خون هیولا فصل بیست و پنجم

Monster Blood Chapter 25

“No!”

Gaping in horror, as the sickening glob of Monster Blood pushed toward his aunt, Evan felt the room tilt and begin to spin. He gripped the back of Kathryn’s armchair as pictures flooded his mind.

He saw the strange bone pendant Kathryn always wore around her neck.

The mysterious books that lined the walls of his bedroom.

Sarabeth, the black cat with the glowing yellow eyes.

The black shawl Kathryn always wrapped around her shoulders in the evening.

“I made this thing. Now I must die for it.”

Evan saw it all now, and it began to come clear to him.

Evan pictured the day he and Andy brought home the can of Monster Blood from the toy store. Kathryn had insisted on seeing it.

On studying it.

On touching it.

He remembered the way she rolled the can around in her hands, examining it so carefully. Moving her lips silently as she read the label.

What had she been doing? What had she been saying?

A thought flashed into Evan’s mind.

Had she been casting a spell on the can?

A spell to make the Monster Blood grow? A spell to terrify Evan?

But why? She didn’t even know Evan.

Why did she want to frighten him? To… kill him?

“Be careful,” she had called to him after handing the blue can back. “Be careful.”

It was a real warning.

A warning against her spell.

“You did this!” Evan shouted in a voice he didn’t recognize. The words burst out of him. He had no control over them.

“You did this! You cast a spell!” he repeated, pointing an accusing finger at his aunt.

He saw her blue eyes shimmer as they read his lips. Then her eyes filled with tears, tears that overflowed onto her pale cheeks.

“No!” she cried. “No!”

“You did something to the can! You did this, Aunt Kathryn!”

“No!” she cried, shouting over the sickening grunts and plops of the mountainous ball that nearly hid her from view.

“No!” Kathryn cried, her back pressed tightly against the mantelpiece. “I didn’t do it! She did!”

And she pointed an accusing finger at Andy.