Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 57184 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57184 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
He bows his head.
“I’m sure you don’t believe me, but it’s all true. I only came back because Alwar was supposed to stop Monsterland from ever happening. Did you know this entire place is my home thousands of years after I was born?”
He shakes his head.
“I just don’t know when or how the shit hits the fan.”
There’s a loud crash above us, and I don’t even flinch. Not this time. “The trolls are probably trying to get in, Master. What do we do?” Because it’s a lost cause. Proof being that Monsterland is still here. Sooner or later they’ll take down the wall. It’s only a question of when.
I place my hand over my stomach. I assume I’m still pregnant with Dave’s kid. “Dave. Pfft! I just can’t win, Master. I can’t save my world. I can’t win the man I love. I can’t even save him from dying. I can’t…” I start to sob because it’s time. How much can one girl take? How much loss and fear can she bury in her heart until it all catches up?
I cry until there’s nothing left, until my eyes are raw with tears and my head hurts. I cry because I feel helpless and frustrated and I’m fucking pregnant by a man who has cheated on me so many times he thinks it’s normal. Never going to change.
After an hour I sit up. Master is staring like he wants to say something.
“What?”
He looks out the sixty-foot-tall doorway.
“What the hell does that mean, dude?”
He trots out into the hallway. I follow. He makes his way down the corridor and stops in front of a wooden door.
“I know this door.” On the other side is a room filled with much, much smaller doors, of all colors. They lead to bridges and back to River Wall Manor. “You want to escape before the trolls get here? I don’t see the point. Soon, the monsters will just be in my world. We can run, but we can’t hide.”
Master stares in that particular way when he really wants something.
“Fine. I’ll help you.” I push on the door, and it creaks open. I gasp, stepping back. “Jesus.” There are thousands of doors. Tiny, large, small. All different colors. “Where do those all go, Master?” Because I just came from River Wall, and I had a hard time finding just the one window.
He tilts his head back and howls. “Wooooorld.”
“World? As in, all these doors lead to spots all over the world?”
He nods.
“It wasn’t like that before,” I say. “The doorways were only found on my estate.” This change means when the monsters come, they hit us everywhere. “I don’t think it’ll matter. They’ll just wipe us out faster.”
Master barks aggressively at the enormous wall of doors. He wants to go through one.
“You’re wasting your time.” Then again, maybe this is the very thing that changes everything. I’m second-guessing every choice at this point. Do I keep fighting, or do I give up like my great-great-grandma did?
“I’m completely out of my league here, Master. I don’t know what to do or how to change things.”
He nudges my hand, as if to say I’m not in this alone.
“Anyone who can help is dead,” I argue.
Master shakes his head and barks at the wall of doors again. I think he’s insisting we leave.
Maybe he’s right. Maybe we should go. The people who can help me, like Alwar, are only dead here—in this time. If I go home, they will not have been born yet.
If I go back and figure out a way to warn Alwar before things change, maybe he’ll figure out what to do.
But will he act on a note from a woman who lived thousands of years ago, one he might not even remember?
I have nothing to lose if I try, right? “Which door will take us to the River Wall Manor—it’s the place where all the water comes from?”
Master barks at the blue door. At least, I think that’s the one he wants me to go through.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
So there is another doorway on the property, and it’s in the unlikeliest of places.
There’s this tree on the estate, deep in the forest, where I used to climb as a little girl. In the summer, I would read, eat, and sometimes nap there—not very smart. But its thick trunk is divided into two, perfect for perching all day. I loved sitting high in the trees, pretending to be one of the birds. I dreamed about flying away to another land.
Guess I got my wish.
When I walk in the house, nothing seems different. I find Dave passed out on the couch with his hand in his shorts. Porn is playing on his laptop.
Yeah, I can see how worried he was after I took off to scuba dive in the river.
Master comes in behind me, limping after falling from the tree when we arrived. I go into the kitchen and make him an icepack. I start cooking us up some eggs, too.