Chapter 45
LEO’S NOTES
Place: Abandoned golf cart, Beane Isle
Found: Notes scribbled on back of cover torn from mass paperback copy of It, by Stephen King
Unexplained ramblings:… unexpected thorns of prophesy.
Must destroy the manuscript…
… close the gate… remain forever here.
Send our creatures and cunning to…
Misc: Unattributed handwriting of unknown provenance
When Shrig stumbled on a mass of roots on the forest floor, he wrenched Leo’s aching shoulder so hard that the joint almost dislocated.
Leo gritted his teeth, but all he said was, “You got this.”
Because he refused to whine, not while Pan was blazing a trail ahead of them, slashing through the undergrowth like a queen of bushwhacking.
Then she pushed into a clearing and said, “What the fuck?”
Five seconds later, he burst from the trees and stumbled into a meadow beside her. A normal meadow. A meadow he recognized, just a stone’s throw from the Inn.
“How did we get here?” he asked, dumbfounded. “We should be back at the road.”
Still, he didn’t stop moving. He kept slogging onward, dragging Shrig toward safety, until Pan stopped him.
“It’s okay,” she told them. “Violet flew back in to check. They’re staying in the woods. We did it.”