Persie Merlin and the Door to Nowhere by Bella Forrest Page 0,28

to make my life hell, before taking flight again.

I managed to drag myself into a sitting position to assess the mayhem. A few of the creatures wore the bird skull helmets, while others sported upturned walnut shells and some had no headpiece at all. But I had little time to wonder if it was a hierarchy thing, since at that moment two of the fluttering beasties were pulling a lamp off my shelf. It plummeted to the ground and smashed, sparks flying. The creatures giggled raucously, pointing at the debris and grinning those sharp-toothed smiles.

On my bed, four of them were gleefully in the process of putting my Thread Bear through torture. They had a limb each, pulling with all of their tiny might, trying to rip him in four directions.

“Hey! Stop that!” I jumped up on shaky legs and ran to the bed, and not a moment too soon. I lunged for Thread Bear just as the critters dispersed in a cacophony of jangling laughter. They chattered to one another like monkeys, but I had no idea what they were saying. I probably didn’t want to know, either, as one pointed at my soaked sweatpants and started giggling. Its buddies joined in. Clutching Thread Bear to my chest so they couldn’t hurt him, I stared in abject disbelief. They whooshed in every direction, taking no prisoners: a cluster swung from the light fixture overhead, shrieking with naughty delight; two ran at each other across my desk, jousting with pencils; another dipped his butt in the cold coffee I’d left atop my wardrobe, then dragged his cheeks across my sketchbook. Still another group was causing all kinds of bedlam in the bathroom, whooping and trilling, with a few very worrying splashes thrown in. I knew I should’ve been trying to stop them, but their sheer volume overwhelmed me. I couldn’t have moved if I’d wanted to, not even knowing there was a whole team of butt-painters going to town on my sketchpad.

Another crash jolted me out of my deep freeze. One of the idiots had toppled my scented candle from the side table against the wall. It cackled and danced a jig on the edge of the table, giving it the full hoedown as the candle flame licked the border of the thin rug in the center of the room. The fabric caught abruptly, and the creatures all paused and “oohed” at the same time, unconcerned that fire threatened to consume the entire thing.

“What the heck did you do?” I yelled, finally shaken out of my daze. With no useful magic, I’d have to put the fire out the old-fashioned way. I raced into the bathroom, only barely registering the destruction I saw. Toothpaste had been squirted all over the walls, creatures dripping in goopy shampoo were flinging handfuls of it at each other, and two of them were having a whale of a time in the toilet bowl, using it as a personal jacuzzi.

I drenched my towels under the faucet while batting away the buzzing creatures. With the towels fully doused, I sprinted back out and threw them over the flames. Smoke and steam billowed from beneath, filling the room until I had to cover my face with the collar of my T-shirt. From somewhere within the smoky haze, I heard a ripple of mad laughter and the echo of tiny applause.

They’re freaking mocking me! The absolute audacity of these things. When this smoke cleared, they’d learn a valuable lesson. All I had to do was lock them in my room, find some puzzle boxes, and catch the little pests. I had a few pre-hexed Mason jars in my luggage, but not enough for all of them. Then again, with them being so small, maybe several could fit into one. I steeled myself to return to the mayhem.

But when I poked my head out of my T-shirt to check on the state of the smoke, the joke was definitely on me. Heavy, significant silence hung in the foggy air. No laughter, no whoops, no shrieks. Deadly silence. Holy crap, no! With my arms outstretched, I ran in the direction of the front door—and where the door should’ve been, my hands felt empty space.

Terrifying realization struck like a thunderbolt. I’d just Purged a horde of tiny, chaotic monsters, and now… they’d all escaped.

Six

Genie

I lurked by the hot chocolate urns, assessing the situation like an army general plotting out the best course for socializing. It paid to know your enemy, though