The Secret of Spellshadow Manor 6 by Bella Forrest (books for men to read .TXT) 📕

hand on your chest, and I want you to reach inside, to find your soul, and let it rise to meet my palm. Focus your mind, and it should come easily,” she encouraged.

He did as she’d asked, closing his eyes as he felt her palm on his chest. Once upon a time, such a task would have been simple, but now it was a real strain to seek out the pulsing coil of his essence and coax it into action. Reaching it, he focused hard on lifting it, feeling as the tendrils twisted up through his ribs, pushing toward the hand pressed just above.

“And, relax,” said Ceres.

Alex smiled nervously as he felt his essence descend back into the depths of his body. “How did I do?” he asked.

“You’re done,” she replied, grinning. “There’s nothing more we can do for you. You have your strength back, your mind is as focused as it’s ever going to be, and the little pieces that were broken have been tied off, as it were. Demeter and I have been discussing it, and we think you’re ready to go home. That test proved it.”

The spoon in Alex’s hand clattered into the bowl, splashing unfinished cookie mixture up the sides. Without a word, he reached out and pulled Ceres into a tight embrace, his shoulders shaking from happy laughter. She laughed too, the sound infectious, as she patted him on the back. It was a well-known fact that she wasn’t exactly a hugger, but it was evident she was making an exception for Alex.

“I’m really good to go?” he asked, pulling away.

She nodded. “You’re really good to go.”

When Ellabell returned, he told her the good news, scooping her up into his arms and spinning her around, both of them whooping with excitement as they danced around the kitchen, eating half of the cookies that had been intended for Agatha. It had been a long time coming, and both of them were eager to return home.

“What will you do when you get home?” Alex asked, once they had come down from cloud nine.

Ellabell shrugged. “Depends who’s there when I get there,” she said sadly. “My parents probably won’t be home, with how much they work. My neighbors, if they still live there, might be happy to see me, though.”

“You only saw your parents every few weeks, right?” Alex asked, remembering the stories she had told him of her lonely childhood, in the many long conversations they’d had together.

“Yeah, I was the ultimate latchkey kid,” she said with a tight smile.

“Perhaps things will change, seeing as you’ve been gone so long?” Alex encouraged, putting his arm around her.

“Perhaps… but I think it might be too little, too late,” she sighed. “I just want to see them to let them know I’m okay, and then I’ll leave again. If they’d been home, Finder never would have kidnapped me.”

“But if he hadn’t, you’d never have met me,” Alex teased, wanting to coax a smile back to her face.

“Every cloud, eh?” she murmured, giving him a playful shove in the ribs.

The following afternoon, Ellabell and Alex met with Natalie on the front lawn of Spellshadow Manor. They had sent had a message through to her the day before, explaining what had happened, and she had sent one back, asking if she could come with them.

She looked sleek and sophisticated, dressed in silver trousers and a white t-shirt, her black hair slicked back into a high ponytail. Whatever she had been doing at Stillwater, it agreed with her. She looked happy and healthy, a big smile on her face.

“I suppose we should do this at last,” she said as the duo approached, gesturing toward the wide-open gates.

The spells that concealed the place from ordinary eyes were still up, but the barrier remained absent, the clockwork discs all broken to pieces.

“I suppose we should,” Alex agreed, turning to look at the looming figure of Spellshadow one last time. “I can’t say I’ll be sorry to see the back of this place,” he muttered.

“Nope, not one bit,” Ellabell chimed in, taking Alex’s hand.

“Goodbye, Spellshadow!” Alex yelled, his voice echoing all the way around the crumbling walls.

“Goodbye, Spellshadow!” the girls howled, grins spreading across their faces.

With that, they walked out of the school, not giving it a second glance. It might not be the last time they returned to the magical realm, Alex reasoned, but he never wished to set foot inside the manor again.

As they walked, Alex turned to Natalie. “What are you going to tell your family?” He had given it some thought during his long recovery, but had not come up with anything particularly plausible. The real explanation seemed too outlandish, even for him.

She smiled. “I am going to tell them I slipped and fell into the ravine after messing around up there—typical teenager mischief—and suffered a bout of amnesia that made me forget who I was. I shall say you were in there too, and when the two of us came around, we couldn’t remember a thing, so we traveled all the way up to Alaska, hitchhiking most of the way, believing that was where we were from,” she began, the whole thing apparently carefully thought out. “Then, I will say my memories were restored after eating strawberry pancakes at a truck stop in Juno, and we hurried back as fast as we could.”

Alex whistled. “You mind if I use that too?”

“I was counting on it,” Natalie chuckled. “It will not work if your story is different!”

Alex laughed. “That’s very true. So, accident, amnesia, Alaska, strawberry pancakes?”

“That is about it,” Natalie replied.

Faced with the passageway that led into the real world, Alex began to worry. The door would always be open for a return journey, he knew that much, but he felt as if he were in a strange kind of limbo. Part of him never wanted to set foot in the magical realm again, but then the other part knew that the real world would seem strange and