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She continues to shovel food in her mouth and I continue looking between the book and the cipher. A lot of the symbols in the book are documented on the code key but it looks like there are missing ones. Each glyph is a letter or a combination of two. What I’m seeing just from the first page, a lot of this is about another world with shadow people and magic. This book may very well be our answer. I guess according to this book, barring it is not a giant hoax, I’m not far off from thinking we’re dealing with another realm. With how that shadow appeared right in the drawn triangle, it really isn't a far fetch. It looked like a summoning circle you would find in a movie or book.
I scrub a hand down my face. Am I really considering other worldly things? What the fuck is life right now? You don’t prepare for this growing up. The people who talk about this stuff are heavily medicated and put in a rubber room. Or they are your weird internet conspiracy theorists. This shit isn't supposed to be real. Well, Dana has always seen ghosts and I believe her. Is this much different? I start looking back at the code and the book.
Dana gets up and grabs her plate, taking it to the sink. I get up and follow suit. We rinse our plates and put the dishes in the dishwasher. We clean up the kitchen in perfect sync. Like we have always been doing this. We have had dinner together before but it was either with my parents or at her house. We never did this though. At my parents, she would help my mother clean up while dad and I planned what needs to be done around the farm or house.
Dana leans against the counter facing me. “I feel like we’re being too cavalier about this. Don’t you think? Or maybe it just hasn’t hit us yet? Shouldn’t we be panicking?”
“Everyone reacts to things differently. I don’t think it's strange you’re not running and hiding or acting like the sky is falling. I think it makes you look strong and capable. Also, we did panic, remember? Your room this morning and then an hour ago in your basement.” I say matter of factly. “Besides, what is panicking going to do for us?”
“That’s true. I guess I’m just comparing real life to movie life.” Shrugging she bounces over to the table and grabs the books. “Let’s go sit on the couch and do this. There are a few pages I really wanted to look at.” I grab some books and follow behind her to the couch.
“We should go back to your house tomorrow and grab some more books and see if there’s any more codes or journals. Maybe a giant sign that says ‘this is an elaborate hoax’.” She scoffs, tucking her hair behind her ear.
“That would be the best outcome.” Dana says, looking back down at the book. “But I feel in the very depths of my soul something is going to happen…” she trails off looking up at me.
I grab her chin. “Don’t fret over things that haven’t even happened or haven't even been glimpsed on the horizon.” She nods once and goes back to the book. She flips through a couple pages and stops on one with a black misty ball. She looks at the cipher and back at the book. I see her notebook on the chair. I get up and grab and sit back down. I pull the pen out of the spiral binding.
“How about I write down the letters as you look through the symbols?” Dana looks back up at me with a grin.
“Yeah, that would be nice and this is the closest thing to what I have been seeing,” she says but sounds more like doubt, “that is pictured in the books I have looked through.”
“What makes you uncertain?”
“Well, the shadows I– we have been seeing have some kind of form. These are just balls of smoke. I’m sure there may be something else but at least this is a start.” She shrugs.
“The shadows did have a form huh? They looked human. Not this misty blob. Maybe these can change forms though?
“True.”
She turns back to the book. “U-m-b-r-a-s, is the first few glyphs, then there's a space between this last glyph and the next one,” I write them down and we continue for a while. Dana starts to memorize a lot of the glyphs along the way. This woman is smart. She is just adapting to the issue at hand, learning what she can to fix it. I have seen her do this many times before. With the ghosts, bullying, her mothers death and lots more. She just adapts to it all. It amazes me. How in the hell this woman wants to be with a plain old farmer amazes me.
“Okay, what do we have so far?” She asks.
“Umbras, believed to be the damned souls of Aelore; working for the living to pay for their sins. They do rudimentary tasks and household chores for those they serve. Umbras are a black mist, permeable but not transparent. Umbras are not known to change shapes or become completely solidified. They have been known to serve multiple generations of a single family before they just vanish.” I look up to Dana, who is picking her lip and looking disappointed.
“I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up.” Sighing heavily, she puts the book on the coffee table. “I’ll look through some other book and see if I can find anything else that fits the bill.”
“Okay, I will look online again. Maybe I can find another blogger that has more detail on the satanic killings, or maybe something on shadow people? Maybe, even something about these ghosts?”
“Yeah, sounds good. Do you remember Hank?” She asks. It takes me a minute to figure out who she's talking about.
“You mean that shadow you always talked about?”
“Yeah, gods I haven't seen him in years. He used to always be in the apartment just watching. He never scared me. It was like he was watching over me. Protecting me. You know? I always figured he was a ghost who couldn’t keep form and had somehow been attached to that apartment. Anyways, he made me feel safe. Like I wasn’t alone. With the shadows we saw, do you think that they are the same?” She chews on her lip, lost in her thoughts. She hasn't talked about Hank in years. Not since he disappeared, which was right before her mother died. She always said he would stand sentry near her living room window. Sometimes he would look like he was sitting on his butt. He never said anything to her but she named him Hank and had her one way conversations with him. Not that we knew it was a he we just assumed.
“I don't know Dana. He hasn’t been around for years. Do you think he would just come back? Maybe, he moved on.”
“What if he wasn’t a ghost though?”
“I don’t know Dumplin’.” She suddenly looks like she smelt something pungent. Alright, that’s not the one. I continue on, “Like I said I’m more of an emotional support animal.” I reach for her leg and squeeze. “I don’t have answers but I will help any way I can and answer what I can to the best of my knowledge. I am just a farmer, you know.” I smile wryly. Wishing not for the first time that I did have the answers. “I’m going to try and find some articles or blogs that can help us. Do you need me to grab anything?” She shakes her head. I lean back and start searching my phone for whatever I can find. While she goes back to the books, trying to find something that relates to the ghosts or the shadows.
The results vary. There are some bloggers who write about alternate universes or planes of existence that are right along us, we just can’t see them. I go back to the bloggers page from earlier and scroll through their archives. I came across a title that piqued my interest. ‘Ley Lines and Other Worlds’, I click on the article and pictures along the margins of this blog screams eleven year old who got crazy with clipart. There are spaceships and aliens all along the margins, the background is black with bright green font. I squint at the page and put my phone down.
“I’m gonna grab my laptop, do you want anything?”
“Can you grab my tea? And a couple of the other books please?”
I head to the kitchen and grab the books and her tea and bring it right back. Then, I go back to my room and grab my laptop. I sat back down next to Dana. I found the blog on my laptop and the article is much easier to read on a bigger screen which is what I was hoping for but god damn. What were they thinking? I start to skim through the article and it’s all about how intersecting ley lines make world traveling easier. Spells and ruins create the portal but you have to make sure you know what ruins you want to use and you have to make sure they are correct. Incorrect ruins can cause a catastrophe. I scroll on not caring about portals at the moment.
