Dear Abby by Peggy Barnett Read Free Book Online Page B

firmly.
"But you will go home and you will tell your bosses to send you to places
that aren't resorts, and to let you write the kind of stories you want, and
they will. And you will do good with your work and see
the world, and then, when you have the time and the money, you will come back
and ground yourself in me."
    "You can't just say that and think it
will happen that way," Abby protests.
    "I can, and I have. I am Ixazaluoh and my pronouncement has been made. You are my
devotee, and you will do as I say, for I love you."
    There is something… deep, in Ixazaluoh's voice. Something more . Abby feels like she's been struck by lightning, like it’s forked straight
through her skin, through the muscle and the blood and the organ tissue and
scorched the very marrow of her tailbone. She pulls back from Ixazaluoh , slowly, feels her eyes going round. She looks down, and curses, mentally, because she's forgotten.
    She's forgotten, utterly, that Ixazaluoh has no shadow. Even in the soft glow of the
bedside lamp, no darkness collects under her body, no black stains the white
sheets.
    "Tomorrow is the solstice and I need
you ," Ixazaluoh says softly.
    No one has ever needed Abby before.
    "What are you?" Abby asks, instead
of answering.
    "I am Ixazaluoh ,"
she says.
    Abby shoves herself across the mattress and
somehow ends up on her feet, though she's not entirely sure how she's staying
upright. Her head is spinning. Her whole fucking world is spinning.
    "Oh my Christ," Abby groans, one
hand on her forehead, one on her stomach, as if either would keep the
realization from striking home. "You think you're a goddess?"
    "I do not think ," Ixazaluoh says. She is sitting on the side of the bed,
utterly regal in her nudity, looking perfectly composed even with her long dark
hair a tangle of sweat-matted curls and sex-created tangles. Her eyes flash,
and there is something more, something deeper in them that makes Abby
stumble back, bark her heel against the side of the desk and yelp. The whites
of Ixazaluoh's eyes are too white.
    Abby clutches at the office chair to stay
upright and sucks in giant gulps of air, hoping that somehow more oxygen will
make this all make sense .
    Ixazaluoh still has no shadow.
    "How are you doing that?" Abby
asks, pointing at Ixazaluoh's feet. They’re beautiful
feet. Her pedicure is teal and smooth. Abby just spent ten minutes kissing and
licking those feet and now they are on the floor and they have no darkness
around them at all.
    "I am corporeal only to you, Abby," Ixazaluoh says. "The light passes through
me."
    And when Abby looks, she can see that the bed
isn't sunk, either. There are no wrinkles around Ixazaluoh ,
no dents in the sheets that show that she's sitting on the bed.
    "Fair warning, I think I might be
sick," Abby says, and gulps some more air, swallowing it down to keep her stomach
where it should be. She doesn't fancy finding out what the sweet burn of
tamales is like in the other direction.
    "No," Ixazaluoh murmurs and stands. She takes a step towards Abby, arm outstretched, and Abby
skitters back, terrified. Ixazaluoh keeps coming,
though, backs Abby right up to the wall beside the patio doors, until there's
nowhere left to go.
    Abby can't get enough air in her lungs. Her
throat is screaming for water. The soles of her feet itch with the desperate
desire to flee and her fingers ache where she's balled them up into fists.
People can't really feel their pupils dilate, but she can imagine she can, in
this moment. She is so hyped up on fight or flight that she feels like
she could stop time itself if she had a mind to.
    "Don't touch me, don't touch me!"
Abby screams, flattening herself to the stucco, and Ixazaluoh ignores her.
    She lays one smooth palm against the naked
skin of Abby's stomach. Abby sucks it in, trying to keep away, and then warmth
bursts under her skin. For a second Abby feels like she's on fire, is terrified
that the creature in front of her has immolated her for her