Chapter 11 #2
“I’m never going to live that down, am I?”
Torin beams at me. “It’s not likely. I am looking for a book, but I don’t know where it is in here. I… didn’t organize it.”
“That’s concerning. What kind of book?”
“Do not get your hopes up, but I’m hoping it’s a book that can help you,” he says as he picks up my hands and examines them.
I freeze when I comprehend what he’s saying. “You… think there’s a cure for this?”
“Cure? I don’t know, but I feel like I’ve seen something about the affliction at some point in my life, though it’s been a very long time since I have. Even if we find it, we’d have to find someone capable of helping you.”
“There are thousands of books here.”
“I’ve already made it through that shelf,” he says as he points at one shelf of many. “We should have brought pizza with us.”
“Can’t any of your servants or… friends or whatever they are help? If we get a large group of people each combing a row, we could get done in a couple of hours, maybe?”
He gives me a small smile. “They cannot. This is down to you and me.”
“Fun… how do I know if I find it?”
“Riley… I love how you think I remember something I read about two hundred years ago. What I do recall is there was an image of an affliction similar to yours.”
“What the hell? Two hundred years ago? Who knows if it’s even here or has possibly fallen apart!”
“Of course not. None of my books deteriorate. Let’s work side by side.
That sounds enjoyable,” he says, and then he plops down next to a stack and begins flipping through them.
I grab a book and realize that it’s good that my ability to translate spoken words includes written words because I can at least see what I’m doing.
“This place is beautiful. Why would you ever build a Door to go anywhere else?” I ask curiously.
“I am a god; even beauty can grow boring,” he says.
“I’m not sure whether this beauty could.”
Torin just smiles and keeps flipping.
I page through five books before Kit’s eyes become half lidded.
“Kit, wake up,” I urge as I ruffle her fur. Her eyes snap open and she pays attention for about one more book before they start to close again, meaning that everything I’m seeing is through half-closed eyes. “Kit.” I shake her awake but that barely lasts half a book before she falls asleep.
“Dammit!”
Switching to English, Torin asks, “What’s wrong?” Then he sees Kit draped across my shoulder like a pelt. “Didn’t she sleep all night… and half the car ride?”
“And half the time you were gone,” I say as I attempt to rouse her again. “It’s not her fault. She’s still an animal at heart and she does her best for me. I just…”
I drop my hand down on the book I’d been combing through since I can’t see it now. “If we find this… do you think it could reverse what’s already happened to me?”
Torin is quiet for a minute, but I can still hear him flipping through the pages even though I can’t see him. “I don’t think so, Riley. But it could stop it from worsening.”
“Right. Kit, please. Come on, you can nap when we’re done. I’ll even let you stare at the neighbor’s chickens tomorrow.”
Kit perks up and returns to gazing at the book.
“I don’t blame her. It’s not like she can comprehend what the books say…
or what the movie is about or whatever boring thing I’m doing that day.
It’d be like me staring at a book in a language I don’t know for hours.
” I pull Kit’s head closer and give the side of her head a kiss.
She licks me in return and dutifully watches me flip through another book before I pull her off my shoulder and set her down.
“Go explore. Just stay in this room. I don’t want someone finding you and thinking you’re some strange snack.”
“She’s free to explore,” Torin says.
“Nope.”
“You think we’re so uncultured that we see some peculiar vermin and go ‘snack!’ and scoop them up?” he asks as he picks Kit up and pretends to bite her.
Kit loves it and squirms in his hands before attacking his nose. I get a very close-up view of his face while all of this goes on.
“You are happy to consume anything I put on a plate, so yes.”
“If you put this on my plate, I would be less than happy,” Torin says as he holds up the genet and looks her in the eyes, which is very much like him looking me in the eyes. I don’t know why it makes me feel a bit weird.
I sigh while the two of them play and I’m left holding a book I can’t read. “We’re going to be here for years at this rate.”
“Maybe,” he says, plopping Kit in my lap. She attacks my sleeve, whipping it this way and that before she gallops off to zoom around the room.
I’m left awkwardly and uncomfortably sitting on the floor, having no way to help.
“Are you jealous?” Torin asks as he grabs me in his arms. “Because I will snack on you too.” And then he proceeds to bite my arm.
“Stop! You’re ridiculous! You’re as horrible at staying focused as Kit is!” I accuse, catching him in a headlock while he laughs.
By the time I scrape myself free of him, Kit has returned and promises to behave for at least one more book.
We make it a grand total of one more book before Torin sighs so loudly that it disrupts Kit’s focus. He dramatically just oozes onto the floor.
“Do I even ask what you’re doing?” I ask as Kit flies off my shoulder and lands on the god’s face.
He chuckles when Kit springs off him, and I’m subjected to another close-up view of the god as Kit bites his ear while she brawls him.
“Save me,” Torin whines, crawling toward me.
“We haven’t even made it through half of one bookshelf.”
He seems horrified. “I don’t think I can do it.”
“My life is on the line,” I remind him.
“You’re right. I don’t want to lose you before I bed you.”
I sigh, unsure what exactly that has to do with anything. “No.”
“Are you sure? Well… if you insist… I think I’ll take one of those naps you’re most fond of. ‘Just five more minutes.’”
I lightly smack a book I’ve finished down on his chest as he “oofs” and grabs it. “Let’s do three more each and then we’ll find something to eat.”
“Okay,” he agrees.
“I’m… a bit nervous to see what you eat here.”
“I would be too,” he says, crawling over and setting his head on my lap before picking his book back up.
“What are you doing?” I ask as I stare at the shameless display since Kit is also staring at the shameless display.
“I’m tired of holding my head up.”
“Your life isn’t that exhausting.”
“It really is,” he says, but he’s flipping through the book with remarkable speed, so I leave him to it and click at Kit.
Kit leaps onto Torin’s chest before setting her front feet on his book and using it to launch off to land on my shoulder.
However, Torin was expecting none of it, and I just barely catch the way the book smashes into his face.
I choke back a laugh as the god looks over at me.
“Excuse me?” he growls.
“Kit, careful. I kind of thought he was like a discount-price god in the sense that he probably just wanders around and harasses people, but after seeing his house, I guess he’s the real thing.”
Torin looks flabbergasted. “You didn’t think I was a real god?”
“I’m going to be completely honest… it was questionable.”
The shock on his face amuses me. “But I’m so godly.”
“Handsomeness doesn’t dictate godliness.”
He glowers at me, so I shield Kit’s eyes. “Stop looking at him. We’re focused.”
Torin presses his head harder against my lap in case I’ve forgotten he’s there—I most definitely haven’t. It’s like there’s this heat rising in my body that I have to do everything I can to stomp down. Imagine his smug face if I began to get hard?
The book I’m flipping through that depicts some rather gruesome magical spells does distract me.
“Are you an evil god?” I ask.
“Depends who you ask,” he says as he keeps flipping.
It reminds me again that I know absolutely nothing about this man.
“You freely keep these books in your library? What if someone with ill intentions comes across them?”
He tilts the book so he can see what I’m talking about without having to sit up. “You think someone’s brave enough to steal from a god?”
“This is some serious magic.”
“It’s fine,” he says.
I turn to the next page, which describes a circle that includes using one hundred human sacrifices, and then glance down at the god as I question which part of this is in the “fine” category.
When I set the book down, I slide it back, thinking that maybe the book needs to end up in a fireplace where no one can ever touch it.
I still find it strange that we haven’t come across a single person. Does no one realize the god is back? Or does he live alone in this massive palace? I really can’t imagine this man not having servants.
Torin nudges me. “I’m well past my third book and you’ve just now finished your first. Why are you slacking off?”
“I don’t fully know what I’m looking for, so I have to at least glance at the pages I’m flipping past.”
“You’ll know it when you see it,” he says.
“Which means?”
“I don’t know. I just thought it sounded cool.”
“I’m surprised you’re still speaking English.”
He shrugs. “I don’t care what I speak.”
“It’s just… so weird how you know all these English words when you speak to me, but when you speak to other people, you somehow only know shit you’d hear in a porno and then claim it’s my fault.”
“That is weird,” he says as he grabs another book and then sighs. “I’m craving donuts.”
“Do you have donuts here?” I ask.
“Does it look like we have donuts here?”
My stomach is craving food. I lost reception on my phone the second I walked through that doorway, but I can still use it to tell time and it tells me I definitely should have stopped by now.
“Okay. Let’s take a break,” I say.
Torin hops up and hurries out the door. I get up and follow him into the long hallway that he swiftly moves down, passing through a maze of doors and corridors until we arrive at an enormous kitchen.
The appliances are a mixture of old-fashioned things as well as magical devices I have no idea how to use.
He looks around and then picks up a basket.
“Let’s go.”
“I thought we were getting something to eat.”
“Yes, let’s grab something fresh,” he says, and off he goes again. I trail after him, absolutely perplexed.
“We’re not going to go out and pick some cute little animal that you’re going to try to make me bash over the head so we can eat, right?”
“Yes, that was exactly my plan. The cuter the better,” he says.
We head back out to the flower garden, and as he passes the stone beast, his fingers trail over it.
I glance at it, wanting to touch it again, but feeling like it might be inappropriate.
Instead of heading out toward the fountain, he turns right down a path that winds around to the side of the estate and into a large garden.
There are vegetables I recognize, like tomatoes and squash, but other things that I have no idea what they are. He plucks a few things and then off he goes again.
“You… don’t have a servant to do these things?” I ask.
“You cook for me, I cook for you,” he says, beaming back at me.
I shrug and follow him back to the kitchen where he starts dicing things up.
“Can I help?”
“I think you’re supposed to sit on the counter naked, if we’re going off your books.”
I scowl at him and decide that if he’s going to ramble about stupid shit, I’ll leave him to do it himself.
Instead, I nose my way into a room which turns out to be a pantry full of dried herbs.
And then I wander over to a window that overlooks a beautiful pond that seems to stretch on farther than even Kit can see.
I wonder again why he would have chosen to leave such a breathtaking place.
Eventually, Torin finishes up and escorts me over to the grand dining hall.
“Where do you want to sit? You’re the guest. Sit at the head of the table,” he offers, plopping down my plate as well as a small plate for Kit before he sits beside me.
“This table is as big as my living room.”
“I considered having it enlarged at one point,” he says while he eyes it.
“Uh… I oddly feel like there’s a limit on how big a table should be, and you’ve already reached it.”
He laughs, and then I contemplate laughing once I look at my plate. It’s just a bunch of cooked vegetables that have kind of mushed together. I guess this is what happens when you ask a god to cook for you.
“Oh… you really… went all out,” I say as even Kit sniffs her plate apprehensively, and Kit will eat anything.
I look over at Torin, who is busy eating away, and decide that maybe it tastes better than it looks. I scoop up a bite and find that it’s tolerable, but in no way delicious. No wonder he loves our food so much.
“Thank you… for this,” I tell him.
“Of course,” he responds before taking another bite and then sighing. “I really want a burrito. Can we just hop through the Door, grab some food, and come back?”
“This is fine. It’s just vegetables,” I say as I eat. It’s in the realm of neither bad nor good. “We would waste hours heading out to get different food. And what if the Door closes?”
He sags in his chair and returns to picking at his plate like he’s not the one who made it and put everything on it. I finish eating well before he does and then look around.
“What exactly is our plan? It’s going to take us weeks to go through all of these books. Maybe even longer.”
“I’m too pretty to have to think up plans,” he says. “What about a dance?”
“What about staying on task?”
“We can take a bath together. I’ll wash your back. You wash mine.”
I sigh and decide that I really need to find this book quickly or I’m going to lose my help… and my sanity.