Fire and Brimstone and Cookies [The Misadventures of Theodosius - Book II]

Chapter XVIII

"THAT'S IT?"

Theo, panting, slumped to his knees. He blinked, wiping his forearm across his sweaty brow, and cast a scathing glance at Bihatra, who stood on the other side of the glowing pink towel, her childlike features aglow. "Twenty straight minutes of spell work and a blood sacrifice? Yes. That's it," he snapped. He frowned down at his palm, which he had sliced open with a rusty spade in the absence of anything sharp or sterile, and wrapped it in a fistful of T-shirt.

"I don't know, I expected some dancing skeletons, or something," Bihatra said. Her nonplussed expression melted into Sweetbriar's cherubic smile as she slid a glance toward Elliott.

"If you so much as suggest it, I will claw your eyes out," he said mildly.

Bihatra's smile twitched into a frown. "It was just a thought."

Suddenly, the pink light of the soul towel ebbed...and did not return. Theo looked down at the immobile peak of the gnome's hat underneath the towel, and his heart went still. With bated breath, he watched...he hoped...he didn't pray, because that would have been a little awkward under the circumstances, but he hoped some more...

...and then, the little towel-mountain quivered.

"Did it work?" Theo breathed.

He had never resurrected a human before; he had absolutely no reason to believe that his spell would have worked. Then again, he had never tried to resurrect a human. Then a third time, can the human cremains swirled into a lawn gnome properly be classified as "human?"

"Criminently!"

This exclamation had not been uttered by Bihatra, and it was such an undignified expression that Elliott would never have stooped to use it. Theo, wide-eyed, stared down at the pointy protuberance under the towel...which was now migrating by inches this way and that in a most confused manner, popping up and down as it went with a little thunk! thunk! thunk! sound that suggested the lawn gnome moved in a similar manner to a pogo stick.

"Where am I? What's happening?" There was another, more dramatic thunk as it fell over onto the floorboards of the shed. "Hooboy, that's not good."

Cautiously, Theo took hold of a corner of the towel and tugged it away, revealing the lawn gnome, which lay face-down on the floor. It began to wobble slightly to one side or the other, as if trying to turn itself over. "Ahh! Ahh! This is not good!"

Theo picked the gnome up and set it down facing him. It looked the same as it had before, except its unpainted face was mobile, as evidenced by its rather intense expression of alarm. "Who in the Jiminy Christmas are you?" it demanded.

"I'm Theodosius. Who are you?"

"I'm Paula." It—she?—looked down at its—her?—stumpy cement body. There was a pause.

There was a bit more of a pause.

And then, incredibly, the sound of a laugh came. It started as a soft chuckle, but before long, it was a full-bellied laugh of pure amusement.

Theo and Bihatra exchanged a glance. Elliott sighed, turned around, and curled up with his back to the group, lowering his skull to rest on his paws. The gnome continued laughing.

"Uh," Theo said, raising one finger, "can I just...Can I just ask what's so funny?"

Paula was now quivering with the force of her laughter. She did not appear to have much ability to move, but she could sort of twitch her head this way and that, thereby getting a sense for what she looked like in this odd new body, and she seemed to find it hilarious. "She did it! She actually did it! Look at me! I'm adorable! Hahahaha—"

Theo exchanged another worried glance with Bihatra, who just looked unamused. He tried to catch Paula's eye. "Um—"

"Sweet jumpin' Jesus, I have a—hahaha!—I have a beard—oh my stars. Where's Patricia? Tell her I don't want a boring red hat. I want a polka-dotted h—hahahahahahaha!"

As Theo watched Paula reveling in her new-found gnomehood, Theo was impressed. Very impressed. Her resilience in the face of life-and-death-altering change was admirable. If being resurrected into a lawn gnome had not fazed her, was there anything that ever could have? Had Paula and Theo switched places, he thought, she might very well have handled both Bihatra and the Devil with a grace and aplomb quite—

SMASH!

His mouth hanging open in shock, Theo watched as Paula's head rolled toward him across the floor of the garden shed. Behind her stood Bihatra, a huge mallet in both of her tiny hands. She gave Theo a gleeful smile. "There! Now, let's hope they get it right at Judgment this time."