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"The scents?"Jessalyn’s whole body seemed to melt "It’s
likean orchestra forI’ve ever seen!"She burst into laughter, her green eyes lightening, her straight red hair a waterfal around her shoulders Then she began to stalk Daloom in one corner Dahed; it was so ot into the corner, tangled in the black hangings and nowhere near a , Jessalyn assu to have a dress made, just the color of those deep, dark purple carnations,"she whispered "Not black"
"Your highness wil look wonderful in it,"Da - "
"I may even wear my corsets on the inside of h heavy lashes "Or - would that be toois too much for you, my princess,"Damon whispered back He stopped a moment to think seriously "The corsets - would they match the dress or be black?"
Jessalyn considered "Same color?"she ventured
Daht dead in any color other than black, but he il ing to put up with - even encourage - Jessalyn’s oddities They et him made a vampire faster
"I want your blood,"the princess whispered, as if to prove hiht
"Here? Now?"Damon whispered back "In front of al your servants?"
Jessalyn surprised him then She, who had been so timid before, stepped out of the curtains and clapped her hands for silence It fel immediately
"Everyone out!"she said perearden in rateful The steward" - she nodded toward a young man as dressed in black, but who had wisely placed a dark red rose in his buttonhole - "wil see to it that you’re al given food - and drink - before you go!"At this there was athe bel pul when I need you" - to the steward
In fact, it wasn’t until two days later that she reached up and, a little reluctantly, rang the bel pulAnd that was ive the order that a uniform be made for Dauard
By the second day, Bonnie had to turn to the star bal s as her only source of entertainht orbs she found that twenty-five of the to end, and tere ful of experiences so frightening and hideous that she labeled them in her own mind as Never Ever The last one was cal ed Five Hundred Stories for Young Ones, and Bonnie quickly found that these immersion stories could be useful, for they specified the nas a person would find around the house and the city The sphere’s connecting thread was a series about a family of olves named the D��z-Aht-Bhi’iens Bonnie promptly christened the how the faht a new slave at the market to replace one who had died, and where they went to hunt human prey, and how Mers Dustbin played in an important bashik tournament at school
Today the last story was al to a Sweetarpluot to experience eating part of it with Marit, and it was good
After reading the story, Bonnie very careful y peeked through the edge of theblind and saw a sign on a shop below that she’d often watched Then she held the star bal to her ten And she knew not only what she wanted, but how et out of her tiny room and try what she had just learned But before her eyes, the lights in the sweetshop went dark Ittime
Bonnie threw the star bal across the roolow, and then flung herself on her rush-fil ed bed, pul ed the covers upand discovered that she couldn’t sleep Groping in ruby twilight, she found the star bal with her fingers and put it to her teain
Interspersed with clusters of stories about the Dustbin family’s daily adventures were fairy tales Most of theruesoh, and when it was ti on her pal et But this time the story seemed different After the title, The Gatehouse of the Seven Kitsune Treasures, she heard a little rhyme:
Amid a plain of snow and ice
There lies kitsune paradise
And close beside, forbidden pleasure: Six gates htening But, Bonnie thought, the story ht and put the star bal to her teruesoirl and boy kitsune ent on a quest to find the most sacred and secret of the "seven kitsune treasures,"the kitsune paradise A treasure, Bonnie learned, could be soe as an entire world This one, going by the story, was in the arden, with exotic flowers bloo down smal waterfal s into clear, deep pools
It was al wonderful, Bonnie thought, experiencing the story as if she atching a movie al around her, but a movie that included the sensations of touch, taste, and ss, where they sometiirl kitsune had to go to "the top of the world"where there was sohest Dark Died soh various tests of courage and wit before they got into the next lowest dimension, the Nether World
The Nether World was completely different from the Dark Dilaciers and rifts, al bathed in a blue twilight from three moons that shone from above
The kitsune children almost starved in the Nether World because there was so little for a fox to hunt They made do with the tiny animals of the cold: mice and smal white voles, and the occasional insect (Oh, yuck, Bonnie thought) They survived until, through the fog andblack walThey fol owed the wal until final y they came to a Gatehouse with tal spires hidden in the clouds Written above the door in an old language they could hardly read were the words: The Seven Gates
They entered a rooht doorways or exits One was the door through which they had just entered
And as they watched, each door brightened so they could see that the other seven doors led to seven different worlds, one of which was the kitsune paradise Yet another gate led to a field ofaround a splashing fountain Another dropped to a dark cavern fil ed with bottles of the ate led to a deep ate which showed the prize of al flowers: the Royal Radhika It changed its shape from moment to moment, froh the last door they could see only a gigantic tree, but the final treasure was ruot al about the kitsune paradise
Each of theates, but they couldn’t agree on what The rule was that any party or group who reached the gates could enter one and then return But while the girl wanted a sprig of the Royal Radhika, to show that they’d coic wine, to sustain theued they couldn’t reach an agreement So final y they decided to cheat They would sih, snatch what they wanted, and then jump back out and be out of the Gatehouse before they could be caught
Just as they were about to do so, a voice warned theate alone may you twain enter, and then return fronore the voice
Immediately, the boy entered the door that led to the bottles of Black Magic wine and at the sairl stepped into the Royal Radhika door But when each turned around there was no longer any sign of a door or gate behind them
The boy had plenty to drink but he was left forever in the dark and cold and his tears froze upon his cheeks The girl had the beautiful flower to look at but nothing to eat or drink and so under the glowing yel ow sun she wasted away
Bonnie shivered, the delicious shiver of a reader who had gotten what she expected The fairy tale, with its reedy"was like the stories she’d heard from the Red and the Blue Fairy Books when she was a child sitting on her grandmother’s lap
She missed Elena and Meredith, badly She had a story to tel , but no one to tel it to