Choke: 2 (Pillage Trilogy (Pillogy)) by Obert Skye Page B

sound of bells began ringing in my head. My mind tried to focus on the noise, but I couldn’t make sense of it. I shifted in the chair, and my butt slid forward, causing my whole body to slip out of the wingback and fall to the floor. The right side of my head smacked the wood floor, and a new kind of ringing bounced between my ears and behind my eyes.
    I blinked and moaned simultaneously.
    The original ringing grew louder and more obnoxious. I rolled over and pushed myself up. I now recognized the sound of the bells Millie and Wane used to summon people in the manor. The home was so massive that there was a system of bells to call certain people. The bells were located all over the manor, and they were activated in the kitchen. There were probably thirty of them. One bell rang the other kitchen, one rang the dome at the top of the house, one rang Thomas, one rang Wane, one rang the main library, one rang the banquet hall, one rang my room, etc, etc. . . . Whenever I didn’t respond to the one in my room Millie would ring all the bells hoping I would hear at least one of them.
    “I’m coming!” I yelled, knowing she couldn’t hear me.
    The bells kept ringing as I stood up and tried to get my wits about me.
    “I’m coming! Stop ringing those stupid bells!”
    They didn’t stop. I climbed down all the floors and finally made it to the kitchen. Millie was there pulling the bell strings as quickly as she could.
    “I’m here!” I yelled.
    She stopped pulling and turned to look at me. Her expression was not friendly.
    “Where were you?” she demanded.
    “Sleeping.”
    “I rang your room.”
    “I wasn’t there,” I pointed out. “I went to talk to my father last night but he wasn’t there. I guess I fell asleep in a chair waiting for him.”
    “He’s not here,” she said.
    I wondered if anyone ever really heard me. “I know.”
    “He’s gone,” she said in a huff.
    “I know,” I said again.
    “There’s a note,” Millie said, sounding like someone who had just found a new mole on their nose. She handed me a yellow piece of paper that was ripped along the top edge. There were only ten words. “I have gone after something important. Keep Beck here! Aeron.” I read the ten words and looked at Millie.
    “He never was very wordy,” she said in his defense. “And he never leaves the manor. He went out last year when the beasts were pillaging, but he’s been here ever since.”
    Millie talked about the pillaging as if it were a school social.
    “So you think he’s here in the manor somewhere?” I asked.
    “No.”
    I loved Millie, but she was a way better cook than conversationalist.
    “When I talked to him yesterday he actually ran out of the room,” I told her. “He was kind of acting aberrant.”
    Millie stared at me. “Are you still reading that dictionary?”
    I nodded.
    “Well, what did he say right before he left?” she questioned.
    “He said ‘I’m going to write a brief note to confuse Millie. But I’ll really just be in the bathroom.’”
    Millie stared at me with her one straight eye.
    “Sorry,” I said staring at her with my two brown eyes. “So where are Thomas and Wane?”
    “They’ve gone into Kingsplot.”
    I desperately wanted to tell Millie about the pasty man I had spoken with in the secret room right behind the kitchen, but I knew it would only make things more confusing for her. Besides, I didn’t want to talk to anyone but my father about the man until I had checked out the area behind the garage.
    “How about I start looking for my dad,” I suggested.
    “Have some breakfast first,” she insisted. “It’s not much, but I’ve made some toast and eggs and a few sausages. And some bacon and flapjacks with warm syrup.”
    “No orange juice?” I joked.
    “I just squeezed some,” she said glumly.
    “It’ll be okay,” I told her naively. I was actually happier that Millie was now speaking to me than I was worried about my father. He was sort of different,