Bad Apple by Clay Held

Author:Clay Held [Held, Clay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781490543819
Published: 2013-04-30T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

HOLLOW

Penny stood in the doorway of the office “Where’s he going?”

“Gone,” Simon said bitterly. Rage burned inside his throat, bitter and sharp. “Just like he said he would.”

Penny backed away from the door. “My father’s threshold should protect us. This office is like his home, nothing should be able to get in.”

Simon was quiet, another wave of weakness forcing him to sit on the floor. “Is it bad?” he finally said. “The fire?”

Penny gazed at the roaring inferno. “Not yet,” she said. “I think we can still put it out. Here,” she said, sitting down across from Simon. “Give me your hands.”

“What?”

“Your hands,” she said, grabbing them. “Sympathetic spell-work. I talk to the Archive, you talk to the fire, okay?

“It can hear me?”

“You created it.” She squeezed his hands. “Together we can do this.”

His heart pounded in his chest. He had never held a girl’s hand before. “What do I need to do?” he asked, forcing himself to focus.

“Close your eyes,” she said. “Just follow me. You’ll probably see a few images, but try not to panic.” She squeezed his hands. “I’ll tell you what to do.

He closed his eyes and tried to calm down. It took several deep breaths, but slowly his heart slowed, then his mind began to fill with a few random images, a flower, Malkin, the circulation desk. These images did not pound into his mind but bloomed like flowers. The images tumbled together, the individual pieces piling on top of each other, assembling themselves until an image of the Archives filled his mind completely. Every floor, then every shelf and book, whether they were on the shelf or sitting in a pile on the floor. Almost all of them were on fire.

“Focus,” Penny said softly. “Repeat after me. You are the fire, the fire is you.”

“I am the fire, the fire is me.”

She squeezed his hands tighter. “Again. Talk to the fire, not to yourself.”

Simon took a deep breath. “I am the fire.” A strange sensation flickered across his tongue, hot and wild, like the flames itself. “The fire is me.” He began to feel feverish. “Burning,” he said, the words hot and strange, cinnamon tasting. “We are burning.”

“Yes, we are.” Penny squeezed his hands again. “Rest.” Her voice quavered. “Rest in peace.”

Sweat broke out across Simon’s brow. “Burn...”

“Rest in peace,” she said, clutching his hands. Another image flickered across Simon’s mind--the flower, again, then another. Hundreds of them, all sunflowers.

Be at rest,” Penny said, her voice wavering. “Rest in peace.”

Visions of a somber and quiet place flowed into Simon’s mind. A garden. Sunflowers. Rainclouds. People wearing black, and then, Penny and her sister. Their father. Rain. The butterfly garden. Crying.

He was seeing a funeral.

The hot feeling began to fade from Simon. “Rest,” he repeated slowly. “Rest in peace.” The flames in his mind died away, and with it the cinnamon taste in his mouth. The image of the library slowly began to leave him, collapsing in on itself as it washed away like a dream.

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