“You aren’t going to tell anyone about this, are you Charlie?”

Emma would have preferred to have been holding the rifle to his chest as she said this. But she was worried, and it had to be said. Emma stood on the back porch in front of the door. She spread her arms to grip the door frame, a last protection for grandmother’s privacy.

“I probably will tell,” Charlie said. He scratched his head and grinned sheepishly.

“Well you aren’t allowed. You are sworn to secrecy. Or I won’t let you inside.”

Charlie screwed up his face, wrinkling his nose. “What’s there to be ashamed of? Orwell’s daemons are the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“It’s not about that.” The daemons were her secret. They were what made Emma different from the rest of the world. She wouldn’t give them up that easily, so hatched an idea. She relaxed her arms to her side, and said with a sly smile:

“It’s in their contract,” Emma lied. “When grandmother summoned them, they put it in their contract to not be talked about. And if that’s broken, then they will burn down the town.”

Charlie’s eyes stretched and quivered. He seemed genuinely terrified. He glanced over his shoulder, over the fence where the daemons escaped. There had been no sign or sound of them since. Emma patiently continued:

“So you’ll stay quiet about them. We’ll find them tonight, get them back in their home before morning, and no one will ever know. And your home won’t burn down, with all your lovely family and pets.”

“You got it, missy. I won’t say a thing. Not to anybody.”

Emma opened the door and led Charlie into the house. She turned on all the porch lights, and the entry way lights, and left them on as they passed. She wound smother every shadow a daemon could hide.

“Where does grandmother keep the gun?”

“In the library. The tower part, up the stairs.”

Emma led up the spiral stairs of the tower to where she’d never been before. She was more comfortable that way. She turned on the stair lights, and up the worn stone steps. There were grooves in the stone as though they had been walked for a thousand years. Emma’s feet fit perfectly into the grooves. She felt like grandmother was walking with her.

“We aren’t going to shoot the daemons, understand. The gun is only for just in case,” Emma said sternly. “They are my friends. They are only misbehaving because they are upset about grandmother. Once they’re back home, they won’t cause trouble for anyone but me.”

“Do you know how to shoot a rifle?” Charlie asked.

“No. But I know how to threaten someone with it, so I will hold it,” Emma said firmly.

Along the stair hung rows of old photographs in simple wooden frames.

“Who are all those people?” Charlie asked.

Emma didn’t recognize any. They were dressed as regular people might, the men in gray suits, the ladies in dresses and hats. Strangers from another era. Grandmother’s life was as much a mystery to her as any stranger. Emma shrugged.

“Was Orwell a witch?” Charlie asked.

Emma glared at the boy. He didn’t shrink and wither into a toad like she intended. She shrugged. “I reckon so.”

At the top of the stairs, a small circular library unfurled itself. Emma turned on the lights, and was delighted to see a chandelier above their heads burst to life. Real sparks and flame spluttered up from the twisted black iron holdings to warm the room. But so too the light cast long shadows along the perimeter. There were no windows here. From the dark shelves, to the over stuffed chairs, to the great wooden writing desk, there was cover for all manner of daemons to lurk unseen.

“Other than your grandmother, I’ve never asked if anyone was a witch,” Charlie said.

“I’m not offended.”

Emma walked over to the writing desk. She tried not to think about the ink in grandmother’s blood. This means she thought about it, while thinking about what not to think about, and thought about it again. On top of the desk were neat stacks of blank paper. In a little holder rested a white bone writing quill like a mountain shrine. It was luxuriously carved with intricate patterns and signs, surely too minute for any hand. There wasn’t any ink, although that could be inside.

Within the desk were rows of little storage doors with brass knobs. It was funny to think of grandmother needing privacy now. Emma felt grandmother still kept many secrets though. They weren’t meant for Emma, and it wasn’t any of her business to be here, and grandmother would be so angry if she knew. And that made Emma know this is where she wanted to be. She tried to open the little doors, only to find them locked.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“Here we go.” Charlie had the rifle out. Emma didn’t know anything about guns, but it seems like the sort of thing you would shoot a duck with.

The gun had been in a long box on the floor, beside the poofy blue lace chair.

Emma rattled the brass knob of the drawers again. “She locks her desk, but not her gun? Give it to me.”

“The safety is on.”

“We’re going to leave it on,” Emma said. “It’s a gun for threatening.”

Charlie hesitated a moment, but Emma was indomitable in her glare. She imagined herself as grandmother scolding a child, who just happened to be taller than her. Charlie nodded and gave it to her. “I guess it belongs to you and your family now. Is this your house?”

“Yes,” Emma said defiantly.

“You’re lucky. I wish I had my own house. My place is noisy all the time. I’ve got two brothers and two sisters, and I love all of them, but not all the time. It was a real treat when your grandmother would invite me over. I wouldn’t say her daemons were friends though. They never got closer than sniffing me. And I never saw them in the light.”

Emma was snooping through the shelves now. Great leather bound volumes. Many had ornate patterns of gilded gold. She pulled one out, only to find it was in a language she didn’t recognize. The very alphabet was strange, with twisting curly bits like electricity running through them.

Her heart skipped when she saw something like a body on the floor. In the shadows, against the wall. But no, it was only the padding for a bed and the rumpled blankets. Is this where grandmother slept, on the floor of the library? Or did she have other visitors and pets beyond the daemons Emma had already lost?

“If you were a daemon, where would you go?” Emma asked absentmindedly.

“I thought you were the one who knew. You were telling me about their contracts earlier.”

“Right. That. I can only say for sure what I remember from stories. But if we’re living in a story of our own now, then perhaps that is the most reliable guide. In the stories I know, daemons want to enter the world. They promise us gifts in exchange. If we take their gift and let them in, then we’re responsible for all the trouble they cause if they escape.”

Emma headed back down stairs as she talked. She turned off the chandelier, wary of the real flames that sparked here.

“What kind of gifts?” Charlie asked.

Emma felt powerful with the rifle. She marched instead of walking, her finger stroking at the trigger. The courage lasted until she set foot on the porch once more, and looked at an dark empty sky. The sun had fully set now. She had no idea where the daemons had gone. And while it was only a hotheaded threat about the daemons burning down the town, the possibility seemed very real to her now. She took a deep breath, before turning back into the house.

“Hey, where are you going? The daemons aren’t in there.”

Emma went through the house again and turned off all the lights. A minute later she was back on the porch, and turned that light off too.

“They don’t like the light,” Emma said sternly. “Anyway, we need to let our eyes adjust to the darkness.”

“If I was a daemon, I would go to church. Smash things up a bit, just to rub it in their faces.”

“They’re angry about grandmother. Did she spend much time in the church?”

“Never. Part of why I thought she might be a witch.”

“Is there somewhere you think might have been special to grandmother? Somewhere she might have taken them, perhaps?”

Charlie shook his head, glumly.

“You didn’t know her very well at all, did you?” Emma asked.

“She’s your grandmother.”

“I tried to make her my grandmother! It wasn’t my fault! I would have liked to know her better. And I feel like I do already.”

“She wasn’t part of anyone’s life but her own, as much as I liked the lady.”

“How did she help your family?”

Charlie sat down on the edge of the porch. He started picking at the peeling rubber of his worn sneakers.

“Got my parents back together,” Charlie said. “Don’t know how she did it. The pastor couldn’t do it. But your grandmother got them in her kitchen and gave them a talking to. I’ve been grateful to her every since.

“Did she put a spell on them?”

“I thought she might have.”

Emma wouldn’t sit. She felt her way through the dark garden toward the silhouette of the oak tree. If she could stand on top of the chicken coop, she might be able to reach the lower branch. Then she could swing her way up to that higher one, no problem. That would be the best view she could get, since there weren’t any windows in the tower library.

Charlie followed her from the porch. Emma set the gun down to rest against the trunk of the tree.

“Don’t you touch it,” Emma said. “I’ll be watching you, even when I’m not.”

Then she scrambled on top of the red barn. The slouching angle made it much easier to climb. Using the fence with cross bars as leverage, she soon found her footing. Then she was up, swinging into the branch, wrapping her legs to secure her grip. She cackled slightly in triumph, although cut herself short when she realized it sounded a little too witchy.

“Where did grandmother go?” Emma called down. “When she traveled and left you with her chickens?” She mustn’t forget. They aren’t daemons. They’re only lost chickens, and there was nothing to worry about.

“To visit her sisters,” Charlie called from the ground. “Are you okay up there?”

“She doesn’t have any sisters.”

A mutual silence of shared understanding.

“Her witch sisters.” Charlie said first.

“Her witch sisters.” Emma giggled. “It’s wonderful isn’t it?” She reached for the higher branches.

“I don’t think my pastor would agree, missy.”

“I mean wonderful that there’s still magic in the world. There are days where it’s easier to believe than others. I think I would have had a much harder time losing grandmother, if I didn’t already know about the magic she had. I know she was part of something bigger though, and that thing is still there with her in it, even if I won’t see her anymore.”

“I never doubted there was magic in the world.”

“What? Not even once?” Cora hung upside down briefly, looking at Charlie from underneath a branch.

Charlie shook his head, barely visible in the dark. “Never.”

He said the word with such deliberate solemness that Emma couldn’t help but believe him. And there was something magical in that alone, to have such an unbreakable belief. A self fulfilling prophecy, a contract he’d signed in blood.

Emma perched herself solidly upon the branch. Looking over the fence, she was bathed in the glow of a distant light. Emma stared into it, and felt as though the gates of hell were opening before her.

“Do you see anything up there?”

“Who lives at the tall green house, few blocks away?”

“It’s a restaurant. Chinese food, the Dim Sum Palace. Are the daemons on the roof?”

“No. I don’t know. Probably. It is on fire.”

“It’s what?”

“On fire. We’ve got to go. Now. Catch me, I’m taking the shortcut down.”

The daemons had started a fire already, and it was all her fault.

Emma leapt from the branch, willing the earth to swallow her up as she fell.