Page 61 of Sequel to the Easter Bunny

Minx’s smile disappears and her eyes go wide and wet behind her mask. She looks terrified.

But Calico takes a deep breath, slams the rest of her drink like a shot, and slides down to the floor, tugging Minx with her.

“Not everyone is offered a blank year’s service in exchange for what they want. Some of us have tasks like you.”

“And some of us can’t complete those tasks… so we’re probably stuck here forever.” Minx’s words are brittle, and I don’t ask what she means. I don’t think I’d like the answer.

For a moment, I think I see Jack, but when I look that way, it’s not… and I can’t tell who, or what, made me think it was. And then, the three of us step back into Babel. “Watch out for the leaves,” Calico warns.

“Already found that out the hard way.” I shiver as the creepy crawly feeling covers my skin.

The kittens leave me, standing in the middle of that mirror-like pool and go to kneel in front of Gren’s throne, heads bowed. The god of autumn—as they are now—looks too small for the seat.

Gren says something in the old gods’ language and they nod, hurrying up to perform whatever task he’s commanded.

If they’ve been here long enough they understand the old gods’ tongue, Minx wasn’t exaggerating when she said their servitude was unending. How long have they been here?

How long would it take for me to learn it as well?

Calico hurries to a curving staircase made of gnarled branches and leaps up the steps, like the cat she’s started to resemble.

I watch her go until—balanced on one of those branches, she opens a door, high in the darkness overhead and lets forth a murky green waterfall.

Like the leaves over the pool, the water doesn’t reach the leaf-strewn ground.

Minx hurries forward, collecting the water in an enormous ewer.

It’s large enough she struggles to balance as she brings it to me, but when I take a step, Gren shakes their head at me.

“Their tasks are not yours.”

Calico leaps down to join us, the waterfall still flowing behind them all, and Minx sets that ewer between us.

Leaning forward on their knees, mossy crown shifting forward, Gren says. “Place your palm to the water.”

It’s cool against my touch and I wait for something to happen, but nothing does.

“What—”

Sharp thorns bite into my wrist as a whole tree grows out of the water and up my arm, it stabs at me, punctures my skin, lifting me out of the water..

I hiss at the sharp pain, and when I look up, Gren’s eyes are a vibrant red and the kittens have both turned away, hand clasped tightly in each other’s.

Gren lurches from their throne, stumbling to me as if they do not belong to the body they inhabit, and then, they seem to shake off whatever spell they were under.

The thorns release, withering to ash and dropping me back into the water. Drenched, I push myself up on my hands. All I am left with is an ugly wooden bracelet covered in brambles.

Gren takes my hand, raising me from the water and studies the cuff.

Confusion drifts across their face. “Interesting.”

Waters of Change

The word lingers in the air, as their eyes fade back to the golden glow.

And I know they won’t say anything else without prompting. “What does that mean?”

“The waters of change can show the most likely future…. But yours is too clouded by the desires of others.” They turn my hand over, scowling at the blood marks there. “How far would you go to save your life?”

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