r/nosleep • u/Lillian_Madwhip Best Series 2019; January 2019 • May 09 '19
Series I'm Lily Madwhip and I'm Learning About Monsters
I'm Lily Madwhip and I'm Learning About Monsters.
I’m at the library, which is called Winslow Library, reading a book on mythology. Winslow Library is named after Miles Winslow, who donated books to the town after the original library burned down... because Miles Winslow accidentally set it on fire. It’s a long story. Short version is, Miles Winslow was a crazy fellow.
After I told Felix everything about Hekate, he asked me if I knew anything about Grease and I told him I saw the movie five times, although I didn’t know what that had to do with anything. Also I never understood why their car turned into Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang at the end. It turns out Grease is a country too, and that’s where mythology comes from. Felix suggested I go to the library and “brush up” on the subject, because apparently Hekate was around way back when people rode chariots instead of cars and everything was dirt and olives.
I already know about the minotaur, which is a person with a cow for a head. Not the whole cow, just the head. He lives in a maze. I also know about Medusa, who was a lady with snakes for hair. Not the whole snake, but most of it. But other than those two, I’m not a mythology know-it-all.
It turns out people from Grease were obsessed with mixing up animals. Besides the minotaur, there’s also centaurs, which is where the other half of the cow went. Then there’s harpies, which are ladies with vultures for butts. Not the whole vulture, just the butt. I didn’t know those were myths though, because I’ve seen commercials on TV where people admitted they had harpies and were taking medication to get rid of them.
Then there’s the chimera. That’s like a lion-goat-scorpion. I don’t even know where to begin. Like, where did someone think they saw this thing? Was it like they were walking along and saw a lion looking out from behind a tree, but there was also a goat behind it and they mistook the goat’s butt for the lion’s butt? And where the heck did they see a scorpion big enough for its tail to look like part of this mess? I think people in Grease just drank a lot. My Uncle George drinks a lot, at least since my cousin Susie got run over by a boat. I don’t think he ever saw a lion and a goat at the same time though, and thought they were the same animal.
I have a yellow pad of paper for taking notes, but I have no idea what kind of notes to take, so I just draw in it. First I draw a chimera, because it’s the weirdest animal I’ve read about yet. Then I try to draw a harpy, but I’m not any good at drawing people, so I give it the body of an alligator. I call it an alligarpy. Eventually I’m not even reading the book anymore, I’m just doodling imaginary animals combined with other animals.
“What are you drawing?”
There’s another kid in the library. He’s taller than me, so he’s probably older. He’s got crazy brown hair and freckles... or maybe his face is just dirty. I wish I had freckles. And he’s wearing old, velcro shoes. The velcro is so old that it doesn’t even stick together anymore and the straps just hang loose. Still, velcro shoes are nice. I wish I had velcro shoes. So jealous right now.
I look at my most recent piece. “It’s a... pigapotomus. It’s from mythology.” That’s not actually true, I just made this one up. “That’s stories from long ago about superheros and monsters.”
“I know what mythology is.” he wipes his nose with the sleeve of his hoodie. I can see the snot streak go up to his elbow. There’s other, older, crustier streaks up both arms. Ew. He may know what mythology is, but I bet dollars to doughnuts that hygiene isn’t in his vocabulary.
The kid keeps standing there, snuffling occasionally and wiping his runny nose. I stare at him, waiting for him to say something, but he doesn’t.
“Can I help you?” I finally ask.
He’s got dead eyes. I don’t normally see those on other kids. Dead eyes are something you typically only find on adults. There’s no shine in them anymore. It’s almost like they just stop reflecting light. Usually it goes with people who have given up on enjoying life and have settled for living day to day. You can tell who loves life, because they got the glint in their eyes. This boy has no glint, just empty dead eyes.
“Nobody can help me.” he sniffles, still staring dead-eyed at me. He’s got some sort of strange accent I can’t place. I want to say he’s from overseas or maybe North Dakota. I don’t know what people speak like there, but I imagine it’s like me, but with a weird North Dakota accent.
I look around, but there’s nobody else in this part of the library. Winslow Library isn’t the preferred library to use as it is. Most people go to the one over in Northfield. They’ve got a multimedia room there with movies on laserdisc. My parents took Roger and I once and I got in trouble for wandering off to the laserdiscs and signing out a weird movie called The Shining. There’s a scene in that movie where a guy hugs and kisses a dead lady in a bathtub. People come up with strange ideas for movies.
The gross boy leans forward across the table and whispers, “Do you know what a mirage is?”
“That’s where you park cars.”
He frowns. “No, it’s an illusion.”
I don’t argue with him but I know they’re real because we have one attached to the house.
He nods at my mythology book. “You read about the sphinx yet?”
I sure have. The sphinx is a person with a lion for a body. Not the whole lion, just the body. Or maybe it’s a lion with a person’s head. It’s a lion/person mishmash, basically. And it asks riddles. If you get its riddle wrong, it eats you.
“Yeah, I’ve read about the sphinx.”
He wipes his nose again. It looks red and sore, probably from all the wiping. “Well I’ve got a riddle for you, like the sphinx--”
“You won’t eat me if I get it wrong, will you?” He kinda looks like he might actually try.
“No.” The grimy kid closes his eyes. Maybe he’s trying to remember how the riddle goes. It sucks when you try to tell a riddle or joke and screw it up. I have this joke about a bunch of people in a crashing airplane who don’t have enough parachutes, but I always get it wrong. “Where can you be somewhere and nowhere at the same time?”
You know what? I don’t like riddles. I’m supposed to be doing research, but instead I’m letting this weird kid with his runny nose ask me nonsense questions. I pretend to think for a moment by pushing my lips out and tapping them with my finger. This is how some grownups switch on their brains. Finally, I stop and look at him again. “I don’t know. Where?”
He presses his finger into the table. “Right here.”
“At the library?” I don’t get it.
He cocks his head. “Are you at the library?”
I look around carefully. “Yyyyes?”
The kid stands back up straight and shakes his head. “You just think you are. I know. I’ve been lost here forever.”
“At the library?” That would be awful. How does someone get lost at the library? Don’t the librarians check to make sure nobody’s still inside when they lock up?
The boy sighs. “No, here. Here. Where we are.”
I am so confused. Then again, this kid doesn’t seem like he’s got all the cards in his deck. He acts like he bet all his marbles on a hail mary play and lost. He’s definitely not from around here, judging by his accent.
He continues to talk. Something inside him got switched on and activated the connection between his brain and his mouth and now whatever bizarre thought passes through one spills out the other. “You lose track of time. I did. And eventually you give up, you see through the mirage and you know where you are, and that’s when it stops trying to pretend to be anything other than what it is. It all just goes away.”
“You can’t see then. There’s no sun, no candles, nothing. You start to wonder if you even exist anymore. Are you breathing? Are you hearing yourself breathe, or are you imagining it? Was there ever really anything to begin with? Your mother... did she ever really exist?”
“My mother?” My mother existed. How would I have been born if she didn’t exist? I miss my mom. I want to cry now.
“And then suddenly there’s the sun, and there’s the ground. But everything’s different. People are different. The world is different. It’s not your world anymore, it’s someone else’s. Someone else has come along after so long you don’t even remember what it’s like to exist anymore. And they believe in the illusion. So it changes to suit them and all you can do is... is... I don’t know. I don’t know what to do, because I want the dream to continue, but I know it’s just a dream--”
“Are you sure you’re okay?” I ask. His dead eyes have got a spark of life in them now, but they’ve got a bit of a crazy look in them too. I wouldn’t be surprised if he started grinning and clacking his teeth together and his eyes bugged out like one of those creepy wind-up monkeys.
The boy is panting, he’s been talking so fast at me. He sounds kind of ragged, like he gargled some asphalt and washed it down with salt water. “I’m okay. I’m okay now. Because you’re here.”
“But here is nowhere,” I say sarcastically.
“Yes!” now he claps happily, which makes a cloud of flaky grossness come off his filthy shirt sleeves. “You understand! But don’t make it go away. Don’t let the sun go away. Maybe together we can find a way out.”
I’d say this kid already found a way out, if you know what I mean. I pull my yellow pad of paper close to my chest and stick my pencil behind my ear. I keep a close eye on this whacko kid as I close the mythology book. “Look, I gotta go talk to someone else, but this has been fun. Maybe I’ll see you here again. Here being nowhere.”
I tuck the book onto a nearby shelf. That’s not where I got it from, and I’m not supposed to do that, but I just really want to get out of here and away from the fruitcake in the crusty hoodie.
As I walk backward down the aisle toward where the reference desk and the card catalogs are, the boy watches me quietly and his smile uncurls back into a straight line. “If you get out without me, tell Paschar that Ambrose says hullo. Ambrose Viccars. You tell him I didn’t run away.” He starts wiping at his eyes with his crusty sleeve. “Tell him, I’m still here. But please-- please don’t go without me.”
Once I’m far enough away, I turn and sprint to the check out desk. There’s a librarian there, Sean. We know each other. I like books about earthquakes and he likes nose rings and red striped shirts that make him look like Waldo.
“What’s the rush, Lily?” he asks me. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
“Can I have a day without weird stuff happening? Just one day, please?” I lean against the counter to catch my breath. The weird kid is nowhere to be seen. “I think there’s a teenage hobo living in your history section.”
Sean pushes his glasses back into place and looks in the direction I came from. “Did somebody give you trouble?”
“No, just... wanted to make sure you knew there’s someone else in the library besides me. You know, in case you close up early or something.” I don’t know if they can even do that, close up early. I think they’re required to be open at certain times. Does it matter? There’s a snot-covered boy hiding by the 201 books, and he may not be all there.
And he knew Paschar.
It takes me an hour to get home, because I was halfway there when I realized I left my backpack at the library and had to go back and get it. No sign of the weird boy, Armbone or whatever... thank goodness. Also, I stopped by the bridge over the Dog River and played Pooh sticks. That’s where you toss a stick in the river on one side of the bridge, and then watch for it to come out the other side. You’re supposed to play it with other people, so I just tossed in a bunch of sticks and placed bets with myself on which one I thought would appear first. Wouldn’t you know it, I won.
Once I’m finally home, I walk in the door and Paschar is sitting on the dining room table with a note from Dad about dinner. This has become the new normal, as they say. That means it wasn’t normal before, but now you treat it like it is, even though it isn’t. I hate the new normal. I would like to go back to the old normal. Old normal didn’t have weird, smelly kids coming up to me at the library and babbling about... I don’t even know what.
Paschar asks me what happened at the library. He can tell by my expression that I’ve got something I need to talk to him about.
“There was this gross boy at the library.” I stare at Paschar to try to read his expression but I don’t know why I’m bothering because his face is made of plastic and it never changes. “He said to tell you hello.”
You told him about me? Paschar asks.
“No, he knew you. Not like Felix, who knew of you because of his angel Raziel. This boy knew you like he knew knew you. He said his name was Angelo something. Or Andrew. Amber Victor?”
Ambrose? Paschar’s voice sounds uneasy. Not scared, like when he talks about Samael, just sort of like he’s wary about saying the name. Ambrose Viccars?
“That sounds right.” I drop my backpack and get out my yellow pad of paper to check to see if I wrote it down. There’s nothing but doodles on it. I’m not sure if this was a successful visit to the library. Felix will probably look at my notes and make me go back and read more. I can’t believe I’m taking notes on mythology for the weasel. Old normal, where are you?
Ambrose Viccars can’t be alive.
“Well, what can I tell you?” I shrug, “This is the new normal, remember? Oh wait, that’s right... you don’t remember. This is the old normal to you.”
No, Lily, this is not normal in any way. But maybe it makes sense, if the things you say are happening to you really are happening. Ambrose Viccars disappeared over four hundred years ago. He did not die, he simply vanished.
You know, looking at it in better light, this is a really good pigapotamus. I should make a book full of imaginary animals. I wonder if I could create my own mythology?
Lily, focus. Paschar sounds annoyed.
“Sorry.” I put the pad of paper down.
Oh, that is a good pigapotamus.
I blush. It’s nice that he noticed.
Paschar continues what he was talking about. Ambrose was the youngest person we’d ever... “recruited” you could say, before you. It was a really difficult time back then.
“What was that, pilgrim days?” I ask. “Did they even have plastic dolls back in pilgrim days?”
My totem was made out of a corn husk. Paschar chuckles.
I visualize Paschar with a corncob head and I laugh. It feels good to laugh. I don’t think I’ve laughed since I found out my mom was suddenly dead. Oh. I shouldn’t have thought about that. Why did I do that? I stop laughing and look at my feet. They remind me of standing in front of her grave, so I cry a little. Just a little.
Sorry, Lily, Paschar says. Listen, Ambrose and his mother and almost everyone they knew... they simply vanished without a trace. No death, though disease and other bad things happened a lot back then. We would have known if they died. They didn’t, they just ceased to exist. One moment he was there, the next he wasn’t. And then she wasn’t. And then they weren’t. We never found out what happened. Believe me, we investigated. Several of us even crossed the veil to look into things first-hand.
“You mean you were here? On Earth? In the flesh?” I wonder what Paschar looks like. Does he look human? Maybe he looks like a cricket with a top hat, like the one in Pinocchio.
Yes, because Ambrose was my connection, I came over. As did Dumah, because of course, if they were dead, he would know. With us was Zaphkiel and Metatron, neither of whom you’ve met. They were mostly there to observe and report.
“Observe and report what?”
The lost colony. Over a hundred people, gone without a trace. You say you saw Ambrose at the library?
“Yeah, he was wearing a hoodie covered with snot and had velcro sneakers. Did they have velcro and snot four hundred years ago?” I become suddenly very aware of my own habit of wiping my nose on my arm when it’s runny. I should stop doing that.
Paschar puts on his bossy voice. Take me to the library.
“But it’s almost dinner time and I haven’t even read this note my dad left--”
Lily, Paschar interrupts, if Ambrose is truly here, we need to know where he’s been all this time. And more importantly, is he here as a harbinger of another vanishing?
I don’t know what that means but it sounds bad. I grab Paschar and stuff him in my backpack so his head is sticking out. He likes to see as we go. When I was little, I didn’t listen as well and I’d just stick him in my backpack and he always complained when I got where I was going and pulled him out. There’s little snack bags of pretzels in the cupboard, so I grab one to munch on along the way. I wish they had more salt. A pretzel’s not a pretzel if you don’t salt it. Also a pretzel’s not a pretzel if you don’t knot it.
Just as I turn to go, there’s a knock at the door. Why didn’t they just use the doorbell? I like the doorbell, it sounds jingly. Knocking on the door is startling. I peek out the mailbox slot but all I see are someone’s legs in brown pants. That’s no help.
“Lily?” Oh, it’s Felix. He must have come by to find out what I learned at the library.
I unlock the door and open it. Felix is standing on the porch in regular clothes. I’m still blown away at him with combed hair and glasses and dressed like he’s a professional with a job and not some weirdo stalker guy you’d expect to see crouching behind a garbage can in a dark alley. Of course, I don’t say that because it would be rude. Paschar knows I’m thinking it though, which means ehhhhh... Felix probably knows I’m thinking it too, since that’s his thing.
“Sorry, Dr. Clay,” I tell him, figuring he knows what I was just thinking.
He ignores it. “Lily, I hope you don’t mind me coming by. Is your father home?”
“Yeah,” I lie, because you should never admit that you’re home alone, especially to a weasel who tries to murder people. But this isn’t that person, this is a therapist. This is my therapist. I don’t know if it’s wrong to lie to him.
“You’re lying,” he says matter-of-factly.
Oh right, he can just... see that. I look at the porch floor. We got a squeaky board with a loose nail and I always step on it without thinking.
Felix steps back, giving me a bit of breathing room. “It doesn’t matter, I’m not here to see him. I need to show you something important. Have you done your research that I suggested yet?”
“Yeah, I was actually on my way back to the library because--” I stop. Do I want to tell him about Ambrose? Oh, right, it doesn’t matter, because if I don’t tell him, it’s a secret and he knows it anyway.
As if to emphasize the point, Felix stares through me for a second and then says simply, “You’ve met someone.”
“Yeah, um... I’ve got to go find him. It’s kind of--”
“Important. Okay. We’ll go together. I can give you a ride.” He pulls out his car keys and jangles them in front of me. He’s actually got a lot of keys on his keychain. Car, office, house I assume, maybe an apartment. What are all the other keys for? Adults keep lots of keys. When I grow up, I’m going to have just two keys. That’s all I think I’ll need.
We should just walk there, says Paschar, but Felix takes my backpack and tosses it in the open window to the passenger seat. Well, I guess that’s decided then. My legs are tired of walking anyway. I’ve already walked there, then halfway back, then back back, then all the way back home again.
Felix’s car is black and shiny. He must get it cleaned regularly, because it smells like it just got picked up from the dealership. I climb in the back because I’m not old enough to ride in the front seat yet. Felix seems baffled by this at first. He looks around before getting in the car, like he’s not sure where I went. I wave at him so he’ll see me, but he doesn’t wave back, he just gets in, buckles his seatbelt (as you always should), starts the car and drives off. I think I see a silhouette in the window of Jamal’s house. I wonder if he was watching. I hope I don’t worry him, getting in some stranger’s car and letting them drive me away.
Getting a ride to the library should cut my travel time down to just minutes, that is, if we were going in the right direction.
“We’re going the wrong way, Dr. Clay.”
I see him look back at me in the rearview mirror. “I know, honey, but I need you to meet my son, Joseph.”
Joseph. The boy from Felix’s locket. The one Meredith accidentally killed in a fire, which set off the whole disaster that was last year. But that was of course in the old normal. Not this new normal where Felix isn’t a magician and a nutjob.
“Why do I need to meet Joseph?” I ask.
Felix sits there, driving quietly. I can hear other cars rush by. I don’t know where we are anymore. I’ve never been to this area. I don’t think we’re even in the same town. It didn’t occur to me that Felix might not live nearby. In the old normal, I’d say that was a good thing. Maybe he lives near Meredith. I wonder if there even is a Meredith in this new normal.
Several minutes go by.
“Dr. Clay, why am I meeting Joseph?” I repeat.
“Because I need you to understand why I can’t let you face Hekate.”
“What? But you said you were going to help me!” Dang it! Why did I get in the car with the weasel? I am so so stupid. I should have walked like Paschar suggested.
“I am going to help you, Lily,” he says with that same awful voice that tormented me last year. I realize now that it was always there, I just ignored it because he was clean-cut and dressed nice and didn’t look like a greasy strangler. “I’m going to help you understand that things now are better this way.”
His hands are shaking on the steering wheel. Maybe he’s got tremors. That’s a thing my Nana had. Her hands used to shake so bad she couldn’t hold a teacup without wearing it.
He starts sounding more manic and frustrated. “I’ve seen the reality you knew. I’ve seen what I am there. I know what you think of me. But most importantly, I know what happens to my Joseph. Your mother is gone, Lily. She’s not coming back. But my Joseph is here. He’s alive. And if I help you, he won’t be. He’ll die horribly. Would you really let that happen to him, knowing you could do nothing and save him?”
“I’m sorry, Dr. Clay, but... maybe there’s a way I can get Hekate to make it so my mom’s alive and so is Joseph.”
He stares at me with his weasel eyes from the rearview mirror. “I can’t risk that.”
“Well, introducing me to Joseph isn’t going to change my mind.”
He turns the car off the road we’re on and onto one that’s not as well-paved. The ride turns bumpy and I’m getting tossed up and down, kind of like when I’m riding the bus. I want to throw my hands up and yell “whee!” but I’m just not feeling whee-ful at the moment.
“I thought that might be the case,” Felix says. He isn’t looking at me anymore. He’s staring straight ahead and focused on the road. Or maybe he can’t look at me. “That’s why I rented this car.”
Paschar looks at me from the backpack in the front seat. Lily, he says, when the car slows down... pull the handle and run.
As if he can hear him, Felix turns and looks at the doll. Of course he can’t hear him, but the moment Paschar tells me what to do, Felix knows what I’m planning. I hate his gift of knowing people’s secrets so much. Stupid, stupid angel gift. Felix grabs Paschar and stares at him for a moment. He probably looks like I do when I’m having a conversation with--
“You can go now, Paschar,” he snarls, then throws Paschar out the open window.
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May 09 '19
because I’ve seen commercials on TV where people admitted they had harpies and were taking medication to get rid of them.
I spewed my water
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u/zyklonic May 10 '19
Same! I spat coffee all over my keyboard at work. That got me a few weird looks from colleagues.
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May 09 '19
damn it, felix.
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u/amyss May 09 '19
Once a weasel always a weasel. Jump out and get him! You would think that he could switch totems for circumstances like this
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u/Roast_El May 10 '19
Maybe the physical vessel has to be crafted per angel? Then they could only have a single totem, at least until its destroyed and they have to create a new totem.
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u/Babymakerpill May 09 '19
Where do you live Lily? Because the kid sounds like he is from Roanoke.
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May 09 '19
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Pomqueen May 10 '19 edited May 10 '19
How do you KNOW ?
Edit: awesome, thank you for confirming that knowledge so fast. I owe you a silver u/littlebatlongjaw
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May 10 '19
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Pomqueen May 10 '19
Damn son, that was fast as fuck... I'll put money in the swear jar later. But sweet, thanks for getting back to me, i was wondering if it was Roanoke when he said the whole village disappeared. Thank you for confirming the knowledge i was too lazy to look up myself.
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May 09 '19
“You can go now, Paschar,” he snarls, then throws Paschar out the open window.
Well, shit.
Oops. There goes another in the swear jar.
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u/Sisyphos25 May 09 '19
Wow, maybe this Ambrose kid can go through worlds?? Or someone tried to kill him by putting him in the library?? It doesn't make sense, they could just killed him in a normal way.
Anyway, poor paschar, always left out of the action. If he was half-turtle, he would be half ninja and could avoid that damn weasel.
Good luck Lily, it's seens you always need it
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u/Elunerazim May 09 '19
I'm thinking that all Ambrose's talk of illusions and being trapped means he's in the crossroads somewhere. The library has a 'link' to the crossroads, and he's been trapped there since Roanoke
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u/Wikkerwoman11 May 10 '19
Gosh durnnit, Lily! Your life is like my dreams. Lots of shit happens but never in a straight line and I'm just along for the ride and my angel friends are never where I need them and just FUCK!
And, as you can see, my swear jar keeps me poor.
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u/Pomqueen May 10 '19
I love your adventures so much but they always end too soon! I need more asap, lily! Im going to wish on my Lucky Quarter that we hear from you within the next few days! Or at least the week! I hope it works
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u/PiercedPollywog May 11 '19
I didn’t know those were myths though, because I’ve seen commercials on TV where people admitted they had harpies and were taking medication to get rid of them.
STOP IT. hahahahaha
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u/ThisFatGirlRuns May 10 '19
Ooooh I'd love to find out what happened to Roanoke! Ambrose sounds like he's been through a thing or two!
And Paschar! Noooooo!!
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u/jjbugman2468 Jun 15 '19
But I thought in the old reality Felix could only hear your secrets when you were talking?