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)
There is no cottage. I turn the other way, find where the cathedral should be, and sigh. There is no cathedral, either. There is no wall, there are no tombs—nothing. It is just a hillside meadow surrounded by woods.
“If this is death, fuck. You.”
More geese go overhead. More honking.
I have no idea what to do next. Go look for Granite Springs? Or—Savage Falls?
I’d rather be alone.
Am I in the human world?
What am I supposed to do here?
Not that there are many options. I’m fucked no matter what.
So I just turn slowly in place trying to choose a direction. It occurs to me that the meadow on this hillside is much smaller right now than it was the last time I saw it. And the reason for that is because the woods are bigger.
Wider, actually.
I squint my eyes, looking past the trees as I turn, and my gaze lands on a cabin.
My hooves are already heading in that direction when I mutter, “Please don’t let there be a witch living in there.”
Unless her name is Pie, of course. Who—also of course—is not a witch.
I smile as I think that last part. She was so sure she was not a witch. “Joke’s on you, Pie.”
But then my smile falls because I know Pie is not in there.
This is not a place for Pie because this is not a time for Pie.
She doesn’t live in this ‘now’. She lives at some far, far point in the future.
The cabin is crudely made of logs and looks lived-in. I’m debating whether or not I should stay, or just keep going into the woods, when I walk in and realize this is my cabin. I know this because it’s not actually a cabin, it’s my smithy.
All brand-new and shiny just like the day I built it.
I walk back to the door and look out one more time, kind of hoping Jonas is around. He was my caretaker when I built this place.
And I don’t even care if Jonas was Saturn in disguise, I would gladly spend my purgatory years with him, possessed by a god or not.
But there is no Jonas.
So I just close the door.
This is how I spend my time:
Wake up, start a fire, stoke the coals, put some iron it in, shape the iron.
Eat breakfast—I’m so sick of rabbit.
Shape more iron.
Bury the coals to keep them warm for tomorrow.
Eat dinner. I hate rabbit.
Sleep.
Eventually, I run out of iron and switch to bricks. I’ve never really been a mason, but how hard can it be? There’s a new trading post that popped up while I wasn’t looking and I put on pants for this trip—because Pie. Then I smile about that the whole time I’m negotiating with a man from Pittsburgh to deliver the bricks to my new sanctuary.
No one notices that I’m a satyr. Not because they’re blind or stupid, but because I’m magic and I now know how to spell.
I build a wall. Not a huge countryside-encompassing wall, just enough to connect my two sets of gates. One set by the new dirt road in front of where the cathedral used to be, and another set down in front of the lake where I am now building a cottage.
I do not put a spell over the top of the gates, but I do make a place for one.
And once all that is done, I just… wait.
And hope.
And give up hope.
Then hope again because it’s all I’ve got left.
She doesn’t come.
Not even when the new century does.
So then I just go to sleep and stop getting up.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX – PIE
Here’s my problem:
There is no such town as Granite Springs.
There is no such town as Savage Falls.
It’s just as Jacqueline said when I found her on the side of the road. These places don’t exist. Except that I know they do. I just can’t see them.
I try out all kinds of spellings over the course of the day. I’m a damn good speller. All of my previous life with Pell has come back to me over the hours. I know I’m good at this. I know I can do it.
But none of them work.
I don’t think I’m close enough. I need to find the road. I need to find the gates.
But instead I have to find another gas station because I’ve used up an entire tank of gas.
And I’m just coming out of this gas station, my credit card now maxed out, when I realize that this is the gas station that Pell and I came to after my disastrous date with Russ Roth.
I stand in front of my Jeep—mouth open, eyes looking past the highway on-ramp—and realize I know how to get home from here.
I drive past three times before I actually see them. The gates.
It’s a little bit confusing because there’s no Saint Mark’s Sanctuary. In fact, these are not my gates. This is not my wall. There is no curse over the top. No walking gate, either.