SHADOW DEMONS: Chapter 3 - A Pair That Looked Just Like This

I'm posting a little bit late today, but I have a good reason. I was up until 5 AM this morning finishing the second round of edits for Shadow Demons! It felt so incredible to finally hit that final moment in the book and know that it has finally all come together. As you know, this fourth book has been a struggle for me, but I feel like it's really close to being ready now. I am working tonight to go through with one last polish before I hand it over to my critique group for their opinions.

We have a group meeting planned for next Thursday night, and I am so nervous to hear what they have to say. As long as the book doesn't need major changes after they get through with it, I plan to spend most of next weekend working 24 hours a day if I have to in order to get Shadow Demons published before the 4th of July.

With that update, I leave you with Chapter 3. This is a super short chapter and is just more of Harper reflecting on what happened in the village and whose diamond earring she found in that secret library. Enjoy!

(*If you missed them, here are links to Chapter 1 and Chapter 2.)

A Pair That Looked Just Like This

The peroxide fizzed as it hit the tiny wound on my hand. I sucked a breath through my teeth as pain shot through my hand, then finally melted away. There was a good amount of blood for such a small hole.

I eyed the diamond earring in the soap dish. I wondered if the diamond was real. I wondered who it belonged to.

There was nothing special about the earring. It was the type of round diamond earring a hundred women in this town probably owned. Heck, Drake Ashworth had even tried to give me a pair that looked just like this on the night of my confirmation.

I paused.

What if he had given the earrings to his mom after I turned him down? It sounded like the kind of thing Drake might do. Forget her birthday or something and present the diamonds to her as if he were a thoughtful, loving son.

Maybe.

Or maybe these were cubic zirconia someone bought at the drug store down the road. I didn't exactly have a diamond tester in the house with me. Besides, the odds that this was the same diamond earring Drake had tried to give me were low. All I felt sure of in my gut was that whoever had taken those spell books had been wearing this earring. Mary Anne said no one in her family even had pierced ears or wore any kind of jewels or diamonds. No, whoever dropped that earring was there uninvited.

I wiped the peroxide off my hand with a towel and slapped on a band-aid. This wasn't a mystery I was going to solve at five in the morning. I had to be up for school in just a few hours, and tomorrow was going to be a long day.

The disappointment of not finding the spell books weighed me down as I took one last look at the orphaned diamond earring. I shut off the light and crawled into my bed, exhausted.