Page 28 of Raising Hell
“This isn’t about freeing me,” I said. “This is about proving who I’m not. I’m nother. I’m Ashlyn, a human. I don’t belong here.”
The ground started to shake under my feet.
“Stop!” Megan yelled. “People are dying because of this. You need to—”
She disappeared in an instant, and I twisted in Hades' arms.
He glared down at me. “I hate your games.”
“It’s not a game. You’re just refusing to see the truth. She confirmed everything I said. Why won’t you believe her?”
“Why?” he demanded. “I’ll show you why.”
His hold on me tightened, and my stomach twisted harshly as the room began to fold in on itself. I closed my eyes and leaned my forehead against his chest, fighting against rising nausea.
“I don’t know how you got to my daughter, but I do know how you know about the Earth. Once upon a time, you gazed at this pool for endless hours, missing the place you called home.”
His voice echoed oddly around us, and I lifted my head to look around the new cavern. Splashes of colored light danced along the otherwise dark, domed ceiling far above. One very large stalactite ate up the space and cast the other smaller ones into shadow. From the tip of it, water dripped into a pool below.
It was huge—bigger than a backyard swimming pool—and murky black under the surface. The surface was a different matter entirely.
Moving closer, I stopped at the shin-height stone wall that surrounded the water and looked at the image dancing on the surface. It was a city view. People moved along the sidewalks, and cars zipped along the streets. As I watched, faint sounds reached me like I was the one standing underwater and listening. Voices. Horns. Music. All of it was muffled and distorted.
Another drop of water fell from the stalactite above, and the scene changed with the ripple. A field filled with grazing goats. Grass swayed in the breeze. I could smell the fresh air.
“What is this?” I asked softly.
The rumbling eased.
“The viewing pool. From here, you can watch the human world.”
“And you think this is how I know about Uttira and Megan?”
“Yes. Show us Uttira,” he said.
The next drop changed the scene again, and there it was. Uttira, the sprawling urban hell that had held me prisoner before coming to the real Hell. Slowly lowering myself to the wall, I looked for my brown house.
“There,” I said, pointing. “That’s where I lived.” The next drip took us from an outside aerial view to a view inside the house. I saw the familiar clock on the wall and the picture of my uncle and felt a pang of homesickness.
“I hated it there,” I admitted quietly. “There was no one to talk to after my uncle died. The morning of the spell that brought me here, I remember thinking how anywhere would be better than that house. It felt like a prison, just like Megan said, and I’d wanted out so badly. Now, I just want to go back to the life I know.”
“When did you speak to my daughter?”
“The first time or the last time?” I asked. “Show me Megan’s kitchen.”
The view changed with the next drip, and I saw Megan’s familiar kitchen. In all of Uttira, that was the one place where I’d felt safest. It didn’t matter that Megan had almost cooked me. That day had been one of the best in my life.
“That was where I felt like a real person with real friends for the first time ever. In her kitchen.” I turned to look at him and found him studying me. “I didn’t use this pool to spy on the human world. I lived in it for almost eighteen years. They weren’t good years. I hated it there. But it was a world I understood with rules I knew, and I want to go back.”
I stood and shook my head ruefully.
“Isn’t that stupid? To want something that never really brought any joy? To want something that creates misery just because it’s familiar?” I asked, not just talking about my world anymore.
He slowly uncrossed his arms and held out his hand.
“It did bring you joy. Once.”
I glanced at Megan’s kitchen. “Is once enough to keep fighting for it?”
