Pandora's Key (27 page)

…. Evangeline blushed and stared down at the book. “Okay, what are we reading about today?”

“Tartarus,” Edwall said with a grin.

“Who’s Tartarus?” Raphe asked, perching on the windowsill, his skateboard at his feet.

“Not who. What. And you’ll see soon enough.” Edwall clapped his hands like an excited child. “Start reading, Evangeline. Pretty please.”

Evangeline began to read: “Below the underworld is an infernal dungeon called Tartarus.”

“I wouldn’t even think of going there,” Edwall cautioned Evangeline, his light-gray eyes twinkling beneath overgrown silver brows.

“Why not? It sounds like the perfect place for a vacation.”

“Because Tartarus is despair,” the old man replied with a grimace. “It’s an abyss to house the souls of the damned and the dead. Tartarus is hell times infinity and there’s no escape… Melia is there, you know.”

The skin on the back of Evangeline’s neck prickled.
How did Edwall know Melia’s name? And why would he think her best friend was in some mythical dungeon?
“Um, how could you—I don’t think—”

“She’s suffering every moment of every day for eternity for the sin of betraying the descendant of Pandora.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Evangeline blurted out.
Why am I even getting upset? I don’t believe in Tartarus or anything else in the old guy’s book.
But how does he know Melia’s name?

“Malledy is probably there, too,” the old man continued as Raphe hopped off the windowsill and moved toward Evangeline. Edwall licked his chapped lips and blinked several times. His eye color shifted from washed-out gray to a deep slate. He winked at Raphe. “You wanna see your old buddy?”

Copyright © 2012 by Nancy Richardson Fischer

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.

Edition: April 2012