“Pie, I’ve spent nearly five hundred years in Pennsylvania. I know these woods.”
She lets out a long breath. “Fine. You’re the resident expert on woody PA. Where is it?”
“It’s just up the hill from Granite Springs. See, look between those two branches.” She leans forward, squinting. “That blue thing, see it?”
“Yeah, OK. I see it.”
“That’s the sign to that stupid candle shop.”
I feel her relax next to me. “I really like that shop. I burn their lavender candle every time I take a bath and even though I had to sell my soul to get all that cute stuff, sometimes, when I’m surrounded by goat’s milk bubble bath, sniffing that lovely lavender candle, I think it was worth it.”
This makes me smile. Pie, man. She’s a gift. The best ever. “Wanna go down there?”
“Down where?”
“There. To Granite Springs.”
She points to her naked nymph body. “Like this?” And her words are bitter now. Like she has regrets about being a nymph.
I shrug. “We don’t have to go into town, but it would be nice to get out of this place for a little while, don’t you think? We could take a walk in the woods.” It’s kinda lame. We’re already in the woods. But these are magic woods and those woods, beyond that door, are the real woods in the real world.
And a little bit of real might go a long way right now.
Pie sighs. “I should put some clothes on?”
“Why?” This makes her snicker. “I mean, wood nymph chimeras don’t wear pants, Pie.”
Now she chuckles. “But… what if we get stuck there?”
“So? We walk back. No. We run back.” I’m not a mind reader, but I can read her mind right now. Running in the woods. That was our first shared memory. She liked it. She was her true nymph self in those hallway memories.
“Well, where do the other doors go?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t looked yet.”
She takes a few steps to her left and looks into the next one. “It’s nothing. Just… shimmering.”
We look at a few more, but they are all the same. “Huh.”
“Maybe…” She pauses.
“What? What were you gonna say?”
“I’m just spitballing here, but maybe they’re blank slates?”
“What’s that mean?”
“Like… they need a spell to activate them. Like maybe they’re just… nothing until we make them into something.”
“They can go anywhere.”
“Exactly.”
“You have somewhere else you want to go?”
“No. Not yet, anyway.” Then she smiles. Because she’s warming to the idea that we are not prisoners anymore. She turns back to the Granite Springs door. “How come this one has a destination?”
“I think this one is attached to my ring.” I hold the ring up.