Skin

Chapter 22

The person that stood in front of me did indeed look like me but wasn't at the same time. This was so confusing but I didn't feel confused at all. I felt anger. "What is the meaning of this?" I could feel my blood boil at how this person looked like me. As if to play games with me. This person was dressed like if I had gone to see Mr. Heller about one of my books. "Why do you look like me and how do you know my name?" I yelled.

"That's easy," she said becoming black smoke and swirling behind me, then became a solid figure. "I told you, I'm the book. And as the book I have no form but the author's. Meaning you." She laughed at the moment I turned around and she turned into smoke again, peering behind me once more.

"Books don't talk," the tone in my voice was strange, like I was afraid but not, angry but not.

"But I do. It's called magic."

"Magic doesn't exist." I sourly said as I slowly turned around.

"Sure it does. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not there." She smiled, "But then again you're not the first to tell me that."

"There were others?" There were others before me? Meaning there is a way for me to return home? I can go back?

"Sure," she said morphing into a man. "William Shakespeare, Herman Melville," she morphed into different people as she called out there names. "Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, F. Scott Fitzgerald. Should I go on?" she said morphing back into me.

"How?"

"I get around," she shrugged snapping her fingers. A wooden chair slide out of the darkness and into the light, stopping behind her as she bent down to sit. "My first master made me in 1800. Just a plan book with pages, but my master wanted me to be more than just a book," she said making herself comfortable. "My master was never really much of a writer, but he loved to read and that all he ever wanted. So one day, he prayed that words would show up and take him to a place like no other. His desire to read was so strong that it formed into a spirit. Me.

And so I took him into a world of his imagination. After his journey ended he wrote into my pages saying, 'Once the page is turned there's no turning back until the end. Take care of your characters and above all, take care of yourself.

After a few years, he traveled across the country searching for someone to share all this," she said spreading her arms. "My master found many people he thought was worthy and gave then me saying 'a storm is coming and you're going to be in the middle of it'. Many people thought he was a crazy little man but in the end they believed him.

Many of the authors that had their filled of an adventure, romance, drama, thrill, horror, and understanding of ones self, all ended up sharing their story to the world for everyone to read."

All I could do was stare at this... at this being before me. How could I believe in such an outrageous story like that? A book that could talk. A book that has a spirit. That magic was real. All this was crazy and I'm just have a bad dream. That's it. It's all a dream and none of this is real. Not the witches, not the Valkyrie's, not the Lycan and not even... not even Goliath.

"How come no one said a thing about this?"

"Some reason why you don't believe. If anyone said a thing, no one would understand and throw then into the loony bin. So in history they came up with ideas saying that they would save themselves from such a fate."

"So I'm just a puppet for your amusement?" I asked. "You want to see people hurt, die, and fighting from going insane."

She shook her head from side to side, "No, I only brought you here. I'm just here to give you advice, show you the way, and give you information, that kind of stuff."

"When what is this?" I yelled shaking the book in my hand.

"It's all you, Barbara," she said calmly folding her legs while leaning back into her chair. "I'm not writing the story, you are. Everything that you see, hear, smell, feel. It's all my doing but it's you who is writing it.

I'm writing the story? But... that's not right. I didn't want to be running for my life, see people died, or even die myself. "That's not write."

"Every author is different. Every tale is different. Everything is different than the next. But you did write this, this is how you wanted to story to go."

"Bullshit!" I yelled feeling my blood boil to the point I thought I was going to explode. "I didn't want Anne or Myris to be killed!"

She looked down to the side with her head tilted back, "yes, well that was sad," she sighed. "But that's how you wanted the story to go, how else would Gwendolyn find the strength to fight little sister?"

"Lair!"

"You could have saved them Barbara. You have the chosen to stay."

"Then take me back!" I cried.

She shook her head, "I can't. Once the page has turned, there is no going back and as the story progresses it will only get harder for you to control everything, the story, the characters, even yourself and it will be the story that writes the ending not you."

"What are you talking about? I never had control."

"Goliath hasn't bed you yet," she smiled.

I blushed, damn her. This whole time Goliath has been trying but he always back out in the end. But that didn't mean I had control of him or anyone else. "So what I do?" I asked trying to change the subject.

"Don't fight it. Be the character you were given. Experience it all, the emotions, the passion, and the sorrow. That's all you can until the very end. Forget that you're in a book and live."

"Live? And then what? When it ends, I just go home and forget about it all. Like nothing ever happened?" I felt like crying. The people I learned to care able, I'm just to watch them disappear. Come home and pretend nothing had happen? Everything I went through was and is for nothing.

"That's up to you to decide." The book said coldly. "My job is to help you. I believe my master, now, gave me to you, so you could feel these emotions, experience passion, and sorrow, to help your writing. It's up to you what you do after words." She stood up with her arms hanging to her sides. "I'm tired of this conversion. I'll come to you when you need me most." She spun on her heel and before she disappeared out of the light she turned her head towards me, "Oh, and Barbara, here I'm known as the Seeker. So if anyone asked where you were tell then you meet with the Seeker."