Grandmother Orwell's house used to be a shed, before it was a ranch, before it was a barn, before it was a farmhouse, before being briefly renovated into the state governors mansion, before being given back to grandmother in an unusual circumstance. Emma had never heard the full story, and now she never will. It was likely however, she thought, that one of the daemon eggs hatched and granted grandmother a wish to fix up her house.

The house was like no other, rebuild and expanded over the years. Parts stitched together from different times, some wood, some brick, some rock, giving it the appearance of Frankenstein's monster. The most striking feature was the round white stone tower, three stories tall, one higher than the rest of the house. It was an addition made during the governor's occupation, with great Victorian windows which seemed completely out of place above the humble farmhouse below. The house stood alone on a hill, with two old beach trees shading the chicken coop in the back yard.

The closest neighbor was less than a block away. After that it was a few blocks, and then a mile or two. If something unexpected happened -- and Emma surely wished that it would, although not the nasty kind -- then it would take time for her to get help.

"Are you sure you're old enough to stay here on your own?" her mother asked. She was wringing her hands uneasily. She unlocked the front door, but seemed reluctant to step inside.

If Emma wasn't sure, she'd never admit it. She did wish they had been able to get an earlier start in the day though. The shadows were already lengthening, decorated with the black scales which haunted Emma's imagination.

"I can take care of myself. I'm not eleven anymore," said the twelve year old girl as she dragged her overstuffed backpack along the ground. She loved the house again as soon as she saw it. In some way, she knew the house was hers. Of course no one else was aware of this, or would agree had they known.

Her mother shivered, nodding vigorously, as though to convince herself. "Everyone has their own process. How you handle things, like grief -- you're more like my mother than you are like me. I'm sorry that we couldn't have ended on better terms. I'm sorry about a lot of things." Her mother sighed, rubbing her tired eyes with the backs of her hands.

"Thanks for bringing me here."

Her mother nodded again, more sure this time. "I just want you to know that I understand we aren't quite the same, and that's okay, we don't have to be. If you think having some time alone and staying at your grandmother's house is going to bring you closer to her, and give you peace about what happened... well it's not how I would handle it, but I respect it's how you want to, and I want you to have that experience."

"I just wanted to feed the chickens," Emma offered meekly.

"Right. Of course. The chickens." Mother smiled tensely. "Give me a hand with the groceries then. You're sure you want to be eating hot dogs every day?"

"Chickens eat hot dogs, right?"

"Of course, dear, everything eats hot dogs," her mother said, distracted. She was pulling brown paper bags of food from the trunk of the car and laying them on the cobblestone path leading up to the door.

"That's what I was thinking too," Emma said, content. "Anyway I have a few books left on my summer reading list, and this will give me a chance. Are you sure you're going to have enough to do without me around?"

Mother laughed, then caught herself. "I can never tell when you're being serious or not. And you don't think you're going to be lonely here for a week?"

"I am quite sure you aren't serious."

Soon after Emma stood on the cobblestones and waved. Her mother waved back, blew a kiss, honked the car horn twice, and she was gone.

Emma flinched at the sound, but smiled until the car was out of sight. Then she strained her ear, listening for any reaction to their sound.

"I'm sorry about the noise!" Emma shouted, flinching again at the realization of hypocrisy.

First Emma walked through the house slowly, turning on the lights one by one. The kitchen lights, the hall lights, the stair lights, the bedroom lights, the porch lights... until there wasn't a dark corner left for a daemon to hide in.

Emma left her backpack in the guest bedroom she stayed before. Then she went to the backyard, turning on those lights as well. Then hesitating on the porch, she turned off those lights again.

"I know you don't like the lights, chickens. And I don't know how you feel about noise, but I promise I make very little."

Emma pulled out her phone to use as a flashlight instead. She walked carefully through grandmothers garden to stand before the slouching red chicken coop.

She wooden bar locked the door. Distinct rustling from inside. Emma gave a deep breath of relief. They were still there. But even without opening the door, she could feel something was different than when she visited with grandmother. Instead of the soft sounds of stretching across the hay, there was the scraping of claws against the wood. Angry sounds, wild sounds, daemons dashing back and forth across the room.

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"Easy, easy," Emma cooed. "Do you know what happened to grandmother?"

BOOM BOOM. Two heavy thuds in quick succession. The boards of the chicken coop trembled.

BOOM BOOM. The daemons were hurling themselves against the walls. They were mad. They wanted out.

"I know you're upset. I'm upset too, but I'm sorry I have to ask: did you have anything to do with grandmother's death? Why was there ink found in her blood?"

Scratch scratch scratch against the walls. Then silence.

"That's better," Emma said. "I'm going to be taking care of you now, alright? You're not going to give me a hard time when I try to feed you."

Silence. Not a rustle, not a stir. Emma waited patiently for about ten seconds before beginning to worry. What if they had torn a hole in the back fence? What if they had already escaped?

"Chickens?" Emma called. In that moment, she wanted them to be chickens so much more, she would prefer to call them that so not to be afraid.

"Chickens are you there? Do you want me to feed you, or not?"

The silence was a cruel master, and Emma was unwilling to serve. Unable to bear it any longer, she lifted the wooden bar and opened the door. Brandishing her phone's flashlight like a sword, she swung it back and forth to ward them away as she entered the coop.

A terrible hiss surrounded her, and the beating of black wings like a swarm of bats streaming toward her. Emma screamed. She swung the phone around trying to shield her face. The air was thick with them, half flying, half crawling over the walls on clawed wings. They were larger than chickens, more like a monkey really. Emma didn't get a good look before she covered her face, only enough to see the black scales, the shining claws, the leathery wings. But strangest were the misaligned eyes: never appearing in pairs, numerous and usual in their size and color and expression. Human eyes, tiger eyes, runny eyes dripping with wax, eyes like twinkling stars, or serpent eyes, hypnotic and hungry.

"Come back here this instant!" Emma shouted helplessly.

It was too late. The daemons had escaped. All six of them, bounding and leaping and flapping and hurling themselves to vanish over the neighbor's fence.

"You can't!" Emma cried in exasperation. "Grandmother took care of you! You ungrateful... chickens come back! Who is going to feed you now?"

Emma wanted to cry. For the first time since grandmother died. She'd told herself she wasn't a little girl anymore, and didn't know the woman well, and a lot of other sensible things which she couldn't remember right now. Emma thought she was like grandmother, and could do anything she could do, and now she'd made a mess of it already. She was more like her mother after all, emotional and out of control.

Emma raced back inside to check her backpack. The black daemon egg she brought was still there, safely padded with her t-shirts. Emma ran back to the fence, checking the coop in case the chickens listened to her and came back, full of sorrow and regret for how they behaved.

The coop was empty. There weren't even any eggs left inside. Just matted straw, with little pools of what looked like melted candle wax here and there. She shined the light down into the food trough, and saw it squirming and teaming and shying away from her light. She'd been feeding them worms and maggots of all shapes and sizes and colors, all jumbled together like forbidden candy.

Numb and shaken, Emma walked outside again and stared at the fence where the daemons disappeared. She jumped in alarm to see the face of a boy about her own age staring back at her from over the top.

"Did you lose something?" the boy asked innocently. He looked like someone you'd find on an advertisement saying 'boy golly gee would I ever like one of those.' He wore a pressed buttoned shirt like he was in church. A little too clean and neat and swell for Emma's mood.

"Yes I lost my chickens! They've escaped and I think they went --"

"Your chickens?" he interrupted. He cocked his head to the side, not comprehending but intending to, like a golden retriever.

"How long have you been watching?"

"I know chickens, missy. Those weren't chickens."

Damn it. Emma stomped her foot. She scrunched her face in frustration. There was a small yellow dandelion growing beneath a crack in the stone nearby. It looked as though it had a hard life, but nothing could have prepared it for Emma ripping it from its roots and stuffing the entire thing into her mouth. She chomped angrily on it, then spat it out on the ground. She didn't know why she did that, but she felt a little better afterward.

She was waiting for the neighbor boy to explode with questions and accusations. Maybe he'd call the police. It wasn't a crime to let daemons loose, right? Emma would rather be found in hell than jail, with her mother having to pick her up. She'd never hear the end of it.

The boy didn't say anything though. He only watched, his head resting on the wooden board, no concern or curiosity to what's around or behind him.

"Did you know grandmother Orwell?" Emma asked at last.

"Sure did," he replied. "She let me take care of her chickens sometimes when she went away."

"Oh wow, okay. So you know they're daemons." Emma put her hands on her head and took in a deep breath. It was a relief not to be the only one carrying this secret. But at the same time, she was a little disappointed, having thought she was the only one Grandmother trusted.

"Where are they going?" he asked, leaning his head back the other way.

"I don't know. You don't seem very alarmed though. They must get out all the time."

"Nope," the boy said. "My name is Charlie. Would you like me to help you find your daemons, missy?"

"Yes please." The words were so quiet, a whisper beneath a whisper, that surely no one could have heard a few inches away. Charlie couldn't have heard either, but in a moment he was swinging his legs over the fence and dropping onto her side.

"Sorry about your grandmother," Charlie said. "I'm happy to help though. She's done a lot for me and my family over the years."

"Does everyone here know she has daemons?" Emma asked incredulously. "Had daemons," she corrected. It would explain a lot about the postman, certainly.

"Just me, and a few of the boys that I told, but I don't think they ever believed me. Come on, I'll show you where old Orwell kept her hunting rifle."

Emma wrung her hands, catching herself. It was so like her mother to be afraid of something like a gun. But Emma wasn't like her mother. She wasn't afraid of anything.

"I want to hold the rifle," Emma said emphatically, following Charlie up the porch steps.