Dead Man's Deal The Asylum Tales - By Jocelynn Drake Page 0,116

a smile as she poured us glasses of lemonade and then wordlessly headed back in the direction of the house.

“Careful,” Gaia warned as I picked up my glass. “She tends to make overly sweet lemonade. I think she may have lived as a hummingbird for a time.”

I took a tentative sip to find that it was perfect, like everything in this place. “Who are these people that live here with you?” I asked as I put down the glass.

“Souls wander in every once in a while, looking for something that they couldn’t find in other lives they had.” Her voice was like the soothing murmur of a woodland stream. “They stay and I give them something to do. After a time, they find what they were looking for and they move on to something else. There are never more than seven here at any time, but usually fewer.”

“Are they all dead, then?”

She smiled at me as she folded her hands over her stomach. “Do they seem dead to you?” Before I could answer, she chuckled at me. “This is just a different place from where you live. Nothing more.”

I relaxed in my chair, stretching my legs out in front of me. From within the copse of trees, I could no longer tell what time of day it was. There were little shafts of light filtering between the leaves, casting the world in a medley of gold and shadow. “I’ve met everyone but the seventh so far.”

“That’s because there is no seventh at the moment.”

My gaze snapped back to her wrinkled face and I frowned. “Were you expecting me to become your seventh?”

She gave a little shrug, her smile never wavering. “Not at first, but you seemed to settle in while at the pond. I could see you aligning yourself to this world, and so much faster than the others that came before you. I would never have offered for you to stay if I didn’t think you would fit.”

“I can’t stay,” I said firmly, but there was no denying the cry of pain somewhere in my soul. I wanted to stay, but I had to go back to my life. I had to help Trixie and Bronx. I had to protect my brother. I had to stop the Towers from destroying everything. Gaia was offering me an escape, but the people I loved would be trapped if I accepted it.

“I know. Your love of your friends and family is a good thing to honor and cling to. This place is a temporary thing. They all go back eventually.”

I nodded, letting the pain in my chest ease a little as I sat in the quiet of the garden. There was something about Gaia’s manner that reminded me of my maternal grandmother, something in her eyes and the way she smiled knowingly at me, a wonderful mix of amusement and pride.

“Chang told me that you were coming because you needed my help with something,” she said, pulling my thoughts at last to the real reason for my presence in her domain. While my body and soul felt at peace, there was now a discordant note in my brain, as if it existed in two separate spaces: Gaia’s world and mine. “I’m sorry to say that I rarely visit your world and I try to avoid having any dealings with it. I probably won’t be able to help you.”

“I understand, but the elves are in danger and you’re the only person I can think of that will be able to help.”

Both white eyebrows raised and she sat up a little. “The elves? They’ve always been quite good at managing on their own.”

“Until the Ivory Towers became involved.”

For the first time, a dark scowl crossed her face, deepening the lines there. The breeze increased to a stiff wind and a couple large clouds rolled across the sky. “Curse those Towers and all those arrogant sots,” she complained. “They’ve spent centuries mucking up all my work. They take pleasure in tangling things up and leaving it for others to fix. I’ve seen two-year-olds exhibit more care with their toys than they do for the world they must inhabit.”

“Unfortunately, a witch from the Towers has made a great tangle of the elves,” I said with a sigh. “I’ve discovered that she cast a spell over all the elves that is slowly but surely destroying their ability to procreate year after year. I can’t undo the spell. To my knowledge, no witch or warlock can until it