“While you were boiling the water for the pasta. I was kind of testing it out to see if the voices came back. If they did, at least someone else would be around to hear them.”
“The voices? What kind of voices?”
“When I use the book it’s like there’s someone else on the line.”
“The line? Like a phone line?”
“Yeah, when I use the book it’s like… I don’t know, it’s like I’m making a call. It’s not me that makes things happen, it’s the person or god, or whatever power is on the other end of the line that makes things happen. When they pick up, it’s stable, it’s powerful, it makes me feel like I’m connected to everything around me but not anymore. Now there’s someone else there, there’s static on the line and everything is hard to hear through them.”
The power, the feeling, whatever it is that I felt earlier perks up. I can feel it coursing through me as it settles in my chest, right over my heart. I press a hand there to not freak out.
“What do you hear if it’s not the power you’re used to picking up the line?”
“Screams. I hear voices screaming they want me. I can’t understand what they’re saying but I know what they sound like. What they want. They’re not human.” Charlie looks out the living room window. “I think they’re demons, Meadow.”
I don’t get to reply or ask why he thinks they’re demon voices on account of the piercing shriek that rips through the house a second later.
Chapter
Five
“Mulberries!” I yell and grab my chest when I realize it’s not a ghoulish demon voice screaming to take Charlie away. It's just the kettle. My heart feels like it’s about to leap out of my chest. Thank the gods I’m sitting down. I have to double over and brace my hands on my knees to stop from puking.
Charlie points at the kettle. “You might want to…”
I straighten up and go right for the stove. “So that was bad timing.”
“The worst. I think I’ll have that tea now.”
My hands shake while I prepare our tea. I pour the water and end up splashing myself, but I ignore it. I use lavender and chamomile, anything to calm me down. No matter how much I try to steady my shaking hands it’s no use and the teacups clatter against the saucers when I carry them to the table.
Charlie gives me a knowing look as he sits down with me. “So, ah, demon voices?” I ask.
He gives me a glum nod. “Yeah, demon voices. Kind of sucks the big one.”
I don’t ask what the big one is. “How do you know they’re demon voices? They could be human.”
“There’s something to them that doesn’t feel human. It doesn’t feel like it’s anything I’ve ever heard except for one time before.”
That has me interested. “What did you hear before?”
“Wrath,” Charlie says softly and gives me a furtive look. “When I first met him he was making a deal with me even though I didn’t realize it, for my games book. He was in human form but he slipped, just for a second and I heard it. His voice changed, it was like…like death. It was in my head. Powerful stuff.”
Death.
I blow on my tea and think for a second. “Why do I have a feeling this is connected to the mini-demons?” The timing of everything is far too neat to be coincidence. “I’m right aren’t I? The mini-demons are in on this?” I ask him.
He clears his throat and toys with the tea saucer in front of him. “I think you’re right. I-I think they were looking for me. I think maybe it’s them that I’ve been hearing when I try to use the book lately. Tonight…it didn’t happen at first. I thought maybe it was over, just one of those magic book things but when I went to bed, they came. It was worse this time. I was dreaming, I could feel them there with me. The demons. They were evil, so evil, they wanted me to give them the book. I think the demons came to my house last night for the book.”
“Where were you when the demons came last night? You saw them, right? How?”
“I was in the graveyard,” he says without explanation, which has my attention.
“What were you doing in the graveyard?”
“Graveyard things.”
I sip my tea. “Charlie, I’m going to need more than that. You say you made me into a witch and I’m not going to lie…I feel something, right here,” I say tapping my finger against my chest. “So I believe you and I’m your friend so I want you to know mini-demons, full-size demons, whatever it is I’m with you till the end but we gotta have some transparency here. What if the mini-demons come here?”
