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Master enters the room, looking at me inquisitively.
“Come on. You really don’t remember me?” I say.
He stares like a dog would.
“Dude, I know you’re not a fucking dog. So nod or shake your head already. I know you understand me. You shitty little spy.”
He walks up and sits directly in front of me. He shakes his head.
“Thank you. And since you don’t remember me, Scholar Man, let me be the first to inform you that you were once my family pet back home. You were also the only thing that kept me sane when I discovered there was a doorway to another world in my grandma’s bedroom. And you also saved my ass more than once here in Monsterland. So…” I hold out my hand. “Nice to meet you. I’m Lake Norfolk. Ex-queen of the War People. Ex-Blood Queen and ruler of this crazy place.”
He bows his head.
“I’m sure you don’t believe me, but it’s all true. I only came back because Alwar was supposed to stop Monsterland from ever happening. Did you know this entire place is my home thousands of years after I was born?”
He shakes his head.
“I just don’t know when or how the shit hits the fan.”
There’s a loud crash above us, and I don’t even flinch. Not this time. “The trolls are probably trying to get in, Master. What do we do?” Because it’s a lost cause. Proof being that Monsterland is still here. Sooner or later they’ll take down the wall. It’s only a question of when.
I place my hand over my stomach. I assume I’m still pregnant with Dave’s kid. “Dave.Pfft!I just can’t win, Master. I can’t save my world. I can’t win the man I love. I can’t even save him fromdying. I can’t…” I start to sob because it’s time. How much can one girl take? How much loss and fear can she bury in her heart until it all catches up?
I cry until there’s nothing left, until my eyes are raw with tears and my head hurts. I cry because I feel helpless and frustrated and I’m fucking pregnant by a man who has cheated on me so many times he thinks it’s normal. Never going to change.
After an hour I sit up. Master is staring like he wants to say something.
“What?”
He looks out the sixty-foot-tall doorway.
“What the hell does that mean, dude?”
He trots out into the hallway. I follow. He makes his way down the corridor and stops in front of a wooden door.
“I know this door.” On the other side is a room filled with much, much smaller doors, of all colors. They lead to bridges and back to River Wall Manor. “You want to escape before the trolls get here? I don’t see the point. Soon, the monsters will just be in my world. We can run, but we can’t hide.”
Master stares in that particular way when he really wants something.
“Fine. I’ll help you.” I push on the door, and it creaks open. I gasp, stepping back. “Jesus.” There are thousands of doors. Tiny, large, small. All different colors. “Where do those all go, Master?” Because I just came from River Wall, and I had a hard time finding just the one window.
He tilts his head back and howls. “Wooooorld.”
“World? As in, all these doors lead to spots all over the world?”
He nods.
“It wasn’t like that before,” I say. “The doorways were only found on my estate.” This change means when the monsterscome, they hit us everywhere. “I don’t think it’ll matter. They’ll just wipe us out faster.”
Master barks aggressively at the enormous wall of doors. He wants to go through one.
“You’re wasting your time.” Then again, maybe this is the very thing that changes everything. I’m second-guessing every choice at this point. Do I keep fighting, or do I give up like my great-great-grandma did?
“I’m completely out of my league here, Master. I don’t know what to do or how to change things.”
He nudges my hand, as if to say I’m not in this alone.
“Anyone who can help is dead,” I argue.
