Harley Merlin 12 by Bella Forrest (story books to read TXT) 📗

“Go easy, Luke,” Melody warned. “He’s dealing with some terrible things in that head of his. I only saw a few bits and pieces, but it’d floor a weaker man. A world of nightmares that he can’t escape.”

“What?” Luke’s tone switched to concern. Actual concern… for me. Now that was weird.

I sighed wearily, feeling like a sack of heavy, lumpy spuds. “I have a mental illness. I was born with it, I think. The old nurture versus nature argument. Maybe it came later, maybe Freud would slap some Oedipal nonsense on me or put it down to abandonment issues, I don’t know—but I’ve had it ever since I can remember.”

“Your gremlins, right?” Melody prompted.

“Right.” It sounded odd to hear someone other than my sister call them that.

She leaned from her crouch to a sitting position in the snow. “And they’ve gotten worse?”

“Way worse. I used to be able to keep a lid on them, but that lid has blown off, and, like all stray lids, I have no idea where it went.” I clenched and stretched my hands, trying to feed some warmth to them.

“When did this start?” Melody asked.

I chuckled faintly. “Shouldn’t I be reclined on a couch for this?”

“The snow will have to do,” she replied somberly.

“Honestly, they’ve been more vocal since Elysium, but I still had some control,” I explained. “My pills worked like plugging a leaking dam with my finger. Then, after the monastery, the floodgates opened, and no amount of finger-plugging has been able to shut them again.”

Melody’s eyes widened. “It might be the orange poison you ingested.”

“Huh?” Luke grunted.

“The orange poison alters your state of mind, and map-making does the same thing once you’ve gotten the hang of it.” She paused, as if putting her ideas together. “Now, this is just a theory, but hear me out—maybe the pills aren’t working anymore because your mind is no longer in the same state. They were geared toward quieting your gremlins, the way you used to be. But your mental chemistry has changed, so it stands to reason they wouldn’t be as effective anymore.”

I stared at her. “You know what, that actually makes sense. But, if that’s true, then I need a straitjacket and a padded cell before the delusions get worse.”

“Not necessarily.” Melody put her hand on my forearm. “I know what it’s like to feel like you’re losing your mind. When I became the Librarian and all the world’s knowledge poured into my brain, I thought I’d completely lost the plot. It’s not exactly the same, but I understand, to a degree, the strain of sifting through waves and waves of information that aren’t supposed to be there.”

“Is that how you learned the safety pocket trick?” I brushed away snowflakes that had landed on my eyelashes.

“You mean what I did to you a moment ago?” she replied.

I nodded. “Yeah, that.”

“It’s a coping mechanism I learned, yes. You may find it useful, too.” Melody gave my arm a reassuring squeeze that made Luke glower. “That ‘safety pocket,’ as you call it, is in your head now—a small bubble that can’t be penetrated by the gremlins. All you have to do, when things get overwhelming, is retreat there until you calm down. Think of it, and your brain will take you there.”

“But the beasties will come back?” My heart sank at the thought.

She creased her brow. “They will, but at least you’ll have another way to manage them when the pills don’t do what they used to. Who knows how long it might take Dr. Krieger to create pills that fit your new brain chemistry? If it can even be done, considering the way your mind has changed, without making you a zombie or borderline tranquilizing you.”

“You got any transformation spells that’ll give me a whole new brain?” I asked her dryly, hating that my most important organ—debatably—continued to fail me.

“I’m afraid not,” she replied. “If I did, you wouldn’t be you.”

I snorted. “I’m not too fond of me right now. I could live with that.”

“Even so, your gremlins don’t define you. You define you. I know you’re probably tired of fighting and people telling you to simply cope with it.” Melody took a breath as snowflakes settled on her dark hair. “But you’ve never seemed like the kind of guy to back out of a fight because it gets hard. You’re brave, Finch. Now, after glimpsing your mind, I know just how brave you are.”

“Careful, you’ll make me blush,” I joked halfheartedly. “I definitely needed a couch for all this brain-shrinking.”

Luke crouched suddenly. “I hate to break up the heart-to-heart, but we’ve got company.” He gestured toward the cabin clearing, where a figure had emerged. The man carried a bundle of logs in his arms, and we watched him pause beside a woodshed before disappearing inside.

“That’s him,” I whispered. I’d seen his photo enough in the last few hours to know.

“Who?” Luke replied.

I frowned. “So, you guys followed me without even knowing why? I figured you’d bugged me or something.”

Melody flushed pink. “We followed you because we were worried about you. You took off out of the blue. Luke spotted you leaving in a cab, and we went after you, all the way to Gatsby’s. We waited downstairs, after the host said you’d gone to dine with a Mr. Erebus, and after some time I sensed a disturbance—”

“In the Force?” I interjected automatically. Hard to resist such a perfect opportunity.

“No, not in the Force. Although… I suppose Chaos is like the Force,” she mused. I hadn’t expected her to be a Star Wars geek. “Anyway, I felt a surge of energy and realized you’d portaled out of Gatsby’s. I managed to track the portal signature here, though it took us some time to find you with a chalk door instead of a portal. I had to do some magical improvising, and some delving into my mind palace, to hit the right spot. You know, considering it is nigh-on impossible