Wishes of Flower and Stone (A Pact with Demons, Vol. 2): A Pact with Demons, #2

By Michael R.E. Adams

Almon Campbell commits an unusual deed. He's socializing. With his peers.

 

However, a race against time soon begins. A curse threatens his entire class.

 

Demons will test every soul close to him. Almon will trek even further down a dark path. Can he protect everyone without sacrificing himself?

 

Cozy mysteries in a paranormal world. A Pact with Demons investigates uncanny tales with heart and danger. In a world where cats talk. And darkness lurks everywhere. Why do lost hearts sell their souls to demons?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Enchanted Cipher
• Release date: Mar 11, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201490126

Michael R.E. Adams

MICHAEL R.E. ADAMS pens myths both natural and speculative. He invokes the lyricism of poetry and the suspense of genre fiction to create verse and prose in literary and SFF worlds. Portraying underrepresented groups, he seeks to expand the world’s imagination of who we can all be. He tells tales that all people can relate to, stories about the desire and fear of connecting to others and exploring our own hearts. (www.MichaelREAdams.com)

Book preview

7

A TEAROOM AT THE HEART OF IT ALL

This year’s spring social was titled Tea & Sympathy. My friend, Princess Inoue, was the event coordinator for the freshman. She had prepared our social in the gymnasium out of etiquette to the higher classes. It was thought that only seniors had earned the right to have their socials outside, either in the nature preserve or on Cecil Lawn. However, Inoue must’ve expanded her reinvention as a human being. For high school, she staked her claim as alpha, and people were starting to admire and resent her for it. She had worked so hard to be not just popular, but liked. Now, she was making enemies. I wondered if she didn’t care what people thought, or if she was making their resentment a benchmark for success. ‘The key in life is to make the right people angry,’ she once said to me in Beacon Woods. ‘So by default, the second key is to make the right people happy.’ She lay against the hollowed log. She sighed. ‘But I think we are a long ways off before we meet the people we’re supposed to care about making happy. I think our current authority figures are just practice. And poor practice at that. It can’t always be this simple.’

She entered high school, coming of age for the second time, and decided to drop the mask of bubbles and sugar. Although, I wasn’t sure her sweetness was a complete pretense. Sometimes, you really went to bed as one person and woke up as another. Sometimes, your eyes opened, nothing that happened before made sense, and so you were different. I wasn’t sure how it happened for her. If I had to guess, I would’ve thought the woman she was now was always a part of her. But life took a series of events that led to this persona consuming her, becoming her. If we lived in a different world, she would’ve remained innocent forever. Instead, she became the authority. She decided to rule us before we ruled her. But it often seemed she enjoyed the punishments more than the rewards. ‘They don’t talk to me anymore. Val. Sarah. Dela. They don’t act mad at me. They laugh together in the corners. They run their quaint Garden Club. They blame me for everything that went wrong in their lives. But they smile at me and make excuses to go places without me.’ She asked me what I thought. ‘People grow apart,’ I said. ‘But yes, it seems pretty deliberate on their part.’ She giggled. She found it cute. They thought they were fooling her. Val and Sarah forgave Dela for making a pact with a demon. But they couldn’t forgive Princess for not being able to smile anymore. They gave up their seats in an alpha clique because they realized how hopeless it was to strive for equality with Inoue. And instead of admitting their inferiority, they judged her. Cowards. Princess was right. They did blame her for their problems. And they said nothing because they also knew how silly that was. If anyone was to blame, it was Lowen Shoby. He had made a pact of his own that inspired Dela to do the same. But they laughed with him. They walked home with him. And he still got along with them, even though he dated Princess.

Inoue had the responsibility of following tradition and humbling our class to receive our Tea & Sympathy indoors. On campus. Instead, she booked our seasonal event at the D’Clarketon Botanical Gardens. The freshmen who didn’t know her cheered. And the higher classes called her derogatory names as they passed her in the hall. The names they called her were names only a woman would be called, names that no woman should be on trial for in our modern times. What she did in her personal life was her business. And even if they were true, I’d admire her spirit of adventure. She was confident. She was fully possessed as her own person. She could make the decisions responsibly. But they were hurled as insults. They were fabrications to hurt her character. And they had nothing to do with planning a social.

As for her friends, I once saw Val looking sympathetically on Princess. Sarah called her, and she walked away. Inoue had been getting books out of her locker. I was going to say something, but I didn’t. I don’t know why.

The freshman class met at the gardens where twenty-one tearooms were arranged, surrounded by islands of wildflowers. Hanging Persian carpets walled off each room with a space for entering and exiting. Each square room had a table with wrought iron legs and a polished, wooden top. Each place had a name card.

I wandered around a bit, searching for my assigned seat, then heard my name. I looked around. Shoby was waving at me. I met him, and he led me inside. We were seated next to each other. There were three other chairs. No one else had arrived. I assumed one was for Princess. But then who were the other two seats for? I reached over the table and checked. The card on the other side of Shoby read, Valeri Gospirez. The one next to her read, Sarah Dung. And the one next to Sarah and next to me, therefore completing the circle read, Dela Kitchell.

I was happy to be placed next to Shoby. Ideally, he and Princess would’ve been on either side of me. That wasn’t practical. They’d want to be next to each other. I thought Princess would’ve placed herself in the middle but also hoped that, with her goddess insight, she would’ve let me sit next to Shoby. He talked to me a certain way. A way I didn’t mind. He was the only person who looked at me like I could tell him anything and he’d be okay with it. I was never afraid the pleasant way he looked at me would change because of something I said. When I was younger, people’s faces always became twisted. They snarled. Their eyebrows rose. They scoffed. In the best cases, they rolled their eyes. They checked their phones. They cut me off to finish my sentences. I supposed because I was taking too long to get to my point. But they never actually got the point. They completed my thoughts with their own irrational beliefs. Shoby wasn’t like that. Sometimes, I felt bad. Like I wasn’t showing him how interested I was in his interests. I had partly come to the social, hoping that maybe in such an arrangement, he and I could talk. I could make it up to him.

‘Where’s Inoue sitting?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know. We broke up.’ He coughed into his hand. ‘You look good. But you always look good.’

To celebrate the season, I had worn a pastel pink blazer with a collared chocolate shirt. My tie matched my blazer. My shorts matched my shirt. I felt like I had failed. I was so busy investigating the table, I hadn’t noticed Shoby’s haircut. Instead of the shaggy mop he usually put on his head, he had the sides cut close. The front was gelled and styled. I felt a bit flushed at how different he looked. He became a stranger all of a sudden. Instead of looking typically disheveled, he wore a crisp black shirt with a white skinny tie. I wanted to look under the table. It would’ve been all about the shoes. I wasn’t subtle. He wore black brogues.

He laughed. I became aware of myself. My face had to have looked as ridiculous as it felt.

‘Like what you see?’ he asked with a grin.

I squinted. ‘Shut. Up. But yes, you clean up alright, Shoby. If I had actually noticed when I first saw you, I wouldn’t have known who you were.’

‘Well, I’m still me. And don’t get use to it. It’s a one time thing. Tomorrow, I’m back to t-shirts over t-shirts.’

‘Please keep the hair.’ I closed my eyes. The horror. I sounded like I had pleaded.

‘Yeah, yeah. I’ll keep the hair.’

I had wanted to compliment him. Instead, I’d been pushy. I told him it was cool he was so focused on colleges this early in our high school education. He perked up. He liked the compliment. I asked him about his chess strategy for Nationals.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ he said. ‘There’s these scholarships from The Lion Foundation. The Heartbringer and The Lightbearer. They only go to a freshman. I can’t lose more than three matches this season. And I have to win the championship at National’s. If I do that, I’m The Heartbringer. I’d get automatic enrollment in The Vine Scholaria college of my choice. And if I lead the whole club in winning a team trophy too, I’ll be The Lightbearer as well. Only one other time in Laidlaw history has a freshman ever been Chess Club president to even qualify. I’d get a free ride. And I need a free ride. Plus, you know...’ He turned away from me and sat back. He put his hands in his pockets and gazed into the air. ‘My parents will literally kick me out the family if I don’t win.’

I changed the subject. And asked him his tactic. He beamed. He was in his element. He had moved into his heart, and his excitement made me care about chess. Kinda. I cared he cared. He turned back to me and rested his arm along the back of my chair. I stopped listening. I plastered on a smile and occasionally nodded. Win-win. I appeared like a good friend without the hassle of being a good friend.

I was more intrigued about The Lion Foundation. Was it connected to the War of Lions statue in Town Square? Did they commission it? Why had I never heard of it? On one hand, it was kinda juvenile to just connect the Lion in The Lion Foundation with the Lion in War of Lions. But lions were a euphemism for hellcats. The real ones.

I had no proof of this. But there were clues. So I thought. If I were right, the statue was the only indication that hellcats were a part of our town’s folklore and maybe even history. The artist insisted it represented a parable. I didn’t believe him. Now, there was a foundation. The Lion Foundation. Lions represented kingly strength and courage. A fine enough mascot for