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)
“Who’s that?” I demanded, turning in a full circle, my voice sounding more confident than I felt. “Who said that?”
No answer. Just the soft creak of something moving in the air above me.
Another shiver seized me—I didn’t want to look. Every instinct inside me screamed, Don’t look! Don’t you dare look, Danni!
But of course, I did.
The corpse hanging from the branch of the tree had swung around.
Its face was gray and sagging, the eyes dull and sunken—except now they weren’t closed. They were open.
And staring straight at me.
My breath caught in my throat as those empty eyes blinked.
Then the thing’s mouth stretched into a horrible grin, and in a sing-song voice that made my stomach twist, it began to chant.
“Don’t go down to the Wishing Tree,
The wishes that it grants ain’t free.
Why don’t you know that I’ve been told,
If you make a wish, you could lose your soul?”
Each word sent a cold chill racing down my spine, like icy, dead fingers trailing over bare skin.
“Stop,” I whispered, my voice coming out dry and hollow. “Stop it!”
The corpse didn’t stop. Its gray, stiff hands were moving now, fingers twitching clumsily toward the noose around its neck. I stood rooted to the spot, watching in disbelief as it began to untie itself.
The rope creaked, a dry, rasping sound that set my teeth on edge. The knot began to loosen.
“Oh God,” I breathed. “Oh God, no. No, please!”
You may wonder why I just stayed there, watching like a fool instead of trying to get away. The thing was, my feet wouldn’t move. I wanted to run—wanted it desperately—but I couldn’t. I was frozen—pinned to the ground by the sheer horror of watching the thing get loose.
As I stood there, the thick coil of rope slid off, and the corpse dropped heavily to its feet with a dull thud. Its head lolled at an angle, the neck twisted and broken, and its grin stretched wider, showing rotted teeth and a gray tongue.
It took a single, shambling step toward me, holding out one dead hand.
“Danni,” it crooned. “Danni, my love…”
Seeing it in motion and hearing my name on its twisted lips finally broke whatever paralysis had gripped me. I stumbled backward, tripping over a root, my hands flying out to catch myself. My fingers scraped rough bark—the tree’s trunk, solid and unyielding was now somehow behind me.
I looked up at the figure advancing through the gray light, its shadow stretching long across the cold, dead ground. It walked with a hitching, stumbling gait but it was picking up speed.
“Daaaaanni,” it said again, drawing my name out. “Danni, I can’t wait to taste you…”
The grin widened horribly until it split the gray, dead skin of its face.
It was the worst thing I’d ever seen—but somehow I still couldn’t make myself scream. I couldn’t get a single sound to come out of my mouth, though I could feel my eyes getting wider and wider with horror.
What have you done, Danni? whispered a panicked little voice in the back of my brain. Oh my God, what have you done?
35
SHADOW
I felt Danni’s fear the moment it bloomed.
It was a sharp, ice-edged pulse that rippled across the thread connecting us—ripping through me like a scream in the dark.
It called to me—just as it had when she was little. When she first reached across the Veil of Shadows and gave me form and begged me to come protect her.
When she named me.
Her fear was the first thing I ever knew. The need to protect her was the first purpose I ever had. And now, it blazed through me again—hot and wild and demanding.
Danni was in danger and I was going to her, even if it cost me everything.
I stepped through the bedroom window of the cottage, not bothering with the door. The night air met me with a cold kiss, but it helped… steadied the edges of my body, gave my form more solidity. At least there was no sun overhead to melt me—the darkness was my ally.
So was the heat still inside me from the night before.
That first deep intimacy—our first true joining when Danni had allowed me to fill her with my tail—had filled me with her light. It clung to me even now, bolstering the shredded strands of my essence. Without it, I would have unraveled the moment I stepped out into the open. But as it was, I felt solid enough to go on, though I knew it couldn’t last forever. I needed to find her and get back to the cottage quickly or I risked dissolving completely.
I ran through the yard, my feet skimming over the grass, following the raw pulse of her terror. It led me straight to the edge of the town’s protective bubble.
The shimmer of it met my eyes like an enormous soap bubble stretched across the world—rainbow-tinted and delicate. I saw where it had grown thin. It needed reinforcing.