The Demons New Princess, page 17
She styles her long, dark brown and red streaked hair into large ringlets that complement her pudgy face. She holds a spool of thread that rotates around her hand, flowing as if it’s floating while her dress cascades around her body like a sundress, the crimson ombre making her look as if she’s on fire.
Looking between the three, I can’t help but feel as if I know these women. Their beauty is beyond this world, but a familiar warmth radiates from them, as if they are around me constantly. Staring between them, I can’t seem to place their names, even though they’re right on the tip of my tongue. They evade me. Hidden by a fog.
“Welcome Demon Princess,” they speak in unison, their voice majestic as it echoes around the darkness.
“I think… I think you have me mistaken for someone else. I am a human. I’m not a princess, and I’m definitely not a demonic one.” I stutter, the words flowing from me faster than I can focus on them.
“Do you hear her, sisters?” the youngest one laughs. “She thinks we don’t know who she is. As if someone could hide anything from us.”
“Clotho, be quiet. She has not figured out who we are yet,” the one in the middle, and I think the oldest, speaks, her voice relaxing and making me feel safe even as she pokes her scissor tip into the side of her sister.
Clotho? Clotho… where do I know that name from?
“Nevertheless,” Clotho says with a humph and eye roll at her sister, “She is in a magical plane, literally between time and space with three beings in the nothingness, and she still doubts we are able to see who she is.”
The way the girl talks reminds me of a child. Thinking she needs to be right about everything, even though it does nothing but make her look like a snob.
“Wait!” I shout, finally registering and connecting everything together. “Clotho? Like the youngest sister of the three fates? The one who gives us our own thread and decides when we are born? That Clotho?” My mouth drops to the floor as I rub my eyes, making sure they’re real. I can’t believe the fates are standing in front of me.
“So, you have heard of me,” Clotho says with a triumphant smirk, nudging her sister with her shoulder.
“That would make you Atropos,” I say, pointing to the one holding the scissors before turning to the last sister, “and you, Lachesis.”
“You are very smart,” Lachesis says, her voice a melody. “You will need to use that ability a lot in the coming days.”
“Why? Why am I here?” I stutter as my heart thuds painfully against my chest. I sway on my feet, my blood jittery.
“We can’t tell you much; we do not know, nor can we risk, how it will change the future. Something has barricaded our visions, only allowing snippets for us to see. As well as stopping us from being able to create lifelines for people,” Lachesis sings.
“Is that for newborns or can people not die either?” I ask, confused. “I know a lot of people have died lately.”
“Both as of three days ago, we can no longer do any of it.” Atropos says. “The most recent bodies that should have died will die when order is restored. If the balance is thrown off for too long, the Earth will get rid of everything.”
“This is the last spool I was able to create before everything went to shit,” Clotho bites, causing Atropos to poke at her again. “Oh, knock it off, sister. She has heard curses before, and right now is not the time for formalities. We are here to pass on a message before we run out of time. Speed is our ally, not pleasantries.”
“You are right,” Atropos agrees with a sigh before turning back to me.
I gulp, feeling incredibly out of my depth, all of them speaking in unison again, their voices hypnotic.
“Here’s what we can tell you, daughter, of pain and sorrow. A magical deal was struck for the wants of just one.
“A mythical realm is unlocked and brought to the front. The safety of three and the life of one all for the price of a ton.
“The balance has been destroyed and without it, the world, as it was known, will never return. With this turn of events, three paths can come to pass, only one that does not end in destruction.
“Follow your heart, little witchling, and do not let your past hold you back, for you hold these paths in your thread.
“A new world is rising, but the direction it will take depends on a few choices. An unseen enemy heart changed by love, mother’s unwitting sacrifice, memories lost, family reunited, all must come to pass before a new path can be written.”
May 26, 2026, 8:00 A.M.
In a flash, I’m back inside my body, the sound of their voices replaying in my brain as I try to come back down to reality. My head pounds as if someone struck me with a mountain. The pounding moves down my spine, my neck scrunching from the sensation as it travels through my body. Each pounding beat makes my fingers twitch in the cold dirt beneath me, caking itself to my skin, burrowing beneath my fingertips. I try to pry my eyes open, but it proves to be harder than I’d expected.
The connection I made with the three girls, the fates, more than my body wants to handle. The unworthiness of my body not wanting to accept what they’ve given me. I can’t imagine what my reaction would be if they’d given me something physical compared to just knowledge.
Knowledge is powerful, though, so who knows? Maybe that’s why it hurts so much.
Okay, MJ, we need to get up. We can’t stay lying on the ground all day. Everyone will start panicking and that will end up just being one more thing you have to deal with. Deep breath in, good job now on three you’re going to force your eyes open no matter what.
One, two, three. Fuck, fuck, fuck, why the fuck does outside have to be so damn bright?
Peering through the trees, I notice that I’m in just the right position to have rays of sun literally shining into my sensitive eyes.
With my eyes open, the pounding recedes to a tickle in the back of my brain. The memory of whatever meditation session is lingering in the back of my thoughts, and I know I need to get it written before it fades, and I forget the important stuff. Using the tree as leverage, I pull myself to standing, my muscles still protesting to movements.
Waddling back to the house, each step more painful than the last, I vow to myself that once I finish writing this dream vision thing down, I will stretch out these sore muscles. Back in the yard, I notice that the sun has only just barely risen over the mountain top barely lighting up the yard. Everyone should wake up soon, so if I want to have time to write I have to move faster than this waddle. Pushing myself, I walk right into Artie as he’s coming out the door with a can of pears in hand and the juice sloshes over the both of us.
“Oh, my gosh I’m sorry Artie.” I say, wiping the juice from his shirt with the sleeve of mine. I feel like a complete idiot.
“Don’t worry about it. It was an accident.” He says, his smile bright as ever as he playfully bats my hand away from his chest. “Where you off to in such a hurry?”
“Oh, I need to write something down…” I realize I don’t think I should share the vision with anyone. Remembering them saying something about an unseen enemy? And with the random symbol on my protection trees, I don’t want to risk it, “That and I want to get back into the habit of doing my daily tarot readings. Just some stuff to help me feel normal again, you know?”
“Oh, you read tarot?” He says, shock filling his tone.
“Yeah, a little.” I say with a blush.
“Well, when you’re done with what you’re doing, will you read mine?” He asks, “I haven’t had it done in a while.”
“Um, sure, but give me some time to make my journal entry. One day in the future, someone will want to know what happened to all the people crazy enough to stay alive in this place, right?” I joke as I let him through the door so I can sneak past him, “See you in just a little bit, okay?”
“Sounds like a date,” He chuckles, blushing for a moment before adding, “Not like a date, date just more like you know we don’t have anywhere else to be right.” He chuckles nervously before turning and walking from view. In a rush I slip into the room I share with the kids and Fury, pulling my leather-bound journal and a pen from my bag.
Flipping to a blank page, I close my eyes and start writing. Every detail I can remember, even ones that are probably not important ones. It feels like this may be important one day, even if it’s just important to me.
By the time I get the details onto the page and destroy my packs looking for my cards, at least ninety minutes have passed. I don’t know how my deck ended up in the bottom of my bag in the lining, but I’ll worry about that later. It’s not like we have a sewing kit I can use, anyway. I vaguely remember Joey and Imani left the room a while ago giving me a quick hug, but kindly leaving quickly when they saw how intensely I was writing. Fury is curled up on top of some of my jackets as I move to sit crisscrossed as I shuffle my deck.
May the power in the great beyond assist in giving me clarity on my day ahead.
I whisper to the cards as I shuffle before I fan the cards out in front of me. The moment I scan over the cards in front of me. As I scan over the cards, I immediately notice that one card is flipped over, already revealed to me. That’s strange. I know they were all the right direction while I was shuffling.
Something or someone really must have wanted me to choose this specific card. They would not leave it to chance. Reaching down, I pull the reverse wheel of fortune, the sign that I’ve lost balance in my life or that my instincts or intuition are off.
I need to go stretch before I do anything else because these muscles of mine are not having it.
Collecting the rest of my cards, I painfully groan as I force myself to stand again. Cards in hand, I waddle my way out of the house, not wanting to be trapped inside anymore since we have all this extra space that is mostly hidden from town. In the front yard I see Kimmy, Kyler, Artie, and Jason all talking as Imani tugs on Joey’s not broken arm begging for something.
With a flash of white, Fury bounds off towards them, ready to play before doing bunny hops around the two, causing them both to giggle. I smile at the pure normalness of it all. Just a group of people, friends, family, whatever, just enjoying each other’s company in the front of the house.
“MJ, come join us! We’re talking anime.” Artie calls over with a giant smile encasing his face as he spots me. “Plus, I still want my reading.”
“Your reading?” Kimmy asks scooting over on the bench they found.
“Yeah, she reads tarot. You didn’t know either?” Artie says, practically dancing in his seat.
“No.” she says looking at me, “Will you do a reading for me too?”
“I’m sure I can pull it off.” I chuckle, “but first I need to stretch. All that running and evading death made every muscle in my body feel as if they are dying a slow, tortuous death.”
“That’s fair you did even extra than the rest of us yesterday, little one.” Jason agrees, “then you can take the time to give everyone a reading since I’m sure we all want one.”
“That’s a lot of readings, but we have nothing but time.” I admit.
“Can I stretch with you?” Imani asks from behind me, startling me as I flip around to face her.
“You have to stop doing that to me.” I say, holding my chest, “Yes, you can stretch with me if you want, I guess. I don’t see the harm in it.”
After about five minutes, Imani gave up since she was bored, but I continued stretching. Chuckling at her, I tell her to go play, making not only her happy but Fury as well. He’s been sitting off to the side of us waiting for her. It seems like they have become friends, which is nice and so much better than all the hostility everyone had shown him at first.
Time flies as I stretch and watch the kids play around me. I allow myself to thank the Goddess for the body she’s given me before looking around to see where everyone is. Jason and Dick were working on finding things they can start fixing around the house. Inside the door, I can see Kimmy and Elizabeth putting candles and other lights up and blacking out the windows.
Honestly, it really sucks that we still have to do that. I like natural sunlight, but I know it’s just for our safeties. Stupid demons.
Joey, Imani, and Fury explore the edge of the property we’re on. Just barely in the trees as they search the ground for something. They seem to have fun and Fury keeps doing circles around the kids like he’s surrounding them so nothing can hurt them. It makes my heart warm. They deserve to feel safe.
Doing another quick circle to look around, I notice Kyler, Artie and the twins are all nowhere to be seen. That group is just strange, I think. Kyler hasn’t really been subtle about the way he feels about Artie, his passive aggression towards Artie is very telling. I’m not sure if the twins have even left their room since she walked in. Well, other than when Oliver takes his turn as sentry, but honestly, I’m sure he kept going off to check on Olivia.
What should I do? I know most everyone wanted me to do a reading for them, but I feel like that can wait and I can be more helpful somewhere else right now. Getting the house in order or something. That’s what I’ll do. I’m going to go switch out one person at a time I can find and have them bring out all shared items so we can go through them and put things in a communal place.
“Hey Kimmy. Hi Elizabeth.” I say, a genuine smile covering my face for once.
“Hey MJ, feel better?” Kimmy asks as she pushes her hair out of her face.
“Oh, definitely I can move mostly without wincing now, which is like a miracle.” I laugh before moving up next to them. “I wanted to be helpful, so can I trade one of you out? I was thinking I can switch y’all out for a minute so you can go grab the communal stuff from your bags that way I can put them in the kitchen so everyone can access it now that we’ve found a place to stay for a while.”
“That’s a good idea.” Elizabeth says, her smile finally looking genuine rather than forced. “You’re welcome to take over for me and I can go grab mine and Richard’s stuff.”
“Deal and no rush. Give yourself a brief break if you need it.” I call after her as she leaves the room. Turning to Kimmy, I notice she’s standing on the back of a chair that she has meticulously placed on top of two boxes. She’s working hard to reach the top of the window with the black paint.
“Hey why don’t you get on my shoulders? I’m pretty strong and you wouldn’t have to challenge death trying to reach that spot.” I say, rolling my eyes at her.
“I’m fine.” She says looking back to me just as one box buckles, sending her flying backwards. I rush forward, catching her in my arms, her body lighter than I expected, even with her small stature.
Her hair is all over her face now as she brushes out of her eyes. Meeting her gaze, a smile plays on her lips as she looks at me, her eyes sparkling. After a moment, I notice her eyes dip to my lips for a split second before forcing me to put her down.
“I guess I was not fine.” She laughs.
“No, really.” I laugh as I push away the small flutter I feel in the pit of my stomach from her look. “Can I help you now? I’d really rather not have to brace anymore broken bones.”
“Ugh, fine, you can help me. Let me move the chair and stuff, then I’ll get on your shoulders.” She grumbles.
I haven’t really had the chance to think about it much until now, but she is beautiful. Her attitude is definitely my type in women. Her small body is pretty curvy, which in my opinion is always better than just a twig of a person. Which isn’t bad by any means seeing as seeing as everyone is beautiful, but I don’t know. I just always like the more curvy options, especially when it comes to women.
OMG MJ, why are we thinking about this right now? We were literally facing death yesterday and now you’re checking out one of the few people in your life right now? Come on already, you need to do better than this. Feelings like this could cause a whole host of problems if you were to get into bed or worse, a relationship with anyone here it could mess up the whole dynamic we have going… but what if that’s exactly what we need? Ugh, I don’t know. I’ll worry about it later.
Shaking my head, I pull myself from my internal ramblings. Looking back at Kimmy, who is definitely not being helpful to my thoughts. She’s bending over her ass in the air as she lifts the box and I groan.
“You good?” Kimmy asks as she turns to face me after placing the box down.
“Yeah, I’m good just arguing with my inner monologue,” I laugh, hoping I’m not blushing or anything that would give away my actual thoughts.
“I thought I was the only one who did that.” She chuckles before stepping onto the chair. “Okay, let’s get this shit done.” I laugh with her and move turning my back to her so she can move onto my shoulders.
I have to squat down a little to allow her to actually reach her legs over, but after a few laughs inducing tries, she finally gets herself onto my shoulders. Her body light, but from this angle she sits directly on my sore muscles. I can’t help but groan in pain. Which causes Kimmy to tense. I assure her it’s fine. My body just wasn’t expecting it.
She eventually relaxed and began painting the window. With a quick squeeze from my hand, I move and lock her legs with my elbows, using my free hands to hold the paint can up for her. I occasionally get splattered with paint as she adds it to her brush, but at least we can wash it off later, right?
No brain, not we!
I shout at myself, but my brain already moves in its own direction. Imagining what it would be like to bathe with Kimmy. Helping each other get the spots that got covered in pain and even spots that weren’t.
“You guys did a great job.” Elizabeth says from behind me, snapping me from the thoughts and causing Kimmy to flinch, spraying even more pain onto my face, and causing me to laugh.
“Thanks. It was easier this way.” I say nodding to Kimmy on my shoulders, “Safer seeing as she almost fell like right after you left.”
