The final instalment of the Loveless Letters short story series is here for you to read FREE (Yep, I said it and I meant it). The entire series has now been uploaded for you to read free.

New to the series? Get started by clicking right here to go to story 1: Once Upon a Portal.

So, what about this one? Story 4: the Deepest Slumber…

What it’s about

If you’ve been following our heroes Lindsay, Sandra, and Curtis, you know that story #3 left us on a cliff-hanger. Let’s dive in, right where we left off.

**Spoiler alert for short story 3**
Curtis has fallen into a deep slumber. Sandra finds herself back in the Loveless apartment with Curtis’s limp body. Lindsay is face to face with evil doppelgangers of her mother and aunt. Nana Rose is… well, no one quite knows where Nana Rose is. Or Mrs. Loveless or Aunt Cleo, for that matter.

But the team can’t let their distance shake them. They can’t let uncertainty rattle them. Or can they? It’s a race against the clock as they scramble to uncover a mystery and stop the evil doppelgangers once and for all. It might now be so easy, though, for the ones who find themselves slumbering in the Cosmos.

Preview before reading:

Sandra shook Curtis violently but it was no use. He wouldn’t rouse.

“What’s going on? What’s wrong? What happened?” Curtis’s dad rushed from the dining room table where, just moments ago, he had been enjoying a game of cards with Cleo. Now, he dropped to the floor at his son’s side.

Sandra moved back, allowing Mr. Loveless some space. “Your wife – well, not your wife, but kind of your wife. A book copy or something. A double? And Lindsay,” she started to cry. “I don’t know where Lindsay is. They have her, I think.”

She wanted to be stronger. She willed herself to stop crying but she couldn’t. The portal hopping and jumping into books had seemed so fun and exotic, at first. And the more she was wrapped up in dreams of Lindsay (and watching those dreams come true), the more fantastical it all felt. But now… things were different. She felt a little scared when she became invisible in the Ashen Afterworld and the evil storybook witch locked her under the stairs, but never had she felt as terrified as she did in this moment.

Mr. Loveless quickly checked Curtis over and, assessing that he was well enough, lifted him from the floor and carried him to the couch. He turned to Sandra as he sat in the recliner, leaning forward to place his elbows onto his knees. “Ok, just breathe,” he instructed.

Sandra sat on the floor, unable to bring herself to a higher elevation. For some reason, the very idea of sitting in a chair felt disrespectful to everything happening around her.
Mr. Loveless turned his attention toward the dining room. “Cleo!” he called, his voice cracking a little.

Aunt Cleo rushed past the kitchen doorway, through the dining room, into the living room. She looked at Curtis on the couch, then at Sandra who pulled herself backwards into the room. “What’s going on?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” he said, turning to Sandra.

Aunt Cleo pulled a chair in from the dining table and slowly lowered herself onto it. “What’s happened, kiddo?” she asked Sandra who calmed a little at her easy demeanor.

“I – uh,” Sandra wasn’t sure what to say. How could she be certain that this Cleo was the real Cleo. She let her eyes move to Mr. Loveless. How could she know he was the real Mr. Loveless? She darted her eyes back and forth before deciding she really had no other options.

She launched into the story, starting with her phone call to Lindsay and their portal hop to London. She breezed over most of the details about Nana Rose’s letters and got straight to the point about the doubles of Aunt Cleo and Mrs. Loveless.

Mr. Loveless had no words, as usual. For a lover of books who happened to be married to a mystical woman in a family of portal hoppers, he sure didn’t know much and never really seemed to ask a lot of questions.

“I think I know what’s happening here,” Aunt Cleo offered, a hint of remorse in her voice.