The Hunt of the Grimalkin (Erresuma Book 1) by Dani Swanson (read aloud books txt) 📕

Thea put her hands on her little cat and healed his cuts, as tears of relief rolled down her face. She sat down in a heap and leaned against the barn. She hacked up the bile brewing in her stomach and shut her eyes. She could see the earth spinning and felt every movement of every being around her. She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, but had an overwhelming sense of everything happening around her.

I can hear you little cricket. I just can’t make it over to you. Did I help enough? Did I help at all? Is Fig alright? He has to be….right? Move body! Move!

Am I alright? Can they hear me? Guys?

Thea looked around wildly with her eyes, but couldn’t control the movement of her body anymore. Her friends had noticed her and detoured from the house to help.

“Let’s get her to her bed,” Dean said.

She could feel her body floating up in the air. She must have been carried back to the house. She couldn’t move, nor open her eyes, but she couldn’t sleep either. She was trapped within herself in a comatose state. She could hear the words, but couldn’t separate the voices.

Who was talking?

“How did she know how to do that? How did she know her necklace had powers?”

“She must have read about it in her book.”

“Sorgin could have told her. She wanted the necklace.”

“Who is the Ice King?”

“I think she knew how from her spell book she has been carrying around. But she said someone left her notes? Who did that?”

“What are we going to do with the Coven? Do we kill them?”

“We can’t kill them! We’re not murderers…..are we?”

“Will they stay with Sorgin? That doesn’t sound very smart to me. That sounds like giving an evil army to a witch imp.”

“What are we going to do about the Grimalkin?”

“Did you see how fast all those creatures took off once the fight broke out? There was no loyalty for freeing them.”

The voices started to fade into the darkness that surrounded Thea. She fell into a sleep filled with flashes of the battle field, and the screams of Thalia echoed in her head.

“Thea is waking up!” Robin called down the hallway. Thea opened her eyes and saw that she was in a different room than she had stayed in before. Robin handed her a glass of water.

“Thanks,” she said in a cracking voice. Fig was there at her side, watching her every move. “Hi sweet baby,” she said as she smiled down at her cat, starting to cry. “I thought I was too late.” She drank her water, too fast and started to choke on it; Thea coughed up more black bile into the bin by the side of the bed.

“What happened with the ice cubed witches?” Thea said, with a moan as she tried slowly getting out of bed. Dean was there to help her to her feet. He held her tight to his side as he supported her; she shut her eyes as she breathed in his scent. Her legs still felt weak, but she knew that they had to finish this adventure.

“You’ll have to come look,” Robin said, as she nodded towards the door. The group headed down the hallway and took a flight of stairs down to the basement. In the back corner there was a little door that was no higher than Thea’s knee. The large room was dimly lit by a flickering light bulb. The room felt cool, and the dampness was apparent by the condensation on the walls. The basement was filled with old crates that were stacked up to the ceiling. Old rugs of different colors made a patchwork on the cement floor.

“They’re in there,” Charles said, pointing to the little door. Agatha dropped to her knees. She turned the latch with a rusty squeal from the hinge, opened the door. Thea peered in to see that the door was high above a pit. There sat the coven, frozen from the neck down, with bracelets binding their wrists. The room was covered in enchanted ice and snow, ensuring that the witches stayed frozen.

“How did you guys do that?” Thea whispered back to the group. “There’re no stairs leading down there.”

“There were some stairs, but we burned them down once they were in there. There was a little magic left in your necklace, that we used to make a spell to keep it in a permanent freeze. They shouldn’t be getting out of there,” Agatha said with a nod. She gave one last glance into the icy room below, as she blew her clouded breath out. “Each of them has one of Sorgin’s bands attached to them. Even if the ice melts, they are not able to cast spells. Sorgin must have attached them while we were looking for Fig.”

Thea stared down into the room for a moment longer before she shut the door and turned the key. “And, what did you guys do about Sorgin?” she questioned, as she slowly stood up with the help of Dean. She smiled softly at him as she leaned on his arm.

“She disappeared when we went looking for Fig,” Dean said with a grim look on his face. Thea looked up into his eyes and sighed deeply. She wasn’t ready to deal with that problem.

Charles led them back upstairs to the kitchen, and fixed them some dandelion fizzy and a bowl of pasta to eat. As they sat around the table and had their lunch, their spirits were definitely lifted now that the coven had been defeated.

“How long have I been out?” Thea asked as she smoothed her greasy hair down with a feeling of disgust.

“Nineteen days,” Robin responded, with a look of concern. “You will still need to rest.” Thea nodded as