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“Say the words again,” he instructed.
“The vessel breathes. The box is within. Find it. Open it. The hope will win,” I repeated.
“Now, the key,” he requested.
I shared it. “The truth can shift. In the Darkness, the seed of hope awaits. Behind every smile lies a dark secret. What you see is rarely what you get. Some bridges are meant to be burned. Embrace what is repugnant to discover the beauty that lies beneath. Often the answer has been in front of you the entire time.”
He sat down on the chair, leaned back and grinned. “Seems kind of obvious to me. Slightly muddy plotline, but the meat is all there.”
All eyes in the room shot to my brother. He wasn’t a Demon. He wasn’t Immortal. But I was hoping with everything I was made of, we were about to get schooled by my human sibling.
“Who wrote it?” he asked.
“The Higher Power,” I replied. “Why?”
Sean chuckled. “He’d make a good poet—very abstract.”
I refrained from going over the fact that the Higher Power wasn’t a he or she. It just was. It still confused me and probably always would. “Tell me how you would interpret it, please.”
“The box is Pandora,” he stated. “Pandora is the box. Lilith said in the beginning she was good. Now, she’s not. My guess is that the evil has been seeping out of her for millions of years. Which, by the way, has to suck. That Higher Power dude has one warped sense of humor. The key tells you that hope still lives inside her. That’s the only thing that hasn’t escaped.”
“Holy shit,” Abaddon muttered, staring at Sean in shock.
Both Stella and Jonny were speechless. Their mouths hung open. Lilith gazed at Sean in amazement. Man-mom chuckled, walked over to his son and gave him a bear hug.
I was surprised, even though I shouldn’t have been. Sean Bloom was like no one else in the Universe.
“I believe he’s correct,” Lilith said, joining Man-mom in hugging Sean. “I feel it in my gut. Cecily?”
I nodded. “Yep. Sean for the win. A huge, enormous, mammoth, giant, immense, gargantuan win.”
Sean rolled his eyes. “What are you? A freaking thesaurus?”
“Yes,” I said, bowing to my brother. “I’m Bitch Goddess Cecily, the walking thesaurus and sister to the smartest Devil’s Lettuce connoisseur in the history of mankind.”
“I’m putting that on a t-shirt,” Sean warned me. “And I’m wearing it every day.”
I laughed. “Now we just have to find Pandora.”
“And do what with her?” Stella asked. “I mean if she’s the box, how do you put her inside herself?”
She’d made an excellent point. “I have no idea. I’ll figure out the next scene while we look for her.”
“Finding her won’t be easy,” Lilith said, concerned. “If Candy Vargo hasn’t been able to do it, I’m not sure you’ll have much more luck.”
I flopped down on the couch, leaned forward and let my head rest in my hands. “Is everything in the Immortal world so freaking complicated? And is every situation life or death all the time?”
No one replied. That was my answer. I let Lilith’s advice float in my brain—The goal is peace. The obstacles will be many. Demons can be a violent species. However, they want to live in harmony like any other being. To help them accomplish that you must accept change as must they. You must seek support, focus on the goal and not the obstacles. Embrace your failures as much as you celebrate your wins. Most importantly, you must be as compassionate with yourself as you are with others and stay humble. Pride is the sin that destroys.
“That’s it,” I shouted, making everyone jump.
“What’s it?” Abaddon demanded.
I stood up and circled the living room. “What’s the sin that destroys?”
“Pride,” Lilith answered.
“Exactly,” I said, getting more excited. “We might not be able to find Pandora, but if we rip away at her pride, I’d bet she’ll find us.”
