Blizzard Girl ©

Chapter Fifteen:

When everyone headed off to bed, I couldn't even bear to try and sleep. For the longest time after closing my bedroom door, I only looked at my bed. When I got tired of standing near my bedroom door, I opted to lay down on the floor instead. I also grabbed my CD player and picked some bubblegum pop music I hadn't listened to since I was twelve.

My musical tastes have greatly improved since then. I laid down on the cool floor and sighed contentedly. I rested my eyes by closing them, still knowing the room light was on but not caring. Anyway, it wouldn't be the first time I dozed with the light on--just the first time a book isn't in my hand because of it.

As I fell asleep deeper, I felt a rush of warmth and relaxed. Until I got around to realizing the music on my CD player abruptly stopped.

Suddenly, warm fingers grazed my ears. "Ventisca, get up."

I groaned and like a kid pounded my fists on the glassy floor of Percival's mirror world. "Can't I listen to some freaking music in peace!?" Percival grabbed my CD player and flipped it open.

"Hah! You call this junk music!?"

I got up from the floor to snatch my CD player from him. "Well, I know this music isn't soothing like cavemen using dinosaur vertabrae as a xylophone, but I was feeling restless and overwhelmed."

Percival shrugged as he said, "I know. That's why I brought you to our place."

"Oh," I replied as I digested the word our. It's the first time Percival made such a reference. "Well, uh--I guess that means you couldn't sleep either."

"Well, I'm usually a night owl. Then again, I don't need to sleep as much as you full-blooded humans do." He snapped his fingers and two reclining chairs appeared. "Which means that I'm delighted you couldn't sleep."

Squinting my eyes at him I said, "I almost did when you brought me here." I looked down at my CD player and frowned. "Stupid dead batteries."

"Anyway, I'm glad you're awake because I know who our first target as a dynamic duo will be." Rolling my eyes, I tilt my chin towards where he's sitting to the left of me. "What's wrong, Ventisca. Do you have a crick in your neck or something."

"I'm wondering why you want to talk about it now and not during school or I know! The day after the dance?"

Percival rubbed his hands together--yes, like a creepy mastermind--before he said, "Because we'll be accomplishing something I've been waiting for one thousand and fifty years to do."

I glance at an image above my head, of a beautiful garden full of daffodils, violets, and what I imagined to be unbelievably fragrant roses. "Enough vague responses. You're making me fall asleep."

"Not yet, Ventisca. You can't go to sleep without a bedtime story."

"This better be a story I can sleep well after it's told. You owe me that much."

Percival chuckled as he said, "I owe you nothing." That last word sent a chill down my spine and not the good kind. "Call this story a favor as well as an introduction into what we'll be facing. Oh, and look up." As I glanced up, the garden of flowers rippled into the image of a battlefield. This battlefield was already strewn with the fallen, swords gleaming with fresh blood, horses galloping with and without their masters. I close my eyes for a second before opening them again. "Where does this image come from?"

"From my own memories." As I notice some of the men had red crosses emblazoned across their chest, I glanced at Percival. "Once upon a time," starts Percival as he looked at me. I rolled my eyes as I tilted my chin up to watch a massacre.