The Gift of the Demons

by Mette Ivie Harrison

  “I want to know about that janitor,” I said. There was something in the back of my mind niggling about the fact that I hadn’t seen him. Had he been trying to avoid me seeing him? And why had he thrown the knife and then left? He’d been a hero, but then he’d run away like a criminal. It didn’t make any sense to me.

  “Yeah, I keep thinking about him, too. I wish I had thought to get a better look.”

  “Can you tell me anything? Hair color? Eyes? Shape of his face? Height? Weight?” I asked.

  “I don’t remember anything about him. Average height, kind of skinny,” said Georgia. “His face was—I don’t remember. He could have been anyone.”

  “But he couldn’t. He saved Carter with that knife. He must have known it was a demon. He must have known just what to do.” And he’d been in exactly the right place at the right time to do it. Janitors are great and all that, but I wasn’t sure your average janitor carried demon knives around, just in case. So maybe he hadn’t been a janitor?

  “A demon? Is that what you call it?”

  I realized that was the word Mr. Barry had used for it, and I hadn’t told Georgia I’d talked to him. So I explained about my conversation.

  “This just gets creepier and creepier. What do you think this German poem does?”

  “Mr. Barry made it sound like a magic spell or something.”

  “Magic?” said Georgia.

  “Yeah, well. You have a better explanation for what we saw?” I asked. I was serious. I actually wanted a better explanation.

  “Mass hysteria?” said Georgia. “Hallucinations caused by drugs accidentally ingested during lunch?”

  “Not sure if I’d rather believe I hallucinated all of that or not. But what about all the other people missing? And the police investigating them? They are all real, unless you want to believe that everyone in Utah is hallucinating.”

  “Hmm. But demons? Magic spells?”

  “What if we think about it as alternate science? As harnessing the powers of other universes and drawing them into our world?” I asked.

  “Now you’re starting to sound like a lame television show.”

  “So we’re stuck with demons and magic spells.”

  “The thing I want to know is, if these really are demons and people are making bargains with them, why are they so stupid? Wouldn’t they bargain away something they don’t need right now? I thought everyone bargained away their souls and then waited to die and be taken to hell?” said Georgia.

  “Maybe the demons don’t want souls anymore.”

  “And why would that be?”

  “Maybe it turns out they don’t believe in them,” I said with a smile. “Just like the rest of us. Useless bits of the imagination that fly away as soon as they’re caught.”

  “Well, that at least makes some sense. But Carter being a quadriplegic after only one year of having what he wants? You’d think he’d know how to drive a harder bargain than that,” said Georgia.

  “Where would he get the practice? No one really bargains around here for anything. You just pay the price. Except for cars, maybe,” I said.

  “Maybe the fact that no one believes in demons actually gives them more power. Makes people think the likelihood they’ll be collected on is a lot smaller. People disappear and no one sees what happens to them. In the old days, when people believed in demons, people probably didn’t make as many stupid bargains,” said Georgia.

  “So the rise of science is actually a demon conspiracy to keep us too stupid to know how to bargain for anything?” I said.

  Georgia shrugged.

  “I still don’t think I’m wrapping my mind around this. I can’t figure out how it fits in with the rest of everything I know to be true.”

  “And you have to have everything in little lines, like soldiers, don’t you? No messy world views for you,” said Georgia.

  “I need to have something to hang my hat on, yes. Call me a control freak if you like.”

  “Control freak,” said Georgia.

  “And what does that make you?”

  “The control freak’s best friend? And stabilizer?”

  “You’re really not having trouble with all of this?” I asked.

  “It’s surprising, but it’s not blowing my mind. I’ve always thought that people want science to be all neat. They want the world to fit into neat boxes, but the world is always resisting. There’s always some new scientific theory that throws everything else out of whack. But even the scientists don’t like to admit it.”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “Oh, string theory. Quantum theory. The big bang theory.”

  “Those all make perfect sense, if you understand them,” I argued.

  “Really? I know you want them to make sense. You shove them into these spaces they’re supposed to belong in, but to me, it seems like the edges between magic and reality are already getting blurry. So it doesn’t bother me as much as it does you, no.”

  “I still don’t like it.”

  “Well, then one up for me. This is possibly the first time that I have dealt with something complicated better than you,” said Georgia.

  I stared at her. “What do you mean?”

  She waved a hand. “Nothing, really.”

  “No, you meant something. What are you talking about?”

  “Just that you’re so confident, and so competent. It’s hard to keep up with you,” said Georgia.

  “Right. You’re jealous of me because I have everything,” I joked.

  “You don’t even see it’s true,” said Georgia.

  “Because it isn’t. I only have one friend in the whole school, I’ve had one pity date in all of my teen years, and now I have to deal with demons being real.”

  “But you know who you are. You are so—you,” said Georgia.

  “And you are so you,” I said. I didn’t want to keep going down this road. It made me uncomfortable. Georgia had no idea what I was missing, and I didn’t want to make her feel bad about it. She was the lucky one, not me.

  “About the janitor guy? What made you think he was a janitor, anyway?”

  “He was wearing one of those blue coveralls that all the janitors wear,” said Georgia.

  “Anything else?”

  “I’m thinking.” She tapped a finger on her cheek. “He had gray hair. About this tall.” She held a hand up to my height. “I don’t know. He wasn’t very noticeable. He kind of slumped and walked quietly.”

  He walked quietly? What did that mean?

  “If you saw him again at school, would you recognize him?” I asked.

  “You think he’s going to come back?” Georgia asked.

  “Maybe. If he’s not really a janitor, but someone hunting demons, high school seems like a good place to look. I mean, stupid people are everywhere, but there’s a higher concentration here.”

  “But Mr. Barry said that Carter would be OK?”

  “As long as he doesn’t make a new bargain with a new demon. If the old demon dies, anyone who made a bargain with him or her is free.”

  “I wonder what I would make a bargain with a demon for,” said Georgia. “If I had that poem.”

  I raised a finger. “Don’t even say something like that. It’s not funny.”

  We swam for a little while. Georgia is a great swimmer. She isn’t very sporty, but swimming is like an art form for her. She seems to glide through the water effortlessly, and she never seems to be breathing hard when she’s done. I think that my muscles are not such a great advantage in the water. They’re just extra weight that makes me sink. But after a while, I found a log to lean on and tried to keep up with Georgia.

  The water was warmer than you’d think. It’s one of the weird things about real lakes and reservoirs. In the early summer, the water is still freezing cold because it has just come off the glaciers, just melted ice water. In the fall, though, the water has had time to warm up to air temperature, so even if the weather is turning cold, it takes a long time for t
he water to catch up. Science. Water changes temperature more slowly than air.

  We got out and started shivering immediately when we hit the cool air. The sun was starting to set and my parents had started a fire on the beach to cook our hot dogs and marshmallows, the traditional dinner at the beach.

  I rubbed down quick and put on some sweats to stay warm. “See you tomorrow at school,” I said to Georgia.

  “Hey, Fallin. I thought of one more thing about the janitor,” said Georgia.

  I turned back. “What?”

  “He knew my name. He called me Georgia. And he knew your name, too. He called you Fallin. If he was a janitor, maybe that makes sense. But if he isn’t, why’d he know our names?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But maybe he’ll show up again and we’ll find out.”

  “You sound like you’re looking forward to that,” said Georgia.

  I thought about Carter and the demon. I thought about how scared he’d been, and the way the demon had deflated. I don’t think of myself as a violent person, but there are times when it feels good to really throw down. It had felt good with that demon. Only the next time, I was going to make sure I was doing the throwing. I had the knife, after all.

  “Maybe I am,” I said to Georgia.

  Chapter 5

  There was an older man standing at the door of Mr. Barry’s classroom Monday morning first period when I got there. He had gray hair and was about my height, sort of average-looking. He was wearing a button down shirt and khakis, standard adult-in-high-school clothes.

  “Hi,” I said.

  I noticed he also had a pencil in his pocket, along with a small spiral notebook.

  “Hello. I can’t let you go in there right now. I’m sorry.”

  “What? Why not?”

  “There’s been a gas leak and we’re waiting for someone to take care of it.”

  “What about class?”

  “I think you’ll have to meet in the library. That’s what I was told.” He shrugged.

  “Told? By Mr. Barry?” The fact that he wasn’t here yet was bad. Very bad.

  “No, by the principal. He sent me up to make sure that any students who came here were redirected. I’m just here to wait for the gas guy to come in and make repairs.”

  “So Mr. Barry and everyone else are in the library?”

  “Mr. Barry should be there already, but anyone who the school wasn’t able to reach on the phone this morning might show up here. That’s why I have to wait.”

  It sounded like it all made perfect sense. And if it hadn’t been for the fact that I had seen Mr. Barry in quite a state yesterday, I probably would have turned away and headed for the library.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “Who are you, anyway? You’re not one of the regular teachers.”

  “Substitute,” he said casually. “Just here for the day. Though if I’m lucky, maybe I’ll get hired to come back another time.”

  He looked like I’d expect a substitute teacher to look. A little bored, a little nervous, and otherwise not noticeable at all. And then I thought about the other older guy that hadn’t been noticeable at the school recently. The janitor who had thrown the knife at the demon woman on Friday night, and had saved Carter’s life. Or at least saved his limbs.

  Georgia had said that he had gray hair and was about my height. She hadn’t really given me anything else useful. But there was something about this guy that made me pretty sure that was him.

  “You ever moonlight as a janitor?” I asked.

  He stared at me a moment, then looked away suddenly. “Actually, I have done that, yes. I was laid off my job a few months ago and have been trying to get work anyway I can. Janitor or substitute, whatever works.” He shrugged again, and then I realized he was slumping a bit. He was actually a couple of inches taller than I was, but he was trying not to show it.

  Slumping and what else was it Georgia had said? Walking quietly? It seemed like this guy had gotten quiet down to an art.

  “OK, I’ll head down to the library, shall I?”

  He nodded at me.

  I walked down the hall, then doubled back. He was just putting a sign up on the door that said, “Mr. Barry’s classes will meet in the library today.”

  I had a terrible feeling that Mr. Barry was not in the library at all. There was something wrong here, and this janitor/substitute guy knew more than he was letting on. I watched as he put a nail file in the lock, jimmied it until it opened, and then stepped inside. It looked like he’d done the same thing a hundred times before. He closed the door behind him.

  I stood by the door as a couple of other students came by, saw the sign, and headed to the library. No reason to get any of them into this, whatever it was. So I let them leave and listened as much as I could, with all the other hall noise going on around me.

  There was no screaming for help, no sound of a violent struggle with a demon inside. So what was the janitor/substitute doing in there?

  Finally the bell rang and things quieted down. Everyone else had headed to the library. If Mr. Barry really was there and there really was a gas leak inside the room, I was going to feel pretty stupid.

  But if there was a gas leak, then why was this guy going in there without any mask or tools?

  “Shouldn’t you be down at the library?” asked Mr. Iris a couple of minutes later. His job appears to be going through the halls during class time to make sure that people aren’t skipping.

  “Um, they asked me to come up and get something from the classroom,” I said. I put my hand on the door and smiled at Mr. Iris.

  He went away, but then I realized that the door knob, which the janitor/substitute guy had jimmied, was open.

  I stepped inside and saw the janitor/substitute guy in the middle of the room with all of Mr. Barry’s books pulled out of the cases, thrown on the floor and open. Some of them had pages torn out. I’d never seen the room this messy. Mr. Barry was meticulous about putting his books back in the proper place. He had them organized by century and then alphabetized. I gaped at the thought of what Mr. Barry would do when he saw this. If he saw this.

  “What are you doing?” I gasped.

  The janitor/substitute turned around, saw me, and waved to the door. “Close it, quick,” he said, with such urgency that I responded immediately.

  Then I noticed that he looked different. Not as bland as before. Somehow, his face had come to life. His eyes were bright, his mouth was open and I could see that he had braces on.

  That was kind of weird. A guy that age with braces on? I guess that sometimes happens. Maybe he lost some teeth while fighting a demon and ended up having to get work done to correct it.

  He also looked dusty and tired and I could see his hands were callused and scratched and bleeding. I hadn’t noticed his hands before. Had he had gloves on or just hidden them? Or had all that happened while he was taking Mr. Barry’s books out?

  I hadn’t heard anything, but then again, there had been a lot of noise in the halls. Still, I remembered what Georgia had said about him being quiet.

  “You weren’t supposed to see this,” he said.

  “Yeah, I guess not. What is going on?”

  “Would you believe me if I said I was looking for the gas line to turn it off?”

  “Uh, no. I wouldn’t,” I said.

  “Or that Mr. Barry asked me to find a particular book and I got a little carried away?” He shrugged again, and he seemed to slide back inside himself. Unassuming, unnoticeable. How did he do that? Was that magic, too? Or just something he’d learned how to do after years of sneaking into places he wasn’t supposed to be?

  “Look, I know you saved Carter’s life on Friday night. I know you’re a demon fighter. So you don’t have to lie to me anymore.”

  “You believe in demons?” he said, and laughed a little.

  I stared at him, hard. I had been laughed at far too many times in my life to be afraid of it. I had learned how to not react at all when I didn’t want t
o.

  “Well, it was worth a try, anyway. That works on almost everyone, you know, Fallin.”

  I felt a shiver run down my spine. Georgia had said he knew my name. But it was weird hearing him say it. Not just the fact that he knew it, but the way he said it, like he knew me really well. Maybe he’d researched me or something, as part of his quest to save Carter. Or to do whatever it was he was here in Mr. Barry’s room to do. Or maybe he had some magic that he could use when he said anyone’s name. It felt personal, though.

  “Are you going to tell me what you’re doing here or not?” I asked.

  “Are you sure you really want to know? You could turn your back on all this right now, go down to the library like everyone else and have a perfectly normal life.”

  “I’ve never had a normal life,” I said. “And I doubt that’s going to start happening now. I’d rather know the truth, thank you very much.”

  A shadow crossed his face. “Lots of people think they want to know the truth,” he said. “Until they hear it.”

  “I’m tougher than lots of people,” I said, lifting my chin.

  He looked at me and I had the feeling he was really seeing me. It was weird. Sometimes people look through me. Sometimes people stare at me. Georgia looks at me and sees her friend, Fallin. Mom and Dad look at me and see their daughter, Fallin. But I’d never had anyone look at me as if they saw all of me, all the different faces I showed to the world, and then the ones I didn’t show to anyone, that I kept hidden inside of me.

  “I guess you are at that,” he said. “Well, then. I’m here to burn all of Mr. Barry’s books.”

  My mouth dropped open.

  “It sounds terrible, I know. But it’s a necessity. I can’t let other people read them and accidentally discover something they shouldn’t.”

  “Is this about that German poem?” I asked, my voice more like a croak.

  “It’s about anything that will lead anyone to that poem, as you call it. It’s a spell,” he said. “A summoning spell for demons. An invitation to make a bargain. And that is magic that no one should ever have. Fallin, do you believe me?”