Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 140940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 705(@200wpm)___ 564(@250wpm)___ 470(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 140940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 705(@200wpm)___ 564(@250wpm)___ 470(@300wpm)
I studied the little girl some more, and something profound stirred within me.
She was a mirror to the past, a haunting reflection of what Emily must have looked like at her age—wide-eyed, clutching her stuffed lion as if it were her only anchor in a tumultuous sea.
The sight of her sparked so much warmth in my heart.
Pavel shook his head. “Kazimir, stop looking at her. Put your view on me.”
Soon Emily would have my daughter. I could sense her arrival deep within my soul.
She would like the little girl.
I smiled.
Pavel groaned in annoyance.
But then, sorrow crept in.
Dark sorrow.
This little girl—an alter formed probably from the purest parts of Emily—was confined to a surreal world of shattered trauma.
The little girl’s eyes met mine, and in them, I saw a depth that was upsetting. They were pools of knowing, of understanding far beyond her years, and it pained me to think that she experienced a legacy of pain.
I swallowed. “I cannot leave you so soon.”
She widened her eyes. “But. . .”
“Do you want me to go?”
She shook her head no.
My smile widened.
Pavel raised his hands to his head and held it. “You are insane! Do you think you can simply do whatever you want to do?”
I truly believed that this alter was the embodiment of Emily’s innocence and maybe other hidden truths. And if that was correct, then all the alters held clues.
I put my view back on my mouse as she lay asleep on the floor. “I have a unique vantage point, Pavel.”
“You have nothing in this existence—”
“I could piece together—”
“Piece together what? Do you think this is a puzzle that you solve on a coffee table? Because this is not.” He pointed to the ground. “This is her mind. This is insanity formed into solid brick, paint, and walls.”
I shivered.
“You will not be okay after leaving. You will be changed forever.”
I tilted my head to the side. “Have I ever been okay, Pavel?”
“Well. . .no, but at least—”
“This is a puzzle that I can solve.”
“No, Kazimir. This is a shattered vase that is impossible to glue back together.”
I turned to the little girl. “What do you think?”
She squeezed her lion tighter and remained silent.
“I think I could help you and the others.” I touched my chest. “Sometimes it’s hard to heal ourselves because we are right in the center of the problem. Sometimes. . .a stranger, friend, anybody can help because they are looking in from the outside.”
Pavel began pacing. “Finally, I have accepted death. I have even. . .found the joy of it. And the Lion shows me that there are other things more terrifying than death.”
“I could find the original.”
The little girl blinked. “Can you?”
Pavel continued to pace. “He does not know what he is talking about.”
“My perspective is different.” I touched my chin and rubbed it. “I am an outsider, not just to her mind but to her entire experience.”
“Life is a game, Kazimir that you have played well, but death is not a game and Emily’s subconscious is not. . .I do not know what this is.”
“Then, shut up so I can think.” I rubbed my chin some more.
The little girl whispered, “You both should go.”
“I will go.” I dropped my hand from my chin. “But, not before looking around a little.”
The little girl stepped back into the shadows. “I don’t know if you should do that.”
“Why not?”
“You do not belong here.”
I scanned the space. “Emily said she always woke up in the building from Harlem.”
The little girl nodded.
“Where do you usually sleep?”
“In the apartment upstairs.”
“And M has an office and big room.”
She nodded.
“And where does Lunita sleep?”
“On the roof.”
“What about Amber?”
The little girl pointed to a space behind me.
I turned and there was a gate that covered a huge hole in the wall.
The little girl kept her voice low. “That is how you get to her sewer.”
“But, it is connected to the basement.” I considered the stuff that Emily had told me, and even thought of what Maxwell had said once. “Maxwell’s father would play hide and seek with all of you in the basement.”
The little girl looked down at the lion and hugged it tighter.
Maybe, the basement was the first time he touched her inappropriately, and he did something until Amber was born.
The more I delved into the labyrinth of Emily’s mind, the more evident it became that my role was not merely that of a spectator.
If I could just. . .piece together. . .at least some of the fragmented aspects of her trauma.
I took one step toward the little girl. “Can you take me to the roof? I want to see Lunita.”
The little girl opened her mouth in shock.
“Absolutely not, Kazimir.” Pavel hurried around Emily and got in front of me. “I do not want to meet Lunita, and you have gone far enough in Emily’s mind. Let us count ourselves lucky and—”