Chapter 24

Almost a year later, Katherine Williamson was driving in her car, up the same strange and forested mountain slopes that she had travelled with her son exactly one year before. So much had happened in Katherine’s life in the year that had transpired since that fateful day when she had decided to abandon her son to the cruel contract of the demonesses. Katherine had felt guilty about it for a long time, but deep down, she still justified it to herself. She had been looking out for herself, and besides, it was far, far too painful to think of entering into a slave contract with the very family who had robbed her of her husband. Clayton didn’t know any of the backstory like she did, she reasoned, and therefore it wasn’t going to be as painful for him. At least, that’s what Katherine told herself. 

The whole remainder of that year, however, Katherine couldn’t help but feel like she had suffered through a quadruple dose of karma. She had left her son to the Asmodeus family for a yearlong contract, and, almost as soon as she got back home, things started to go south for her. This is a different story for another time, but suffice it to say, as Katherine drove up the thickly-wooded mountains, she was only able to see the road because of a special custom-made car seat that she sat in. She had been through some intense situations, and she now stood no taller than 3’1. She had shrunk down dramatically, thanks to all that she had been through, and at this point, Katherine saw her dramatic shrinkage as nothing less than karma for leaving Clayton behind. In this way, Katherine was able to feel like she had already atoned for her past misdeeds. 

As she continued to drive, though, Katherine’s anxiety increased, with every sharp curve and narrow passage that she navigated up the treacherous mountain passes. She had received a call from Kazehana the day before, instructing her that she was to drive back to the mansion and retrieve Clayton, since his contract would be up. Katherine had to admit that a part of her hadn’t even wanted Kazehana to call — this part of her wanted to forget that she had a son (who looked so much like his deceased father), and that she had done this son wrong. This part of Katherine just wanted to drink the memory of him away, until she was left with nothing but grey haze and fog in her brain. 

But there was another side to Katherine Williamson as well, and when she had hung up the phone, this other side had caused her to burst into tears. There wasn’t any one thing that she was crying about — she was crying because she missed her son, because she had left him there, because she had neglected him even before the whole Asmodeus fiasco, because she had wondered if he might be dead, because she was now afraid of having to face him after betraying him, because…because…because…

It was all just too much to deal with all at once. She had hardly been able to sleep the past night, and, right around 8 in the morning, she figured that it was about time to start driving. The Asmodeus mansion was far, far away, and Katherine knew that it would take her most of the day to get there. 

Now it was late afternoon. Low grey clouds hung in the sky, sometimes even deigning to touch the green sides of the mountains. It had gotten quite a bit colder as she gained altitude, and as she neared the spot where she knew to turn off, Katherine began to get the strange feeling that something was…off. She didn’t know where the feeling came from, but she knew enough to understand that as she got closer and closer to her destination, this strange feeling…a feeling of anxiety and trepidation, just got stronger. She started to feel a slight tingling in her spine, but she ignored it as best she could, chalking it down to nerves. 

At long last, she came to the left turn. She turned the wheel and started to pull in, but suddenly, Katherine made herself stop. Something held her back. She didn’t know why, but she had become quite afraid. This was definitely the right place to turn — a fancy, finely-trimmed, and overhanging green hedge marked the entrance to the Asmodeus estate. But Katherine was suddenly realizing that she didn’t want to go in. Everything just….looked bigger.

‘Oh course it looks bigger! I’ve shrunk down to 3 feet tall!’ she reminded herself. Her car idled there at the entrance for several minutes, as Katherine tried to come to grips with what she was feeling. Did she really have to come pick up Clayton? What if she just…didn’t show up? The thought hadn’t really occurred to her until just now, but her inexplicable fear was compelling her to think this way now. 

‘No,’ she said to herself as her little shoulders dropped, ‘I have no choice. I have to do what Kazehana said.’ 

By this point, Katherine knew better than most the nature of supernatural entities in the world — they were not to be crossed or disobeyed. She had thought that maybe she could just drive back home without picking Clayton up, but she quickly chased that idea out of her head. 

‘Kazehana would find me,’ Katherine thought. ‘She’d find me, and she’d do something terrible to me for not obeying her orders. Who knows what she’s capable of? No, no, I have to go in.’

Sighing in resignation, Katherine took her foot off the brake and pulled under the hedge, entering the Asmodeus estate. Katherine remembered the manicured landscape of the estate from a year ago — whereas the woods that grew up and down the mountain were wild and untamed, the Asmodeus estate itself was quite well-tended-to. The trees grew farther apart, and they were all expertly pruned. All the grasses were immaculately cut, and all the bushes that grew were well-trimmed and symmetrical. Katherine thought that she saw some animals out of the corner of her eye, but when she had turned, she had seen nothing. 

After a few minutes of driving down the well-paved private road, Katherine began to feel puzzled. She knew that she was going the right way — so where was the mansion!? The minutes kept on passing by, and Katherine looked down at her odometer and saw that she had already driven three miles into the estate. 

‘Jesus, everything must have just gotten bigger,’ thought Katherine as she continued to drive. “This place was not nearly this huge before.’ 

Still she continued to drive, on and on, feeling more and more puzzled as the miles piled on top of each other. ‘At this rate,’ she thought, ‘I should have already driven through the mountain, and then out the other side — what’s going on?’ 

Right around this moment, however, she rounded a corner, and saw it: rising far, far up above the trees, way in the distance, was the Asmoedus mansion. Except, even from this distance away, Katherine could tell that it was much, much bigger than it had been before. 

‘What on earth!”’ thought Katherine. ‘How did they do that!? How did it get that big??’ 

She continued driving towards the towering mansion, which only looked bigger and bigger the closer she drove to it. After fifteen more minutes, and a few more miles, Katherine finally reached the gravel path that led to the mansion entrance. A moment later, her car tires crunching the little bits of gravel beneath them, Katherine pulled up to the front door of the mansion…and gaped. There was now absolutely no question that her eyes had been playing tricks on her — the mansion had retained its earlier features: the dark brick, the innumerable stain-glass windows, old-style design, and so on. But what was shocking to Katherine was not the opulence of the mansion, but rather its sheer SIZE. It had become hundreds of times bigger than it was before! The mansion itself had all the same dimensions, but EVERYTHING about it was utterly massive! Katherine looked up, and she couldn’t even see the top! Its huge wooden front door looked like it was more than 80 feet tall, and, in tandem, the windows looked as if they had been made for giants. 

‘Not the kinds of giants that Kazehana and her maid are,’ thought Katherine. ‘Like…REAL giants. The kinds that shake the ground with each step.’ 

Katherine was almost beginning to feel a little sick — the mansion’s colossal dimensions were overwhelming enough, but something unpleasant was growing in the back of Katherine’s mind. She wasn’t even quite sure what it was, but she knew enough to know that it was a thought that she did not want to entertain…and so she ignored it. She turned off her car, unbuckled her seat belt, and then hopped out of her custom car seat onto the gravel. She looked around for a few moments, feeling at a loss as to what she should do. The last time she had come here with Clayton, that huge, tall maid had come out to greet them. Katherine didn’t remember her name, and she privately hoped that she would be greeted by someone else. Her last encounter with the maid had ended with Alaina forcibly picking both her and Clayton up, one to each arm, and carrying them both into the mansion against their will. 

The minutes passed by, and Katherine began to grow increasingly anxious. Nothing was happening. Nobody was coming out. What was she supposed to do? Walk up those huge marble steps and knock on that gigantic front door?! It was a bit of an absurd thought to Katherine — she doubted that she would be able to make much of a sound that could be heard from inside if she tried to knock. What was she supposed to do?

At that moment, however, Katherine was startled by the sound of a clear, powerful voice that must have been speaking over some kind of hidden PA system. 

“Hello Katherine Williamson,” said the voice, “Welcome back to the Asmodeus mansion. I hope you’ve been enjoying the year that you bought with the service of your son.” 

Katherine immediately recognized the voice as the maid’s, and with this recognition, she remembered that the maid was named “Alaina.” Her brow darkened at the perceived insult.

“How can you see me?!” she called out at the sky. “Where are you? I can’t see you!” 

“Oh yes…but we can see you,” said Alaina, with a touch of humor in her voice. “Now, Ms. Williamson, I am going to lead you with the sound of my voice. Do as I say, and all of this will be over a lot quicker. I know that being in this place gives you little pleasure. So listen to my voice, and obey.”

“Ok, fine!” called out Katherine. “Tell me what to do!” 

“Leave your car, and walk around behind the left side of the house, towards the backyard. It will take you awhile, but do not run. Just walk. I’m sure you’ve noticed that our estate has gotten much….bigger in the past year. That must have been quite surprising to you, I imagine. But just wait until you’re walking around the house, Ms. Williamson. Only then will you truly be able to tell.”

Katherine did as Alaina told her, and she quickly realized the accuracy of the maid’s words. Just walking around the side of the mansion took her about half an hour. The whole time, she was passing a whole host of fountains and statues of mythological beings that absolutely dwarfed her. At this point, Katherine was used to feeling tiny in the world, but all of that was nothing….NOTHING…compared to how small she was feeling right now. Everywhere she looked, she saw size. From the size of the bricks to the size of the leaves that fluttered softly on the trees overhead, Katherine was unable to avoid the overwhelming truth that she was a tiny woman who had somehow stepped into a world of giants. She felt like she was in a fairy tail — even the blades of grass that grew on the manicured lawns beside the gravel path were huge. If Katherine had stopped to compare herself with them, she would have seen that the blades of grass themselves, even though they had obviously been cut recently, were as tall as her shins. 

“That’s it,” came Alaina’s voice, seemingly from the sky over the PA system. “Keep on coming, Ms. Williamson. Around the house, towards the backyard.” 

“How did everything get so big here?!” asked Katherine out loud, calling up into the air. She waited a few seconds, and then a few minutes, as she continued to walk on, but she got no answer. She was glad that she at least had something to do to continuously occupy her limbs, because if she hadn’t, then her anxiety would have gone through the roof. The fact that everything was so unnaturally huge was feeding into that unspoken thought that she had promised herself she would not entertain. At this point, she would have actually been glad to see a 7-foot tall Alaina emerge from behind a bush or something and greet her. Anything would be better than all this buildup, waiting, and worrying.

Eventually, Katherine finally rounded the enormous house and was able to see into the backyard. A line of gigantic trees lines the back edge of the yard, and immediately in front of her, and expanding outward like a sea of rich-smelling green, was the back lawn. 

“Very good, Ms. Williamson,” came Alaina’s calm voice. “Now start walking on the grass, toward those tall trees you see there. This will help lead you to Kazehana and Scarlet — they have your son, and they’re waiting for you.”

Katherine took a deep breath and stepped onto the back lawn, shivering a little from the weirdness of feeling the blades of grass go all the way up to her shins. She began to wade, rather than walk, through the grass. It was not the easiest work, and Katherine found that she had broken a sweat after about ten minutes. Why couldn’t they have just had Clayton waiting at the front of the house? Why did they have to put her through all of this needless toil? Just to see her suffer some more? Hadn’t she suffered enough already at the hands of this family!? But just then, she felt a twinge of guilt — because of her selfishness, Clayton had doubtlessly suffered as well. But Katherine managed to deflect her own guilty feelings and divert their intensity back onto the Asmodeus family…and onto Kazehana most of all. All of this was her fault, surely. She had been the one to seduce her husband, and she had been the one who got him to sign that terrible contract. She had been the one who had forced her to make the decision to abandon Clayton in the first place. It had been all Kazehana…all Kazehana…

After about another twenty minutes, Katherine had finally managed to get to the back end of the yard, and she found herself looking up at the huge, immense trees that were gently swaying before her in the late-afternoon breeze. Their leaves rustled quietly, almost seeming to whisper on the wind. At this point, there was no doubt in Katherine’s mind that she was in a magical place. Everything was too weird, too “off,” too strange. At first glance, except in terms of size, all seemed normal…but the longer Katherine spent here, the more she had come to realize that every aspect of the Asmodeus Estate itself — the house, the statues, the grass, the trees, the leaves, and even the wind — seemed to be…alive in some way…speaking to her…and speaking to each other. She suddenly felt like someone was watching her and turned back around to look at the house, which just stood there, immeasurably huge and stately, silently staring back at her. 

A shiver went down Katherine’s spine. She just wanted to get out of here, and the sooner she got to Clayton, the sooner that could happen. 

“Alright Ms. Williamson, you’re almost there!” came Alaina’s voice. “Just go up to that big oak tree near you and wait for me. I’ll come greet you and lead you to them.”

Katherine did as instructed, and for the next several minutes she just stood there waiting, becoming more and more uneasy. Once again, she wasn’t exactly sure where this uneasiness came from, but she just knew that it was becoming more and more intense every additional moment that she spent in this place. 

And then she felt it. 

It had been subtle at first, but after about twenty seconds, Katherine could no longer doubt her senses: the ground underneath her feet had begun to shake. And it wasn’t a continuous kind of shaking, either, like during an earthquake. Rather, it was a rhythmic, methodical shaking, with about a second or so in between. The seconds passed, and the shaking grew stronger. After about half a minute, Katherine realized that what she was feeling and hearing was…footsteps. She leaned against the tree, starting to feel nauseous with anxiety. Was this…was this really happening!? She had the urge to run, but she knew that doing so would be pointless. She had already come this far. 

After a minute or so, Katherine looked up and finally saw her — Alaina, walking toward her. But Katherine had to crane her neck up to see her! The top of Alaina’s head rose up above the huge trees, and came on steadily, a megalithic giantess of the Asmodeus Estate. The maid had grown to an astonishing 75 feet tall!