Invasion of the Blanche (Strange Totems Book 2) Corey Mariani (best management books of all time txt) 📖

the door. The whorl did not extend beyond this room, not during this stay anyway. Opening the door was a big mistake. Zelda’s memories flooded my mind, and my rekulak shot out of the pool of moldy scrill, crashed through the threshold, and sprayed me. Then the graft broke. The whorl dissipated. And I was back in Lou’s basement.

“I thought I told you not to leave a corruption,” Lou said, scraping scrill from my arm into a jar.

“The candy dish wasn’t there.” I felt sick knowing I’d left another piece of myself behind. I didn’t need Lou scolding me about it. I felt like me. I felt normal. But if I wasn’t me anymore, would I even know?

Lou must have read my face because he said, “I’ve left seventy-seven corruptions behind. I left the last one about a year ago. Wasn’t paying attention. It happens. You’ll be fine. You got plenty in the tank.” He patted my shoulder, then limped over to the chair against the wall and sat in it. With a twirl of his hand, he gestured for me to continue.

I pictured the unfortunate shakas Kaliah and I had found babbling to mirrors in a seedy cabin in the woods. Losing a few small pieces of myself was a small price to pay to become immune to that fate.

I dropped bloom and grafted to the other totem, the candy dish. This time I found myself in a living room, sitting on a couch, filing my nails. Beside the couch was a hospital bed in a slightly inclined position. An old woman with thin, white hair and thin, sagging, spotted skin sat in the bed, semi-upright, drinking out of a mug with a straw. Between us was an end table. On the end table were opened envelopes, a small bunch of green grapes sprawled over a white paper towel, and a crystal candy dish full of colorful, striped hard candy.

A small army of children sat in front of us, staring at the old woman and the candy dish, like supplicants at an alter, or dogs begging from their master. The far wall was extended to make room for them all. In the midst and above the sitting army of children, on a stand, was a TV playing a soap opera. Besides the sounds from the show, the room was quiet. The room smelled of toast and furniture polish.

On the other side of the couch, I saw the stuffed fox on a bookshelf against the wall. I went to it, veering off the path of the whorl, ignoring as best I could the tendrils of Zelda growing in my mind. I felt a stabbing in my chest as I reached for the fox, and my skin became hot all over, like I was approaching an inferno. My face pinched. I began to cry. Grief and hopelessness overwhelmed me. But I didn’t give up. I grabbed the fox, held it, felt the scratchy fur in my hands, repeating the same Pictionary poems I’d used in the real world. But the pain only got worse and worse, growing like a crescendo, until I couldn’t take any more. I tossed the fox to the ground and retreated into Zelda’s memories, basking in her narrative. My rekulak burst through the floor, sending children flying, and sprayed me. The graft severed, and I returned to reality.

Lou saw the scrill on my skin, shook his head. “Again?”

Frustrated, wasting no time, I reentered the candy dish whorl. The corruption I’d left behind sat beside me on the couch, muttering the Pictionary poems I’d been using when I failed to graft to the fox. I snapped my fingers at him, and he turned to me with a blank look, continuing to recite the passwords.

Seeing a shell of myself like that was uncanny, but it gave me an idea.

I scooted toward the candy dish, and as I did, all one hundred or so of the children sitting on the floor, in unison, turned their heads toward me. I saw hate in their eyes. Confused and frightened, but determined to follow my plan, I grabbed hold of the candy dish and began grafting. As the fiery pain consumed me, as Zelda’s memories offered a warm and welcoming escape, the children attacked, climbing over each other to get to me. They punched kicked, bit, scratched, and tore at my body. I howled uncontrollably, making sounds I’ll never forget, sounds that still haunt me. But I held on to the candy dish tight, hoping I could find the strength to keep grafting, resisting the tiny, prying hands as I was being crushed under the weight of the mob.

Then the weight lessened and lessened again. A child disappeared in front of me, then another and another until I could see the ceiling again. Mangled wounds all over my body squirted or poured blood. I was broken. More children came forward, but as they came in contact with my blood they disappeared. I knew they weren’t real children, but the scene was so disturbing, so horrifying, I gave up. I threw the candy dish into the mob. The old woman cursed as the children fought over it, as I surrendered to Zelda’s memories once more.

Back in the basement, Lou said, “Okay, that’s enough for one day.”

“No,” I said, not wanting to prolong the torture any longer than I had to, not wanting to dread returning to these whorls day after day for a week. “One more time.” I began grafting to the candy dish before he could respond. I entered the whorl again.

My corruption on the couch to my right was reciting the passwords for the fox. My new corruption on the left was reciting the passwords for the candy dish. I went to the bookcase, getting better and better at resisting Zelda’s narrative, and I tossed the fox at my first corruption like it was a hot potato. It landed in his lap. “Pick it up,” I said, and he did, still reciting