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“Edgar,” I begin, lips tugging down. “We’re not on Earth.”
He blinks. “Well, thank fuck for that. We need to get to the magic village.”
“I told you we can’t go unless we find—wait. Wait! Edgar.” When I was holding onto the shelf in the bathroom, something hard had pressed into my skin. It was right after that that the tub disappeared and I fell through the shimmering mist. I grab his shoulders and shake him a little. “That was the amulet?”
Grunting, Edgar wheezes. “Easy on the goods, sunshine.”
I release him and drop my hands into my lap. “Sorry. The amulet then. Is that the thing that brought me here?”
“That’s it.”
“Wait. Does that mean you’re not sick?” Maybe memory loss isn’t Edgar’s problem. He was telling the truth, but it was too far-fetched for anyone on Earth to believe. “You weren’t confusing books with reality or making up stories, were you?”
“I’m old and I forget stuff and I like to nap, but I don’t have half of what they said I had. You humans never listen.”
“What about forgetting the caretaker’s names?” I ask, still a little skeptical.
“Sally, Nathan, Chantel, Latoya, and Carl. Bunch of assholes if you ask me. I didn’t need a damn nurse.”
I cover my mouth and search his face. He’d given all those caretakers so much grief and misery the companies refused to send more.
“Don’t you look at me like that. You would’ve done the same in my position.” He thinks for a minute then chuckles. “Come to think of it, you wouldn’t. You’re too nice for your own good.” But then he squints at me. “When I found you’d gone, I thought maybe you weren’t so nice after all and left without me. Then I found the dil—”
I slap my palm over his mouth. “Let’s not talk about that, okay?”
The old man scowls at me.
“I mean it, Edgar. Pretend like it never happened. Please,” I tack on because I’m being pretty rude.
“Pretend like what never happened?” Orcus asks, unable to sit by as a silent observer any longer.
“Nothing,” I say too quickly. Giving Edgar one more pleading look, I remove my hand.
“She had a dildo in the bathtub,” Edgar grouses.
I gasp. “Edgar!”
“No one tells me what to do,” the old man snaps.
“Sounds like someone I know,” Orcus drawls.
I point at the ogre with his stupid gorgeous face. “You stay out of this.”
Scoffing, he rolls his eyes. After a moment of silence, Orcus asks, “What’s a dildo?”
“Candy,” I say at the same time Edgar says, “It’s a pretend penis, son.”
Slapping my hands to my face, I release a long groan as Orcus asks a few more questions.
“Ladiesuse these things?”
Edgar releases a bark of laughter that turns into a coughing fit. Grudgingly, I drop my hands to make sure he’s okay, but the bastard is full on smiling even though he’s hacking up a lung.
“This is what happens when you betray people,” I tell him.
“Ladies?” he wheezes around another cough.
“My intrusive thoughts are telling me to shove you back into the bathing pit.”
