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Fiction — The MagicLand Chronicles

The Wanderer

A ghost hunts for prey in the new land of Magic

Charles Bastille
MagicLand — The Novel
12 min readAug 31, 2021

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Original image by breakermaximus for Shutterstock. Photoshopped by Charles Bastille. All rights reserved.

Nothing remains of Pittman. As we watch its remnants smolder, I know deep in my soul that every one of us has the same picture in our mind, that of the grand and stately old hall, a stubborn old man of a building frowning at its more modern surrounding university upstarts.

It was a proud frown, though — an I know better than you frown, with an upturned smirk that seemed to be buried within its gold-colored masonry. Today, despite its once-strong stone structure, little remains. It smolders. Ruined, it offers little more than wisps of smoke to the students still staggering about its grounds. I can’t imagine what could have melted those old welds that held its foundation.

I look at Katrina imploringly, begging her to talk to me, but she doesn’t know I’m here. I want to grab her by the shoulders but I know my hands would go right through them. I shrug and laugh at my frustration.

So instead I wander through the crowd, wishing I could speak to people, wondering if they could forgive me if they knew the truth.

For it was me who made Pittman burn. Stumbling around aimlessly, I push into each and every person in the crowd asking for forgiveness, but nobody knows I’m…

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MagicLand — The Novel
MagicLand — The Novel

Published in MagicLand — The Novel

Author site for my debut novel, MagicLand, from New York’s Morgan James Publishing

Charles Bastille
Charles Bastille

Written by Charles Bastille

Author of MagicLand & Psalm of Vampires. Join me on my Substack at https://www.ruminato.com/. All stories © 2020-24 by Charles Bastille

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