Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 116263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
Abigail Watkins was an American painter.
Born: February 16, 1871, in Pendleton, South Carolina
Died: March 4, 1902, in Charlotte, South Carolina
Known for: Painting
Spouse: Ambrose Watkins
Parents: Robert Ray Smith, Beatrice Louise Remington
Abigail Watkins was known for painting. While the peers of her time had moved on to realism and impressionism, Abigail’s works were notable for their mystical elements and her flair for the demonic, her style lending itself to the romantic period preceding her era. Abigail Watkins’s works were virtually undiscovered until after her unfortunate death at thirty-one years old. While it’s believed most of her works were destroyed in the house fire she succumbed to, five paintings were recovered and are now on display at the Art Institute of Chicago.
We both were fucking shaking as we clicked through the five images lined up beneath her name.
The first was the original we’d seen, the one labeled Tearsith at the edge where she’d swiped the letters across the bottom. The others were unnamed, but that didn’t mean we didn’t recognize them.
Two were depictions of the bowels of Faydor, the barren plane we knew so well. One was a landscape, as if she had perfectly defined the hell where we found ourselves each night. In another, a Kruen had risen high, amassing from shadow to its macabre form. Its face was a void, with innuendos of shape and holes for its eyes that led to eternal nothingness. A pit of darkness and despair. This Kruen had six spindly, branch-like limbs that flamed with fiery tendrils as it prepared to lash out in defense.
The other two were varying portrayals of Kruens peering down from that unseen plane, devouring the innocent below. These were grisly. Gore-strewn. A clear parable of how she interpreted the devastation they wreaked.
“We aren’t alone, are we?” My words were hushed. The search might not have given us the answers we’d been looking for, but I thought there was something comforting about it. Seeing it beyond the borders of our minds.
Aria shifted her attention to me. “No. We aren’t. It’s strange to have felt alone for so long, and this somehow feels . . . like an affirmation.”
“It’s a piece. A start.” With it, I had to believe there was more.
Aria turned back to the screen. “I just wonder who she was. What she was like. She died so young. In a house fire. How awful.”
A bit of that hopelessness bottomed out my stomach. It was so long ago, so I doubted we would find any connections. As cool as it was to have this piece of who we were, we needed a ton more information if it was going to make a difference for Aria. We needed something solid. An answer for who she was.
If we could find out who the Laven was who’d held the same powers as Aria? Find any history on her? Find out exactly how the Kruens or a Ghorl had tracked her down and destroyed her?
Maybe then we could find a way to truly protect Aria forever. Help her tap deeper into who she was.
Maybe I was grasping at straws. Any sort of solution.
But we had to try to find something.
“It says she was married.” Aria reached forward to click on Abigail’s spouse’s name, but we both froze when we felt a presence cloud over us from behind. We’d been so engrossed in what we’d found that neither of us had heard footsteps.
Violence pulled tight across my chest. It was so goddamn reckless to have let my guard down like that.
In a rush of protectiveness, I shifted in the chair, and I glared over my shoulder. Every muscle in my body was bunched and prepared to strike.
It was a man, maybe in his late thirties or forties, and he’d gone to the Healthy Lifestyle section, which was against the far wall. He kept peering our way, trying to keep it covert, like I couldn’t feel his curiosity spearing into us.
“We need to go,” I mumbled under my breath, frustrated as hell that we hadn’t even gotten the chance to check news articles.
Aria looked back at the screen, wishing to push further, to dig deeper.
“We’ll stop again. At another place,” I promised.
We just couldn’t sit idle like this when we’d captured someone’s interest.
I didn’t feel a whole lot of evil radiating from the guy, but right then, with the sense I’d gotten from the trucker, we couldn’t take that chance.
Nodding, Aria stood, and I ushered her back across the loft and to the stairs. I could feel the weight of the man’s attention follow us the entire way.
And I wondered how strong the Ghorl was who had been feeding evils into the janitor’s mind. How fucking in tune it was. How far it could reach. I wondered if the monster could feel the man’s interest, would take advantage of it and manipulate him in a single beat.