Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 92996 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92996 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
“Yeah.” I suddenly realized how wet I was getting. “We’re going to drown out here before we figure anything out,” I commented, as the rain had gone from a drizzle to a steadily increasing downpour.
“Good point.”
We ran to the car, and once in, we sat in silence for a good few minutes before Lorne started driving back toward Osprey. Strange to look outside and see everything as it was supposed to be, simply a dark, empty, rainwashed highway at night.
He took a deep breath, then exhaled. “So those reptile things, we can assume they haven’t come through that rift, right?”
“Absolutely not.”
“So then the demon conjured them?”
“That seems the most likely scenario.”
“Do we think that the demon is powerful enough to either conjure them or make us see them how it wanted us to see them?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, maybe your potion didn’t turn them into mud. Maybe they were mud the whole time, and what it did do was remove the illusion.”
“You think it was all an illusion?”
He shrugged. “I dunno. I’m just saying, it’s possible those things were never scary, towering creatures out of a horror movie. Because given how big that one in the cemetery was, and how fast, it should have been able to catch you.”
“I felt its breath.”
“Or you thought you did. The mind in general is very powerful, and yours even more so. Couldn’t you have imagined its breath on you?”
“Isn’t it far more likely that it did happen than that it didn’t?”
“Hard to say.”
“From where you were, didn’t you see it nearly get me?”
“But that’s the thing—can I trust my own eyes?”
I shook my head. “No. It was there.”
“And you know this how?”
“Because of the deer.”
“Explain.”
“The two deer in the cemetery saved me. They diverted it. If the monster wasn’t really there, then why did the deer interfere? And why did a whole herd of them guard us during the drive?”
“Oh, that’s right.” He deflated a bit.
“You wanted it to be an illusion.”
He sighed. “It would explain everything so neatly.”
“It would, but the more likely explanation is that they started out as mud, were changed into creatures, and were then returned to mud by my spell.”
“It didn’t work instantly, though. The spell, I mean.”
“No, it didn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because whatever gave them life is very powerful.”
“Yeah, but so was your…what is the proper word?”
“Amalgam.”
“Well, your amalgam was really powerful. They were mud before they were hit by the truck.”
“Yes.”
“You should be pleased it worked.”
“I am, but if we’re right and those things were golems, crafted from the earth and made to attack us, that is very powerful magic as well.”
“That’s a horrifying thought.”
“Also, from the little I know about golems, if those things touched us, it would be deadly.”
“Which is why the deer in the graveyard kept them away from you, as well as all of them next to the car, creating a barrier.”
“Yes.”
“If the monsters were bad and the deer good”—he squeezed my hand—“where did the deer come from?”
“No idea.”
“Would he have sent them?”
He meant Arawn. “You’ve seen him. If he were going to save us, he would have come himself or sent his dogs.”
“He wouldn’t let you die, would he?”
“No, but he also doesn’t interfere unless things are truly dire.”
“That felt dire,” he said, widening his eyes.
“Yes, it did. But maybe that was the point.”
“What’re you—oh. To test us. To see what we would do.”
“Or could do.”
“I hate this.”
It went without saying that I agreed with him. “There are ghosts in that graveyard, especially where they were. Shelby is a clairvoyant and obviously has no clue how susceptible she is to spirits.”
“You’re saying everything that was happening when we got there was what, normal?”
“Normalish,” I offered. “Yeah.”
His eyebrows lifted, and there was a trace of a smile. We were calming down just talking together, and it was such a comfort. It reinforced what I had come to count on. That things could slip into absolute craziness, but the balance always returned with our shared communion. I was so lucky to have him in my life.
“Before I moved here, if I’d been called to a scene and found Shelby floating and everyone else freaking out, I would have run.”
I scoffed. “No way. Not you, Lorne MacBain. You’re made of much stronger stuff.”
“Fine. But I also wouldn’t have believed what I was seeing.”
“Which again goes to your earlier point—if we trust our eyes and believe what we’re seeing, do we also, later, make rationalizations to reassure ourselves we’re not going nuts?”
“Like the trucker with the whole I thought I saw a deer.”
“Exactly. Because you and I know that yes, there was a beautiful, otherworldly white stag there, and if we were looking at it, then so was he.”
“But afterward, his mind was telling him that couldn’t be because otherwise, where the hell did it go?”
“Well said.” I smiled at him as he covered our joined hands with his other, wanting even more contact.