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)
And there you have it.
The beginning is now known.
PART THREE
PART THREE
The little girl’s reality.
Holds the door—both lock and key.
Traitors always become your friend.
But they will kill you in the end.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN – PELL
The song fades, but it’s not comforting in the least. Because the world around me begins to fade too, going gray, then dark, then black.
“Pie!” I yell it. And my voice is powerful and rumbly. But nothing shakes. Because there is nothing here.
He shot her. The eros. The devil. He shot her. And then he took her.
I am growling. A new kind of growl, one that matches the new kind of voice. “I’m going to kill you, Eros. I’m going to hunt you down, through time itself if that’s what it takes. And I’m going to kill you.”
I stand there in the black, waiting.
Waiting.
Waiting.
Minutes pass. Hours. Days, weeks, years, centuries.
“No gods now?” I ask the dark. “Nothing to say? You think it ends this way? You think this is how it ends?”
It does not end this way.
I have been in the dark before. Pie and I both have. And this is a comforting thought. Because I don’t know where she is and I don’t know what’s happening to her. The only thing I do know is that eros got her.
And this is probably a big problem. Because he might not be just any old eros. He just might be the Eros.
And the Eros is a god.
A lesser god, for sure. But still, a god nonetheless.
But I’m still in the hallways and that means I still have hallway powers. And my hallway power is creating things with my voice.
No. That’s not actually right.
The voice is just the mechanism. But the actual power came from my emotion. I was getting mad about that fucking eros.
“Fucking Eros.” I grumble it out loud, looking upward for light. Nothing shakes, but a tiny light blinks on above me.
I’m just about to get excited about this, but then it blinks off.
“What the fuck?” Now I’m annoyed.
Then the light comes back on.
Then it disappears.
Then it comes back on.
I squint up into the darkness and then… yeah. I smile. Then I’m laughing. “It’s a firefly.”
Which makes me feel… I dunno. Right, for some reason.
Well, I know the reason. Fireflies are part of Pie. And even though she’s missing right now, she’s also still here. That’s what this firefly means.
Why the hallways decided to split us up, I have no clue. But if they’re in charge, and this firefly is a sign that she’s still close by, then I can push the fear to the back of my mind and concentrate on the now.
I need to make this place into something. But not just any something, it should be intentional. Because I don’t know what the hallways are up to and leaving them in charge of shit feels like a bad idea.
So I need a spell.
I think about what I want—to go home, and be with Pie, and be safe together. It’s not asking much. But, then again, it kind of is. So I need to word it just right and not make the same mistakes I did with making Tarq the king. I mean, it worked, but Pie pointed out some very important shortcomings in my Tarq spelling. Shortcomings that could matter greatly if someone were to challenge it.
I don’t want to be challenged with Pie. Especially when there’s an eros out there claiming her.
This thought momentarily sidetracks my spelling progress because it makes me angry. Not that he’s claiming her specifically. That’s stupid. She’s mine. But that he’s a fucking god and he’s messing with me.
Why can’t they just leave me the hell alone? I’m so over it. I want them all to just fuck off forever.
All right. That’s all-important stuff, but for later. Right now, I need to hook back up with Pie, find answers in the Bottoms, probably go visit Tarq, save Pie’s kidnapping friend, and… put people back where they belong.
If this curse is over—and by the state of the sanctuary, I’m pretty sure it is—then I fucking quit.
Deep breath. Close eyes. Exhale. Be calm. Think. Compose.
OK. I open my eyes and begin:
“A Pie, a Pell, a forest tomb.
Our family home where magic blooms.
Under the trees with lights above.
Take us back and give us love.”
Damn. That’s a good one. I’m a hundred percent sure this will work and I’m not wrong. The sky begins to form just like it did earlier. Light, then grass, then trees start growing.
I sit down on the lush ground and I’m just about to lie back and relax as my new world takes shape around me when—
“Shit.” I get back up. “Shiiiiiit!” Then I look up at the sky, like there’s a god up there waiting to hear my complaints. “There are no palm trees in my tomb! It’s northern hardwood, you fuckheads!”