Petra Aot Novels & Stories

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Zack noticed her reaction and asked gently, "Are you okay?" Petra nodded, her voice filled with emotion as she replied, "This was my lifelong dream, to see this place. You know, these mountains are said to hold the cure for everything for those who truly seek it. There's also a legend that they contain a gate to other dimensions. It's incredible because these mountains can't even be captured in a photograph; there are only drawings of them. Seeing them in real life is like a dream come true. This place is truly beautiful." Zack looked around, absorbing the serene atmosphere. "You are right, Petra. There's something so calming about this place. I hope my mom finds a cure for Aunt Sophia too,"

Petra stood in the doorway of the private office with the expression of a wolf who had just received confirmation of something she had suspected and was processing the confirmation with the particular grim steadiness of someone who had long since stopped being surprised by what people were capable of. “Is there anything else you need from Crestmoon?” she said. “No,” I said. “Thank you Petra.” “Bring them down,” she said simply. “Whoever they are. Bring them all the way down.” “That’s the plan,” I said.

She was in the background, lips pressed into a thin line and her expression rigid. "That'll do." I pocketed the phone, satisfied. The moment Petra was out of the car, she opened the live stream on her phone and aimed the camera at the bear across the open terrain. "Can you guys see it? This is the one. This Greyridge bear just told me telepathically that it's starving. I'm going to save it now." She had been running her account, 'Petra and the Animals', for two years. It had 8,000 followers.

Grayson had arranged the catering, which was good in the specific way of food prepared by people who understood that good food at a community event was itself a statement about the community. Petra broke the ground at eleven-thirty. She was wearing the work clothes she'd been in when she arrived three weeks ago, because she'd been working in them all morning and hadn't had time to change and hadn't particularly wanted to. She held the ceremonial shovel — not ceremonial-looking, an actual shovel from the shed, because I'd replaced the ceremonial shovel with the actual shovel when Grayson wasn't watching — and looked at the marked ground for a moment. Then she looked at me.

Petra sent the message on a Wednesday morning. It was brief: someone wants to meet you. She came through me. She is trustworthy. Her name is Lena. I replied, "Tell me more before I agree." Petra replied that she has been living on the land adjacent to the Southern Reaches for three years. She has seen things. I think you need to hear them. That was enough. I said, "Send me her contact information." I will reach out directly.

Vera came through the room approximately four minutes later, looked at Petra in the cot, looked at me, and went into the back room without saying a word, which was the most eloquent thing she had done in forty-something days of consistently eloquent things. Petra did not ask about the collapse or the pregnancy or any of the things that adults had been carefully not asking about, because she was four years old and the things that concerned adults at their most complicated did not yet concern her, and what she wanted to know was whether I had decided on a name for the self-heal patch in the outer garden, because she had been thinking about it and had some suggestions.

"Eli! Wait up!" I turned to see Petra jogging toward me. She was one of the few people I’d met during orientation who didn't make me want to roll my eyes, and she was a theater major with bright purple streaks in her hair and a personality that was way too bubbly for nine in the morning. "Did you actually just do that?" she asked, catching her breath as she reached me. "Do what?" I asked, starting to walk toward the dining hall. "You sat in Cain Calloway’s chair, Eli. People have seriously been kicked out of the program for less. Okay, that’s a lie, but still. You basically told the king of the school to kick rocks. Do you even know who they are?"

“Because I’m thinking about how this ends.” He studied her for a moment. “You think it ends here?” “No.” She turned to him, her expression cold. “I think it begins here. Again.” Behind her, Nyx stepped into the room with a duffel bag full of gear. “Petra’s tapped the summit’s servers. Echo’s name isn’t on any list, but three biotech firms tied to Lucien’s old shell companies have RSVPed.” “Backup,” Alma said. “She’s not going alone.”

She gives me that seductive look of hers as she presses her chest to the pole, silently offering herself. It would’ve worked before. But not today. I raise my wineglass instead, and she huffs her disappointment, twirling on the pole. “News travels fast, Papà,” I reply flatly. He wipes the blood off his lips with a silk napkin. “Don’t know why you still keep that one around,” he nods toward Petra on the pole. “She eyes you like a bitch in heat. It’s pathetic.” “I like her,” I mutter. “You should be more careful,” he says, exhaling smoke. “Everyone in Taormina’s talking. A girl you bought at an auction? A million dollars? That’s not subtle.”