“Come on, I dare you.”
Violet felt four pairs of eyes on her, waiting for her to react. Derrick, who had issued the challenge, looked smug. Claire and Isaac smirked with him, but Truman seemed to be sympathetic.
They were in a dim corner of the library, with a musty old book laid out in front of them. They had been here working on homework, but Claire had gotten bored, and suggested they explore the older parts of the library. Their library had been around for at least a hundred years, and there were many stories that it was haunted. There were odd dark corners, cold spots, and a whole antique book section that Violet usually avoided.
She just had an odd feeling when in that particular room, but her friends had been bored, and she didn’t want to seem like a wuss. So she went along with them, not saying much as Isaac pulled books from the shelves, and Claire perused them. They finally came across the book before them now, which Truman had figured was an old spellbook or something. It had strange drawings of plants and animals that Violet had never seen before, and spidery writing that spoke of hexes and demons.
Derrick had found the page about summoning, and decided they should try it. Since Violet was the one who had been the most wary in the first place, he had dared her to read the words out loud.
“Well, probably, you need some kind of ritual objects, right? Like, candles or a frog or something,” she replied, stalling. She had a bad feeling about the book, and about the incantation scribbled on the open page.
“No, look here. You just need to draw that symbol on a piece of paper, and be,” Claire squinted at the page, “pure of heart.” She sent Violet a mean smile. “And you’re pure of heart, right?”
Violet blushed. Claire used to be her best friend, but something changed when they started high school. Violet wasn’t sure what it was.
Truman finally spoke, quietly, to her. “You don’t have to do this, if you don’t want to.”
“Yeah, it’s okay, Violet. We all know you were gonna chicken out anyway,” Isaac laughed, moving to put the book away.
“No, I’ll do it,” Violet said, surprising everyone. She pulled a notebook from her bag, trying to stop her hands from trembling. Nothing was going to happen. Demons weren’t real, so it wouldn’t matter if she said some stupid words and drew a picture.
She copied the image in the book, and centered it on the table. She glanced around, making sure Ms. Millward wasn’t nearby. The old librarian was nice, but Violet was sure she wouldn’t approve of a demon summoning in the middle of the antique section.
She slowly read the words aloud, the strange language awkward on her tongue. She thought she felt something building up around her, but she ignored it. Demons aren’t real, demons aren’t real, she kept telling herself, and even though her voice shook, she finished the incantation.
For a moment, nothing happened. Violet let out a little breath, relieved, but then she felt her whole body go rigid, and she wasn’t able to move at all. Well, that wasn’t entirely true; her eyes could still move, and they darted between her friends. They all seemed immobile too, frozen in place by something. She looked back to the book, the paper on the desk, and felt a gasp get stuck in her chest.
The symbol on the paper was moving, swirling faster and faster, until it was just a black blur. She watched in horror as the blur began to move off the paper, as if the ink itself was leaping from the page. It seemed to be getting bigger. The ink twisted around in the air, slowly taking form. Violet saw a leg, muscled and with a hoof on the end, then an arm with long, jagged claws. She wanted to weep when she saw the face begin to take form. It was a terrible, mocking face, with boils and a sagging mouth, and eyes that seemed to suck her into a horrible blackness.
All she could do was watch as this monster solidified before them. She knew she shouldn’t have read that stupid book. She watched movies. She read. She knew that you should never just read a random incantation like this out loud. And now she was going to die because of it. She had no illusions on that point.
The demon seemed to be fully formed, and she watched it stretch, heard the horrible sound of bones crunching and a rasping sigh. The demon looked at each of them in turn. It dismissed Derrick, Claire, and Isaac rapidly, its gaze lingered on Truman, before turning to her. It stopped, watching her, and smiled. Its teeth were bright red and craggy, and there seemed to be too many of them. It took a step toward her, but before it could speak, a voice came from behind them.
“Now, now, this is a library. We can’t be having demons running around.” It took Violet a moment, but she recognized the voice of Ms. Millward. Oh no, not only did I kill us, but I killed Ms. Millward by summoning this monster, she thought. She silently plead with Ms. Millward to run, to save herself, but she couldn’t do more than that.
The demon turned to look at the librarian, and bared its teeth. Violet couldn’t see Ms. Millward behind her, but Isaac, who sat across from her, could, and his eyes widened. Violet saw a flash streak across the room, slamming into the demon’s chest. She couldn’t tell what it was, but it seemed to hurt the monster. She saw a second one fly by, then a third.
The demon fell to one knee, and she heard chanting behind her. The demon screamed, a sound Violet knew would haunt her for the rest of her life. It seemed to shrink, to liquify. The chanting continued, the screaming continued, until finally the demon just… exploded. Dark ink flew everywhere, splattering the books around them, the table, even up on the ceiling.
As the demon’s shrieks faded to an echo, Violet realized she could move again. Stiffly, she turned, and saw Ms. Millward standing behind them. She seemed unruffled as she adjusted the glasses on her nose with one hand, and hefted what Violet guessed was a crossbow in the other.
She clucked her tongue at them. “Tsk tsk. Haven’t I always told you children that words are powerful?”
Violet nodded mutely. She wasn’t sure if she would be able to talk anytime soon. Ms. Millward looked at each of them, and brushed down her twill skirt. “Now, you five will go home, finish your school work, and be polite to your families. And, you will remember,” she said, with a slight smile, “that demons don’t exist, do they?”
They all shook their heads, too afraid of what had just happened to contradict her. They gathered their belongings, and fled the library. Violet wasn’t sure she would ever go back.
Ms. Millward watched them leave, then let out a little sigh. She crossed to the front door, and flipped the sign to “Closed.”
“Really, Mildred, I told you to keep those books locked away somewhere,” a wavery voice said behind her.
Ms. Millward turned, and saw the faint outline of an old woman wringing her hands.
“And you know I don’t believe in censorship, Agatha,” she chided. “If people are interested in these books, I think they should be able to read them.” She started back to the antique section, and Agatha drifted along behind her.
“But Mildred, you know how many people read these books aloud, not knowing what they are doing. You could at least put up a warning sign,” she whined.
Ms. Millward sighed. “What would the sign say? ‘Do not read these books aloud, you might summon an actual demon from the Chaos Realms.’ No one would believe it, and they might be more inclined to read something out loud, to try and prove a point.” Ms. Millward surveyed the antiques room. It was a mess, but at least it had been a bibilodemon the children had summoned. Last time, it was a swamp monster, and that had taken a whole weekend to clean. She swore she could still smell it in some of the corners.
She hiked up her sleeves, and pulled a small bottle from her skirt pocket. “You know, Agatha, you could help. Just because you are a ghost doesn’t mean you can’t do anything about this mess.”
“Oh, no, my dear,” Agatha said, smugly. “If you insist on leaving this room open to hooligans like that, I’ll leave you to clean up their messes.” And with that, Agatha faded away. Ms. Millward figured she had gone to the romance section, to soothe her nerves.
She took inventory of the space, noting where the ink had landed. She finished with the ceiling, and sighed again. Maybe Agatha had a point, not that she’d ever tell her so. Ms. Millward began to scrub, and wondered absently when, if ever, she would see those particular children again.
Inspired by a writing prompt from Writing Prompt Generator.
© The Lightning Tower, 2020