Page 17 of Hexes From Exes

Cass knew this day would come. She’d been visiting the couple on and off for two years, it was only a matter of time before they found some piece of information that ran counter to what Cass told them. Thankfully Cass had prepared for this.

“Can you keep a secret?” Cass asked Alice.

Alice froze, her eyes wide.

“Not from Eric, I wouldn’t ask that of you,” she added hurriedly.

Alice nodded immediately, her gaze unwavering on Cass as she sat down across from her.

“I don’t think these texts are Sumerian either, I have a suspicion they involve demons.”

Alice’s eyes widened even more, a look of shock crossing her face. Then, just as quickly, it was replaced with skepticism. “Demons?” she barked out.

“Or, at least, demonology. Look, we’ve started to translate some of it - right? Based on its close affiliation to Latin and some ties to ancient Sumerian. What if…what if there’s a group of people who worshiped demons? Or at least believed in them?”

Cass knew she was walking a delicate line. Rick could be more open with his clients about his origins. It was necessary in order to gather magic to power Anathamea and complete his assignments. Cass? Cass had no reason to open the door to this line of questioning. She ran the risk of exposing both herself and the humans to demons that might find their proximity to this information too much. It could spell their death.

“I suppose…” Alice allowed. She wasn’t convinced - it was too soon.

“It’s just a thought,” Cass said with a shrug, trying to summon a believably dismissive smile. She could tell Alice didn’t buy it.

“So, what did Eric’s tests show?” Cass added, clearing her throat. Alice wheeled her chair over to Cass’s side, shifting through the papers until she pulled one of out and placed it on top. She moved closer in the process, her leg resting against Cass’s. Cass felt the familiar tingle of warmth whenever Alice or Eric was that close to her, their grazing touches always causing her stomach to lurch a little. If Alice felt the same way, she didn’t let on, instead diving into her explanation on the findings.

“The paper used? It doesn’t match anything in the known world,” Alice said.

“What do you mean?” Cass asked, though she suspected she did know. Anathamea was like the human realm, but not quite. Cass wouldn’t call it a mirror, more like a shadow version of the human realm. Sure, Anathamea had trees that were used to make paper - but those trees were nothing like the ones in the human realm. In fact, the ink was made from a sea creature that would put the human notion of squids to shame. If the texts originated in Anathamea, then their signature would be unrecognizable here.

“Exactly what I said - he put it through that spectrometer upstairs, and it created a chemical profile that doesn’t fit anything. We compared it to databases of other sorts of textiles, including cloth because sometimes cultures wrote on cloth…no hits. There were some similarities, but no known actual composition. It did, however, match some texts from another library,” Alice added.

“Oh?” Cass said, genuinely curious. She’d been unable to track down any other texts since she was banished to Magical Investigations. What other library would have demon texts?

“Yep,” Alice said, nodding her head.

“Well…where is it?” asked Cass.

“That’s just it - we’ve never heard of the museum before. We have no idea where it is!” Alice said, throwing her hands in the air. “It’s called the Museum of Wolfred, but there’s no address, no location, no number – nothing. Eric went down a rabbit hole trying to search for it online and got nothing in the process.”

“Do you think it’s an old name?” asked Cass.

“That’s just it - the entry for the chemical composition was added to the database 6 months ago. Even if it did change its name, there’s no way all that information would just be gone. The internet is forever,” Alice added, mimicking Eric’s mantra and voice.

“Are there other entries for this museum?” asked Cass.

Alice nodded. “We tried to find their internet library to see if they had uploaded anything else. It’s so weird, it’s a bunch of…well, it doesn’t make sense, I guess. It’s audio files that are silent, no actual texts, and a few random chemical compositions.”

“Did you add the chemical composition of this text to that database?” Case asked, feeling her blood run cold.

Alice shook her head. “No, we haven’t had time.”

“Don’t add it,” Cass said quickly.

Alice narrowed her eyes. “Why not? It’s an important discovery, if we upload it then maybe the Museum of Wolfred will reach out to us once they know that we have it! We can compare notes.”

That was Cass’s fear.

“I just…isn’t it weird? A museum with no information, that happens to have a chemical composition of ancient text that doesn’t match anything else in the known world?” she pressed.

“Hmm,” Alice considered, her chin resting on her hand as she stared at the wall. Alice absolutely could not be bothered when she looked like that. It would interrupt her train of thought. After a full three minutes, her eyes slid to Cass and she nodded. “Okay - but just for now! I don’t want to keep this from the community, if there’s an entire civilization that used a type of paper that isn’t known anywhere else…that’s a big career find.”