Total pages in book: 151
Estimated words: 147649 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 591(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147649 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 591(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
“Hello?” I say this, but I already know she’s not real.
Well, probably is real, but we are not existing on the same plane, or whatever. In other words, I think she’s a ghost.
Which is lovely. Not a single ghost in my story so far, but why not, right? Why not throw one in at the end? What the hell.
I don’t bother saying anything else, just walk over to her so I can try to get a peek at her book.
She doesn’t look up, but she does speak. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
“What? You can see me?”
“It feels like a very long time, too.” Then she blows on the inky words she just wrote on the page and gets up. I take a step back when she turns my direction, but there’s no need to worry. She walks right through me. Goosebumps burst out over my skin and I turn to watch her walk over to the bookshelves.
She points up at the books. “I wrote them for you.” She turns back to face me, but her pale blue eyes search the room like I’m invisible. She knows I’m here, but she can’t see me. She can only feel me. “And Pell.”
“You know Pell?” My question sounds overly loud in contrast with her quietness. “Do you know what’s going on? What I should do next?”
I don’t think she can hear me. She gives no indication that my words reached her ears. She just climbs up the ladder and starts pulling books off shelves.
Once she has an armful, she comes back down and places them on the nearest stone bench. Lays them out, face up, side by side, so I can see the titles.
How to Kill Gods
How to Break Curses
How to Start Over
How to End an Era
How to, How to, How to…
They are all about endings. Which is probably going to be helpful. But what the fuck? Were these books here the whole time?
“I wrote them for you, but you never even looked.”
I guess she’s a mind-reader as well as a ghost.
“And Pell.” She makes a face, but it’s a face of… fond remembrance.
Which worries me for a moment. Who is this woman? Why is she here? How does she know Pell? Is she in love with him? Was he ever in love with her? What is her name?
She smiles in a random direction and folds her hands in front of her like a… like a graceful princess or something. “I am Pressia. You’ve been using my book Soaps, Balms, and Tonics for the Magical Nymph to brighten your life.”
“Ohhhh.” Yeah. My eyes dart over to the bench I was using to make that stuff last week, but this isn’t my apothecary. It’s hers. She lives here, I think. Inside Saint Mark’s. And I also think she’s been here a very long time.
Alone.
“It’s nice to meet you, Pie. I’ve been waiting for this day for thousands of years.” She chuckles to herself, like she’s having another memory. “When the dragon came, at first I thought he was going to hurt me. But then I saw his doorknob.” She points to the red gemstone hanging from her neck. “I already had one, of course. It was a gift to me from my alchemist, Lyrica, when I was born. The dragon gave me your name. And, well, after that it was easy to follow you through time. I escaped through the door he left and…” She frowns. Like this is not a fond memory. “Of course, I knew the future. I’m an oracle, after all. But I also knew there was going to be a lot of time between then and now and I knew I would have to spend it alone. So I just wrote down everything I saw, trying to make it easier on you. And Pell, of course. We only ever met for a few minutes, but he was always part of my future. Even if we never meet again.”
I look down at the books on the bench, then up at the bookshelves. The amount of time she’s been here is incomprehensible to me. How is she even sane?
There is something very sad about her too. It’s not just the idea of this sweet thing being a prisoner of the Saint Mark’s curse, it’s something else. Like she had all these years but never really lived.
Kind of like Pell. But not like Pell at all. He had caretakers. And Tomas.
She had no one.
Nothing but her knowledge of the future and the books she wrote it down in.
The woman—who comes off as very young for being so old—swallows hard. Like she’s trying to repress something. Then she looks at the door I just came through and smiles. A tear falls down her cheek.
I look too, and that’s when Pell walks in. “Pie! What happened?” He looks around. “Where’s Nysta?”