When I'm Holding You
April 16, 2025 — 8:22pm
Dear Reese,
Tonight, when I’m holding you while your bath fills up, you pee all over me. I have to strip my jeans, shirt, and sweater, and quickly grab sweats to wear while you laugh and laugh.
It’s mostly my fault for holding you naked.
I tell you that I’m going to remind you about this someday. I’m smiling too.
Love,
Mama
The Knight & The Cursed Forest, Part 9
You look up and suddenly there’s a wing in front of your face. The duck has leaped into the air, blocking your vision of whatever is hissing overhead.
“Basilisk!” the duck cries as he pushes you to the ground. You feel the snap of giant teeth reverberate in the air above your head. “Don’t look at it or you’ll be a statue like that troll.”
“Don’t you look either then!” you say.
“Ducks are famously immune to a basilisk’s gaze,” he says. “But we need to run!”
You can hear the snake moving, probably readying an attack, so you scramble to your feet and take off, running around the petrified troll just as the snake must slam into it because it comes toppling down towards you. You sprint onward into the fog, the troll crashing at your heels and the duck flapping frantically at your side.
As you run down the trail, you see yet another petrified troll prone on the ground and then a couple of faeries who’ve met the same fate. This snake has been terrorizing this part of the forest!
Something must be done. You still hear it behind you, but don’t dare look back. Instead, you put on an extra burst of speed before jumping off the trail. You find a tree and start climbing as fast as you can, hoping that the basilisk didn’t see you through the thick fog.
“We need to get high,” you tell the duck. “I have an idea.”
To be continued.