Chapter 14

I couldn’t getto the library fast enough, even though Marissa insisted I needed to get breakfast first. But getting breakfast meant wasting time, and wasting time meant I got to spend less time with the books, and then less time in that magic forest where pianos sprouted from the ground.

Magic. Real magic, and I’d seen it firsthand. Had witnessed it for what must have been hours. I’d barely slept for three, but either way I was full of energy. Either way, I wanted more. So much more.

So, the library, it was, a place where I could potentially find an explanation to this whole thing.

Marissa gave up trying to convince me fairly quickly, muttered something about bringing me breakfast wherever I was, then left me alone at the doors of the library.

Butterflies in my stomach even before I opened the doors and stepped inside. Laughter bubbled out of me. Floating shelves. They were still there. They were real. And I was willing to bet my right hand that there were no ropes holding them up, just magic.

I had never felt so completely happy than when I danced my way inside the library, not bothering to even check if it was empty first—of course it would be. It was nine a.m. still and people partied till dawn around here. Most would be asleep, and the girls who hadn’t partied the night before would be at the dining room together.

Not me, though. I was ready for books.

The room looked even bigger when sunlight streamed through the huge windows on the walls. Marissa came not ten minutes later to bring me a big tray full of food. She refused to leave until I’d eaten, and I hadn’t realized just how hungry I was, so I sat at one of the reading tables and I ate so fast I was done within minutes. She tsk-ed me and shook her head disapprovingly, but she had no choice but to leave me alone when my plate was clean. I was fed and rested. Now, it was time to get on the floating shelves.

The ladders were safe enough. They didn’t budge at all when I climbed them, breath held and eyes up, strangely more assured by the idea that magic was holding these shelves up than actual rope. I made it all the way to the top of the first in one piece, and then I was standing on a floating shelf, with books on one side and a gorgeous wooden railing on the other, enough space between them to walk freely.

The entire time I picked books with interesting spines, I was giggling like a damn teenager, feeling as though I was alive for the first time. I piled all of them on the floor of the shelf, then sat down to read.

They were stories, novels, most of them—so many. I read a page here and another there, just to get a feel of the books’ vibes, just to see if I could find anything to explain the forest and those animals and the piano made of tree roots. It didn’t occur to me for a single second that I could tell someone about it. That I maybe should.

It didn’t occur to me that the girls might want to see the wonder, too, to experience those animals, to know that the Paradise was indeed magical—literally. That was the reason why everyone came back. That was the reason why people paid so much money to be here. That was the reason why nobody wanted to leave this place.

I sure as hell didn’t. No, I was never leaving the Paradise again. The world out there could perish for all I cared. I would just be here reading on floating shelves and hanging out with glowing animals and playing the piano in the middle of a magical forest.

Minutes or hours passed. I reached the end of the third stack of books I’d put on the floor around me, and my ass was numb, but who cared? The library was below me, the large windows spilling in so much sunlight, and there was nothing in the world that required my attention or my presence right now. Nothing, just this place.

And the strange book I could have sworn I didn’t pick up from the shelves earlier.

It was some kind of a journal covered in a dark red leather, with long ties wrapped around it several times. All the others were books by authors from all over the world, but this one was different. It was smaller, which was probably the reason why I hadn’t noticed I’d even picked it up. But when I opened the cover and saw the name handwritten on the slightly yellowed page, my breath caught in my throat.

Mamayka Sionne

The handwriting was so neat and swirly, gorgeous to look at. The name screamed at my face as I traced the ink with the tips of my fingers. I’d never heard of a stranger name before. Strange, yet beautiful.

Could that be Mama Si?

My palms were sweating slightly by the time I began to turn the pages to see what was on them. That same handwriting in black ink filled each page with English letters that formed words I couldn’t understand. Words I’d never heard before. It must have been a foreign language, and it made me wonder, where was Mama Si really from? Her name sounded a bit Russian maybe, but these words didn’t. They didn’t sound like anything at all.

I was going to ask the girls what they knew about Mama Si as soon as I got the chance, I decided, but I still went through the journal, searching for a word I could understand until the very end.

On the last pages, a map was drawn in black and white, with tiny shapes and those words I couldn’t even read properly, except for one at the very top—Ennaris. It was written in big bold letters, as if to say that the map below was of it. As if to say that that name was a place. Maybe a country, a city, or even a town?

For the first time since I got here, I wished I’d had my phone with me.

Then I turned the last page, about to close the journal and put it back on the shelf, when I saw the picture glued to the back cover. A picture of Mama Si, naked, half her body in water, the other half just breaking the surface as she looked at the camera that was by her feet.

My heart almost beat right out of my chest. Every curve of her—her round breasts, her toned stomach, her long legs—was perfect. The look in her eyes, those parted red lips, her wet hair—how is she real? The picture was old, almost black and white, the colors faded to where I could barely make out the red of her lips, but it was her. It was Mama Si, and below it was that same name to confirm it: Mamayka Sionne.

Under it were foreign words I didn’t even try to decipher because more words in English were at the bottom of the page, too:

The Original Seductressof the Blood Burrow

The words pressed onto my chest and echoed in my head. My eyes moved back to the picture of Mama Si, and my cheeks about fell off my face because I was turned on. I was fucking turned on by the look in her eyes, the way she stared at the camera, the way the water hugged her body like it was just glad it could touch her. Fuck, she was perfect. I could basically feel her energy, her warmth, coming off that picture as if she were right there, sitting on the floor of a floating shelf with me, her hand on mine, touching me…

I slammed the journal shut, put it on one of the stacks and stood up, terrified of my own feelings. Terrified of the way my body was reacting at the thought of Mama Si’s touch.

Something about the Paradise, a voice in my head whispered.

Or…something about Mama Si.

The good mood I’d come here with had all but vanished. The thoughts in my head made no sense. My panties were wet, and it made me sick to my stomach. I had no idea how I even put those books back on the shelf, how I came down the ladder and walked out of the library, but I found myself on the third floor, walking down the hallway that would take me to that room again. To the dome and the triangles and the forest beyond. To my piano.

The doors were locked.

When nightfinally fell and it was almost time for dinner, I was a nervous mess. The doors to the triangle room had been closed that morning, but they’d be open again tonight. I was hoping so with all my heart, and that’s why I planned to go straight there after dinner and play the piano all night long.

A knock on the door—just Marissa come to bring me the water I asked her for, so I said, “Come in.”

Instead, Mama Si came in and I froze midstride like all my strings had suddenly been cut.

The picture I’d seen in that journal took over my mind’s eye instantly, and it just got more difficult to breathe.

“Good evening, Fall Doll. I haven’t seen you in a little while,” Mama Si said with a wide smile, stepping inside my room while Assa remained by the door.

“I imagine you’ve been busy,” I forced myself to say, knowing very well what her presence here meant.

“I certainly have. Let me look at you,” she said, bringing her gloved hand close to my chin to tell me to raise my head without even touching me. I felt completely naked all of a sudden, even though I was wearing a gorgeous green dress that hugged every curve of my body without it being too tight. It was the closest color I had in my closet that matched the leaves of the forest, and I wanted to belong to that place in every possible way, so here I was.

“Mhmm, love the smokey green eyes,” Mama Si said with an approving nod. “Love the dress, too. And the hair.” Slowly she pushed my hair behind my shoulder, making shivers erupt on every inch of my arms as if she were touching me with her bare hands. She wasn’t—her dark red dress had the gloves attached to it. I could see it right now, same as most of her dresses—but those gloves sometimes disappeared. They just vanished into thin air, and I never saw how.

Before, I’d always assumed that she was just taking one off without my realizing it, but now?

Now I wasn’t so sure.

“Thank you,” I said with the best smile I could muster. “Adam’s a great teacher.”

“That, he is,” she said, folding her hands in front of her again. “Tell me, Fall Doll, how have you been?”

“Great,” I said, way too fast. “I’ve been great. I was feeling a bit tired today, so I stayed in most of the day.”

“Except the library in the morning,” she said, and I could have sworn she knew. The vibrant colors in her eyes said that she knew exactly where I’d been and what I’d done and what I’d seen…

“Yes. You have floating shelves. I climbed one and skimmed through a few books,” I said, and by some miracle, my voice came out steady. Same as always.

“And? Did you like my floating shelves?”

She knows, she knows, she knows, she knows…

“Yes. I love them, actually. I think I’m going back tomorrow.”

She nodded, pleased. “Good. As you should. Books are food for the mind, Fall Doll. And we never want to the mind to starve.” With a wink, she stepped back. “Come with me.”

“Where?” I asked reluctantly. “Is…is he here?”

She raised a brow. “Your client?”I nodded, swallowing hard. “No, Mr. Archer is not here tonight. I want you to join me in the spy rooms. I haven’t had the time to show you more, but you need to be taught, Fall Doll. You have a client now, and something tells me he’s going to keep coming back for more and more.” Slowly, her eyes scrolled down my body and I felt naked all over again.

“Of course,” I said with a forced smile, reminding myself that I couldn’t, under any circumstances, make her suspicious. Not even for a second.

Mama Si turned, waving at the open door, at Assa waiting for us in the hallway. “Shall we?”

I spentthe next two hours with her in the spy rooms, feeling like I was wearing someone else’s skin.

We spied on three girls—Nadia, Joy, and Eva, the first pole dancing for a guy handcuffed to a chair, and the other two having sex. It was the most uncomfortable feeling in the world to be watching someone fucking like that through a window when they didn’t know they were being watched, but I sat there with Mama Si anyway, and I watched until she had enough and let me walk out of the goddamn spy room.

My head was dizzy with so many thoughts, so that while we walked down the stairs and the silence got to me, I blurted, “What’s Ennaris?”

It was a way of both distracting myself from what I had seen until now and quenching my curiosity, even if I couldn’t tell her about the journal or the forest—because what if she thought I’d lost my mind?

Worse yet—what if it was a secret I wasn’t supposed to see or even hear about?

Too many possibilities. Her reaction was too unpredictable still because I didn’t know her well enough. I couldn’t risk it. I wouldn’t.

Mama Si’s eyes lit up like fucking fireworks. Her red lips parted, and I could have sworn she gasped a bit, too.

Then, she slowly smiled. “The most beautiful land in all the worlds.”

I surely heard her wrong. “The worlds?” Was that what she said?

“Yes,” Mama Si whispered, and for a moment there I thought she might start crying. “Yes, in the worlds. It’s a fantasy, Fall Doll. A myth. It only exists in stories.”

The next second, she was her usual, composed self.

Funny thing, though. She didn’t ask me why or how I knew the name or where I read it. Probably because it really was just a fantasy story.

Maybe the journal I’d found wasn’t a journal at all but a book. Maybe it was her book. It would explain why her picture was at the end of it, but she didn’t even let me ask again.

“I’ve given you as much time as I can. We’ll be starting next week, Fall Doll,” she said when we reached the second floor.

Chills rushed down my back. “Start what?”

“Your official training. You will learn the art of seduction, as well as the basics of pleasing people, serving and massaging and singing and dancing, just to name a few. Right now, you are exclusive to your client, but we don’t know how long that will last, so I’d rather prepare you.”

Oh, God. My stomach twisted and turned, and I was about ready to throw up within a second. “Oh.”

“I believe you’ve made yourself comfortable in the Paradise,” Mama Si said, leaning closer to me to whisper, “Continue to explore it. You’ll find it has so much more to it than meets the eye.” And she winked at me.

She then turned around and walked down the hallway, and Assa gave me a once-over, too, before she turned on her heels to follow.

“I’ll see you tomorrow!” Mama Si sang, and I was stuck there looking at her back, at the way the dress flowed around her legs like it was made out of liquid. I stayed there all alone until the walls began to close up on me, sucking in all the air from my lungs.

Then I went straight for the third floor, to the triangle room, hoping with all my heart that it was open.

It was.

Taking my shoes off, I ran like mad, and I was in the clearing before five minutes were over, breathing heavily until I’d been moving for hours.

“Ennaris,” I whispered into the night when my heartbeat slowed down. The animals approached me, lighting up the dark as soon as I touched them.

I refused to think. I refused to fear tomorrow. I refuse to accept the reality outside of this forest—at least for right now.

At the sound of my voice, the trees moved their branches like they were waving at one another. At me. The ground sprouted new life and flowers grew as big as my palms within seconds right in front of my eyes. Owls and so many birds took over the sky, singing a beautiful song as they danced with one another.

And the tree roots began to climb up, twisting and turning, creating the same shape they had last night. Making the most unusual and beautiful piano the world would ever see.

All my worries disappeared among the leaves and the lights. Nothing existed for me except the here and now.

When I sat on the bench, the melodies came out of me raw and vibrant and without stop as the animals listened, and some danced, and some slept.

That is where I stayed for a long, long time.