Billy Coatbutton and the Wheel of Destiny by Michael James Ploof

Author:Michael James Ploof [Ploof, Michael James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy
ISBN: 9781479157129
Goodreads: 16149762
Publisher: CreateSpace
Published: 2012-11-12T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 3

A Fork in the Road

Billy went slowly down the pitch-black stairwell. He assumed that it had been built into the stone by Helix himself. What a loony old toad he is, thought Billy.All the crazy talk about being crazy if you were not crazy, and sane if you were insane, two roads leading down rabbit holes and such. Billy had no idea what the old gnome was talking about. He was glad that Helix had been there to help against the rat. Billy shivered at the thought of the huge rodent. It had not occurred to him how close he had really come to being rat food. He suddenly felt bad for not being more polite and grateful-acting toward the old gnome. He could just hear his mother chastising him about such bad manners.

Billy was brought back from his pondering when his hand felt a wooden door before him, and upon further searching with his hand, a latch. He pressed his large ear to the wall but heard nothing but the ticking of a clock, a very large clock.

He slowly lifted the latch as he held his breath. It was very dangerous to go wandering throughout tunnels and parts of the unknown wilds; it was also very dangerous to open doors without knowing what was on the other side. Billy opened the door a sliver and peeked out; he saw nothing but stone and wood, dust and cobwebs. Slowly he crept from behind the door and quickly looked in the other direction: nothing behind him. He exited the doorway completely and silently closed it. From this side, once the door was closed, it was nearly impossible to see the seam in the wooden wall. The wall was really a support beam separating one floor from another; it was in this space that Billy now stood.

Billy produced his needle dagger and proceeded to the right toward the only light that he could see, dimly showing through a crack in his ceiling, which, from a human perspective, was the floor of the library. This part of the inner walls had not been prepped for gnome travel; nails and screws stuck out of the walls here and there. Billy made his way slowly, careful not to stick himself on the sharp points. He slashed at a spider web with his needle sword and caused a crouching spider half the size of his body to flee. Billy shivered; of all things, spiders were the worst, as far as he was concerned. Sure, a rat had huge teeth and nasty claws, a snake could eat you whole, but a spider large enough and hungry could paralyze your body and wrap you up in silk, leaving you to wait to be eaten. Of course there were only a few reports of this ever happening to a gnome within the town of Arappathy, but a few were a few too many.

Billy came to the crack in the wall that was the source of the leaking light. He peered through the crack and looked upon the large library of Sockefeller Castle.

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