The Witch's Boy

Quiet, stuttering Ned lives with his mother, Sister Witch, the village keeper of an ancient store of magic. It is unruly magic that only she can tame - until the day the Bandit King comes to steal the magic, and it bolts out of its pot and into the wide world beyond. Thrown into a wild adventure, Ned must venture into the enchanted forest that borders his village, where he meets Aine, the Bandit King's daughter.
Can she help him find his voice, and a way to speak to the magic ? A word, after all, is a kind of magic. Words call the world into being. That is power indeed. And Ned is not - yet - a powerful boy ...