My Last Seven Days On Earth Started With A Broken Promise Chapter 09

My Last Seven Days On Earth Started With A Broken Promise Chapter 09

The next two weeks broke them.

Graham abandoned his company. Burned through his entire fortune traveling the country, hunting for mystics who could speak to the other side.

Nolan locked himself in his studio and painted around the clock, trying to recreate The Lunar Spirit and the Stars from memory. He couldn’t finish a single white rabbit.

Reid turned the backyard into a shrine, burning wish lanterns with my name on them every

night until the neighbors called to complain about the smoke.

I watched all of it in the scrying mirror.

“Humans love making themselves busy with things that won’t work.”

I rolled the moonstone pestle between my fingers and yawned.

The surface of the mirror shimmered.

Graham had dragged home a blind seer from somewhere deep in the backcountry.

The old man wore a threadbare coat and leaned heavily on a cane.

The second he stepped into the yard, his face tightened.

“Stop with the lanterns. The celestial realm and the human world are separate. She’s severed

her tíes, You could burn a million of those and it wouldn’t matter.

Reid dropped to his knees in front of the old man.

“Tell us what to do. I’ll give anything. My life. Whatever it costs. I just need to see her one

more time.”

The old man’s sightless eyes drifted across the three of them.

“See her? Do you understand what it costs a human to look into the celestial realm?”

“The lunar spirit belongs to the Moon Court. She’s home now.”

“If you want to open a scrying mirror, each of you must sacrifice the thing you value most.”

“Done.”

Graham didn’t hesitate. He dropped his forehead to the ground.

“I’m her brother. I was supposed to protect her and I didn’t. Take my career. Take my Take all of it.”

luck.

Nolan held up his hands, the ones that had built his entire life, and smiled like a man signing his own death warrant.

“These hands and these eyes are all I have. Take my sight. I’ll go blind for one last look at her.”

Reid’s voice was wrecked.

“Half my remaining years. Take them. Without her, I’m just running out the clock anyway.”

The old man exhaled like the weight of the world was in his lungs.

“Fools. All three of you. Why is it always after she’s gone?”

He lifted his cane and carved a circle into the dirt.

A sickly green light pulsed through the lines.

Graham went down first. His phone erupted with notifications. One after another. His

company, gone.

Nolan screamed. Blood ran from his eyes like tears, and then there was nothing. Just dark.

Reid choked up blood. Half his hair went white between one breath and the next. His skin pulled tight against bone, years draining out of him in seconds.

A scrying mirror rose from the center of the circle, its surface trembling like water.

On the other side.

I was sitting on a branch of the magnolia tree, swinging my legs.

The two mirrors locked.

“Mari…”

Reid dragged himself to the mirror. His aged, trembling fingers traced my face on the glass.

“Mari, forgive me… Please. I was wrong. About everything.”

Graham crawled to the mirror on his hands and knees. He was sobbing the way he hadn’t since

our parents died.

“Mari, I made the ribs. Brown-sugar-glazed, just how you like them. Will you please come home?”

Nolan couldn’t see the mirror. He reached out anyway, hands grabbing at nothing.

“Mari… I can’t paint without you. I can’t do anything without you.”