Filed To Story: A Little Princess's Journey from Darkness to Light Novel
With a snap of his fingers, he retrieved the spirit in the jar.
The jar swayed. Her angry screeching could be heard from within. “Let me out!”
Lilly patted the jar. “Be a little quieter, Ms. Sumo Wrestler. You can stay there with Ms. Ugly!”
The girl shook the instrument with delight.
Ms. Sumo Wrestler and Ms. Ugly. My jar is filling up fast!
Lilly quickly asked, “Master, is my jar full?”
It’s a big spirit!
Pablo patted her head. “Let me show you how to see if it’s full.”
He took one of Lilly’s fingers and pressed it on top of the surface of the jar, whispering, “Concentrate.”
She did as she was told and was suddenly greeted by what was the inside of the jar.
It was a large empty space.
Ms. Ugly was lying within and was clearly bored.
Ms. Sumo Wrestler was stamping her feet and cursing angrily.
She was large but not nearly enough to stuff the jar full.
When Lilly came back to her senses, the jar in her hands was still the size of a fingernail as it swayed lightly.
She wailed, “When am I going to get it filled up?!”
Pablo smirked and decided to make fun of her. “I don’t know. Why don’t you have your brother calculate that for you?”
He turned his attention to Josh who was standing next to him.
Josh felt his blood freeze. “Don’t ask me!”
I don’t want to know about any of this!
He didn’t care how many homes the female spirit had. He’d rather give up his beloved mathematics and chemistry for liberal arts than do the calculations.
“Why?! You’re good at math, aren’t you?”
No, I’m terrible.
Lilly crouched down and began to draw on the dirt floor. “Look, Josh. This is the inside of the jar. This is Ms. Ugly and Ms. Sumo Wrestler… The space is really big… They’re both really big too… How many Ms. Ugly and Ms. Sumo Wrestler would we need to fill it up?”
“…”
Suppose Ms. Sumo Wrestler is x and Ms. Ugly is y…
No! I’m not calculating that!
His hands seemed to gain a life of their own. He wanted to calculate everything that had to do with numbers.
He picked up a branch and began to scribble on the ground.
“The volume of the spirits would be x plus y. The room’s area is… And so, filling it would take 19 and 100 respectively.”
“You’ll see nineteen Ms. Sumo Wrestlers and a hundred Ms. Uglies.”
Lilly nodded vigorously. “Uhum, I got it.”
Pablo watched them in silence. “…”
I did tell you.
Josh tossed the wooden stick aside without saying another word and pretended nothing had ever happened.
He looked away. “Why do you need to fill it up?”
Lilly hugged her knees and rested her head on top of them. “Master says that I’ll be taken away if I don’t fill it.”
That took Josh by surprise. “Taken away? To where?”
Lilly bowed her head and drew on the dirt floor with a stick. “To somewhere far away where I won’t be able to come back.”
“…” To Josh, that sounded like Lilly was going to die if she didn’t fill the jar.He said nothing for a while until he could gather himself. “Are there more ghosts like Ms. Sumo Wrestler…?”
The faster they were caught, the better it would be for her.
He wasn’t going to watch her die simply because she failed to fill the jar of souls. He was only doing this because…All he did was make a calculation. He had to verify the results to see if he got it right.
That was all there was to it.
Pablo suddenly got closer to Josh to ask quietly, “Say, how can you see me?”
That jolted Josh who was just about to respond when the white-robed man faded away before disappearing.
That had him looking around in confusion. “Lilly, is your Master gone?”
Lilly looked beside him. “No, he’s right beside you!”
Josh suddenly felt a chill on the back of his neck. It felt as if someone’s hand was on him which had all the hairs on his body bristling.
He fought the urge to look back!
Why does it feel a hundred times scarier when I don’t see it?!
Lilly suddenly cut in. “Josh, my master is asking if you’ve ever seen a ghost before.”
He stiffened. “No.”
Pablo rubbed his chin and frowned.
“Well, that’s a bit odd. How can he see sometimes but not others? Strange!”
In his hundreds of years as a spirit, he had never seen anyone like Josh unless they received external interference. Examples of that ranged from applying a dog’s tears onto their eyelids or having someone forcefully open their third eye temporarily.
Josh, however, was suddenly able to see.
One either had the eyes to see or didn’t…
“How is this possible?” Pablo flipped through his booklet.
Do not panic when in doubt. Let me see if I can find an answer here.
Noise suddenly began to fill the clearing.
Anthony, a few teachers, and the headmaster came into view.
Behind them were Drake, Ivan, Theo and his father, Valentine, and Tina, Cheryl’s mother…
Everyone immediately noticed the unconscious Cheryl alongside Lilly and Josh who were kneeling on the ground.
Were they…making calculations for something?!
The x’s and the y’s had everyone at a loss for words.
“Lilly!” Anthony took a large stride forward and put his full attention on Lilly. “Are you okay?”
“I’m okay!” She answered.
The foreign language teacher, Ms. Watson crossed her arms. “I told you I don’t know. This has nothing to do with me! See for yourself. She came here herself. Stop pushing the blame on me.”
Every student had queued up by the gate after school when the homeroom teacher realized that Josh, Lilly, and Cheryl were missing.
Tina rushed in to pick her daughter up. “Chery?!”
Cheryl was covered in mud. Her hair was also in disarray. Tina could barely recognize her own daughter!
The girl finally regained consciousness and burst into tears.
“It hurts! It hurts!”
Cheryl’s face was heavily bruised. Her arms and calves were also littered with scraps…
Her face had swelled up. One of her front teeth was missing. Her eyes were bruised black.
“What is going on here?” Tina wanted to unleash her anger so badly but Anthony had her backing down.
These people are the Crawfords…
She changed her tone. “Did Cheryl do something wrong?”
Cheryl felt wronged…
I didn’t do anything wrong! I don’t know what happened. How did I get here?
Why does everything hurt?!
Why doesn’t Mommy protect me as Lilly’s uncle does? He always protects her no matter what.
Cheryl’s sobs turned into full-blown wailing.
Anthony turned to Josh. “What happened here?”
Lilly bowed her head as if she had done something wrong and was about to speak when Josh cut her off.
“I did it.”
That shocked Tina. “Why…”
He stuffed his hands into his pockets. “She messed with my sister and claimed she had been pa*sing notes in cla*s.”
“She then dragged me here after school to ask me out.”
“Why is a kid acting like some kind of demon? Keep away.”
“…” Everyone didn’t seem to know how to respond.
Josh had started with a fact that everyone knew to help cover for Lilly and throw off suspicion.
Doing so, however, put all the focus on him…
Tina anxiously protested, “Even if that was the case, you shouldn’t have beat her up like that…”
Cheryl liked him. Isn’t it a good thing to have someone like you?!
New Book: Returned To Make Them Pay
On her wedding anniversary, Alicia is drugged and stumbles into the wrong room—straight into the arms of the powerful Caden Ward, a man rumored never to touch women. Their night of passion shocks even him, especially when he discovers she’s still a virgin after two years of marriage to Joshua Yates.