Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 52915 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 265(@200wpm)___ 212(@250wpm)___ 176(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52915 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 265(@200wpm)___ 212(@250wpm)___ 176(@300wpm)
“Down the path, little girl,” that strange voice croons to me from the darkness. “There will be trouble at the end of it, but perhaps that is precisely what you are looking for. Big trouble. Deep trouble. Trouble as vast as the ocean.”
Now that the voice is saying a little more, I realize it has nothing to do with Charming. It is definitely not him following me as an echo. It is someone else. Someone devious and perhaps even deviant.
I stop, deciding to make no decision until I lay eyes on my unseen observer. “I know you’re following me. Come out and talk to me.”
“Aren’t you a perceptive little thing,” the voice says. It does as I suggest, though, and instead of remaining a flicker in the shadows, it takes form before me.
I see a very handsome, dashing man with dark hair and eyes and a pale visage looking down at me with a broad and unashamedly predatory smile. He is tall and somewhat lanky, but powerfully built. A dancer’s body, I believe they refer to it as back home.
He’s attractive, but there is a mischief dancing behind his eyes I cannot trust. This man is up to something. Not in the same way Balthazar was, I sense little malice here, but still, I would do well to be wary.
“Why are you following me?”
“You are interesting,” he says, dropping to put his hands on his thighs. This lowers him so his head is not quite so far above mine, and so I do not have to crane my neck up to look at him. There’s a slight intimacy to the physical gesture, a fondness on his face. He has the air of someone who is in control, but wields that control lightly because he is more amused when chaos reigns. I once had a teacher who never bothered to maintain order in his class, and would pick students to answer questions by throwing water balloons at them. This man has the same energy.
“Am I?”
“Of course, an alien in a world of magic and story, controlled by forces you almost understand, but not quite completely. You were like the proverbial bull in the porcelain store back there in Resolution.”
“I don’t think I did anything wrong.”
He smiles broadly. “Of course you don’t. You could be taught a lesson, but I think it far more droll not to do so. You have a certain uneducated charm that I would hate to see you lose. That sword is completely lost on you. May as well have a cheese knife at your disposal.”
He’s being rude, and I am growing very tired of people being rude to me with what they seem to think is impunity. “Is there something about this world that invites men to pop up and provide full diatribes of their inaccurate impressions to random women? I had enough of that on my own planet.”
He chuckles and inclines his head as if to say fair enough. “You did invite me to emerge from the shadows.”
“Because you were creeping on me.”
“I was commenting,” he says. “I apologize for the intrusion. You did seem like you could do with a little help.”
“What kind of help does someone like you offer?”
He smiles very broadly at that question, as if he has many answers of the kind he thinks better of giving. Some of them are lecherous and others are darker. This is the sort of man who has many impulses, none of them quite suitable. I call him a man, because he looks like me for now in a sense, seeming human the same way the other inhabitants of the Far Far Away seem human. But I’m certain nobody here is actually human. Least of all him with his dark, shining eyes.
“Well,” he says finally when he finds some words that might tolerate being said. “I’ve noticed that you think you’re the heroine. But you could be something much more interesting. You could be the villain.”
“It feels like this situation already has a villain. Balthazar, right?”
“This situation has a lot of potential villains. You might not be on the side of right. Balthazar wants to restore order to the Ever After. He is working to restore goodness, decency, and happiness to that realm. You are an abducted waif with a sword she does not understand, and your lover is a monster you do not see.”
“I know what you are!” I say suddenly. I’ve been trying to work out his identity since he appeared because he seemed somewhat familiar somehow. I might not know his name, but I think I know his function. Everybody in this new land has their own role to play, and he has shown his hand.
“What am I?”
“You’re a trickster. You’re the sort of dude who shows up and makes people think up is down and down is up. I am not the villain of this story. We are not doing this plot twist. No. Absolutely not. You’re wrong.”