Greek Revival: Chapter 7

VII.

Technically speaking, Saint Julian’s College was not in Burlington proper but just to the east in Pontefract, a village so small that it contained nothing but an ancient pharmacy operated by an even more ancient proprietor named Josiah, three or four ornery farmers who resented the college students with whom they shared the land, and the campus of Saint Julian’s. There was a free shuttle bus that took students from the center of campus to Church Street and back in a matter of minutes, though, so the border between Burlington and Pontefract was little more than a line on a map. Pontefract lacked its own exit from I-89, so Ari got off in Burlington, parked their car in a nondescript garage, paid the 15-dollar fee for all-day parking, and took the Saint Julian’s shuttle bus along with a gaggle of artsy-looking teenagers. They looked too young to be college students – given that it was summer, Ari wondered whether Saint Julian’s had some sort of camp running or whether the youth of Vermont had just decided it was the cool place to hang out.

“Cool outfit,” said one of the teens as she passed Ari, breezing down the aisle of seats. She wore a massive, slouchy tweed blazer stained with splotches of acrylic paint in warm earth tones. The blazer obscured the green lace bralette and denim cutoffs she wore underneath it, so that from behind, she seemed to be just a ginger head and bare white legs sticking out of a compost heap.

“Thanks,” Ari murmured, but the girl had already joined her friends at the back of the bus.

The streets of Burlington, with their candy-colored murals and endless array of health-food stores, whizzed by outside the windows, slowly petering out into neighborhoods of crumbling Victorian homes and then into well-manicured stretches of deciduous forest punctuated by sidewalks. The shuttle rounded a corner, and Ari saw the spire of a huge stone chapel rise up in front of them. They had arrived at Saint Julian’s.

Ari tugged at the pearls in their collar and readjusted the strap of their messenger bag as they climbed out of the bus. Embarrassing though the aesthetic preoccupation of their outfit might have been, it gave them an instant kinship with the rest of the campus. In their brief research of the school, Ari had learned that it was founded in the late 1940s with the goal of providing an upstanding Catholic education to the boys returning from the front and the girls they’d left behind. Despite its young age, the buildings of Saint Julian’s had clearly been constructed with the idea of history in mind. Almost everything was either a stately Georgian brick hall or an ornate collegiate Gothic tower. The efficient brutalism of the 1960s had found no foothold here, as far as Ari could tell, and such a vast quantity of ivy sprouted from the sides of the main buildings surrounding the chapel that it must have been added to the walls on purpose. Ari thought of the college back in Poole, founded a few years before New Hampshire even achieved statehood. It, too, had Georgian bricks and ivy-covered chapels, but it also had ugly concrete block dorms and a shimmering glass life sciences center completed just a year before Ari’s matriculation. The curation of Saint Julian’s architecture struck Ari as deeply insecure, aspiring to an idea of academic perfection to make up for a real lack of history. Ari glanced down at their shoulders, scattered with tiny purple flowers, and grinned.

I’ll fit right in.

Professor Applewhite’s office, Ari learned from a smiling department administrator on the first floor of the language building, was number 406, on the top floor.

“And do you have an appointment?” the administrator asked.

“Yes, I do.” Ari felt themself pitching their voice up to match the administrator’s squeaky cheer. “I think I booked it for 12:30? The last name should be Elliott. Riley Elliott.”

Damian and Ari had gone back and forth for almost an hour about what Ari’s fake name should be. Ari had insisted on the initials – their time at Full English had trained them to respond to any two words starting with R and E – but Damian had chosen the name itself. He insisted it sounded the right amount of generic.

“Ah, yes, wonderful!” the administrator chirped. “You can just go on up. He should be in his office.”

The door behind Ari opened and a tour group flowed in, sighing at the rush of cool air. “And this,” said their leader, “is Grace Hall, our language building. Spanish and French on the ground floor, Mandarin and Arabic on the second, Russian and German on the third, and Greek and Latin all the way up top. Like a real life ivory tower, ha-ha. I’m a French minor, so I spend a lot of time here…”

The sounds of the tour group faded away as Ari climbed the burnished wooden stairs to the fourth floor.

The door to Gilbert Applewhite’s office was ajar. The offices on the fourth floor were spacious and light-filled; another accession to the idea of history, Ari thought, to give your least useful but most prestigious departments the best offices. They knocked on the doorframe, and a melodic voice with an undercurrent of Boston invited them in.

Gilbert was shorter in person than they’d expected, and his features were thinner and pointier. He wasn’t unattractive by any means, but his faculty photographer had obviously gotten his good side.

“You must be Riley,” he said, swiveling his chair to face them. His eyebrows flickered up. “I’m sorry, you look so familiar. Have we met before? Are you a new student here?”

Ari shook their head, ducking it slightly. They had watched a few makeup contouring tutorials online in preparation for this meeting, and though their face looked noticeably different than it usually did, Ari and Damian had agreed that it was still better to let Gilbert see as little of said face as possible.

“Yeah, that’s me,” they murmured, going for shy but not paralyzingly so. “I don’t think we’ve met before. I’m a big fan of your work – your dissertation informed a lot of my thinking for my bachelor’s thesis – and some of my professors suggested I meet with you to talk about graduate school.”

Although Gilbert was still regarding them with a quizzical tilt to his head, his face opened up into a patronizing smile and he waved Ari into the armchair opposite his desk. “Of course,” he said, “have a seat. May I ask who your professors are?”

“I went to college down in Poole, New Hampshire. Dr. Edward H. Pryor was my advisor, if you know him.”

“Of course I know him! He’s been one of my biggest supporters throughout my career. My family has no history of studying the classics, and I never took Greek or Latin in high school, which of course put me at a disadvantage, but I met Edward in graduate school and he’s been such a cheerleader for me. He was one of the men who put in a good word for me when I was applying for this position. You’re very lucky to have had him as an advisor.”

“I really am,” Ari agreed, allowing themself to step out of their role as Riley for a moment. “I didn’t take Greek or Latin in high school either, but he completely took me under his wing. I wouldn’t be half as good of a classicist as I am now without Dr. Pryor.”

“Are you sure we haven’t met before?” Gilbert asked, smiling charmingly. “With a friend in common, and all, I would think we’d have been introduced. Particularly if Dr. Pryor has, in fact, taken you under his wing.” He seemed to imbue these last words with significance and sat back, waiting for an understanding that never came for Ari.

“Um. I don’t think we have? I mostly wanted to ask about… well, your dissertation. How did you get into that program? It’s supposed to be really difficult. And what made you decide to study Mithraism?”

“Give me just a moment, would you?” He held up a finger and turned his attention to the computer on his desk. “Emails call, I’m afraid.”

“Sure, yeah.”

Gilbert picked at his keyboard for a minute or two, using the hunt-and-peck method – evidently he’d never learned to type. Ari, taking advantage of his distraction, scanned the room for anything that might be useful to them. Gilbert had a ring tan on the index finger of his left hand, which was no surprise, considering his ring was weighing down Ari’s pocket at the moment. His shelves were crammed with so many books that Ari couldn’t possibly read all the titles, much less determine whether the information inside them was useful, before Gilbert finished his emails. They craned their neck as much as they thought they could get away with, but the armchair’s cushions were deep, and they were positioned too low to read any of the papers on his desk. They couldn’t help but wonder if he had chosen the chair on purpose to force his visitors to literally look up to him.

The whoosh of a sent email emanated from the computer, and Gilbert turned back to them. “You were asking about my PhD program?” he said.

“Yeah, um, I’m applying for grad school now, and it just seems so intimidating. What did you do to get into such a good program?”

“I know I’m supposed to tell you about the importance of hard work and an impressive CV and a strong personal narrative, but the truth is all of my application materials were mediocre at best. I’ve never been very good at bragging convincingly.” He smiled again, and Ari was instantly certain that Gilbert was, in fact, a world champion braggart. “All that matters,” he continued, “is your letters of recommendation. If the right men believe in you, and they’re willing to say so to the other right men, you don’t need to worry.”

“Really? That’s… wow, yeah, that’s really different from all the other advice I’ve gotten.”

“Oh, of course you should still try to make the rest of your application good,” he said, waving a dismissive hand in the air, “but it isn’t the life-or-death problem most academics will claim it to be. And trust me, Dr. Pryor is certainly one of the right men.”

Ari nodded slowly. “That makes sense. It seems like he knows everybody.”

“Well, there’s a reason for that, isn’t there?”

“He’s been in the field a long time?”

Gilbert leaned back in his chair, watching Ari steadily, as if waiting for something, though Ari had no idea what. The smile was still affixed to his face, but any emotion behind it had evaporated. “Yes,” Gilbert said neutrally. “He has.”

“Well, he’s been a really great advisor for me. He made sure I had the best research opportunities and everything, so I bet he’ll write me a great recommendation. I mean, he’s always talking about making a proper Greek –”

“Oh, thank the gods.”

“Huh?”

“I absolutely hate talking in code, don’t you? It’s the worst part about the whole thing.”

Ari ducked their head so Gilbert wouldn’t be able to see the panic in their eyes. What the eff is he talking about? I mean, obviously this is exactly what Damian and I wanted, because if there actually is some kind of secret sorcery society that Gilbert is part of, they’d definitely have to talk in code about it. But he thinks I’m part of it? Did I say some kind of secret code phrase without realizing it? What did I even say? And if I did accidentally use some kind of code phrase, does that even make sense? Do they not know each other’s identities? Not much of a society if they don’t, right? But if they do, then why would he think I’m a part of it?

I’ve been thinking for too long.

“Um, I dunno,” Ari said. “I always wanted to be a spy when I was a little kid. I kind of like secrecy and codes and stuff.”

“A natural fit, then! Now of course you haven’t actually gotten into a PhD program, so I imagine you won’t have received a formal invitation yet?”

“No, nothing – uh – nothing formal, but… well, I mean, you know how it is.”

Gilbert tapped the side of his nose, like a cartoon of a wise old man. “Of course I do. Although it’s a little surprising that you’d be – well, you have to know you’re a bit out of the ordinary for – I’m sorry, I know this is a terribly invasive question, but what exactly is your, ah, gender situation?”

What. What do I even – there’s got to be a right answer, hasn’t there? Traditional Western values, the conservative paper said, so I’m pretty sure I can’t get into the intricacies of queer identity with this guy. And – the right men talking to the right men, he said. And Nico’s note. Don’t trust men.

Ari swallowed and consciously pitched their voice further down. “Well, I’m not a girl, if that’s what you’re asking. I get that a lot. It’s the eyelashes, I think.”

Gilbert let out a high, whiny chuckle. “Of course,” he said. “Well, the 21st century is coming for us more quickly than I anticipated. I imagine nobody from your family has a particular interest in the ancients?”

“Not really, no. Nobody in my family has gone to college before, so I’m pretty dang sure I’m the first classicist.”

“Well, Riley Elliott, that makes you the next me.”

Anything but that.

“Cool!” Okay, redirect, redirect. “If I’m gonna be following in your footsteps, do you mind telling me a little bit more about how you picked your dissertation topic? Obviously I’m also interested in Mithraism, but I don’t want to be too derivative.”

“Oh, of course. You probably could have guessed that my initial inspiration was the papyri, but I found I was particularly –”

Ari’s phone buzzed in their pocket. Then it buzzed again.

“I’m so sorry, Professor Applewhite, do you mind if I take this?”

“Not at all.”

Ari checked their phone. Two texts from Damian.

‘u ready kid?’ was the first.

‘i’m doing it’ was the second.

Ari began to type out a message warning Damian to hold off, but while they were still adding the last few letters of their reply, the phone on Gilbert’s desk began to ring. He picked it up before Ari could hit send.

“Hello?” he said. His phone voice was lower than his regular speaking voice. “Oh – oh, dear. You said – Cappelletti? I’ll be right down. Thank you, Susanna.”

He held the phone against his shoulder and said to Ari, “Would you hold on just a moment, please, Riley? There’s an… old acquaintance here to see me, and I doubt he’ll take no for an answer.”

“Of course.”

“Yes,” he said into the phone, “I’m coming down now.”

As soon as Gilbert left, propping the door open behind him, Ari stuck their head out into the hallway and scanned the area. Nobody else was around. Thank goodness it’s summer term, they thought, or else this would be a heck of a lot harder.

Once they were sure, or sure enough, that the coast was clear, they slipped the iron ring onto their finger, said a quick prayer to Asclepius for insight, waited for a response from the god, received none except the ever-present scent of lilies, and began searching Gilbert’s desk instead. They paged through the open tabs and bookmarks on his computer, but there was nothing interesting: his Saint Julian’s College email; his personal email; a site that provided real-time stock market updates; a few articles and book chapters that he must have reviewing, based on the scathing critiques he’d added in the comments; a half-finished paragraph introducing a paper on the perception of masculinity in Hellenistic Alexandria in an otherwise blank document; an incognito window with a few different tabs of lesbian bondage pornography, all paused.

“Ew,” Ari said, paging away from the porn. “On your work computer? Seriously?”

When they were satisfied that Gilbert didn’t have any damning evidence of magical ability in plain sight on his desktop, they redirected their attention to the bookshelf. They rifled through the oldest and most magical-looking books searching for torn pages, but they found nothing. They spotted a book called Protagoras, Gorgias, Mnemosyne: The Role of Memory in Sophist Philosophy, but not only did it not appear to have any pages torn out, it also seemed to be without any mention of magic whatsoever. Ari had never cared much for talking about the Sophists, whom every professor seemed to hate venomously or defend staunchly, but they forced themself to skim through the whole book anyway. It seemed, as far as they could tell, that the PGM in the title was just coincidence. They slipped the book into their messenger bag anyway.

Gilbert had mentioned something about papyri before Damian had called him away, but none of the books on his shelf had anything to do with papyrology or even mentioned papyri in the title. Ari began picking up books on religion and cults and scanning the indices, but it was a time-intensive process that yielded no obvious results.

They heard footsteps creaking on the wooden stairs of Grace Hall. They only had a few more seconds. They quickly replaced the unyielding volume on Cybele they had just been investigating, realigned the books on the shelf so the absence of Protagoras, Gorgias, Mnemosyne would be harder to spot, and sat back down, pulling out their phone and trying to look unconcerned. The steps were coming down the hall now.

Gilbert’s computer made a noise. A new email. Ari glanced over their shoulder, half-rose from the chair, and peeked around the screen to see the email.

FROM: EDWARD HAMISH PRYOR.

Ari craned their neck further to read the email preview, but the footsteps were right outside the door and they collapsed back into the armchair just as Gilbert Applewhite re-entered his office. He looked much the worse for wear. His face was bright red and the veins in his neck bulged as he gritted his teeth. He collapsed back down into his chair, not quite looking at Ari.

“Everything alright, professor?”

“Hm? Yes.”

“Your acquaintance?”

Gilbert bared his teeth in what he must have hoped was a grin, although all of his charm had vanished. His gaze was still shifty. Something had gone down between him and Damian, and it was obvious how little he wanted Ari to ask about it. “Yes. I’m afraid he has a way of getting under my skin. What were we talking about?”

“You mentioned you were inspired by the papyri?”

“Of course, yes.” Gilbert noticed the new email on his screen. “Specifically, the liturgy took my breath away when I first… read it…” He trailed off, eyes darting back and forth across the email from Dr. Pryor. He pursed his lips. His eyes narrowed. He swiveled his gaze to Ari, who realized they were holding their breath.

“What did you say your name was?” he asked.

“Riley. Riley Elliott.”

“Curious.” He turned to the computer and read aloud. “Dear Gilbert, so lovely to hear from you. Although I’m certainly entering my twilight years, my memory has yet to fail me, and I can tell you with the utmost confidence that I’ve never had a student named Riley Elliott, and I haven’t told any of my students to pay you a visit.”

“Um.”

“I’ll ask you again, then,” Gilbert said, his expression flinty, his face sharp. He looked, Ari realized, a bit like a weasel. “Who are you?”

There are several ways I can go with this, Ari thought. None of them good.

“I’m Riley Elliott,” they insisted. “Really. It’s just that I… I never studied under Dr. Pryor. I’m just such a big fan of his, and yours, and I thought… well, I thought you might not listen to me otherwise.”

“Well, under the circumstances, I find that I’m very curious to know how you found out about Dr. Pryor’s work, and mine, and particularly the –”

His eyes snapped down from Ari’s face to their lap. Ari followed his line of sight down their arms, past the phone in their hand, and onto their index finger. They hadn’t taken the ring off. It sat there, dark, heavy, inert, completely unaware that it had just taken this situation to an unsalvageable place.

“Where did you get that?” Gilbert demanded.

“Found it,” Ari replied, meeting his furious gaze, trying to keep the quiver out of their voice.

“Don’t lie to me! Where? Is that how you know?”

“Why, do you know whose it is?”

“Mine,” he snarled. “It’s mine. Give it back.”

“I don’t really want to,” Ari said. This wasn’t part of the plan, but Gilbert was staring at them with his beady eyes and they wanted nothing less than to give him anything. “I mean, it doesn’t have your name on it, and besides. When I wear this thing, I have just the wildest dreams.”

Gilbert launched himself up from the desk. Ari scrambled out of the armchair, convinced that he was about to hurl himself at them and attack like a wild animal. Instead, he pounded on the side of his desk a few times until Ari heard a click and a grinding noise, and a drawer slid out of what had just been the smooth, unbroken wood of the desk.

Secret drawer. Shoot. I might be screwed. How did I not find that?

Gilbert pulled from the drawer a smooth, thin sheet of dull grey metal and a permanent marker. Ari backed up toward the door, trying not to make any sudden movements that might cause Gilbert to snap further. He scribbled something onto the metal and held it up toward them, clutching it in both hands, his eyes wild.

“Archentechtha!” he cried. “Aschelidonel!”

In the split second between when he finished saying the magic words and when he began to stalk toward Ari, they caught a glimpse of what was written on the metal sheet. It was covered in meaningless Greek letters and carefully hand-etched symbols, and in the middle of it all, in bold black permanent marker, was the name RILEI ELLIOTTOS, all capital letters, all in Greek.

“You want my advice?” Gilbert asked, moving closer, reaching out a hand to grasp Ari’s wrist. His movements were calculated, slow, menacing, as if he thought Ari couldn’t escape. Ari did a quick inventory of their body. Everything felt fine. They were able to wiggle their toes in their dress shoes and take deep, slow breaths, neither of which Gilbert seemed to notice. He moved like a predator, drawing within a foot of Ari.

What is he going to do when he gets to me?

Images of the tied-up lesbians on Gilbert’s computer flashed in Ari’s mind. They felt their breathing picked up.

He’s moving so slow because that spell was supposed to stop me. And when he gets to me –

“My advice,” he continued, only a few inches from them now, seemingly relishing this, “is that you shouldn’t fuck with things you don’t understand.”

No, not me. That spell was supposed to stop Riley Elliott.

“Well, I have some advice for you, too,” Ari said.

Gilbert froze. “Why didn’t it work? I –”

“Get better at recognizing fake names.”

Ari took off running, pounding down the stairs, their messenger bag thumping against their hip as they fled. They didn’t hear Gilbert’s footsteps behind them – maybe he was too used to magic to chase someone the old-fashioned way – but they didn’t stop running until they reached the department administrator’s desk on the first floor. Ari noticed that her nameplate said SUSANNA – she was the one who had called Gilbert about Damian. She looked at them, concern knitting her eyebrows together.

“Are you okay?”

“Professor Applewhite – he – he just tried to…” They drew in a deep breath – how the heck do I explain this? – and an idea struck them. They took another deep breath, letting their body relax for the first time in several minutes. The anxious rattling they felt in their chest crept into their voice. “When I was in the office with Professor Applewhite, after he came back, he – he started watching porn. Just letting it play with me right there in the room. And he got mad when I tried to leave. I…”

“Oh, good gracious,” the administrator said, looking scandalized. “What did you –”

“I should go.”

“Wait!”

Ari dashed out of the building and heard the administrator getting up from her desk behind them. Hopefully that’ll show him, they thought, taking the ring off and slipping it back into their pocket. They were flushed, breathing hard, giddy with the excitement of the chase.

Running away from people is way more fun when you’re on a secret mission.

Damian, dressed, as usual, like an alien who had never experienced clothing before, was waiting for them outside on the steps of Grace Hall. “My car’s parked around the corner. Come on, I’ll drive you to – where did you park?”

“Garage in Burlington. Let’s go – the porn thing won’t hold him forever.”

“The – what the hell did you do, kid?”

“I’ll explain once we’re out of here. Let’s go!”

On the short drive back into Burlington, Ari detailed their encounter with the professor. When they described their conversation with Susanna, Damian burst out in low, throaty guffaws that made Ari’s cheeks warm. Damian, in turn, shared how he had played up the raving lunatic act, spouting off about government coverups and the Illuminati kidnapping his brother, throwing in a few choice jabs about Nico always being the smartest one in the program, as Gilbert desperately tried to make him go away.

“I don’t know how much of a difference it made, but at the very least I think he thinks I’ve gone completely off the deep end. There’s no way that version of me ever finds Nico.”

“Must have been pretty easy for you,” Ari said, gesturing to Damian’s much-too-tight t-shirt adorned with a picture of Lauryn Hill, his signature Indiana Jones hat, his pressed, starched khaki dress pants, and his mismatched socks peeking over his loafers. “It took me ages not to think you were off the deep end. I’m still not completely sure.”

“Shut it, kid. I bought you time. Which you used to steal a book that probably doesn’t matter and then immediately blow your cover.”

“My cover was blown,” Ari corrected. “It’s not my fault he emailed one of my professors to talk about me visiting.”

“What about the ring?”

“Um. Yeah, no, that one was my fault. But I’m kind of glad it happened. Now we know that you need someone’s real name to do magic on them, and also that there’s some kind of freezing-people spell that requires a sheet of, like, lead or something.”

“But now he knows you have the ring.”

“But he doesn’t know who I am! What’s he gonna do, email every Classics professor in the country to ask if they’ve taught a student in the past couple years with glasses and dark hair who looks like they read too much Donna Tartt? I’m basically invisible. Not to mention I barely wear my glasses. He might have a magic way of finding the ring, but I don’t think he does, because there’s no way he wouldn’t have used it by now. He must not even know he lost it in my apartment or else he would’ve made the connection.”

Damian snorted. “Guess you don’t have to be all that smart to be a professor. Let’s take a look at that book you got, then.”

After several aborted attempts and a lot of swearing, Damian managed to parallel-park his car a few blocks from Church Street. He and Ari wandered up the street, Damian acting as a guide, taking Ari by the elbow and steering them away from parking meters and pedestrians while Ari buried their nose in Protagoras, Gorgias, Mnemosyne and searched for anything magical.

“I dunno,” Ari said as Damian yanked them toward himself, narrowly avoiding a collision with a fire hydrant. “I mean, there’s a whole section in here about the Ring of Gyges, but that’s just a Platonic thought experiment. And as far as I can tell Gilbert’s magic ring doesn’t turn you invisible, unless it’s got some extra layer of secret magic that I haven’t figured out yet.”

“Well something’s gotta turn them invisible,” Damian replied. “How else would they follow me to hotels and bump into me and break into your place without being seen?”

“I guess. But even if the rings can turn them invisible, this book doesn’t have instructions like Nico’s paper did. And it frames the whole thing as totally hypothetical.”

“Keep looking, then. Are you hungry? I’m starving.”

“I could eat,” Ari conceded, turning their attention back to the book. “You pick. I’ll keep looking.”

The book yielded only one more direct mention of magic: apparently, people who were vehemently against the Sophists and their rhetoric (and by ‘people,’ the book mostly meant Plato) compared their speeches to illicit magic and implied that their powers of persuasion were something dark, mystical, and horrifying instead of reasonably effective rhetorical strategies that Ari could have learned by joining the high school debate team. Protagoras, Gorgias, Mnemosyne made it very clear that the book’s authors did not agree with this Sophism-as-magic viewpoint. Ari flipped back to the index again, searching for anything else having to do with rings, spells, or tablets, but nothing materialized.

“Dang it,” Ari sighed, collapsing into a chair that, they now realized, had appeared behind them without their conscious awareness. Damian gave the back of the chair a gentle shove, and Ari was pushed forward towards a round table with a bright yellow umbrella sticking up out of its center.

“Such a gentleman,” they teased, and Damian shook his head.

“I’m just here to make sure you don’t fall on your ass in the middle of the street. We can’t both look crazy.”

“What are we eating?”

Damian glanced over Ari’s shoulder at the sign on the restaurant whose patio they were now occupying. “Looks like ramen. I didn’t actually check – just thought it smelled good.”

Ari took a deep breath in. “Whoa, yeah, that smells amazing.”

Cool air wafted out of the ramen shop anytime the door was opened, carrying thick, savory smells with it: caramelizing mushrooms, deep brown meat, sharp sliced scallions. It was late afternoon, and Church Street, despite it being an off-hour on a Monday, was bustling. Across the street, an otherwise unremarkable alley was decorated with a metal archway and strings of multicolored Christmas lights. Pennants, banners, and garlands were strung across the sidewalk on thin wires. Teenagers in slapdash, art-student outfits strolled along the marketplace in packs. Parents pushed strollers or carried babies in slings. Several athletic-looking men jogged past with German Shepherds or greyhounds. Every shop and restaurant was playing a different synth-pop song from a different set of speakers, and they blended into a kind of cheerful, nostalgic white noise. The atmosphere was lively but unhurried, a party in slow-motion, and the August sunshine was the same color as the ramen shop’s patio umbrellas. Nobody seemed to pay any attention to Ari and Damian, as if they were an audience rather than participants in the sunny tableau.

Ari’s stomach grumbled, and they put the book down.

“Anything else?” Damian asked, gesturing at it.

“Nothing useful. I think we’ll be better off researching the stuff Gilbert mentioned that sounded interesting. He said something about his dissertation being inspired by ‘the papyri’ and ‘the liturgy,’ which is probably worth looking into, since his dissertation was about magic and cults. He talked about speaking in code, and there was something I said that set him off – I think – something about letters of recommendation, maybe? Or my professor?”

“You don’t remember?”

“I… not really. Sorry. A lot of stuff kind of went out of my head when I thought he was chasing me.”

“Some accomplice you are.”

“You try having someone come after you with a big sheet of metal.”

“What was he gonna do, give you lead poisoning?” The teasing had evacuated Damian’s voice, replaced with a sharp, toothy edge of anger that reminded Ari of the carabiner he’d had on the day they first saw him. A gleaming sawtooth edge.

Ari sighed. He’s got every right to be angry, they thought.

Although they’d been sleeping more lately, and although they’d been ignoring their real-life responsibilities in favor of Damian’s rescue mission, and although they had come around on the existence of magic so quickly that it almost scared them how easy it was to accept, they felt hollow. They thought of what they might have been doing on a Monday like this a few weeks ago – grocery shopping and preparing lunches for the week, maybe taking a rambling walk through the woods around campus, tailoring their CV to their favorite programs while sipping a chai latte at Paige Turner’s. The adrenaline and giggly excitement of an undercover mission and a dramatic chase (never mind that their cover had been blown, never mind that they hadn’t actually been chased) had worn off, leaving in their place an empty exhaustion. Nothing in the world sounded better to them than eating a bowl of ramen, taking a nap, and forgetting all about Gilbert Applewhite.

Damian doesn’t really need me. He just needs someone who can speak Greek. I could put him in touch with some of my classmates. Or Dr. Pryor – not that he’d believe in magic – I’d kind of like to see his face if I asked, actually. I could just wash my hands of this whole thing.

And then what? Who else is going to believe Damian without calling the cops or the psych ward or both first? What’s Damian going to do without me?

And without Damian, who else is going to save Nico?

“I don’t know,” they said aloud. “I’m sorry. I… my brain feels like it’s broken. I haven’t thought about anything besides magic and gods and Nico and Greek in days. I get that you’ve been doing this for way longer than I have and you’ve got it way worse than I do, but…” Ari swallowed, staring down at the useless book on the table in front of them. “I’m exhausted. This whole thing happened so fast, and – I don’t really know you. I don’t know Nico at all. You can keep this up because you’re fighting for someone you care about, but I don’t know if I can. At least when I felt like this at school I knew when it would be over. I knew when my deadlines were, and I knew if I failed, it would hurt like heck, but I wouldn’t actually be dead. With all this – I mean, gosh, Damian, you’ve been at it for months and the furthest you’ve gotten is me. How can I know I won’t just be running from invisible strangers and drawing snakes on tinfoil forever? How can I know I’ll have a life after this? Or even that I’ll be alive after this?”

Damian opened his mouth, took a sharp breath in, and his jaw was set so stiff that Ari was sure he was about to yell at them. For the first time since they’d set foot inside Nico’s house, Ari saw the resemblance between Damian and the guy who had pulled a knife on them. They drew up their shoulders. Whatever he says, I probably deserve it, they thought. Sorry, I don’t want to save your brother anymore, I’m experiencing garden-variety burnout. Real nice, Ari.

But as Ari braced themself, the tension in his face softened and he took off his sunglasses. The lines around his eye smoothed themselves out, and his eyebrows tilted up in something like an invitation. The mottled patch of skin where his other eye used to be was more uniformly pink than it had been when they first saw it – maybe it was healing properly now.

“Did I ever tell you about Moonwild Acres?”

“What? No.”

“The farm. The commune. I spent basically the first decade of my adult life there. Most of that time was absolutely incredible. Idyllic, even. But it got real fuckin’ weird towards the end. I’ve got some funny stories from back then.”

A peace offering. Ari seized it with both hands. “I feel like I’ll be the judge of whether or not they’re funny.”

“I’m taking that as a challenge. Alright, so the week I get there, I’ve just moved all my stuff into my bunk in the main house, and I get called down to the barn by Eliana – she was in charge of the goats at the time. Three of them were pregnant, and somehow they’d decided to all give birth on the same fucking afternoon. So as soon as I get there – hey, could we get two ice waters, two bottles of that weird soda with the glass bead in it, a tofu shoyu bowl, and a pork shoyu bowl? Thanks so much.”

Ari had barely even noticed the waiter’s approach, and they barely had a chance to thank him before he whisked away again.

“What if I wanted something besides pork?” Ari asked.

“Do you?”

“No.”

“Great. Just trying to make things easier on you, kid. I’m… God, I’m so fucking angry, all the time, but that doesn’t mean you’ve gotta be. Even though you signed up for all this, I know you didn’t sign up for all this.” His smile was soft, genuine, and for a moment Ari was certain they were looking at a younger person, the person he’d been when his brother was around, the person he’d been when he cleaned up the house Nico’s way just to make his brother happy, the person he’d been when, young and starry-eyed, he’d helped three pregnant goats give birth in one day. That person – that Damian – was beautiful. Ari swallowed.

“I –”

“Anyway,” Damian said, cutting them off and sliding his sunglasses back on, “Eliana decided I needed a trial by fucking fire and tells me I’m gonna be catching these slimy baby goats as they come out.”

Damian kept up the commune stories – some of them indeed very funny, covering everything from caprine birth to a disastrous community dinner to Moonwild Acres’ descent into selling scammy essential oils and, shortly afterwards, into bankruptcy – all the way through the meal. Ari sipped their soda, listening both to Damian’s rich, low, hoarse voice and to the birdlike tinkle of the glass ball against the sides of the bottle, and savored the taste of artificial lychee. They’d never had a real lychee, but if it tasted anything like this, floral and sweet and clean, they thought they’d have to buy some. When the ramen came, it smelled like the distilled essence of the scents wafting out of the restaurant, and Ari spent a good half minute just inhaling before Damian reminded them that food was generally for eating. The broth was thick, slick, tongue-coating, stomach-warming, and despite the heat outside they dove back in for more and more. The fat noodles gave way beneath their teeth with a satisfying snap, and they devoured pork and scallions and mushrooms and soft-boiled egg with abandon.

“This was a really good choice,” Ari said, pausing to wash down a particularly large bite with another swig of lychee soda. “This place.”

“Always trust a place that smells good.”

The waiter came by again and deposited the check, and Damian fumbled around in his pockets for a moment before coming back with a crumpled wad of small bills.

“Wait, are you sure?” Ari asked. “I can pay you back.”

“Don’t even think about it. I’ve been mooching off Penny and Nico’s shit for so long, I can afford to treat the person who’s gonna help me save them to a good meal. Especially since that person is you.” He paused. “Maybe just this one though. I do need to get gas.”

Ari laughed. “Get it back in New Hampshire. It’s like ten cents cheaper down there.”

He dropped them off at the garage where they’d parked and left, the ugly green station wagon puttering past the shores of Lake Champlain and rounding the corner towards the highway, out of sight. Ari gave their car a quick inspection – no obvious tampering, nobody hiding underneath it, doors still locked – before climbing in and pulling out of the garage. Alone, with nothing but the afternoon economics hour on the radio, Ari’s brain reactivated, and they began to process the events of the day. It had been, all things considered, not completely unsuccessful. Gilbert knew someone else had his ring, but he didn’t necessarily know who. Dr. Pryor might know that someone was claiming to be a student of his, but he didn’t know who, and Gilbert might not have even seen fit to tell him what had happened. Ari and Damian had a few meager, general leads – papyri, code phrases – but it was still more leads than they’d had yesterday. Ari was full of ramen they hadn’t even had to pay for.

Especially since that person is you, Damian had said, although Ari hadn’t thought about it in the moment.

They were thinking about it now, though, and they didn’t care for the way it was making them feel. Fluttery, airy, nervous – like the adrenaline from Grace Hall had come back, but in a tamer, cuddlier form. Like earlier they’d wrestled with a wolf, and now there was a beagle licking their hand. Ari thought about how normal he looked with his hair pulled back and a pair of old jeans on, when he wasn’t busy trying to convince his invisible assailants that he wasn’t a threat. Ari thought about him cross-legged on the floor, engrossed in a grammatical commentary he, for the most part, couldn’t read. Ari thought about him going for the wipes to clean up after the birds without a second thought, because he could see without them ever saying so that the mess bothered them.

“Nope,” Ari said aloud, talking over the radio as it discussed the effects of the current presidential candidates’ choice in campaign stops on local economies. “Nope, we are not doing this. Absolutely not. It’s not happening.”

At least, they thought, even as they told themself not to, I didn’t say yes to Greg.

***

Ari and Damian were sprawled across the living room of the little white house, each absorbed in their own silent research while the birds watched with their usual calm, steely gazes. Damian (dressed like a normal person, hair up, sunglasses off, not that Ari was thinking about it, because they weren’t, they really weren’t) periodically asked Ari if a particular type of code or signal phrase sounded familiar, and when they shook their head, he would cross it off a long list on a piece of paper. Ari had begun their search with the Wikipedia page for papyrus, but even link-hopping from the page’s sources had been way too broad. They’d tried looking up different phrases from Nico’s magic paper along with the word ‘papyrus,’ but that, too, was getting them nowhere.

“I think I’ve looked up every single word and phrase on this page,” Ari said, cracking their neck. “None of it is helpful.”

“What about the rest of it?” Damian asked.

“Hm?”

“The shit that isn’t words or phrases. All the random letters, and the Greek that you say doesn’t mean anything.”

“Oh, shoot, no, I haven’t.”

“Fingers crossed.”

Ari opened a new tab, scanned the paper until they found the magic words of Snake Protection, and typed in ‘kmephis chphyris papyri.’

The Internet stalled. They reloaded the page.

There was only one result.

“Holy crap,” Ari breathed. They clicked on it. It was a book primarily about freemasonry and other secret societies in America, but there was an excerpt that covered secret societies in the ancient world. Magic, according to the book, was made intentionally mysterious and cultic. And, as an example, the book cited a protective spell from Hellenistic Alexandria. The spell made use of a sheet of tin, a variety of magic words, and a drawing of an ouroboros. Ari looked up and saw the identical spells all over the walls. There was no mistaking Snake Protection. The spell had, according to the book, originated from the Greek magical papyri.

Or, as the book helpfully translated, the Papyri Graecae Magicae.

“What?” Damian asked, standing up from the floor and moving toward the couch, where Ari discovered they’d sat up straight in their awe. They tilted their laptop screen towards Damian so he could read over their shoulder.

“I found the PGM.”

Might Makes Write and all the writing shared herein are licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.