Wood

Now…

I always knew where Georgina lived. Ever since I could remember, I knew. It was on the other side of town from where I grew up, and there was no reason for me to know where she lived. But over and over again, throughout my childhood and teenage years, I’d seen her walk into the front door of a certain house on Jefferson Street.

I stood in front of that house now, looking at the shotgun style home, with faded blue siding, and cracked sidewalks. In the backyard I could see an unkempt garden, and behind that, a wooden shed.

I walked up the front porch steps—they creaked under my weight—and went to knock on the door. But the door wasn’t closed. It was left open halfway.

Does she know I’m coming?

I pushed through the door and walked into the house. The place didn't look like anyone lived there, but it wasn't a mess, either. I walked past the living room and the dining room, back toward the kitchen. And that's when I started to see the vines. They were purple with green leaves, and some of them had red flowers. They stretched along the walls, getting thicker as I walked.

When I got to the back of the house, instead of a kitchen wall with a window, I found a wall of those vines. And in the middle of that wall of vines was a doorway–without a door–leading to a brightly lit garden.

I walked toward the doorway, but stopped right before I passed through its threshold. I saw not only the bright, beautiful light spilling through, but also strange globs of air, kind of like pollen, but more mystical looking than any pollen.

I took a step back and pulled up my stats box. I hadn't really used my stats box much since all this happened. Mostly only to use my inventory. But this time I took a good look at where I was going before I went there.

The stats box came up and told me that this was a shadow realm. And that it was the property of Georgina Heller. That was kind of cool. The game had given her credit for creating this. I shook my head.

Fuck the game.

I walked through the threshold, stepping down one step into Georgina's creation. The air smelled different. It even felt different—the air in the real world was course compared to this. I breathed it in and it felt silky going in.

There were few clouds in the sky, and lots of direct sunlight, too. The sun was starting to set, just like in the real world. But you could actually see the sun, unlike the perpetually overcast sky of our real world now.

I wondered if Georgina had created this Sun as well, or if somehow she had created a hole in the overcast the aliens had created. I added it to the list of things I wanted to ask her. It was becoming a pretty long list. But, admittedly, I had been making this list for a few years now.

As I walked into this world, I realized I was literally in the middle of a giant garden. Every which way I looked there was something new and interesting. Pumpkins, huge lettuce and cauliflower, the green and purple vines… and they were moving sinuously.

There were daffodils on one side of me, and as I passed them they leaned in to sniff me. That was kind of funny, you know that old adage, take time to smell the flowers. Wasn't that put into something lately?

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish?

Maybe they would want to eat me later? I wasn't sure exactly what Georgina's garden was yet. Everything here might be carnivorous… and a predator.

I turned my head the opposite direction to see what was on that side, and that's when I saw it. A large, rather nice house. A rather familiar house, actually. I walked toward it, ignoring the murmuring roses, and the hyacinth chomping down on a huge grasshopper. I stood at the bottom of the familiar steps leading up to the house. That's when I realized Georgina was standing right beside me.

“Nice house,” I said. “Is that…”

“The house from Charmed?” she raised her eye brows and then nodded.

I turned and looked at her, her dark blue lips smiled as she gazed up at me. In her arms she held a large book. A dress of shimmering green silk flowed around her in the breeze.

She was beautiful.

“I thought it looked familiar.”

Georgina turned and looked at her house. “I always imagined someday I would build a house just like the one in Charmed. And now I have.”

“As I said, nice house.”

“I'm glad you finally got here,” she said, and she started to climb the stairs to her front door. I followed, keeping up so I could keep an eye on her. Not that I didn't trust her. Truth be told, I shouldn't trust her, but… I guess that's the lens that I'm seeing her through right now. Rose colored.

“You were expecting me?”

“Of course.”

I chuckled. “I wasn't invited.”

She stopped and looked at me, her eyes quizzical. “Why else would I have thrown a grenade at you and your friends?”

Oh…

A chuckle rumbled in my chest.

We made our way up the steps to her house, and as we approached the front door, it opened. In the back of my mind I was aware that this could be a trap. This could be a man-eating house, ready to devour me the moment I entered. But, she had plants in her garden that I'm sure were already thirsty for human blood. If she had wanted me eaten by one, then she would have had one attack me already.

I looked over and she was staring at me.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“What?”

“That's the thing about men of few words,” she said, and she walked into her house. And this was the moment of truth. Do I follow her in, or do I stand here like a dummy?

I followed her in, noticing that the air inside the house smelled different from what was outside. It was sweeter, not as silky. If this was fabric it would be more like satin.

She turned and looked at me, her smile wide, her eyes sparkling.

“You were saying?” I looked down at her, and her eyes were fixed on my face. No one had every looked at me like that before. I think I was blushing.

Her eyebrows knitted, and her black lips turned into a pretty little bow. “Remind me,” she said.

I smiled back at her. “The thing about men of few words, I think you were saying.”

The book under her arm seemed to sail away from her, and then was deposited on an elaborate pedestal that came up to her waist. I looked at the tentacle that had moved the book for her. It seemed solid, it seemed like there were scales upon it, too. But it also seemed like it was made of shadow or smoke.

She was still staring at me. “Yeah,” she said dreamly. “I'd pay good money to hear what's going on in there. You know, in that pretty head of yours.”

She thinks I’m pretty? Huh… “Would you, now?”

She nodded at me, and then started walking further into her house. “Would you like some iced tea, or lemonade? I made both today.”

“How about a class of both,” I said.

She glanced back at me, her smile absolutely beatific. “Good choice.”

***

A lazy breeze floated in and out of dining room window. Georgina had been expecting me. Cold pitchers of iced tea and lemonade waited on the dining room table, right beside four glasses, and tomato sandwiches on homemade bread.

“You shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble,” I said, pulling out her chair for her. Who knew I had any manners in me?

The other place setting was on the far side of the table from her. That wouldn’t do, so I jogged down the table and scooped everything up, and came back, plopping it all at the seat right next to Georgina. If anything, her smile grew more radiant as I did so.

I poured the iced tea in two glasses, and did the same with the lemonade, placing a glass of each by our plates. Then I sat down and gave her my best smile. Not that I had that much practice at it. I’m kind of a grump: that’s my brand, my brother tells me. But thinking about her, seeing her, that shit always made me want to smile. So why hide it?

I reached down and grabbed the sandwich up, and took a really big bite. Immediately I groaned in appreciation. The tomatoes had the kind of tang you only found in home grown tomatoes. She’d used real mayonnaise, too. And some spice of some sort.

The spice was delicious, but worrying. But I didn’t care. I didn’t see her poisoning me. And if she was trying to slip me some sort of love potion…

Kinda too late on that one.

“Good sandwiches,” I said, and took a long drink of the lemonade. “You grow your own produce?”

“Among other things,” she said, a small grin stretching her lips—but it disappeared as quickly as it came.

Cryptic much…

“The lemon’s too?”

“Of course.” She looked a little put out. “Why wouldn't they be?”

I looked around me at the house. “All this is a little over two weeks old, right? Around the time… they attacked.”

She nodded slowly. “Yes, but this is my place, and things grow as quickly as I want them to.”

It was my turn to nod. “It looks like the garden goes on for a ways?”

She gave me one of her lopsided grins, took a bite of her tomato sandwich, and then made a full-mouthed answer. “Mhm.”

I laughed. She was funny. I didn't know if she would be funny, and that was just a plus.

Her gray cat trotted into the room, came over and rubbed itself against her bare ankles. Georgina leaned down and scratched it behind its ears.

“So your cat shares that tentacle power you've got?”

Her expression—hell, even the color of her eyes as she looked at me—changed. She wasn’t the friendly girl that was serving me sandwiches and lemonade anymore, she was a predator. I felt myself tense under her scrutiny.

“That was a nosy question,” Georgina said. Even her voice seemed different. Harsher, like hitting two side-by-side keys on a piano at the same time.

“Observant, I’d say.” I picked up my glass of lemonade and took a drink. I nodded to her. “Very good.”

For a few beats she just stared at me as I ate my sandwich and drank my lemonade. And then, when the intensity seemed to fade from her eyes, I said—“I can pull any weapon from a mile away to me.”

She seemed disappointed that I’d changed the subject. “Really?”

“Yeah,” I said, ignoring the sound of boredom in her voice. “At first I thought I was just bringing copies of weapons to me. But then I tested it, and it turned out to be the real thing. This will be very useful in the future.”

I didn't tell her that I couldn't take weapons out of people's inventories. Or that I could take the weapons and just plop them into my inventory with almost no trouble at all. I’d been practicing the last week.

Ammo was a different story altogether.

Georgina took a swallow of her lemonade, and without looking at me started to talk again.

“Rosie’s abilities mirror my own, but they're not exactly the same. I'm not sure why.” One of her shadow tentacles slithered out from behind her, swung toward the middle of the table where some freshly cut wildflowers sat, and she plucked a yellow flower out of it. It was a daisy. She set it down on the table right in front of me, and then her tentacle just seemed to evaporate, like mist.

Just then a large crow flew in through the window and landed on the table, right by Georgina’s right hand. It cawed at her.

“Yes?” she said, tearing her gaze from me and staring at the bird. A man yelled from somewhere outside the window. He was calling out Georgina’s name. A moment later, with tension in her voice, she said, “I'm busy right now. Could you take care of… that for me?”

The crow cawed, and then flew straight out the window again.

Before I could even form a question in my mind, crows flew past the window. At least a dozen. Through the window I saw a man stagger into view. Half the crows were latched onto him with their talons, smashing their sharp beaks into his head, his back, and his face. The other crows flapped their black wings as they descending upon him, their claws ready to grab hold of him. The man screamed in agony and staggered out of view, more crows flying after him.

Georgina took a dainty sip of her tea, and gave me a flat, polite smile. I don’t think she’d wanted me to see that.

“That was your father, right?”

She swallowed, and her smile disappeared. “Yes… but he'll be back tomorrow.” I didn't push. She would tell me if she wanted me to know.

***

I offered to help clean up after we were done eating, but she said she’d take care of it later. She took me out the back of the house, down past some very pretty flowers, and a tree that looked an awful lot like the possessed blood tree that grew in the playground on 5th street. I pointed at it. “There's one of those at 5th Street playground.”

She nodded. “I gathered a seed the other day. They both grew very quickly, though I believe mine is already bigger than that one.” She sighed when a vine slithered out of a bush and begged for her attention. She stroked it, and it shivered in delight.

“They’re Jaboke trees, she said. “Ripped right out of a Japanese fairy tale. My book told me about them.”

I raised my eyebrows at her. “The book—the one on the pedestal—speaks to you?”

For a second there she looked a little surprised. But then she shook it off and smiled at me. “Don't all books speak to us?”

Asked and evaded.

Somehow we’d talked most of the night away, and I wasn’t even tired. If anything, I wanted to take her out into our town and show her some of my favorite places and things. But many of those places and things were nothing but charred potholes now. And if she’d gone to the trouble of making her own not-so-little shadow realm to get away from… well, to get away from the town we lived in, then she wouldn’t want to see said town.

I stopped and stared at her for a few beats. Her eyes were darker, it seemed, than before.

“I should be getting back,” I said.

She chuckled. “You really should.”

I felt my brows bunch up.

“You want rid of me?”

She slithered over to me, popping up on her toes to press her dark blue lips to my cheek, and then slid back away. I caught only the briefest of whiffs of her candy-like scent.

I suddenly really wanted her to press those soft lips against my own.

“If you don’t leave now,” she said over her shoulder, her eyes dancing with mirth, “I may never let you go.”

I stood and watched her climb the stairs to her house, and then disappear behind the self-closing door.

… never let you go.

I felt a shiver of dread and anticipation slide through me. I bit my lower lip.