I sniff the air inside the black tomb, trying to catch the scent of the monster inside. But instead, I catch the scent of woods.
The woods in my tomb aren’t very interesting. Just trees, and dirt, and a stream or two every now and then. One of the trees is massive and dead. There’s a large hole in the side, and when I’m in there, that’s my home base. But there are no comforts.
I haven’t been in my tomb in weeks. Pie can’t go in there—she can’t see the door. Just like this tomb. So I’ve just been staying in the cottage. But when this woodsy scent hits me, I have an immediate pang of nostalgia for it.
The moment I think this thought, the earthy scent increases. Like it’s beckoning me. Which is a warning sign if ever there was one. When a magic tomb reads your thoughts and adjusts the atmosphere around you into something more tempting, the smart thing to do is walk away.
But I’m not sure anyone has ever called me smart.
So I take another step.
And another.
And then yet another.
Until I am all the way inside.
Until I am standing in the center of the small antechamber.
Somewhere, far down that dark passageway, I hear a laugh. The sweet laugh of a wood nymph. And my heart skips inside my chest. Because that laugh belongs to Pie.
“Pie?” I call it out, and I call it out loud. “Pie?” I say it again and then I’m grabbing the torch off the wall and heading down the dark passageway.
As I walk the footing under my hooves changes from stone to gravel to dirt. And then I am in a forest.
The laughter is off to my left. “Pie?”
It’s light in here. Maybe… midday, like it is outside. So I pound the end of the torch into the dirt until it goes out, then toss the wood aside.
“Pie!” I yell for her. I’m certain it’s her.
I run forward into the woods, but instead of finding a nymph, I find a door with a view of the woods. And for a moment I feel like I’m in a funhouse. One of those mirror mazes where you can’t tell which is the real path forward.
I walked through a door, into the woods, and in the woods I see a door with a view of the woods.
On the other side of the door a flitter of movement passes through the trees at an incredible speed and I catch a flash of antlers and fur. “Can’t catch me now!” a young wood nymph yells, running and leaping over logs, deeper into the forest.
“Pie!”
“Come on, Pell! Catch me!” Her voice floats through the leaves and around tree trunks. Her invitation spurs something inside of me. Something that makes me want to chase her.
“It’s a trick, Pell.” My voice is calm, and rational, and low. And I know this is a trick. It’s just like the hallways upstairs. None of it is real.
But knowing things and accepting things are often on opposite ends of the knowledge spectrum.
“Pie!” I yell again.
“I’m getting away! You better catch me!”
And she does sound far away. She really might get away if I don’t move now.
I’m just about to leap through the door and chase after her when I see myself running after her.
I stop. Stand still, almost afraid to move as I watch him leap over logs and weave his way through the leaves and tree trunks. There is giggling off to my left. Then more, off to the right.
Then the scene through the door changes to a clearing with a large pool of ice-blue water, a waterfall on the opposite edge. Pie is standing on a rock at the very top of the falls. “Can’t catch me now,” she teases other Pell.
She is young. Very young. Barely a teenager. No breasts to speak of hidden behind her long, blonde hair. No hips. Nothing remotely woman about her, actually. And when I look down at myself, standing on a rock at the bottom of the waterfall, I am the same age. A boy.