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)
She moans a little, then goes stiff and sits straight up. “Horrible!”
“What? No, sweet Pie. It’s not horrible. Not at all.”
“What?” She looks around, confused. “What are you talking about?”
The fireflies are still pouring out of her palm. And she looks down, maybe feeling them, and just stares at them for a few moments. Like none of this makes sense.
Which it doesn’t.
She looks at me with wide, surprised eyes. “The moths, Pell. The moths are bad.”
Now I’m confused. “What moths?”
“You know. The ones I used to—” She pauses, watching the fireflies still pouring out of her palms. Then she looks at me again. “The ones I used to banish Saturn, or whoever. They’re not… me. Not the real me. The real me is…” Her eyes drift upward and she points to the stream of light. “That. Them. The fireflies are my real magic. My good magic, Pell. The magic they wanted to steal.”
“Who? What did I miss?”
“A dream. Or… no. A memory. I fell asleep and then I woke up in a hotel room. It was the day they took me, Pell. My mother and the devil.”
“The devil? As in the guy waiting for me in the Granite Springs bar?”
“Him. He was there. He was part of the kidnapping. And I wasn’t always a human.”
“Well, we knew that, right?”
“Yeah. But I’m not a wood nymph chimera, either. I’m a…” She squints her eyes, then sighs. “I’m like Callistina. I’m one of those lion things. I’m one of those royal beasts.”
She starts describing the scene to me. The yelling and the little uniform she was wearing.
Royal beasts.
This keeps popping up so there has to be something to it.
This whole time that Pie is talking, fireflies continue to pour out of her palm. She absently itches them with her fingernails as she retells her story. But it must get overwhelming because she throws up her hands and yells, “Stop it!”
The fireflies do not stop. In fact, they grow in number, the river above us getting thicker and brighter.
“Why won’t they stop? There must be millions of them up there.”
“I think they’re trying to tell us something.”
“What? What are they trying to tell us?”
I point to the river. “I think we’re supposed to follow them.”
Pie sighs. “Oh. Well, OK. Should we do that?”
“Feels like the next necessary step. But… we don’t have to go right away. I don’t think the fireflies are in charge of anything. They’re just a map. And maps will wait until you’re calmed down.”
“I’m calm.”
I side-eye her.
“I am. It was just… unsettling. My mother and the devil. And you know what the really gross thing is? He wasn’t mean the way she was. But then he left. He just walked out on us. And my mother—Lisa—she took care of me for three years even though I wasn’t hers. I was just… a leftover kidnapped kid who never panned out. He never came back. But she did. Several times after she dropped me off at CPS. That’s why I still have her phone number. Though I have never called it, so who knows if it still works.”
“Hold up. The devil was nice to you?”
“Yeah.”
“But you told me that he put a spell on you. He told you to bring him Tarq.”
“Well, I thought that was him. It looked like the same man. But the devil looks like Russ Roth too. And they’re definitely not the same guy. So maybe there are several of them? Maybe lots of them? And maybe all those eros men look alike?”
“Maybe.” I say this out loud but I don’t really mean it. I think they are all the same. Even Russ Roth. I think something is going on with Granite Springs. Or Savage Falls. Whatever it’s called. I think there’s something to that place the same way there’s something to Saint Mark’s. Maybe there are no hallways in the town, but it’s definitely got a split personality.
And we did find a bonafide blood dragon living in its midst.
That’s gotta mean something.
Pie gets to her feet and then offers me a hand. I take it, smiling. Then I pull her close, slip my hands around her little waist, and lean into her neck. “We’ll figure it out. So please don’t worry about it.”
She rests her head on my shoulder and sighs, and we sway a little bit. Like we’re slow-dancing to our own private tune.
Finally, after several quiet minutes of this, Pie says, “Where do you think the fireflies will take us?” They are still pouring out of her palms, their little feet tickling my upper arms now, little pitter-patters before they take flight and join the river in the sky.
“There’s only one way to find out.” I pull back from Pie and smile, then offer her my hand.
She gives it to me. And when our palms touch, the fireflies in that hand stop.