Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 65042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
“Okay.”
I tucked the V-necked cardigan, yoga pants, and a pair of soft ballet flats under my arm. On instinct, I opened the top drawer of the dresser. Inside, I found socks, underwear, and bras in my size. But these were all new, with the tags still on them.
Wow, the cottage was really looking out for me. Just like my Grandma would have.
I paused, my hand resting on the edge of the drawer. My reflection caught in the small mirror on the back of the dresser. I looked tired and pale, I thought. But there was a glimmer in my eyes that hadn’t been there in a long time.
Maybe it was hope.
“I’ll just be a minute,” I told Harmony.
I took my bundle of clothes, slipped into the bathroom, and shut the door.
The bubble bath I’d seen earlier was gone now. The tub was empty and bone-dry, but there were five bottles of bubble bath neatly lined up along the sink—lavender, rose, pumpkin spice, mountain lake, and one unlabeled that shimmered with a faint silvery glow. Clearly the cottage wanted me to have choices—I liked that.
I ran my hand over the bottles and smiled.
"Later," I whispered. I had always loved bubble baths as a kid, though I had switched to showers as I got older. Maybe it was time to take up my old habits again—if I could stay here.
I took off my bathrobe and pajamas and hung them on the hook on the back of the door. Then I finally got dressed. The new underwear and bra fit me perfectly which was nice—I’d been needing to buy new ones for ages. The yoga pants and the V-necked navy-blue sweater made me look sleek and—if not exactly slim—at least not lumpy and huge, which was how I felt in my robe.
I checked my hair and makeup in the bathroom mirror—still pretty good, despite the crazy day I was having. On impulse, I opened the medicine cabinet and found all new makeup waiting for me along with a hairbrush, a toothbrush and toothpaste, and various other things I would need if I wanted to stay here permanently.
The hope I’d seen in the mirror began to rise inside me…but I pushed it back down.
Don’t get too excited about finding a new home, I told myself. You still don’t know what the thing under the bed wants with you.
The shadow boy.
I frowned and pushed the thought away. I would take things one step at a time and right now I needed to go with Harmony to see this Madam Healer and find out what the Harm-or-No-Harm charm was trying to tell me.
I slipped on my little black ballet flats—I would have to see if the cottage might get me a pair of boots later—and I was ready to go.
Opening the bathroom door, I went back into the bedroom and saw that Harmony was still admiring my sweaters.
“Can you teach me how to make one like this?” she asked, holding out the sleeve of a moss-green cardigan with corded rib stitching around the cuffs.
I laughed.
“I think we’ll probably start you on a scarf first. But sure, eventually you can learn to make one.”
“I’m so excited for my first lesson! But we’d better get going,” she said.
I nodded agreement.
“I’m all ready.”
“Good—let’s go.”
We made our way back through the cottage and out the door and I didn’t feel anything bad, though I did still have the feeling that something or someone was watching me. Whether it was the cottage itself or the presence under the bed, I couldn’t tell.
It was time to find out what, exactly, deep purple meant on a charm that was only supposed to glow green, red, or yellow.
And maybe—just maybe—find out who the shadow boy really was… and why my heart ached at the thought of him.
10
SHADOW
I have been waiting for her for so long, my little witch. I watch as she departs with her new friend. I feel her happiness and it makes me smile. I have always been attuned to her emotions.
It was her magic that called me when she was only a child—thin and trembling, hiding in a bedroom far too dark and frightening for someone so young. Her fear reached out like a silver thread through the Veil and wrapped itself around me. It pulled me from my place in the Shadow Lands and anchored me to her.
She didn’t know it then, of course. She never saw the spell she wove around me with her terror and her need. But I felt it. I felt her.
I came to her when she called, just a shadow at first. A dark outline against the brighter hallway where danger waited. I stood between her and the man pounding on her door. I had no body then, no voice, nothing but the shape of protection. She called me “the shadow boy,” and it pleased me. She whispered my name—her name for me—and it bound me tighter than any magic spell ever could have. She called me from the Shadow Lands and gave me a shape and a reason for being…and I loved her for it.