A World Worth Saving: Chapter 33–Epilogue

For days I worried that I had violated some rule about not reciting the Kaddish as a performance, in front of people who didn’t understand, not in honor of someone.

As much as I wanted to ask my new friends for more information, they, like the golem, didn’t seem to be the best at direct, clear answers. Which made sense, I guess; being dead and then brought back seems like it would be disorienting.

Scout looked up at the belligerence in their voice, and Dante retreated to sit next to J.

Well, I could have told you that,” Ethelle chastised. “There’s a reason why witches form covens. The most powerful person can’t do a thing without people helping her.”

“Aw, come on, man!” Razor wheedled. “You gotta know something.”

Our plan was simple....Fight the demons or whatever was there, figure out some way to banish them forever, find Yarrow, liberate all the kids being held, and possibly destroy the physical building with some help from the golem-that-wasn’t-a.golem.

But while in the waking world I saw sheydim as strange blurs of the light or knots of twisted shadows, in my dream I saw them in the uncanny flesh: wings like bats and fangs like cobras and skin like swamps.

Everything they hissed at me — I pressed my palms to my mouth to stifle a moan.

“Remember that you are not special. And that you were born to this. There is power in that liminal space, in that contradiction. Perhaps no one knows the answers as to why you, why here, why now. But it is you, and here, and now. And that must be enough.”

Even the mundane details, the sign reading THE GALBRAITH INSTITUTE in slightly dated font, an old, torn, faded poster taped to the side of the building reminding people to stand six feet apart, looked like clumsy attempts at disguise, a predator hiding from its prey, not as protection, but to lure them in.

With my eyes still closed, the harsh light slowly coalesced into a vicious landscape teeming with those same creatures the golem had revealed to me.

The sheyd let go of Razor’s arms and drew itself upright, flickering between a professional adult human woman and a bilious, leathery-faced creature with too many joints.

I opened my mouth to explain, or at least try to describe what happened since I didn’t have a full explanation but was interrupted by the sound of utter bedlam exploding outside.

I could hear Razor yelling down the hallways, calling instructions to the still-captive kids, but raging demons teemed around the room.

When the human orderlies fled the scene they had run directly into a group of traumatized children and teenagers, who had been in a dissociated state thanks to demons rather than dysphoria, but who were slowly regaining their selves.