Holly and Her Naughty eReader (19 page)

“Hello Ms. Stone. Please come
in,” he said.

His voice was pleasant, maybe
even apologetic. It wasn’t….

“It’s not you,” I said.

“Not me?”

“You’re not Christoph Green. At
least, not the Christoph Green I expected to meet.”

He looked at me for a moment,
puzzled, then let out a heavy sigh and collapsed into his chair.

“No, I’m not,” he said, shaking
his head. “I don’t know. Maybe this is how it’s supposed to go. Maybe you’re
supposed to see right through me.”

“What?” I said.

“Never mind,” said Christoph.
“Let’s just start this conference call.”

“No, wait. You agreed with me. I
said you’re not Christoph Green and you agreed with me.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.
Maybe you should just go.”

“I’m not Annabelle Stone
either,” I said.

Now I had his interest. He sat
up straight and leaned over the desk, looking at me more intently this time.

Funny. With that look, I started
to feel a little something. It was Annabelle’s signature ‘tickle at the top of
the throat,’ but it was different somehow.

“If you’re not Annabelle Stone,
then who are you?”

“My name is Holly Pritchett,” I
said.

His eyes opened wide and he
jumped from his chair.

“Holly! Oh no, how’d you get in
here?”

“You know who I am? Are you….”

I looked at Christoph and
thought about all the many people who might actually be inside.

“Vivian?” I said to him. “Is
that you?”

“No, I’m not Vivian! She just
got out! We both have been trapped. Holly, it’s me. It’s Max!”

Chapter 21

I wanted to rewind the Kindle
and start all over again. I wanted to go through this scene once more and have it
turn out differently.

This man in the office in front
of me, this man who looked and sounded like Christoph, but wasn’t
Christoph—this man was my worst fear come true. From the moment I found the
Kindle in the hotel safe, a part of me knew this was what I would find inside.
I just didn’t want to believe it was true.

“How did you get here, Max?”

“I don’t know,” he said. Even
though his voice was deep and resonant like Christoph Green, all I heard was
Max. The real Max. Not the phony version who was sleeping in a hotel bed twenty
feet away from me.

Not the man who pulled me from
the rapids and kissed me and took me to the Finals and made crazy, passionate
love to me—that man wasn’t Max. A part of me had known it all along but refused
to admit it.

Max wasn’t the smooth customer
who always knew what he wanted. Max wasn’t the charmer who could convince a
girl from his past to drop everything and be with him.

The Max I remembered from high
school was shy, goofy, and endearing. Funny how those traits shone right
through as he stood in front of me. He may have been in Christoph’s body, but
this was Max Brody, through and through.

“Vivian came home one night with
a Kindle,” Max continued. “She was reading it in bed. I fell asleep next to
her, and then I woke up later in the night because she was still reading it. It
was so weird, Holly. It was like she was frozen in place. I tried talking to
her and she wouldn’t look at me. She just kept on reading. There was no
distracting her from the Kindle. I couldn’t imagine what was so interesting
that she couldn’t even turn away.”

“So then you decided to start
reading too,” I said.

“Yes, I started reading too,”
said Max. “I wish I hadn’t. I read just a few sentences, then…”

“Then you became Christoph
Green,” I finished.

“Yes. At first it was kind of
thrilling. I have this beautiful new body. Apparently I’m super rich too.”

“A billionaire,” I said.

“A billionaire? Man, it’s too
bad I don’t have any time to spend the money.”

“You don’t have time? What do
you mean?”

“Holly, time isn’t normal here.
It goes on for three and a half months, then it starts over again.”

“Really?” This was news to me.

“Yes, I’m thinking I’m trapped
in some sort of Groundhog Day where I’m supposed to live this guy’s life the
perfect way and then I get out, or maybe, then time can continue. I don’t know.
I’m playing it by ear. And I have no idea what the perfect life is. I’m
guessing it has something to do with you, or at least, with this girl you’re
playing. I don’t know. Vivian was able to get out. I must be doing something
wrong.”

Three and a half months was the
timeframe from beginning to end of
His
Golden Shackles
. The story began with Annabelle’s first day at Greenworld
Enterprises, and ended 100 days later with Christoph proposing to her on his yacht.

“Max, I don’t think it’s
anything like Groundhog Day. I don’t think you get to escape when you do it
just right.”

“You don’t? Well shit. How am I
gonna get out of here then?”

“You just leave,” I said.

Max chuckled. “Vivian thought
the same thing,” he said. “But we both were trapped here for God knows how
long. It wasn’t that long ago when she said things had changed. She swore
everything was different and now we could leave. But it turned out only she
could leave. She was in Annabelle’s body. Then she wasn’t. I’m still stuck
here.”

“I don’t understand, Max. Vivian
was here and now she’s gone?”

“Yes, she was Annabelle. Then
the story started over. Now you’re Annabelle. Lord, this is so strange. She was
trapped here, just like me. Of course, she got here first, and holy hell was
she ever mad when I showed up. She screamed at me that I messed everything up.
Apparently Christoph was behaving properly before I arrived. Once I got here,
he lost all his swagger.”

“Well yeah, that’s how it
works,” I said. “You can take over the characters if you want to. I guess you
didn’t like doing what Christoph wanted to do, did you?”

“I don’t know what Christoph
wanted to do! I barely know who Christoph is. I think that’s the mystery I’m
supposed to solve.”

“Max, you’re in his body,” I
said, thinking about the flash of horrible memories I had when I was in the
same spot. “It should all be there in your head. Everything about Christoph is
there for you. All his memories, his desires—if you want to live as Christoph,
you just let him be in charge.”

“See, that’s what Vivian was
telling me too, only she was a lot angrier when she said it. She was convinced
that I just needed to leave, to say ‘there’s no place like home’ or something.
Believe me, I tried. But I couldn’t go anywhere. Neither of us could. So then
Vivian got on this kick that I needed to shut down my brain so the real
Christoph could take over. I tried that too. I’ve been trying to do it every day.
I’d love to know more about this life I’m living. It’s a total mystery! Most of
what I know about Christoph are things Vivian told me.”

“Really? You don’t have any of
Christoph’s memories?” I asked. Max was scaring me with what he was saying.

“Not a thing. I’d think I would
know it, don’t you? Seems like a billionaire should have some interesting
memories for me to share.”

“Oh yes,” I said. “He has lots
of interesting memories.”

“It’s so strange,” said Max. “I
wonder what’s different with me. I wish I knew what I was doing wrong. Are you
able to leave?”

I nodded my head, the full
implications of what Max was telling me coming clear. He was trapped inside
Christoph’s body, with none of Christoph’s mind there to keep him company.
Meanwhile, Christoph had fully taken over Max in the real world.

“Be careful, Holly. Vivian
thought she could leave at any time, but she was stuck with me here for
months.”

“I know. The Kindle was off,” I
said. Everything was falling into place in my mind. “It locked her inside. When
I found it and turned it on, she was able to leave.”

“So she’s back in our bed?” Max
said. “Just waking up like from a dream? God, I wish I could do that. I bet I’m
lying right next to her.”

“I don’t know where Vivian is
right now. I…Max…there’s something you should know.”

“Yeah, what’s that?”

“Out there, your body—it’s still
alive and well.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I just spent the last
two days with you, Max. We went shopping, we went rafting, we went to a
basketball game.”

“Rafting? Why the hell did we go
rafting?”

“Max, I’m sorry, it’s a long
story and--”

“I don’t understand, Holly. How
can I still be doing things out there when my mind is in here? I was reading
the Kindle when all of this started. Vivian said our bodies were safe in our
bed.”

“Her body was,” I said. “I’m
pretty sure she stayed right there until I turned the Kindle on just now. Yours
is different.”

“Yeah it is. We went rafting?
What’s going on with me out there? This is really starting to freak me out, Holly.”

“What’s going on with you is
that you’ve switched places with Christoph. Somehow, I don’t know how, but
somehow you’ve--”

An explosion just outside the
office interrupted my sentence. It went off with such force that all the
pictures fell of the walls.

“What was that?” I said, not
remembering anything about an explosion in
His
Golden Shackles
.

“I don’t know,” Max said.
“Things are different every time I go through this story. Let’s go look.”

He walked past me and opened the
door. Outside, in the hallways of Greenworld Enterprises, it was chaos.
Employees were running around screaming. There was smoke everywhere. And at the
end of the hall stood a slim man wearing a dark purple robe. He carried a long
stick in his hand.

“Hello little Muggles,” he said.
“Please don’t panic. If you do as I say, I won’t hurt you.”

“Muggles?” I said.

The man had an oddly shaped bald
head and was missing a nose.

“Is that…Voldemort?”

“There’s all sorts of strange
shit going on, Holly,” said Max. “A few minutes ago I was looking out the
window and there was an elephant walking around in the street. And when I was
driving in this morning I could see a tornado on the other side of the river.
Can you imagine? A tornado in New Jersey? I can’t wait to get out of here.”

The robed man in the hallway,
who I was pretty sure was straight from a Harry Potter novel, raised his wand
and pointed it at one of the secretaries.

“I think your colleagues are in
need of a demonstration,” he said.

And then, I kid you not, the
elevator door opened and Yoda stepped out.

“Oh Dear, the little green elf
has come back for more,” said Voldemort.

“Lacking humility you are,” Yoda
responded before firing up his lightsaber and leaping out of the elevator like
a spastic, acrobatic monkey.

“Something’s totally wrong in
here,” I said.

“Tell me about it,” said Max.
“What the hell am I supposed to do when this happens?”

“We need to get you out of
here,” I said.

I grabbed Max’s hand and yanked
him out of the office, the two of us running towards the open elevator Yoda had
left behind.

“Duck!” Max shouted.

So strange was the scene all
around that my first instinct wasn’t to duck, but to look around for a duck of
some sort, maybe Donald or Daffy, or even Howard. Then I realized what Max
meant and I ducked just in time to miss a beam of bright green light that shot
over my head and burned a hole in the wall next to me. I stayed low as Yoda did
a little Parkour routine, jumping from somewhere behind us and bouncing off the
wall ahead.

“You’re clear!” Max yelled.
“Go!”

We sprinted the last ten yards,
squeezing into the elevator as the door closed behind us.

“Jiminy Christmas!” Max said.

“Something bad is happening,” I
said. “They shouldn’t have been here.”

“Damn right they shouldn’t,”
said Max. “I thought this was a romance novel.”

“Something has changed,” I said.
I pushed the B button to take us to the basement. “They came from other
stories. It’s like they jumped out of their little universes and into this
one.”

“Just like I left our universe
and came here,” Max said.

“Yeah maybe,” I said.

The elevator chimed and the
doors opened on the basement.

“Where are we going?” Max asked.

“To the vault,” I said. “We’re
locking you inside.”

“Locking me inside? For how
long?”

“Until we can get you out of
here,” I said. “We need to put you someplace safe.”

The basement of Greenworld
Enterprises was a small warehouse with shiny linoleum floors and wire shelves
stacked with office supplies and retired computer equipment. I led Max to the
far corridor of shelving and ran to the end, where a large steel door was built
into the wall.

“You should have a key,” I said.

Max pulled a keyring from his
pocket.

“There are a dozen keys on here
I haven’t figured out yet,” he said.

I snatched the keyring from his
hand and flipped through it until I came to a brass key with a square head.

“It’s this one,” I said. I put
it in the lock and opened the door.

“Holly, how did you know which
key? How did you know about this vault?”

“No time to explain,” I said,
pushing him inside.

“But what are we going to do?”

I closed the door behind me and
turned the lock.

The vault was no larger than a
bedroom. There were boxes on the floors and shelves on the walls. There was a
lone light bulb hanging from the ceiling. Locking Max in here was like putting
him in prison. But at least he’d be safe. I had to figure out how to get him
out of the Kindle.

“What’s going on out there?” Max
said. “What are we doing in here?”

“Max, have you ever read The
Mist by Stephen King?”

“No.”

“Well listen to me. In The Mist,
a door gets opened between worlds and all sorts of monsters come out and kill
everybody.”