Chapter 15

The triangle roomopened only when the sun began to set. I knew because I checked, and I went back there every single night of the week. It became something to live for so quickly—for the animals, for running and playing with them; for playing the piano that the ground gave to me whenever it felt me in the clearing; for the flowers that sprouted on their own now, too, as if they lived underground, but when they heard me approaching, they all came out to greet me in a rush.

It was perfect, everything I’d ever wanted and never even knew it.

I stayed in the forest until dawn, and I slept until noon, and I still had time to eat and rest and work out, and I never wanted anything to change.

Until the knock on my door before dinner exactly a week from the night Mama Si had last come for me.

Every inch of me rose in goose bumps. My lessons began tonight.

I walked all the way to the door as if I was in a dream. I pulled it open and I didn’t even see anything at first, but I heard Mike’s voice.

“My, my, Autumn. You grow more beautiful by the week.”

His face came into focus the more I blinked, until I was fully aware of where I was again. It was Mike, the host from that party, the guy who’d taken me to Johnny. He looked just as handsome as he had that night, wearing a black suit and colors in his eyes like he really was Mama Si’s relative.

Fuck, I’d completely forgotten to ask the girls who he was.

“Mike, hi,” I thought to say, tightening the robe around my body. The dress I was planning to wear was on the bed still.

Mike’s eyes spit fire as he looked at my lips. “Hi. We meet again.” And he crossed his arms in front of his chest as he leaned against the doorframe. “How have you been, Autumn?”

“Fall is fine,” I said automatically. “I’ve been good. You?” And what the hell are you doing at my door?!

“Counting down the hours until we met again,” he said, smiling sneakily.

“Such a charmer,” I deadpanned.

The guy laughed. “We should definitely have coffee together someday,” he said, and I thought, fuck no.

“Yes. Someday,” was what I said.

“Mr. Archer is on his way and he requires your presence tonight, Fall,” Mike said.

My stomach fell all the way down to my heels. “Oh.” Mr. Archer. Brandon Archer. “I see.”

“I was hoping to walk with you to the private rooms, but I see you’re not ready yet. Meet me up there in fifteen minutes, and I’ll take you to Mr. Archer myself.”

I had never been more thankful to be caught undressed.

“What about Adam?” I asked, just to make sure I’d have no more surprises.

“Adam can’t make it tonight, but don’t worry. You already look perfect.” He winked.

“Yes. Yes, of course. I’ll be right there.”

“Fifteen minutes,” Mike said, slowly dragging himself backward, watching me from under his lashes. If I let him, his eyes would fucking hypnotize me the way Mama Si could do so easily when she wanted.

I pushed the door closed instead.

Panic, fear, excitement.

I had the dress on two minutes later—red, like some of the roses that sprouted in the clearing for me—and I was running. I was not planning to go meet Johnny tonight, fuck that. Everything be damned, I was going to run and hide in the forest until sunrise and then deal with whatever was coming tomorrow.

That’s exactly what I did.

I ran all the way to the clearing without stopping to take a breath. Unfortunately for me, I’d underestimated what the fear and the panic would do to my body, so the moment I stopped running, my stomach revolted.

For the next minute, I threw up everything I’d eaten through the day right there on the forest floor.

Then I got my shit together, sat on my bench made out of tree roots, and I played the animals my favorite song.

It didn’t matter what went on at the mansion right now. It didn’t matter if they’d be waiting for me or looking for me or if they were pissed off—none of it mattered. I was where I belonged, right where I wanted to be. I’d figure out a way to stay here without being one of the dolls. I’d figure out a way to come back to this forest every single night. I’d beg Mama Si, would fall on my knees and plead whenever she came for me.

I just didn’t expect her to come right away.

“Such a beautiful song, Fall Doll. Where did you learn to play it?”

The whole fucking world tilted and turned and twisted out of my focus. Every animal who’d been listening to me playing was already running for the trees at the sound of her voice coming from somewhere behind me. My entire body was frozen in place, and I wanted to think that I’d made it up, that it was just the fear whispering in my ear, but the animals were already gone. The clearing was suddenly so damn silent, I could hear my own heart hammering in my chest.

Slowly, I forced myself to stand and turn around, holding onto the edge of the piano, knowing I’d fall if I didn’t. Sure enough, Mama Si was right there, her hair perfectly done in tight curls, her lips painted a bloody red, her black dress touching the ground around her feet, her gloves covering only her hands and wrists this time. They weren’t part of the dress for once. I don’t know why that seemed so odd to me.

“Well?” she said, coming closer, her footsteps perfectly soundless. “You didn’t tell me you play the piano—and so perfectly well. Where did you learn that song?”

I swallowed hard, reminding myself not to move away. “School,” I whispered with barely any voice. “I used to sneak into school at night and play.”

It was over. She’d caught me. She was here, and she was going to demand I explain myself and demand I go back to the mansion and to that room with the client and spread my legs and?—

“You never told me that,” Mama Si said, pulling me out of my head. “I have three pianos in the mansion. I could have brought one to your room.”

She didn’t look pissed off. Her colorful eyes searched my face, and if anything, she looked concerned.

She was concerned that I’d run away from my job and came out here to hide.

“Talk to me, Fall Doll. Why did you run away?”

Oh, God.

How was it that that made everything worse?

Lowering my head, I felt the shame climbing like heat in my body, gathering in my cheeks. Fuck it, it was as good as over, wasn’t it? I couldn’t lie, not now. What would even be the point?

“Because I can’t do it.” I forced myself to raise my head and look her in the eye. “I can’t do it, Mama Si. I’m sorry that I agreed to this because I knew I couldn’t from the get-go. I just…I really wanted to stay.”

The way she smiled broke my heart. “Oh, Fall Doll.” She raised her hand as if to frame my cheek, but she never touched me. Instead, she shuddered and wrapped her arms around herself. “It’s a bit chilly out here, don’t you think?”

The ground moved.

It moved just as it did when it made my piano, and suddenly tree roots and vines were rising in the air around Mama Si, who didn’t even bat an eye, and they climbed on her body, up her back and around her shoulders like they’d done that same thing a million times.

Before the minute was over, the roots had shaped themselves into acape around her shoulders, and in the blink of an eye, they turned black. They turned to fabric—to a rich black velvet that covered Mama Si all the way to her ankles.

“That’s better,” she whispered, pulling the velvet closer over her naked arms. “I don’t appreciate you running away from me, but I do understand your fear. Your hesitation.” She sighed. “To be frank, I always knew you couldn’t do it, either, since the very beginning.”

I had no clue what the hell to make of any of this—not Mama Si being here, not the ground giving her a damn cape, not her admitting all of that to my face with that defeated sigh.

“I don’t…I don’t understand.” I spun around, looking at the trees and the sky and the clearing, the little animals watching us half hidden behind the trunks… “I don’t understand any of this. I don’t understand you.”

Mama Si laughed. “Oh, darling, you’re not the only one. I don’t understand me, either.” And she laughed some more.

To me it didn’t sound funny at all. “What is this, Mama Si? What…what is this?” And I spread my arms around to show her the clearing, the forest, the damn piano in the middle of it made out of tree roots—and her damn velvet cape!

Mama Si said, “I think you already know.”

I shook my head. “I don’t.”

“Yes, you do. You asked me about it, remember?”

I swallowed hard, the word coming out of me as if my body was being controlled by someone else. “Ennaris.”

Her smile widened. “Ennaris, yes. A part of it,” she said. “You found it. It opened for you. I didn’t see that part coming, but I knew you’re not a doll. I just knew.”

Just the way she said that name. Ennaris—like it was the answer to all her prayers. Like it was her mantra.

“So, it’s not a fantasy.” As fucking absurd as it sounded, I was standing right there. I’d seen it all with my own eyes every single night for the whole week. I’d seen the fur of the animals glowing, and I’d played the piano the ground gave me—I’d seen, and I thought I’d made this grand discovery. I thought I’d found something nobody else knew about, something that would make people think I was crazy if I ever told them about it.

But I should have known. Of course, Mama Si would know about this—of course, she would.

“It is to the world at large. Only those connected to it, to the magic in its soil, can see it, nobody else. How did you come out here, Fall Doll?” Mama Si said, and she sounded perfectly calm. Perfectly content to be here now that she wasn’t cold anymore.

“I just…I need to sit down for a moment.” Because I was not calm at all.

I sat down on my bench, back turned to the piano, and she laughed.

“Oh, of course. Silly me. Please, make yourself comfortable.” And the next moment another bench sprouted from the ground, same height and width as mine, just a couple feet in front of me.

Mama Si pulled her cape to the side gracefully and sat down the way she did in chairs, and she didn’t even look at the bench twice. She didn’t flinch, wasn’t surprised—on the contrary. She acted as if all of this was perfectly normal.

Clothes and seats rising from the ground? Pfft. Boring.

“So? How did you find the Burrow? Who let you through?” she asked. “Don’t tell me it was Mike. He’s completely smitten by you, but I specifically told him not to distract you. Was it him?”

I shook my head, Mike’s colorful eyes coming in front of me instantly. “No. No, I…no, it wasn’t Mike. It wasn’t anyone.”

She arched a thin brow. “How so?”

“Amber showed me the triangle room. Then she was called away and I stayed behind, and then…then a piece of the glass wall just wasn’t there, and I came out here. And…and I touched the animals.”

“Oooh,” Mama Si whispered, bringing a hand to her chest as she looked around curiously. “They let you touch them?”

“Well, yes.” Yes, they had. I’d touched the animals every single night.

Mama Si laughed and the sound warmed me to my bones.

God, she was glowing. Not with actual light, not like the animals. She was just open, like a veil had been lifted off her and she could finally be who she truly was around me.

“Oh, my dearest Fall Doll! That’s a wonderful thing. A wonderful thing!” she told me.

“It is?”

“The animals don’t let anyone touch them. They run from me—and I’m the Mistress of the Burrow. See?” And she waved her hand around the clearing, to the trees and the tiny eyes I could barely make out as the animals hid and watched us.

“Right,” I said with a nod, as if any of this made any sense to me. “Right, so, I touched the animals, and then I kept walking because I could have sworn I heard the ocean close by, and then I found the clearing. It gave me the piano without my even asking it.”

“Oh, wow,” she said, leaning closer to me, her smile wide, her eyes sparkling. She looked at least a decade younger like this. “So, the Burrow invited you itself. That has never happened before, Fall Doll. Not ever since I’ve ruled this Isle.”

“What…what’s the Burrow?” I’d read that name before—in the library, in that journal.

“My Isle,” she told me. “It’s one of the Seven Isles, called the Blood Burrow. This.” And she spread her arms to the sides again.

“Except we’re not on an isle. We’re on a cliff.” I’d seen it with my own eyes. I’d lived in this town for two years—I’d seen it.

“Oh, that’s just an old illusion I’ve put on my Paradise. The ocean is indeed right there, on the other side, if you want to see it.” She pointed to her right, toward the trees on the other side of the clearing. “But we’re not on a cliff. Of course not—my Paradise is on Burrow grounds.”

I closed my eyes and forced myself to take in a deep breath. Funny, how different it had been when it was just me in this place. When this was just as much a dream as it was reality, when the chance that it was a fantasy was just as high as the chance that it existed in the real world.

So fucking different and so much less scary. So much less absurd.

“Fall Doll.”

The name echoed in my head and my eyes popped open. Mama Si was looking at me like she expected me to collapse any second—and I just might.

“It’s okay. You’ve seen this already, haven’t you? You’ve done more than any of the Enchanted are able to in the Paradise. Breathe. You’re no stranger to the Burrow, and the Burrow is no stranger to you. It invited you here itself. That means a great, great deal,” she said calmly.

“Can you explain this to me, Mama Si? Can you make any of this make sense?” Because right now her words were just white noise in my ears, and I couldn’t make anything add up to anything else.

Mama Si smiled. “On one condition, Doll.” I swallowed hard, expecting her to tell me to go to Johnny in that room, to my job. Instead, she said, “Play that song for me again, and I will tell you everything you want to know.”

Two minutes later, Mama Si’s bench disappeared, only to reappear at the side of the piano. I was sitting on mine, my hands on the keys, the animals slowly approaching to hear better, but still keeping a good distance from Mama Si.

Then, I played her my favorite song with my eyes closed and my heart in my throat, praying to God that I didn’t wake up to find all of this had been just a dream.