Behold, a Demon

“What have you summoned me for?” A demon stood in the centre of the ring of hands, skin fiery red, hair pointed and black.

“Ummm,” said Fey. “We’re not really sure. It was sort of an accident.”

“I see,” replied the demon. He shrugged and sat down, making himself comfortable. “Well, since I am here, anything you want to know?”

Everyone looked awkwardly at each other. They weren’t really sure how one was meant to treat an inappropriately summoned demon, but they’re pretty sure this wasn’t it.

“Aren’t there meant to be like incantations, and stuff?” asked Nathaniel.

“Only if you absolutely insist,” replied the demon. “This is much more fun, you know.” He looked around the room. “Anyone got a light?” he asked.

“We’re thirteen,” said Dianna, outraged.

“Oh,” said the demon. “So that’s a no, then? Pity.” He flicked his fingers, and the cigarette he had been rolling between them disappeared.

“Actually,” said Charlie. “There is something we wanted to know.”

“Oh yes,” the demon stopped examining his fingernails and looked up. “Ask away,” he prompted.

“We were practicing summoning earlier,” began Charlie.

“Oh, so that was you lot causing all those disturbances earlier. Quite annoying, really, spirits zipping in and out. Interrupted my game of Doom no end, lucky I can hit the save button in a hurry, let me tell you!”

“Yes,” tried Charlie again. “Anyway, the first spirit that was summoned said something interesting. Something about not following a path, because it would lead them to danger. We wanted to know what that was about.”

“I see,” said the demon. “Well, I don’t think I’m meant to tell you, but there’s nothing on tv, and Zieke is hogging the computer tonight. Listen carefully,” he said. “I’m about to give you An Important Clue”. He leaned in conspiratorially.

“The spirits are unhappy down below. Some spirits are talking of overthrowing Lucifer. He seems to have some sort of plan to quell the masses, but he cannot do it alone. He has enlisted help.” He looked around the ring, his eyes stopping on Aoife. “I can’t say more.” His voice had dropped to an eerie low. Suddenly he stood up. “Well, must dash,” he said, his voice chirpy once more. And with a sudden motion that called up the idea of smoke and flashes, without ever actually producing any, he was gone.

The novices looked at each other.

“Someone is planning something,” Nathaniel said slowly.

“They have enlisted aid,” added Charlie.

“And the path that they walk down is dangerous,” finished Aoife.

The Introduction of Socrates

“This is the Great Library of Alexandria,” replied Jesus.

Aoife wrinkled her brow. “Alexandria?” she repeated. “I thought we were in Memphis.”

“We are,” confirmed Jesus. “But in 10AD Memphis was taken by the Greeks, and renamed Alexandria. The library was founded by Socrates, a famous Greek philosopher.”

“I think I know him. Didn’t he teach Aristotle? Who then taught Plato?”

A chuckle sounded from behind Aoife and Jesus. Aoife whirled around.
“You make me sound like I belong in the bible,” commented Socrates.

Aoife turned accusingly to Jesus. “You said they wouldn’t be able to see us!”

“Most people here cannot. Socrates is not like most people. He is not a god, but he has crossed the line into immortality. He has been alive for more years than I know.”

“You could try a little harder to not make me sound so…old,” said Socrates with a mock shudder. “The white hair is just for show, you know, makes me look all knowledgeable and wise. It’s almost a requirement if you want to be a philosopher.” He Aoife up and down. “So,” he said. “You’re Aoife. Kinda small aren’t you?”

“I’m thirteen,” said Aoife. “How big do you want me to be?”

“Big enough,” said Socrates, mystically.

“Big enough for what?” asked Aoife.

Socrates looked at Jesus. “So you haven’t told her,” he commented.

Jesus looked meaningfully at Socrates. “We’re not even sure yet,” he said. “And I’m still not sure how you know.”

Socrates waved a hand dismissively. “Oh, I have my ways,” he says. “That’s part of what being a philosopher is about. Knowing things that others don’t.”

Jesus sent A Look in Socrates’s direction. “Yes, well,” he said. “Be that as it may, we are not here to discuss how and whether you know things. We’re here so that Aoife can see the Great Library.”

“Of course, of course,” said Socrates. “Right this way.” And he led them to a small door some way to the right of the steps.

“Where are we going?” asked Aoife.

“Why, to the library of course!” replied Socrates.

Aoife was almost running alongside Socrates, panting slightly with the effort. “But isn’t the library up there?” she gestured back towards the steps.

“Well, of course it is,” said Socrates. “Why would I build the steps so people could get to the library if the library wasn’t there? Such silly questions they’re asking these days,” he said as an aside to Jesus.

Aoife was getting slightly impatient now. “What I meant was: if the library is up there, then why are we walking over here?” She tried again.

“Well, then, why didn’t you say so!” remarked Socrates.

Aoife waited a few moments before saying “Well?”

“Well what?” replied Socrates.

Aoife sighed audibly, impatience tinging her words, “If the library is up there, then why are we walking over here?”

“You don’t think I’m going to walk up all those steps do you?” asked Socrates. “And risk a heart attack? Don’t you have any brains, girl?”

Aoife gave up and turned to Jesus. “How are we going to get to the library?” she asked.

“Socrates has always been somewhat…lazy,” he began.

“Hey, I heard that,” interrupted Socrates, but more out of habit than out of real indignation.

“You were meant to,” replied Jesus calmly. “So, when he built the library, he made sure that he had an access point that was far easier to use. That is where we’re going.”

“But why didn’t he just build the library at ground level, if he didn’t want to walk up all those steps?” asked Aoife.

“Why didn’t I? Build the library at ground level?” Socrates spluttered. “What’s the point of having an amazingly incredible building if it’s not going to look impressive? No one’s going to want to go to it if it looks boring and mundane! No! The trick is to make it look really important, then everyone thinks they need to go there. It’s all about the psychology,” he tapped the side of his head knowingly.

“But if there are all those steps,” argued Aoife. “Then no one wants to go because it’s too hard to get to. It’s all about the physical exertion,” she mimicked Socrates.

He looked at her appraisingly. “Well, well,” he commented to Jesus. “Maybe they do have some brains after all.” He stopped before a small dark door. “But enough of that,” he said cheerfully. “We’re here!” and he opened the door.

“Everybody in,” he ordered. Once they had all entered the small, dark room, he reached past them to a door on the other side. He opened it. “Everybody out,” he ordered again. And Aoife stepped into the library.

To Hypnotise, or Not To Hypnotise

“I want you to hypnotise me,” said Matthew.

“You want us to what?!” screeched Alice, outraged.

James looked at her in distaste. “Was that really a necessary reaction?” he asked. “He only asked us to hypnotise him. He didn’t ask us to murder puppies and then dance around with their corpses.”

Alice looked at him with disdain. “Do you have any idea how dangerous hypnotism can be? You could implant all sorts of ideas, make him do –” she broke off. “Hypnotism,” she said brightly. “What a wonderful idea.”

Matthew stared icily at her. “I don’t want you to make me do anything,” he said. “What I want is to find out what Clio was teaching us, and why she didn’t want us to know.”

“You think she told us why she couldn’t tell us?” Alice raised her eyebrows in polite disbelief. She paused, tilting her head to one side in consideration. “Did that even make sense?”

"No,” Matthew replied ignoring her last question and speaking slowly, as if to a particularly dense child. “But I think that if I work out what she was telling us, I can also work out why she didn’t want us to know.”

“I still say hypnotism is dangerous,” said Alice. “You’re placing yourself in an incredibly vulnerable state for this knowledge, are you sure it’s worth it?”

“It’s worth it,” said Matthew, grimly.

Deciphering the Cipher

Aoife sat in the library. She had abandoned the Research Desk when it failed to provide any more information about the scarab. She rested it on the table in front of her, then leant her head on her arms, which were crossed on the table. She stared the beetle in the eye, willing it to yield more information.

“I don’t think you’re going to win,” said Nathaniel as he approached.

“Hmmm?” Aoife said distractedly, raising her eyes to look at Nathaniel.

He nodded towards the statue. “The staring contest, I don’t think you’re going to win.”

“Oh, right,” she laughed slightly. She went back to staring at the scarab.

“Whatcha doing, anyway?” Nathaniel asked, sitting down next to Aoife, and lounging against the table, hand in head.

Aoife sighed. “Trying to work out what this scarab is for,” she said.

“Still?” asked Nathaniel.

“Still,” she sighed resignedly.

“Research Desk couldn’t help?” now Nathaniel was staring at the scarab.

“Nope,” Aoife replied. “It’s obviously some sort of message, but I don’t even know what language it’s in.”

Nathaniel looked at her as though she’d gone mad. “Aren’t those hieroglyphics?” he asked.

“You’d think that, wouldn’t you?” she replied. “But no. Or at least, they’re hieroglyphics of some guide, but not the kind traditionally used by the Ancient Egyptians. Which only leaves just about every possibility out there except perhaps for English. How marvellous, simply marvellous,” she imitated sarcastically.

“Oh don’t be such a sook,” said Nathaniel. “You’ve already narrowed it down from English and Egyptian hieroglyphs. How many more languages could there be?”

Aoife pushed a stack of papers over to him, roughly 5 centimetres thick. He opened it up, in a tiny scrawl on double sided pages, was a list of every language known to the gods.

“Ok, then,” he said. “Two down, three hundred and ninety four thousand, seven hundred and sixty-two to go.” And he laughed. Aoife joined in.

“You’re such a nut,” she said.

“It’s true, it’s all true,” said Nathaniel, as he flipped through the pages. “Ok,” he said, closing the bound papers with a dull thud, and pushed it away from him slightly. “Let’s do it.”

Aoife looked up, startled. “Do what?”

“Try and work out what that language is, of course,” said Nathaniel, a determined gleam in his eye.

Aoife looked at him as though he’d gone mad. “Didn’t we just have this conversation?” she said. “We don’t know what the language is, and it could be any one of three hundred and ninety four thousand, seven hundred and sixty-two languages.”

Nathaniel’s eyes continued to gleam. “Precisely,” he said.

Aoife thudded her head to the desk. “I give up,” she said, her voice muffled. “You’ve gone mad. There’s no hope. I’ll have to just kill you now to put you out of your misery. Hope you don’t mind too much.”

Nathaniel just laughed. “Oh, don’t be like that,” he said. “All we have to do is compare the hieroglyphs on the back of the scarab to the languages named on the parchments.”

Aoife looked up at him in disbelief. “Yep, mad,” she said.

Nathaniel laughed again. “It’s not like we’ve got any ideas, except for your plans to stare it outta the scarab. Come on,” he said, and he stood up.

“Where are you going,” Aoife didn’t move.

“Back to the Research Desk,” he said. “I want examples of all these languages, so we can compare them to the scarab.”

“I still say you’re mad,” said Aoife, but she stood up this time.

"Maybe," said Nathaniel. "But you're going to do it anyway."

Wherein Aoife debates Reality and Existence with Jesus

Aoife stared at her nachos. She was alone in the kitchen, her mother was in her lounge, communing with the spirit world, and her father was in the garage, doing whatever it was he did in there. There was something about the way the cheese was sitting, pooling in the middle, wrinkling at the sides. It almost looked familiar, like… a face? Maybe she could sell it on e-bay…She peered closer. The cheese blinked. No, that couldn't be right, Aoife thought. It must have just wrinkled as it cooled. Cheese didn't blink. Even cheese that had a face. It blinked again. Aoife shook her head and sniffed the air. No, she couldn't smell anything that would suggest that her mother had been burning the grass scented incense. She looked back at the cheese, and then jumped back surprised. The cheese writhed and wriggled, stretching and flexing until, quite suddenly there before her was the face of… "Jesus?" "Aoife!" the voice was cheery, friendly and yet somehow reproachful.

"Have I gone mad?" Aoif asked.

"Oh Aoife, no," replied Jesus.

"Why should I believe you?" Aoife asked. "I mean, if I have gone mad, and you're a figment of my imagination, you're hardly going to be admitting I've lost the plot, that would suggest you're not there, which means that you can't be answering me, so I haven't gone mad. And yet you are there, which means I must have."

"But even if you don't believe me, don't you believe in me?"

"Perhaps," replied Aoife. "But that doesn't mean you exist."

"But for you to believe in me, there must be something for you to believe in, and therefore I must exist," Jesus insisted.

"Ok, so I won't believe in you." Aoife turned away from the nachos.

"But you've been talking to me, you can't just pretend that that hasn't happened. If I didn't exist, this conversation wouldn't have happened, but it did, so I do."

"So you're suggesting that all illusions are in fact, reality, and that because someone perceives something to have occurred, it must have?"

"What other solution could there be? The only way we have to determine what is real and what is false is our own experiences. We have no way of independently verifying anything which is told to us by another person, to ensure that they processed and received the information in the same way we did. We are limited by our own experiences, and by our ability to convey those experiences. Who are we to put a limit on the reality in which we live?"

Aoife shoved the nachos away in frustration. "Ok, fine, so you exist! Now what? What do you want with me?!"

"We need to talk with you, Aoife. There's something you need to know."

Wherein Jesus's Appearance in the Nachos is Revealed

The five of them made themselves comfortable in Aoife’s room, before Dianna prompted, “Well? Where have you been?”

“Well, I guess you figured out that I was in Ancient Egypt after the trick with the crickets,” replied Aoife. The others grinned and nodded. “Well, I went there with Jesus. He—”

“You met Jesus?!” interrupted Fey.

“That’s so cool!” exclaimed Charlie.

“Well, I’d already met him before,” said Aoife.

“What?”“When?”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”

“I thought I had,” replied Aoife. “He appeared in my bowl of nachos, trying to talk me into becoming a God.”

“Jesus appeared…”
“In your bowl of nachos…”
“To tell you you were a god…” Fey and Dianna spoke in tandem.

“Well, yeah,” said Aoife.

They rolled their eyes at each other. “You really have the most amazing stories,” they said.

The Anthropomorphication of Awe

Aoife stepped into the library.

She was immediately struck still by awe. “Ow,” she said. “That hurt.”

“Sorry,” replied Awe.

Socrates hurried out of the room. “I’m so sorry about that, Aoife,” he said. He turned to Awe. “What have I told you about anthropomorphising in here?”

“Sorry,” said Awe, beginning to look crestfallen. “I just wanted to meet your new friend.”

Aoife began to feel sorry for her. “Hey, that’s ok,” she spoke softly, soothingly, trying to creep forward to have a better look at the creature.
“Stop that,” said Socrates crossly, swiping at Awe.

“What are you doing?!” cried Aoife, distressed.

“Trying to get her to de-anthropomorphise,” Socrates replied as he waved his arms in the air, as if swatting a particularly enthusiastic fly. “If she doesn’t go back to normal, then she’ll be stuck like that.”

“But she’s so cute,” said Aoife, following Awe around with her eyes. “Can’t we keep her?”

“We? What we? You’ll be going back to your time, soon, and then I’ll be stuck here with a miniature fairy who periodically attacks people. No, no, forcing her back to her own form is the only way!” and with a particularly vicious swipe, he startled Awe back into a non-entity. He wiped a drop of sweat from his brow. He looked back at Aoife. “Perhaps you could just give me a minute,” he requested. “Just to get this place cleaned up a bit?” and he gestured towards the bits of parchment and quills on the floor, and broken bits of pottery which he had damaged while fighting with Awe.

“Oh, sure, no probs,” said Aoife. “I’ll just go look around?”

The Plague of Locusts

Charlie, Nathaniel, Fey and Dianna stood crowded around the door to the Observation Deck.

“Did it work?” Dianna asked, anxiously.

Charlie reached a hand out to the door, nervously, and pushed at it with a finger. The door swung inwards.

“Yessss,” he celebrated, fist pumped in excitement.

“Now do you believe me,” said Fey, her hands on her hips, and a triumphant, knowing look in her eye.

“Yes, Fey,” said Nathaniel patiently. “We’ll never doubt your ability to read a book again.”

“You needn’t make it sound so easy,” said Fey. “You certainly weren’t all that keen on believing me last night when we were casting the charm.”

“Yeah, well,” said Charlie. “It seems hard to believe that no one else has tried this charm before.”

“Maybe no one had thought of it before,” suggested Fey. “I did get it from the Research Desk. I mean, how many people would think to charm the door to the Observation Deck to prevent it from realising that the person who opened it last hadn’t left.”

"Yeah, yeah,” said Charlie. “We get it, you’re brilliant. Can we go in already? I’m worried about Aoife, she’s been gone for two days.”

Fey lent forward and pushed the door open the rest of the way. “After you,” she gestured, and the four of them crowded into the Observation Room.

“Ok,” said Fey. “I think we’re all going to have to join in here. Everyone put your hand on the glass, and focus on Aoife and locating her. And remember no one step too close – we don’t need to fall through again!”

The four of them placed their hands on the dome, and concentrated. After a while the mist cleared to show… “Is that Ancient Egypt?” asked Dianna.

“It looks like it,” said Nathaniel. “I wonder what she’s doing there?”

They all leant a little closer, chests bending forward when: “Watch out!” yelled Fey.

“What?!” they all stepped back, startled. A smallish insect had leapt out of Charlie’s pocket as he had leant forward to look at the scene inside the Dome.

“Something jumped out of Charlie’s pocket,” said Fey.

“Oh that,” said Charlie. “That’s just my pet cricket, Jimminy.”

"You have a pet cricket called Jimminy that you carry around in your pocket?” Fey asked, in disbelief.

Charlie gave Fey a strange look, like she was the strange one for not carrying around a pet cricket. Especially one named Jimminy. “Of course,” he said. “Don’t you?”

“Guys! Leave it for a second!” called Dianna. “Your cricket has some how gotten into the Dome!” She pointed at the cricket squirming under the top of the Dome. Fey and Charlie stopped arguing, and looked to the Dome.

Nathaniel turned to Charlie. “How many crickets did you say you had?” he asked.

“Just the one,” replied Charlie.

“’Coz there isn’t just one now,” Nathaniel pointed to the dome, where thousands upon thousands of crickets rained from the sky.

***

Aoife and Jesus walked out of the library, in time to see millions of crickets pour from the sky.

“Is that a plague of locusts,” Aoife said, turning to Jesus in confusion.

“Looks more like…crickets,” he answered, no less confused.

Somewhere in time, the history books were re-written.

***