Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 65042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
Then she hurried back inside, leaving me to stare after her with the hot chocolate clutched in my hand.
What the hell was I going to do?
5
DANNI
What I did was take a sip of the hot chocolate. The warm, rich, impossibly delicious flavor rolled over my tongue and convinced me that I wasn’t dreaming. The cool whipped cream that I had to wipe off my nose added to the feeling that this really was real. I was in a magical town called Hidden Hollow filled with fairy-tale creatures and it appeared that I was stuck here.
Since I didn’t have anywhere else to go, I followed Celia, the bakery owner’s advice, and walked back down the street towards The Red Lion. Fairy tale creatures were coming out of it. I saw more Centaurs and Minotaurs and Orcs and some women who were tall and thin and looked like they had bark for skin as well as several others. Most of the people I saw seemed to be women—there were even a few that seemed to be human. All of them were talking amongst themselves and, aside from a few questioning glances, none of them seemed to notice me much at all.
Feeling awkward, I hung around the sidewalk, finishing my hot chocolate as I waited for the crowd to thin. At last the stream of people leaving The Red Lion Inn slowed and then stopped. They all seemed to be shopping or walking up and down the main street, ducking into the quaint little shops.
The only ones left on the broad front porch were several very ancient looking Grandmas, all dressed in black and purple dresses and pointed hats. They looked like they were dressed as witches for Halloween but now I was more inclined to believe they were real witches and the “costumes” they appeared to be wearing were just their normal clothes.
I climbed the front porch steps and walked past them—they didn’t even glance at me. I pushed open the door and walked inside to find myself in what looked like an old-fashioned hotel. The lobby was decorated in painted portraits of serious-looking people wearing stiff, uncomfortable looking clothes. There was a stairway that led up to the rooms, presumably, and an ancient cage-type elevator right beside it that looked like it would hold exactly one petite person at a time.
The front desk was manned by a person who looked like Mr. Tumnus from the Chronicles of Narnia books I had loved as a child. He had curly little horns growing out of his forehead and big brown eyes. When he took a step back from the counter, I saw that he had goat legs with neat little cloven hooves. The top half of him was dressed in a jacket and tie, though he wore no shirt and the bottom half was simply covered in fur.
“Hello there—how may I assist you?” he asked, raising his eyebrows politely and I realized I had been staring rudely at him.
“Oh, um…” I felt more out of place than ever and wished even more that I had taken the time to get dressed that morning instead of deciding to hang out at home in my nightclothes. At least I had put on a little makeup, but my hair was a curly mess and I was tired of feeling half dressed.
“Would you like me to throw that away for you?” the faun desk clerk asked, motioning to the empty hot-chocolate cup, which I was still holding.
“Oh, thank you.” I gave him the cup and then, gathering my courage I asked, “Can I please speak to Goody Albright? Celia at The Lost Lamb sent me to see her.”
“Hmm, she’s very busy with the convention just at the moment, but I’ll see if she has a moment.” The faun rang a little bell and another one of those strange women with bark-like skin came over at once.
“Yes? What is it?” she asked briskly. I couldn’t help noticing that her hair looked like moss and there appeared to be a small twig growing out of the side of her nose.
“This human has asked to see Goody Albright,” the faun told her. “I wouldn’t bother her, but it seems that Celia sent her over.”
“Oh, I’ll go see if I can get her for you.” The woman with bark-skin nodded at me and scurried off.
“Thank you,” I said apologetically to the faun. “I’m, uh, new here.”
“Yes, so I surmised.” He gave my ratty robe a withering look…but then he seemed to thaw. “I’m new here too. Goody Albright just hired me to help out with the convention,” he remarked. “Did you come from another magical town or from the Mortal Realm?”
“The Mortal Realm?” I asked blankly. I was still trying to think how to answer him when a woman who might have been anywhere from forty to sixty glided up. She was wearing an elegant looking dress that was almost a gown—it was emerald green and it came all the way down to her ankles. She had on a bright pink fringed shawl that somehow complimented the emerald green of her gown rather than clashing with it and cat-eyed glasses that were studded with sparkling rhinestones. She looked me up and down and shook her head.