Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 63214 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 316(@200wpm)___ 253(@250wpm)___ 211(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63214 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 316(@200wpm)___ 253(@250wpm)___ 211(@300wpm)
Turning around, I rushed for Faith and the ice melted away from her hands and feet.
Buzzing filled the air.
I glanced over my shoulder and Addie Mae’s heads flowed everywhere.
“W-what is that?” Faith mumbled as I gathered her in my arms.
“Your mother.” I shook too. I was man enough to admit it. The situation was out of my hands. Far away from logic and what I knew to be reality. “Just hold on to me. Everything is going to be okay.”
Surprisingly, she didn’t say shit. She just buried her head into my shoulders. These days had been too much for her. And this time, her body was cold and sores covered her hands. I tried to put her down for a minute to take off my jacket and give it to her, but she screamed again and then passed out.
“Okay. Okay.” I held her tighter. “I won’t let you go.”
Is she out? I don’t think she heard me.
We remained in the center of the circle.
Addie Mae’s voice floated on the air. “Take her home.”
The wolves howled.
“Why are you the villain?!” I yelled.
Addie Mae was everywhere. There were heads in front and some in back. Heads hovering a few inches from the ground and some several feet above the wolves.
Her voice filled the air. “Take her home and I’ll explain.”
I gazed at the wolves. A few whimpered in front of me. I looked down at Faith. Her eyes were closed. I checked her pulse and it was too slow and sluggish for my comfort.
Fuck it. Friend or foe. I need Addie Mae to help Faith.
With Faith in my arms, I ran through the woods and back to her house. The wolves and heads followed. It took a good ten minutes to get us inside. The wolves remained outside. The heads tried to follow. I slammed the door close. During that race back to safety, I’d remembered one thing.
Addie Mae can’t lie in the garden.
I rushed through the kitchen, entered the pantry, and headed straight for the center of the garden. In this magical world, the sun remained in the sky, heavy and hot as a summer day. Faith would be warm in no time. If she needed medicine or healing, I was sure Addie Mae could figure out the right things to use.
Maybe she won’t hurt Faith, but she might hurt me.
My stomach twisted into worried knots. A boom sounded from the kitchen. I lay Faith down on the ground and searched for a shovel or something to hit Addie Mae with.
Fuck. I can’t hit her. She’s Addie Mae. What am I doing?
But still that thought hit the back of my head.
“She’s the villain.”
There was no shovel or ax in sight. I rushed to those tongue plants. I remembered that Addie Mae said that she couldn’t touch those flowers in her current form. If they licked Remy away, then they’d probably do the same to her.
But how? She’s not a spirit.
Regardless of the logic, I rushed for the bush, grabbed two of those disgusting blooms and held them in my hands as if they were guns.
More banging came from the kitchen and then Addie Mae appeared in the door entrance. Those heads had formed into the creature again. The eye-holes turned to me and then lowered to my hands. And then all the faces on her head frowned. “What are you doing, Daniel?”
“Why are you the villain?”
The blooms opened. Tongues lapped at the air and for the first time I realized they were pointing in her direction.
“What do you want to know?” she asked.
“Step into the garden.”
“Put those down.”
“No, but I’ll back up.”
A soft chuckle came from the hole that served as her mouth. “You’re a smart cop. Have you figured it all out yet?”
“Of course, not. That’s why I’m holding magical flowers like a crazy person.”
Stepping into the garden, she turned to Faith. “It was good you brought her in here. She’ll heal just by laying on the ground. Nature heals. And this land was made for her. This place is all the love I have to give her.”
I backed up and the blooms closed. Still, their warmth and breathing freaked me out, but they were my only protection. I wouldn’t let them go until I was certain that Faith and I were safe.
“In some ways, I am the villain.” She walked over to her pile of skin and clothes. The heads swarmed toward it, filling the empty body costume up and causing it to rise. “Think about everything that happened. If not for me, Faith and you would be together. If not for me, Brett probably would’ve been happy and married to that poor dead girl. If not for me, Remy would be alive.”
“He wouldn’t have killed himself,” I mumbled.
“Did he truly kill himself?” Her voice swarmed around me as her body costume continued to rise. The skin and clothes continued lifted higher. In the center of her body, everything began to zip up. Even the light from earlier appeared and seemed to glue and form those heads back together. “Or did I give him something that forced him to insanity and made him get some long rope, tie it around a branch, and hang from a tree?”