later Sophie”, said their father, we have a long way to go and your Grandparents will be worried if we are late”.

            The big estate car purred off and they headed north towards Scotland where the Grandparents lived on their country estate on the West Coast of the highlands. This had become their regular holiday destination but this year for the first time their father who had arranged to take a six-week break was joining the children.

            Twelve year old Ben was looking forward to sailing on the Loch with his father and being able show his father how much he had learned about sailing from his grandfather. Eleven year old Sophie was looking forward to reading her books and helping the cook in the great kitchen of the house whilst nine year old Robert could not wait to roam in the woods and the heather amongst the wildlife. Their father was just looking to relax, play some golf and perhaps do some shooting and fishing on the estate where his wife had grown up and where the children had found so much happiness with their grandparents.

            Ross and Hannah Cameron had inherited the huge estate from Ross’s uncle shortly after they were married and Ross had turned the estate into a popular sporting retreat for wealthy tourists who came to fish for salmon and to shoot on the estate. The once run d