Teresa Smith

When Lady Eris came into the village and began to cast her spell of fear over the inhabitants, Teresa (then, ten years old) was one of only two people unaffected by the magic. The other was her younger brother, Sam.

She eventually met and befriended Arthur Ness and the pair joined to become powerful allies of the Cat in his constant fight against The Queen.

Background

Lady Eris' spell caused the inhabitants of Waterwhistle to be afraid of everything. For some reason, the spell didn't affect Teresa and that may have been down to her personality and background.

Teresa's family had always been a happy one. She was one of three children - she was close to her elder brother, Albert and young brother Sam. Her father Hector ran the local farm shop and her mother Elsie was the rock that held the family together.

Unfortunately, Elsie died when Sam was still a baby. Elsie had always been a protector, looking after the family. Teresa saw it as her responsibility to inherit. Since then, she had always been on the lookout for anything that might harm her family. When Albert enlisted in the army and was sent abroad to fight upon the outbreak of World War 2, Teresa tried doubly hard to look after her father and Sam.

Perhaps this was why she was able to see through Lady Eris' spell when nobody else in the village could.

Warnings

Teresa was at first puzzled by Lady Eris' arrival in Waterwhistle. She moved into the 'big house' owned by Lord and Lady Roberts - who had mysteriously disappeared just days earlier. However, nobody questioned this turn of events and her arrival was just accepted by the villagers.

Soon after, Teresa noticed that everyone had stopped talking. Not completely - if you spoke to someone or asked them a question, they would reply. But they would only say the absolute minimum needed to conclude the conversation. And they would never start a conversation on their own. People that Teresa had known all her life was suddenly walking the streets of Waterwhistle as if they were half-asleep. Friendly people had suddenly become completely unfriendly.

Seeing that something was wrong and that Lady Eris seemed to be at the heart of it all, Teresa tried to warn her fellow villagers. Standing on a bench in the village square, she shouted at everyone to wake up. Lady Eris was doing something to them and they had to come to their senses and resist her. A crown soon gathered to listen.

Teresa noticed one or two people in the gathering did seem to register what she was saying. The flicker of expressions across a couple of faces suggested they may possibly be coming out of their daze.

Suddenly though, out of nowhere there appeared two terrible creatures. Though Teresa had no name for them, they were known as Yarnbulls. They were huge, monstrous beings that essentially looked like bulls walking on their hind legs. They stood seven or eight feet tall and carried massive swords and axes. The strangest thing about them was that they were made of burlap - the material that sacks are made from - and they were covered in stitches. As if they had been roughly sewn together and brought to life.

The Yarnbulls grabbed Teresa and dragged her away. The most shocking thing that Teresa noticed, though, was the fact that as soon as they took hold of her, the other villagers just turned and walked away. It was as if they couldn't see the Yarnbulls at all. And as soon as the creatures grabbed Teresa, the villagers couldn't see her either.

The monstrous bull-creatures dragged Teresa through the village and even though she kicked and yelled at the top of her lungs, nobody seemed to notice her or the creatures at all.

Arrival in Arilon

Eventually, Teresa was brought before Lady Eris. The tall, frightening woman told Teresa she was upsetting her plans. If she would not play by the rules, she would be removed from the game. And so Teresa soon found herself taken through a tapestry which turned out to be a portal leading to another world - the world of Arilon.

On the other side of the portal was Lady Eris’ castle - the appropriately named Castle Eris. Teresa was thrown into a cell in the dungeons. There she languished alone for several days.

Eventually, she was moved into another cell, one which she shared with several other prisoners - one of them was a pirate named Captain Chadwell Thrace. The two became friends and Thrace told Teresa that his ship, the Galloping Snake had been impounded on the island when he’d been arrested. He knew how to get to it, though, and how to sail it away from the island.

Unfortunately, he was too big to fit into the gap that led out of their cell. Fortunately, Teresa wasn't.

Teresa followed the instruction of the pirate captain - she escaped from the cell, stole the ship and escaped from Eris Island. Thrace helped her do this on the condition she would come back and rescue him and the other prisoners.

After getting used to flying the ship on her own, Teresa - a girl of her word - returned to the island to scope out a rescue plan for the captain. It was on one of these trips that she met the Cat. And through the Cat, she met Arthur Ness when boy and cat ran into Arilon, trying to escape the clutches of Lady Eris.

Arthur

Teresa and Arthur hit it off right away. Teresa wasn't quite sure why. They were the same age - ten years old - but that alone couldn't explain their relationship. It felt as though they had been friends all their lives. Between the pair of them, they would eventually realise they possessed a special connection to Arilon - which led to them having special abilities that few others in Arilon had ever seen before.

There was something special about the pair but the mystery was there - why did two human children have such a connection to Arilon?

Whatever the cause, Lady Eris and the Queen were fast spreading their fear and control across Arilon. The Cat was doing his best to stand up to them alone but he knew that Arthur and Teresa were going to be instrumental in that fight and in shaping what would happen next in Arilon...