chapter 22

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22. I propose to a skeleton

We walked around the gravestone and we found, you guessed it, nothing. There was grass and a bunch of small stones. That's it. How were we supposed to find a ring here? It was like four pm when we got here. Now it was like six. What had we found? Grass and pebbles.

Ash wasn't giving up though. "Alex, can you recite the second verse of the prophecy? I remember it but I want to focus all my attention on the words."

I nodded. "Yeah sure. To find it you must fight your way through dawn and dusk and dark. It's deep within a lost dead soul. A soul that brings a shark."

"A spark." She corrected laughing slightly.

Mavis had her hand up in the air. "Yeah?" I said.

"I have an idea."

I grinned. "Hell you don't need my permission. Spit it out." She punched me and it felt like she had never insulted my hair. Yes, I hadn't forgotten that insult yet. Sue me.

"We fought our way through at dawn, as in I fought Violet, at dusk both of you fought me, in the dark..........we haven't got there yet have we?"

I shook my head.

Ash jumped into the conversation. "What if we have to go through the stone?"

"Ash." I said exasperatedly. "We may have tattoos. We may have a figura subcinctus. But none of us can walk through stone."

Ash ignored me and began to examine the gravestone stubbornly. See I told you she was annoying. I turned to Mavis who seemed to be lost in her own thoughts.

"How do you shift shape? Shape shift?" I asked. She smiled.

"Um......it's hard to explain. I sort of, you know.........picture that person and my body changes its features so it matches almost perfectly."

I asked my next question unsmilingly. "How did you know Arthur's letter?"

She sighed and turned away. "I'm really sorry about that Alex. I knew Arthur was a very sentimental person. When you and Ash were arguing and she opened the door to see if the coast was clear, I sneaked in as a fly. I knew it was private and you didn't want anyone to read it and I'm sorry. I was just following orders."

I wasn't exactly mad at her. I just felt vulnerable standing in front of her. It was like she could threaten me or blackmail me at any time. I gave her a small smile that was more of a grimace and turned away slightly.

"Shucks bro, I was right. Guys get over here." The note of emergence in her voice was crystal clear, and exchanging glances, me and Mavis went over to her. She had somehow managed to lift up the gravestone and underneath it was a fairly large hole.

"Holy crap." Mavis said. "Are you saying we have to go through that?"

Ash nodded. "Isn't it obvious? I'm pretty sure of it. It's practically the only way we have at least a chance of finding the ring. It's something to start with."

I sighed knowing that what she was saying made sense. "I guess I'll go first. If I find the ring first I'll be the hero and if I die you guys will be safe and I will still be the hero."

Ash shook her head. "No bro. I'm going. I found it."

I pushed her hard and she fell on her butt. "Mavis, you don't have to come." I said and jumped through the hole hearing both of them scream NO.

I landed hard on my butt so now I know how Ash felt when I pushed her. It hurt. A lot. Anyway I slowly stood up and looked around. It was kind of amazing and dark and creepy at the same time. Grass roots were hanging around and I almost felt like swinging on them and being Tarzan again.

I called up. "You two can come if you want. I'm not dead. Yet."

Almost before I had finished, Ash jumped and fell on top of me and sat up on my chest knocking the wind out of me. "Sorry." She shrieked in an extremely high pitched voice and got up and helped me up. My ear drums were hurting. It wasn't used to extremely high frequencies.

Suddenly Ash fell on top of me and this time the weight was much worse.

"Apologies." Mavis said getting up, pulling Ash up off of me and giving me a hand.

Ash and Mavis started having an argument about how much they weighed or something. Honestly what?

I walked away and began to explore. I noticed something gleaming in a corner and feeling a tingle of excitement, I walked towards it and stopped with an expression of horror and disgust.

A skeleton was sitting on some tree roots that had formed into a chair and on his ring finger there was a ring.

"Ooh, he's married." I turned in disgust to find Ash standing next to my left shoulder. Mavis was at the back sitting on the ground spitting clods of earth. Don't blame me. Ask Ash what happened. Maybe they had a disagreement about each others' weights or something. Clearly Ash had come out on top during the fight. Ash walked back towards Mavis presumably to help her up.

I slowly bent down and touched the ring and suddenly a hand gripped my wrist tightly and I didn't have to look down to know that the arm holding me was Ash or Mavis.

Gulping and trying to control my breath, I looked down to see the skeleton holding tightly to my hand.

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