Total pages in book: 51
Estimated words: 49441 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 247(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 49441 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 247(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
And that whatever was next would be even harder to overcome.
“Maybe,” I said, holding out my hand to her.
She looked down for a second before placing her hand in mine, then twined our fingers together.
I squeezed tight.
“But we’ll face it together,” I said.
“Together,” she agreed, reaching for the doorknob, and sliding open the door.
“Oh, no,” she gasped as soon as we took a step forward.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Roxy
I was a little salty about Nathaniel figuring out the spell before I did. He tried to play surprised when I worked it out aloud in the block room.
But for a guy who’d been un-alive for three hundred some-odd years, he’d never really developed a very good poker face.
He’d likely put the pieces together while I’d been lost in the apartment spell, leaving him alone for a whole day to start making sense of it himself.
I guess it was actually really clever magic on the part of whatever witches created this labyrinth. To create a spell that used a witch’s natural instincts against them made it a lot more difficult than if there was just some straightforward spell to figure out and work against.
Fighting your own nature took a lot of determination.
I wanted to quit a million times while we sorted those stupid little blocks.
The only thing keeping me going was, well, spite. I might have called it stubbornness aloud, but it was absolutely spite.
I wasn’t going to let some other, long-dead witches win.
Sure, I like shortcuts. I believed in working smarter, not harder. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t good at what I did. I came from a long line of powerful witches. I might not make a big show of it, but I remembered everything they taught me.
And I was going to use every tidbit of that passed-down knowledge to beat this stupid labyrinth and collect my money.
At least, that was exactly what the plan was.
Until we walked out of the block room and into one of my worst nightmares.
Which, I guess, proved my theory about the maze using my weaknesses against me.
I overcame my laziness.
And now it wanted to exploit my fears.
See, I’d told Nathaniel about the hay maze thing. I hadn’t told him about another incident at a carnival when I was a kid. Back before I knew a person could even have phobias, so I’d charged right into the makeshift little carnival building, clueless that I was about to have a complete breakdown because I couldn’t get out.
The House of Mirrors was hell on earth for me.
And it was exactly what I walked right into.
There I was.
Hundreds, no, thousands of times. Just staring back at myself. Green eyes saucers, lower lip trembling.
“No. No no no no no,” I whimpered trying to move backward, but the door was gone. The room was gone.
There was no way out.
Behind me were just hundreds of more mirrors, more images of myself.
Same to each side.
Forward.
A whimper escaped me as I threw out an arm and started to run as fast as the tightly stacked maze mirror would allow.
Memories flashed back.
Other kids squealing.
Many laughing.
Teens making out where they didn’t think they were being seen by adults.
While tears started to trail down my cheeks, my heart punching against my ribcage, my whole body starting to tremble as escape felt less and less likely.
I’d turn, and there I was.
Turn again, more me.
Until I felt like I was spinning, like my vision was jumping.
Until I had no choice but to drop down onto my butt against the mirror wall, curling my legs to my chest and crying.
I don’t know how long I sat there like that. It felt like all night to a little kid all alone and terrified.
But it must have been a few hours, because the person who found me was the ride attendant who was doing a tour of the house before he closed it down for the night.
By the time I came back out, my mother was frantic, flanked by cops.
As soon as I saw her, I felt her too. Her energy pulling me toward her. A spell she’d worked up on the spot. One that would have made me rush toward her in any other circumstance. But I’d been too panicky and lost to notice it until I was out of the dreaded mirrored room.
Back in the present, I tried to reason with myself as I rushed forward, taking hairpin turns when I met dead ends.
There was a way out.
Plenty of people who’d gone into the House of Mirrors with me had effortlessly made their way back out.
It was different now.
I was an adult.
I knew this was just a trick. Just a maze. I only had to calm down, focus, and make my way through.
There was no reasoning with my panic, though, as it surged through my system.
I mean, there had been times over the years when I’d been in the home decor department of a store, turned, and saw a row of mirrors, and had to flee.