The Ten-Year-Old Necromancer: Chapter Four

Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),

Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!

First Impression: Okayy this one was an interesting change I think. If the previous chapter was trying to make us more familiar with Kim's new situation in life, this one tried to make it suddenly unease culminating in that horribly scary moment and well it feels a little sudden as a shift but also inevitable at the same time I think, either way a nice cliffhanger to add to the mix. Kim was bound to snap at some point.

Anyway let's get right to it,

Grandma stops at another store on the drive back. “Stay here,” she says, leaving me alone in the car. The shop she enters is dark and dingy, its windows tinted so you can’t see inside. The town seemed empty before, but this took the cake. Someone barked a laugh from a block away, but I couldn’t see them from the passenger seat in grandmas car.

Nothing moves, not once, the entire time Grandma’s in that store. My stomach curls, I begin to fiddle with my seat belt. I just got out of my booster seat a month ago, and now I was sitting in the passenger seat of a pickup truck, carted about by a strange old lady I barely know. And I was beginning to doubt my mom knew either, begging the question why she saw fit to leave me here all alone.

She could’ve at least stayed with me. I think bitterly. If it was so necessary I be here at all.

My grandma strides back to the car with a stack of books in hand. She tucks them under her arm, pulls out her keys out one of her many pockets, and unlocks the car door. I scramble to open it for her but suspect I’m more hinderance than help. Still, she nods her thanks.

She drops the books into my lap, each one weighing ten of me. I examine them as Grandma starts the car.

The first one has a curse on the front. One my mom said often, but warned me not to repeat, Swamps and Stuff, I read, censoring the last word. I wrinkle my nose as I slide that book from my lap.

The second has a much friendlier title, but an extremely graphic diagram of the human body on it. I actually don’t mind this one as much- it’s slightly more detailed than the poster hanging in my science classroom back home, but still scientifically accurate. Its title says An Introduction to Human Anatomy. Like necromancy, I don’t quite get the last word. It’s annoying, but I’m sure the book will explain. However, I hope both these books would be easier to understand than the ones back at Grandmas house.

The final books spine is so thick, I had to prop it up on the dashboard just so I could lift it. This one didn’t have a title, just a gold letter J on the front cover.

I flip to the first page, then the second, and then the third, “It’s blank,” I say to grandma, “why would someone waste so much paper, and not do anything with it?”

“That’s because it’s for you.” Grandma says, maneuvering the truck out of the parking lot, “That’s to be your journal.”

I frown down at the book, “I’ll never be able to fill so much space.”

“You’d be surprised.”

The drive back to my grandmas house felt much quicker than it did earlier. Before long, my feet were crunching against the gravel path back towards the hut.

She made me carry the books all the way inside. I slam them on the table as soon as I can, my arms as light and wobbly as the spaghetti my mom used to make for me.

“Alright,” Grandma says, leaving the groceries on the counter. She looks at me like she’s not entirely sure why I’m in her kitchen, or what she’s supposed to do with me. I shuffle my feet nervously, “do you remember what I told you yesterday?”

“About necromancy,” I offer.

“Yes.” Grandma says, not entirely a statement, “And you know what death is?”

“Of course!” I snap, blood rushing to my face. “Obviously.”

“Who do you know who’s dead?”

“My dog.” I say, “and my dad.”

This startles my grandma, but she recovers quickly. She nods slowly, “Your mom told you what happened to him, then?”

“No.” I say, gritting my teeth, “Mom doesn’t like to talk about it. She told me Milly went to a farm ‘over the rainbow.’ And she’s never once mentioned my dad. So I figured it all out on my own.”

Grandma smiles, looking all too amused. She braces herself against the counter, and gestures at me to sit down.

“I want to ask you,” she says, “what you think happens after we die?”

Mom didn’t talk about this either, I think. I ponder Grandmas question, trying to puzzle it together the same way I would a math problem back at school. After some consideration, I say, “I think we go somewhere. Like the farm, but not really, because with the farm you can go home whenever you want. But I’ve never seen a dead thing walking about-“ I stop, remembering the host of frogs I set loose on my classmates, “Or, well, not normally, anyways.”

“Did your mom raise you on any sort of religion?” Grandma asks.

I think, “Mom had a cross hung over our fireplace she sometimes prayed to. But she never took me to church.”

“Do you believe in a god?”

Her questions are irritating me, but I respond, “No, I don’t think so. My classmates sometimes made fun of me for it.”

Grandma steps away from the counter and begins to pace slowly around the room, “So you believe in an afterlife, but not a god? You think it’s silly your dog, ‘Milly’ went to a farm, but still think we go somewhere after death? Can you explain to me why you think all this?”

She continues to ask more questions, each one more complicated than the last. They bounce around against my skull, causing my brain immense pain. Normally, I love quizzes and questions and puzzles, but this is too much. Too, too much. I burst into tears.

Grandma stops abruptly. For a moment, she watches me hiccup, before saying, “I’m sorry-“

I don’t want to hear it though. I leap from my chair, the seat scraping violently against the floor, and run out the front door.

“Kimberly!” She calls behind me, but I don’t turn back. I twist between the trees and run past the truck. I hear her stumbling after me for a moment, but as the house disappears behind me, so does she.

I run for a very long time. It is only when I stop that I realize I have no idea where I am.

Panic seizes my lungs. I squeeze my eyes shut to hold back the tears. Birds chirp in the branches above me, and I hear wind blowing somewhere in the distance, but other than that, I am entirely alone.

Goodness! Kim just ran away from her Grandma and is now lost in the woods! Will she be able to escape? Or will she become rodent food? What if there are monsters in the woods? Reanimated dead people? What if those kids from that store are witches and what if they use Kim for their ritual? I’m anxious to know what happens next, because every chapter is a cliffhanger.

I wish you a nice day/night.