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)
He makes to strike my not-mother across the face. But at the last second, when she’s cowering back against the sink, he changes his mind and takes a deep breath instead.
The woman holds her breath, eyes wide, scared now.
“Go wait out there.” The devil points to the messy bedroom and the woman scoots her way past him and out of sight.
The devil closes the door. Then he turns back to me and kneels back down on the gross bathroom tile. He puts both his hands on his thighs and lets out a long exhale. “Pianna. Look at me, sweetie.”
I don’t want to look at him. When I look at him, he makes me feel funny. And then he makes me feel sick. Every time I look at him, I want to throw up.
He places his finger under my chin and tips my head up. Finally, feeling like I don’t have a choice, I meet his gaze. I gag and shake my head until he lets go of my chin and allows me to look away.
“It’s not your fault.”
I don’t know what he’s talking about, but I’m listening now. Because all day the woman has been telling me that everything is my fault.
“You can’t help who you are. And you’re just a little girl, so it’s not even like you can change it.”
I let out a long breath. It’s my turn to sigh deeply.
“But if you tell me the secret words, Pie, and you tell me where you put the ring… then I can change things. I can change everything for you.”
“You can send me home?” My voice is small, and shaky, and scared.
“Yes.” The devil is delighted. Finally, I have spoken and taken an interest in what’s happening. “Of course I can. If you just tell me the words and give me the ring, things will go back to the way they were. And don’t we all just want things to go back to the way they were? Hmm?”
I don’t know about this. I don’t know where I come from. Even though I am inside my little-girl self in this moment, I don’t understand what’s happening. Not the important parts.
I do understand, now that I am in this body and not passively watching from the outside, that I am not a human. And that I did have hooves, or something other than human feet, when I woke up and put these boots on. They are not boots made for human feet.
And I understand that I have been kidnapped. That I am someone important. Or, at the very least, the daughter of someone important. Even if I had not been told that Callistina was my sister, I would be able to piece this together just by looking at the outfit I am wearing.
I am a royal beast and I have been taken.
The devil tries to take my hand, but I resist. I’m still clutching Pia in my palms. When he insists, Pia flutters up my arm, crawls her way up my cape, and settles into the collar of my uniform near my neck.
He pries my hands open and out comes a fluttering of moths.
He stands up and steps back, his hands in the air, like he’s warding them off. “Fuck! Fuck!” He says this over and over again. Then he’s got a lighter in his hand, flicking on a flame. Then, one by one, the moths are burned away to dust.
When they are dead and the room is still, he lets out a long breath, shoves the lighter back in his pocket, and says, “Now that was not what we want from you, Pie.”
“I don’t know how that happened.”
It’s true too. When these words come out of my little-girl mouth, I mean them. I am as confused as I’ve ever been about the stupid moths.
“Where are the fireflies?”
“Fireflies?”
He places a hand on my shoulder and shakes me, not too hard, but hard enough to make me jump and gasp. “You know what I’m talking about.”
The bathroom door opens and my not-mother pokes her head in. “I don’t think she knows,” she says. “The moths came out the moment I pulled her through the door. I think this place changed her.”
“We don’t have time for this place to change her, Lisa. This was your idea. You said it would work. And now…” He sucks air past his teeth. “Now she’s human and all her magic is missing.”
“She had the ring, though. I know she did.”
“Get out.”
Lisa is not my mother, but she’s not a monster either. I don’t even think she’s magic. I think Lisa is a human. Probably a human who got caught up in the eros love spell. And the two of them came up with this whole kidnapping plan, but something happened and it didn’t go the way they thought.