Page 12 of Her Wonderful Wonder Bell
“Then it must be the same Brigley from my time,” Pearl says with a frown. “He’s a real piece of work.”
“I don’t know what he is,” Rosa says. “But he’s not the normal human he pretends to be. That I’ve always known. Which is fine, of course. We accept all kinds here. But whatever he is makes the spirits nervous. I haven’t bothered to find out what he is; what people are is normally none of my business. If we’regoing to get rid of him however, we first have to know what we’re up against.”
“I’ll go to the bookstore,” Sharon says. “The owner loves me. She always has piles of obscure shit waiting when I visit. Terrible for my wallet, great for research. Then I can hit up the library. The restricted section hates to see me coming.”
How she can make every word, no matter how intriguing, sound just completely devoid of emotion, I have no idea. Used to drive me absolutely insane when we dated. I mean, she’s a really cool person, she’s just not—
I look over at Pearl, whose blue eyes are somehow glistening in the soft light. No, they’re notreallywet, but the emotion on her face is so strong they might as well be. Yet, even with all the stress she’s under, she turns to me, squeezes my hand, and offers me a little smile to try to makemefeel better about our situation.
Even with the shakiness in her voice I can tell she’s trying to brighten my mood when she says, “It’ll be alright. We’ll get him, Delia. Whatever the heck he is.”
Fuck, she’s amazing. She returns her attention to the Candy Witch. Her hands are nowfolded in her lap as she leans toward Rosa. Her voice shakes slightly when she speaks, the fear evident.
“Can you fix me?” Pearl asks. I can see the shine of tears in her eyes; my heart breaks.
“I don’t know.” Rosa finally sets down her pen and taps a finger to her lips. “Delia, have you tried going inside of Pearl?”
Pearl and I look at each other with confused expressions before turning back to Rosa.
“I’m sorry,inside of? Like entering a building?” Pearl asks.
“As in, has Delia attempted to put any part of herself inside you?”
“What? No. She’s flat.” I say, words tumbling out of me quickly.
“Don’t be so stuffy,” Rosa scoffs. She waves Pearl toward her. “Here, I need to test something.”
Pearl stands, looking nervously over at me, before looking back at Rosa.
“I have a feeling you’re gonna stick your hand in my mouth, aren’t you?” she says with a resignedsigh.
I cough.What?
“I’m going to try to, yes.”
Pearl bends over the desk and Rosa does just that. To my surprise, when Rosa slides her fingers against Pearl’s mouth, they disappear inside of it. It’s like the police box ship in that sci-fi show from the U.K.—the one that’s been on the air for decades.
She’s bigger on the inside.
“Holy shit. How does that work?” I ask as I scramble to my feet, desperate for a closer look.
Pearl gags as Rosa pulls her hand out, something pink and stringy coming along with it. Whatever the pink stuff is continues to stretch out of her throat in a long rope, much like hot mozzarella cheese. She whines and gags as the strings wind out.
“Just a little more, sweetie,” Rosa says softly to Pearl.
After several more seconds, the pull is complete, and a fat, sticky, pink blob rests on the desk before Rosa. Pearl coughs and strokes her throat.
“What was that?” she says on a rasp.
“Bubblegum. I assume it had the magic in it. Remember, you’re supposed to spit gum out. This is a big problem.” Rosa shakes her head. “Don’t you listen to what your parents tell you?Don’t swallow gum!”
“I had terrible parents!” Pearl snaps grumpily as she sits back down. “And, again, it was an accident!”
Rosa shrugs.
“So, can you fix me?” Pearl asks again with just about the saddest puppy eyes anyone has ever had, and it takes everything I have not to scoop her up and squeeze her.
“I don’t know. With how long you’ve been in the box, it may take a while—if I can even do it at all, considering I don’t know the spell to begin with, and it’s been messed up with the gum swallowing.” Rosa settles heavily back in her chair and folds her hands on her lap. “I’m so sorry I can’t be more optimistic.”
