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Daily Wordcount: 2849
Total Wordcount: 5767
On/off target: -2568
I picked up the little book again, and started carefully turning pages. Nothing in it made any sense to me, and I wondered if it was supposed to be something magical, or more along the lines of a really cool craft project or horror movie prop. I think this is where I have to admit that I have no belief in the supernatural, so my mind automatically went to the latter, though I could see someone earnestly believing it to be the former. It didn't mean that they were right, there are plenty of witchcraft books sold in stores. I don't think any of those love spells ever worked, but people kept buying them and some, at least, seemed to genuinely believe in them.
This is not to say I didn't think there were things in the world that humanity couldn't explain, or didn't understand. But I didn't, say, think that if I read aloud from a creepy old book I would summon a demon. Which is my defense as to why I did read aloud from a book, despite the fact that one of the cardinal rules of horror movies is " Never read a book of demon summoning aloud, even as a joke." I don't know if that rule really applies, as I did not realize it was a book of demon summoning, so it wasn't like I was actually reading it as a joke, or as a way to thumb my nose at the supernatural. For all I knew it could have been someone's Great Aunt Bertha's coded cookbook, so those ungrateful nieces and nephews couldn't get their grubby hands all over her super-secret, award winning cherry cobbler recipe. That would explain the red stains. Also, someone should definitely make a movie where the characters are convinced an old book is something magical, and it ends up being something incredibly mundane.
The demon did not, as most movies depict, appear in grand fashion. No flashes of light, rolling smoke, or smell of brimstone. He was just suddenly there. Standing in my living room, looking a little perplexed and disgruntled. I was, to say, the least, a little lost for words.
"Who dares to summon me, the... wait, hold up, where's your circle? Where's the chalk symbols and candles? Is that Jaws 4? Really?" The demon said in a surprisingly pleasant voice. He was short and slight, and not terribly imposing, though the slightly reddish skin and stubby black horns were a bit creepy.
"Um, yes, it just started..." I trailed off, unsure of what to do. "I'm Becca. Want some popcorn?"
He stared at me, probably as surprised as I was at what had come out of my mouth. I had just asked a demon to enjoy some popcorn and a bad movie. I suppose most people would have either been shrieking in horror or commanding him to do their bidding, but I was taken off-guard, considering I hadn't realized I was summoning a demon at all. And he didn't look that scary.
"Jaws 4 is terrible. Can we watch something else?" The hopeful tone in his voice was evident, and a little at odds with his appearance.
"Well, yes, sure, I mean, I assume you could do anything... I mean, I don't know much about... " I stammered, suddenly unsure. What if I offended him by calling him a demon? Is there are more politically correct term for it now?
"Demons?" He offered up. "Yup, that's what I am, and to be fair, most of what humanity thinks they know about us is wrong, anyway. We're limited in what we can influence without... repercussions. So I'd rather not waste that on changing a movie when I can just ask nicely and have you change it by mundane measures."
"Ah, I... see." I didn't entirely, and I think he guessed as much, but he was polite and nodded anyway. "What would you like to watch? I don't know what's on TV right now, but I have some DVDs and we could check out Amazon Prime... what kind of movie are you in the mood to watch?"
"How about a sweet coming of age story?" He laughed at the involuntary horrified expression that crossed my face. "Oh, sure, demon shows up and you offer him popcorn. Demon suggests watching a drama, and now you're horrified. I think your priorities are a little out of kilter, there, Becca."
"Eh, nothing new there, then. I've always been a little odd. But I do I dare hope you were joking about the movie? I'm down for a romcom, if you want to go that route, but I absolutely hate dramas. I'm more of a horror and action kind of girl. Also, I didn't catch your name. And would you like something to drink?"
"I'm a demon, I'm supposed to torture you, so I had to suggest your least favorite movie type, but I really don't want to torture myself, as well, so a nice action flick would be wonderful. I can't tell you my real name, but you can call me... Steve. And I would love a glass of water."
He sat down on the far edge of the sofa as I went into the kitchen to get him a glass of water. My hand only trembled slightly, which probably meant the full impact of the evening's events hadn't really caught up with me. I poured myself another glass of wine while I was up. Might as well get really, really drunk at this point, it's not like things could get worse, right?
"They could," Steve said as I sat down.
"Can you... how did you know what I was thinking?!"
"It's easy," he said, grinning, "Especially when you say it out loud. Chill out, I can't read your mind or anything like that, but might I say you may spend a wee bit too much time on your own if you don't realize how much you talk out loud to yourself."
"That's... harsh, but probably true. How about The Expendables?" I flicked through the movie choices on Amazon. "Or The Fast and The Furious?"
"The Expendables," he said, settling back in the couch.
I set the movie to play and settled in, myself, and we were silent as we watched the movie. Steve was enthralled, and the few times I tried to talk he hushed me, so I sipped my wine and dozed off toward the end of the movie. When I struggled back to consciousness, the sun was shining and there was no sign of Steve. The television, though, showed the play scene for The Expendables 3, so unless I was sleep-surfing for movies, it hadn't all been a dream.
I stumbled into the kitchen to make coffee and there, on the draining board, was Steve's washed water glass. To be fair, if demons were this good of houseguests, I'd rather have them over than some of my relatives. But I'm sure there was a catch. There always was with demons, though Steve had said what we knew of them was woefully wrong. But then, a demon would say that, wouldn't they? Don't they habitually lie? Is getting all of my demon facts from various horror movies a bad idea? What could possibly go wrong?
The coffee revived me a little bit, but I still felt muzzy-headed and a little hung over, which was unsurprising. I flipped through the books some more, being careful not to read anything out loud. It wouldn't have done anything, not in the daylight, but there was no way I would have known that at this point. It made as little sense today as it had yesterday, and I decided to go tot he source to find more about it. After all, it came out of a box from Cainin and Burke and someone there had to know something about it. And somewhere in the mounds of paperwork left over in the seven other boxes would surely lead me to some contact information for someone I could get in touch with. Though I'd have to lie about how I got the book and their contact information, or it'd probably be a breach of privacy at worst, and an improper use of company knowledge at best. Oh, and the whole stealing thing. That wouldn't go over well.
Fortified with a second cup of coffee and a warmed Pop-Tart, I set t work on the boxes. Hours of tedious, methodical sorting and scanning came to pass, and unlike in movies, it wasn't compressed into a intensely-scored montage. But it was oddly soothing, doing something so mundane after entertaining a demon, so I relished it. Except for the paper cuts, those still sucked. I was four boxes in when I found the business card, and with a flash of inspiration, I realized this was exactly the kind of thing I needed. I could claim I picked up the book in an antique shop, or an estate sale, and it had the card tucked inside. Hopefully the phone number on it still worked, they had sold their business, but this wasn't the number that was on all the official, legal paperwork, so maybe it was a cell number that was still being used by one J. Burke?
The phone rang four times before going to voicemail, a generic greeting by the robotic voice reciting the number I'd just dialed. I should have been prepared to leave a message, but I wasn't, and it ended up coming out in a jumbled heap of words.
"Hi, my name is Becca and I just bought this very odd book, and your card was in it, and I was wondering if you could tell me anything about it? I know that seems like an odd question but as the card says you deal in antiques and I don't know much about real antiques, but this book definitely looks old and I wondered if it came from your shop at one point? It's a long shot and I'm sorry to bother you, but if you have a moment, could you please call me back?" I left my number and hung up the phone.
Fifteen minutes later, my phone rang and despite not recognizing the number, I answered. For once, it wasn't a telemarketer, it was J. Burke returning my call.
"Hello, is this Becca? You rang about a book?" A light, feminine voice said.
"It is, is this J. Burke? Thank you for calling me back."
"My name is Jessica, and it was no problem, but I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to help you. We sold our business, and don't have any of our old records, and if the history of the book you bought weren't included with it, there's not much we can do. Usually when someone buys and antique we give them the supporting documentation, after all, they own it now and will need it to sell it on. We do have some ledgers of things bought and sold, but I'm afraid unless it's frightfully valuable we don't track books that closely. There are a lot of old books floating around."
"This one is... a little more unusual than most," I said, suddenly unsure of what all I should tell her. "It's not in English, and it seems to be more of a diary with drawings and weird scribbles and I can't make heads or tails of it..."
There as a sharp intake of breath on the line, then silence that stretched just long enough to begin to feel uncomfortable.
"Is it smallish, about paperback sized but thin, with a worn brown leather cover?" She asked.
"Yes, and the drawing on the front seems to be mostly worn off, though I can't see anywhere that there was ever a title."
"You're on your own with Steve," she said brusquely. "I'm afraid I can't help you."
And with that, she hung up.
Admittedly, this threw me for a bit of a loop. My only lead turned out to seem to know quite a bit, but was obviously not willing to talk to me. I was back at square one, and had to talk to someone who knew anything about the occult. But while I wasn’t willing to believe Steve and think that everything we knew was wrong, I did have a healthy amount of skepticism that every corner mystical shop had all the answers. Because they all had different answers, and they couldn’t all be right. But how could I, a person who pretty much disbelieved in the occult altogether, figure out who was the more … and I hated to even think of it this way, but here we were… legitimate supernatural shopkeeper?
To the Google! First, it was easy to remove all the head shops posing as mystical shops from the list. They wouldn’t be any help. Then the chain stores pedaling crummy crystals and nonsense potions. Then there were the shops mentioned here and there in comment sections, the ones that didn’t have sleek ads or online stores. I found three of them in a reasonable radius from my house, and decided to start with the one closest to home. It was only a ten-minute drive, but I’d never noticed it. To be fair, it was one street over from an amazing local yarn shop, so it’s not like I ever drove through that neighborhood on any street other than the yarn shop street, because… yarn.
After a quick stop at the yarn shop (in my defense, they were having an amazingly good sale on a wool alpaca blend I’d had my eye on for quite some time), I made my way over to the shop. At first, I was very disappointed. It wasn’t a quaint, creepy, dark and mysterious little hole in the wall sort of shop, and the woman who looked up from the counter as I entered was dressed normally in a sweater and jeans. Nothing about it screamed occult. There were neat rows of books, some new, some old, and a smattering of candles and incense, but most of the shop was lined with locked display cabinets showcase old and odd things. More museum than shop, really.
“Can I help you?” The woman at the counter asked pleasantly.
“I hope so. I have this book, and… okay, it’s going to sound a little crazy, but… well… can you just take a look at it and tell me anything about it? I can’t even read it, don’ t know what language it’s in…” I trailed off helplessly, and held the book out towards her. She reached for it, but kept her eyes on me.
“I can certainly look, but why would you bring it here instead of to a book historian? I’m not an expert in other languages, so I might not be able to tell you anything about it.”
“Something… happened when I read it,” I said hesitantly.
She arched an eyebrow at that, but shifted her attention to the book in her hand. Her mouth pursed into a surprised “oh!” as she examined the cover, then slowly opened the book and began to leaf through the pages. She sucked in a surprised breath as she got to the page I had inadvertently read aloud.
“What exactly happened when you read it?” She asked, closing he book gently and setting it on the table.
“Um… this is going to sound crazy, but… a demon appeared. And yes, before you ask, I had been drinking, but not that much and there were signs the next morning that he had been there and I hadn’t imagined the whole thing.” I fidgeted, feeling my cheeks turn red, but she wasn’t looking at me with disbelief or shock, it was more… a combination of sorrow and pity. I’m not sure that wasn’t worse.
“Oh, no, you didn’t send him back?” She chewed on her lip. “This is… problematic, but perhaps not the end of the world. We can try to summon him back, and make sure it is clear that the previous invitation is rescinded. Otherwise, he can just pop in and out of this world willy-nilly, at least at night.”
“I didn’t even know how I’d called him, so no, I didn’t send him back. He was perfectly nice, though the shushing during the movie was a bit much.”
“Movie?” She looked perplexed. “You watched a movie with a demon?”
“Well, three, technically, I suppose, but I fell asleep during the first one. He must have put on the second and third one after I was asleep. I mean, I assume he watched the second one, but I only know for sure about the third because that’s what was shown as last played when I woke up.” I was babbling, because she was now staring at me in utter disbelief. “He’d washed his water glass, left it on the draining board, and vanished.”
“He… wasn’t in a circle?” She choked out the words, backing slightly away from me. “And you’re sure you’re… all right?”
Total Wordcount: 5767
On/off target: -2568
I picked up the little book again, and started carefully turning pages. Nothing in it made any sense to me, and I wondered if it was supposed to be something magical, or more along the lines of a really cool craft project or horror movie prop. I think this is where I have to admit that I have no belief in the supernatural, so my mind automatically went to the latter, though I could see someone earnestly believing it to be the former. It didn't mean that they were right, there are plenty of witchcraft books sold in stores. I don't think any of those love spells ever worked, but people kept buying them and some, at least, seemed to genuinely believe in them.
This is not to say I didn't think there were things in the world that humanity couldn't explain, or didn't understand. But I didn't, say, think that if I read aloud from a creepy old book I would summon a demon. Which is my defense as to why I did read aloud from a book, despite the fact that one of the cardinal rules of horror movies is " Never read a book of demon summoning aloud, even as a joke." I don't know if that rule really applies, as I did not realize it was a book of demon summoning, so it wasn't like I was actually reading it as a joke, or as a way to thumb my nose at the supernatural. For all I knew it could have been someone's Great Aunt Bertha's coded cookbook, so those ungrateful nieces and nephews couldn't get their grubby hands all over her super-secret, award winning cherry cobbler recipe. That would explain the red stains. Also, someone should definitely make a movie where the characters are convinced an old book is something magical, and it ends up being something incredibly mundane.
The demon did not, as most movies depict, appear in grand fashion. No flashes of light, rolling smoke, or smell of brimstone. He was just suddenly there. Standing in my living room, looking a little perplexed and disgruntled. I was, to say, the least, a little lost for words.
"Who dares to summon me, the... wait, hold up, where's your circle? Where's the chalk symbols and candles? Is that Jaws 4? Really?" The demon said in a surprisingly pleasant voice. He was short and slight, and not terribly imposing, though the slightly reddish skin and stubby black horns were a bit creepy.
"Um, yes, it just started..." I trailed off, unsure of what to do. "I'm Becca. Want some popcorn?"
He stared at me, probably as surprised as I was at what had come out of my mouth. I had just asked a demon to enjoy some popcorn and a bad movie. I suppose most people would have either been shrieking in horror or commanding him to do their bidding, but I was taken off-guard, considering I hadn't realized I was summoning a demon at all. And he didn't look that scary.
"Jaws 4 is terrible. Can we watch something else?" The hopeful tone in his voice was evident, and a little at odds with his appearance.
"Well, yes, sure, I mean, I assume you could do anything... I mean, I don't know much about... " I stammered, suddenly unsure. What if I offended him by calling him a demon? Is there are more politically correct term for it now?
"Demons?" He offered up. "Yup, that's what I am, and to be fair, most of what humanity thinks they know about us is wrong, anyway. We're limited in what we can influence without... repercussions. So I'd rather not waste that on changing a movie when I can just ask nicely and have you change it by mundane measures."
"Ah, I... see." I didn't entirely, and I think he guessed as much, but he was polite and nodded anyway. "What would you like to watch? I don't know what's on TV right now, but I have some DVDs and we could check out Amazon Prime... what kind of movie are you in the mood to watch?"
"How about a sweet coming of age story?" He laughed at the involuntary horrified expression that crossed my face. "Oh, sure, demon shows up and you offer him popcorn. Demon suggests watching a drama, and now you're horrified. I think your priorities are a little out of kilter, there, Becca."
"Eh, nothing new there, then. I've always been a little odd. But I do I dare hope you were joking about the movie? I'm down for a romcom, if you want to go that route, but I absolutely hate dramas. I'm more of a horror and action kind of girl. Also, I didn't catch your name. And would you like something to drink?"
"I'm a demon, I'm supposed to torture you, so I had to suggest your least favorite movie type, but I really don't want to torture myself, as well, so a nice action flick would be wonderful. I can't tell you my real name, but you can call me... Steve. And I would love a glass of water."
He sat down on the far edge of the sofa as I went into the kitchen to get him a glass of water. My hand only trembled slightly, which probably meant the full impact of the evening's events hadn't really caught up with me. I poured myself another glass of wine while I was up. Might as well get really, really drunk at this point, it's not like things could get worse, right?
"They could," Steve said as I sat down.
"Can you... how did you know what I was thinking?!"
"It's easy," he said, grinning, "Especially when you say it out loud. Chill out, I can't read your mind or anything like that, but might I say you may spend a wee bit too much time on your own if you don't realize how much you talk out loud to yourself."
"That's... harsh, but probably true. How about The Expendables?" I flicked through the movie choices on Amazon. "Or The Fast and The Furious?"
"The Expendables," he said, settling back in the couch.
I set the movie to play and settled in, myself, and we were silent as we watched the movie. Steve was enthralled, and the few times I tried to talk he hushed me, so I sipped my wine and dozed off toward the end of the movie. When I struggled back to consciousness, the sun was shining and there was no sign of Steve. The television, though, showed the play scene for The Expendables 3, so unless I was sleep-surfing for movies, it hadn't all been a dream.
I stumbled into the kitchen to make coffee and there, on the draining board, was Steve's washed water glass. To be fair, if demons were this good of houseguests, I'd rather have them over than some of my relatives. But I'm sure there was a catch. There always was with demons, though Steve had said what we knew of them was woefully wrong. But then, a demon would say that, wouldn't they? Don't they habitually lie? Is getting all of my demon facts from various horror movies a bad idea? What could possibly go wrong?
The coffee revived me a little bit, but I still felt muzzy-headed and a little hung over, which was unsurprising. I flipped through the books some more, being careful not to read anything out loud. It wouldn't have done anything, not in the daylight, but there was no way I would have known that at this point. It made as little sense today as it had yesterday, and I decided to go tot he source to find more about it. After all, it came out of a box from Cainin and Burke and someone there had to know something about it. And somewhere in the mounds of paperwork left over in the seven other boxes would surely lead me to some contact information for someone I could get in touch with. Though I'd have to lie about how I got the book and their contact information, or it'd probably be a breach of privacy at worst, and an improper use of company knowledge at best. Oh, and the whole stealing thing. That wouldn't go over well.
Fortified with a second cup of coffee and a warmed Pop-Tart, I set t work on the boxes. Hours of tedious, methodical sorting and scanning came to pass, and unlike in movies, it wasn't compressed into a intensely-scored montage. But it was oddly soothing, doing something so mundane after entertaining a demon, so I relished it. Except for the paper cuts, those still sucked. I was four boxes in when I found the business card, and with a flash of inspiration, I realized this was exactly the kind of thing I needed. I could claim I picked up the book in an antique shop, or an estate sale, and it had the card tucked inside. Hopefully the phone number on it still worked, they had sold their business, but this wasn't the number that was on all the official, legal paperwork, so maybe it was a cell number that was still being used by one J. Burke?
The phone rang four times before going to voicemail, a generic greeting by the robotic voice reciting the number I'd just dialed. I should have been prepared to leave a message, but I wasn't, and it ended up coming out in a jumbled heap of words.
"Hi, my name is Becca and I just bought this very odd book, and your card was in it, and I was wondering if you could tell me anything about it? I know that seems like an odd question but as the card says you deal in antiques and I don't know much about real antiques, but this book definitely looks old and I wondered if it came from your shop at one point? It's a long shot and I'm sorry to bother you, but if you have a moment, could you please call me back?" I left my number and hung up the phone.
Fifteen minutes later, my phone rang and despite not recognizing the number, I answered. For once, it wasn't a telemarketer, it was J. Burke returning my call.
"Hello, is this Becca? You rang about a book?" A light, feminine voice said.
"It is, is this J. Burke? Thank you for calling me back."
"My name is Jessica, and it was no problem, but I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to help you. We sold our business, and don't have any of our old records, and if the history of the book you bought weren't included with it, there's not much we can do. Usually when someone buys and antique we give them the supporting documentation, after all, they own it now and will need it to sell it on. We do have some ledgers of things bought and sold, but I'm afraid unless it's frightfully valuable we don't track books that closely. There are a lot of old books floating around."
"This one is... a little more unusual than most," I said, suddenly unsure of what all I should tell her. "It's not in English, and it seems to be more of a diary with drawings and weird scribbles and I can't make heads or tails of it..."
There as a sharp intake of breath on the line, then silence that stretched just long enough to begin to feel uncomfortable.
"Is it smallish, about paperback sized but thin, with a worn brown leather cover?" She asked.
"Yes, and the drawing on the front seems to be mostly worn off, though I can't see anywhere that there was ever a title."
"You're on your own with Steve," she said brusquely. "I'm afraid I can't help you."
And with that, she hung up.
Admittedly, this threw me for a bit of a loop. My only lead turned out to seem to know quite a bit, but was obviously not willing to talk to me. I was back at square one, and had to talk to someone who knew anything about the occult. But while I wasn’t willing to believe Steve and think that everything we knew was wrong, I did have a healthy amount of skepticism that every corner mystical shop had all the answers. Because they all had different answers, and they couldn’t all be right. But how could I, a person who pretty much disbelieved in the occult altogether, figure out who was the more … and I hated to even think of it this way, but here we were… legitimate supernatural shopkeeper?
To the Google! First, it was easy to remove all the head shops posing as mystical shops from the list. They wouldn’t be any help. Then the chain stores pedaling crummy crystals and nonsense potions. Then there were the shops mentioned here and there in comment sections, the ones that didn’t have sleek ads or online stores. I found three of them in a reasonable radius from my house, and decided to start with the one closest to home. It was only a ten-minute drive, but I’d never noticed it. To be fair, it was one street over from an amazing local yarn shop, so it’s not like I ever drove through that neighborhood on any street other than the yarn shop street, because… yarn.
After a quick stop at the yarn shop (in my defense, they were having an amazingly good sale on a wool alpaca blend I’d had my eye on for quite some time), I made my way over to the shop. At first, I was very disappointed. It wasn’t a quaint, creepy, dark and mysterious little hole in the wall sort of shop, and the woman who looked up from the counter as I entered was dressed normally in a sweater and jeans. Nothing about it screamed occult. There were neat rows of books, some new, some old, and a smattering of candles and incense, but most of the shop was lined with locked display cabinets showcase old and odd things. More museum than shop, really.
“Can I help you?” The woman at the counter asked pleasantly.
“I hope so. I have this book, and… okay, it’s going to sound a little crazy, but… well… can you just take a look at it and tell me anything about it? I can’t even read it, don’ t know what language it’s in…” I trailed off helplessly, and held the book out towards her. She reached for it, but kept her eyes on me.
“I can certainly look, but why would you bring it here instead of to a book historian? I’m not an expert in other languages, so I might not be able to tell you anything about it.”
“Something… happened when I read it,” I said hesitantly.
She arched an eyebrow at that, but shifted her attention to the book in her hand. Her mouth pursed into a surprised “oh!” as she examined the cover, then slowly opened the book and began to leaf through the pages. She sucked in a surprised breath as she got to the page I had inadvertently read aloud.
“What exactly happened when you read it?” She asked, closing he book gently and setting it on the table.
“Um… this is going to sound crazy, but… a demon appeared. And yes, before you ask, I had been drinking, but not that much and there were signs the next morning that he had been there and I hadn’t imagined the whole thing.” I fidgeted, feeling my cheeks turn red, but she wasn’t looking at me with disbelief or shock, it was more… a combination of sorrow and pity. I’m not sure that wasn’t worse.
“Oh, no, you didn’t send him back?” She chewed on her lip. “This is… problematic, but perhaps not the end of the world. We can try to summon him back, and make sure it is clear that the previous invitation is rescinded. Otherwise, he can just pop in and out of this world willy-nilly, at least at night.”
“I didn’t even know how I’d called him, so no, I didn’t send him back. He was perfectly nice, though the shushing during the movie was a bit much.”
“Movie?” She looked perplexed. “You watched a movie with a demon?”
“Well, three, technically, I suppose, but I fell asleep during the first one. He must have put on the second and third one after I was asleep. I mean, I assume he watched the second one, but I only know for sure about the third because that’s what was shown as last played when I woke up.” I was babbling, because she was now staring at me in utter disbelief. “He’d washed his water glass, left it on the draining board, and vanished.”
“He… wasn’t in a circle?” She choked out the words, backing slightly away from me. “And you’re sure you’re… all right?”
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