“Pe-Pe-Pee-Dee-Ayy,” stuttered Derek-Derek, rummaging in his pockets. “Ha-Ha-Hard ha-ha-ha-hat…”

Thais smiled, parting the waterfall of perspiration that streamed down her face. “Now the other one, right? STUT--”

“No!” The crone slapped her. “You want to lose your playbook after all that effort? Think of a different word.”

“I’m not your enemy, love,” said Hardhat, hiding behind his human shield. “No need to cast your posh spells on me. Have you seen the lads who were wearing the vests hanging off t’up tree?”

“We felt the energy of your playbook,” said the crone, wiping Thais’ face with a handkerchief. “Sorry, but I can’t let you run around the first circle with power like that. I’ve got to tongue-tie you and take you to my employer.”

“N-n-no,” stuttered Derek. “Mo-mo-mo-monster!”

“Human with a playbook means you killed a demon,” she said, opening her menu. A burst of pressure filled the garden, prompting a swarm of moths to take off and cloud the sky. “That makes you the monster, really. Careful, now—I’m not like my apprentice. I won’t show any mercy.”

“Ju-Juliette, watch out, they’re dangerous,” said Thais, batting away the moths.

“Blimey,” said Hardhat. “I don’t suppose there’s any way we could talk this out? Alright, Derek, stop all that squirming around, would you?”

The crone shook her head. “If you don’t hold him back, I’ll be forced to kill him on principle.”

Derek-Derek replied by screaming in rage.

“Why’d you go and say that for?” asked Hardhat, getting dragged forward by the madman in armour. “Now he’s even more riled up. Now I reckon we’d all get along if we were to grab a pint together. What do you say?”

“MUTISM,” said the crone.

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“...!” said Hardhat, puckering his lips like a fish with a kissing habit.

He scanned the garden for an escape route. Smooth-stone walls barricaded three sides of four, and the fourth side, a dainty wooden fence, gave way to a sheer drop. Beyond the cliff, fields of dark green rolled across the landscape, perhaps endlessly, in a fit of heavy-handed symbolism.

“...”, he said, longingly.

Derek-Derek rapped a gloved knuckle on Hardhat’s clipboard three times, drew his finger along his throat, pointed out the two menu-wielding demons, then nodded and smiled. But Hardhat was too busy staring into the distance, so the knight thumped him in the chest just as Juliette played another word.

“Did you know, Thais,” said the crone, “That the more deeply you resonate with a word, the greater its effects will be? Which do you think is better for me to play, LOVELY, or AGING?”

“Um,” she said, “I mean, uh, I’ve always thought you had a, sort of, kind-of-kindness about you, that, in a certain light, might prompt someone, after a little bit of drink, to venture slightly towards a word in, if not exactly, the area of ‘lovely’.”

Juliette chortled, a deep-belly laugh, and slapped Thais on the back. “You really are your mother’s kid. I’m not afraid to say that I’m an old bitch. AGING.”

Hardhat watched in horror as the skin on his arms dried up and wrinkled like leather on a tanning rack. Fatigue steeped his bones in cold. Derek-Derek hunched over, leaning on his poleaxe.

“That’s horrible,” said Thais. “They won’t stay like that, will they?”

Juliette simply exhaled, latched onto the two men’s shoulders, and led them towards the door inside.

“...”, said Hardhat. All he’d wanted was to look at those fields a little longer, but now it seemed he was completely beat, just like when Derek beat down Eve. Hands vibrating more vibrantly than a vibrator, he flipped over his clipboard, just to go over his favourite section one last time. He held the text a millimetre from his face in order to read it.

CORRECT LIFTING PROCEDURE FOR PUTTING ITEMS AWAY

A wave of nostalgia hit him. How had he grown up so fast? It felt like he’d read this as a young-ish man only yesterday. He twirled his pencil and circled a word then, arm rising like a skyscraper in a timelapse, showed the women the clipboard.

Juliette snapped away her gaze. “No, Thais, you musn’t look, he’s trying to play a--”

“Why did he circle AWAY?” asked the protégée.

Something popped so loudly that it was completely silent, and the humans vanished.

They found themselves down the valley in a thick, bushy field that swallowed up the earthy paths dug through it, and there were people.