Chapter 5: Sigils

The next morning found Violet wandering the edges of her village. She was supposed to be running errands for her mother, but her thoughts remained stubbornly elsewhere and the thought of going to market held no appeal.

Everything seemed entirely different now, a pall cast across her slice of the world. It reminded her a bit of how she’d felt after encountering the drainpipe demon…but that fear had only stained the alleyway between her house and the next. Now it was the entire village that felt strange and fragile, like a single hard gust could tear a hole through everything.

There would be more demons coming, the one in the drainpipe had not been an aberration.

It seemed bizarre that normal life could continue when such knowledge was out there.

But, Violet had to remind herself, she was the only one who knew it.

Her mother had been sitting in the middle of the parlor, subdued and quiet, when Violet had come out earlier in the morning. She hadn’t seemed to have found all of her lost tooth, for the bloodied splinters of enamel gathered before her seemed paltry and small.

She was staring down at them and only noticed Violet slowly. The shadows beneath her eyes had grown deeper and she didn’t seem entirely connected to the world. Whatever had happened seemed to have taken a chunk from the unknowable quality that was her.

Violet didn’t like seeing her mother when she was like this, before she had gathered herself back together. Fortunately, her mother hadn’t had much to say. At times all she wanted to do was hug Violet to her bosom and apologize, though for what Violet did not know.

This time she’d handed over a handful of tokens and said nothing. Even now they rattled and clinked in her pocket, heavy and cold. Each token was brass and thick, with a little hole in the center. There were markings upon them, but they’d been so worn by time and handling that none were strictly defined anymore.

At the market there would probably be potatoes and salt, oil and blank steel cans filled with various things. The cans were not often bought up, since they came from elsewhere and thus held a certain air of mystery. They were most often filled with pickled vegetables or, more occasionally, stewed meats.

Violet had never seen the people who brought the cans but knew they came from upriver, borne by motorized boats that growled and rumbled, muttering in strange, mechanical tongues. Each time they came, the noise of their arrival shivering the air at the edge of the village’s hearing, Violet was sent to her room. Her mother had always told her that looking upon outsiders was not good for impressionable young children.

Despite this, she knew that the people from upriver never lingered or even asked for anything in return. They simply dropped their load of supplies off at the island’s one dock and kept going, rumbling ever further downstream. Violet sometimes wondered where they came from but kept those thoughts muted even in her own mind.

It was not acceptable to be too curious about the space past the village…if that rule even applied to her anymore. Her mind was swimming with forbidden knowledge, she had even communed with a talking animal…

And she still had the stick of chalk in her skirt pocket.

Slowly, Violet came to a halt. She’d wandered well out of the way, now she was at the very westernmost edge of the village, amidst shabby houses and tumbledown fencing. Many of the homes here were empty, and though the lamps still stood between them, ready to illuminate their shells, it only made the lost neighborhoods feel even more lonely.

There had been some talk of walling portions of the village off and cutting the empty parts out, but nobody had ever begun work and so the western edge remained in limbo.

Violet turned a slow circle in place, looking at dusty windows and doors left ajar. There had always been some hope that the village would grow and the abandoned houses would once again find use, but it never felt like there were more people. Instead the village seemed to slowly be drawing into itself as time went on, like a puddle being dried up by the sun.

Out on the edges like this, Violet suddenly felt very fragile and alone, a bit like how she’d been in the immediate aftermath of first seeing the demon. Soon enough there would be more bad things coming for her village, emerging from the forest and all of the unknowable space beyond the river. She could see them in her mind’s eye, blacker than black, slipping from shadow to shadow, ever emboldened by the coming of the dark.

She needed to do something.

Her mouth dry and her hands shaking, Violet checked around herself, then slipped between two houses. The gravel lined alleyway there was shadowy and dim, and Violet clutched hard to the stick of chalk in her pocket. Then, across the splintery, half decayed siding of the house to her left, she drew a sigil, her effort shuddery and uneven.

Still, it seemed to glow, brighter than its surroundings. Violet stared down the alleyway, trying to think of what a demon would see if it tried to come from there. It would round the corner and then see the sigil, she thought. And then it would recoil away.

…But it wouldn’t give up.

Violet took a deep breath and edged back out into the street, a great nervous tingle vibrating in her very center. Again she checked anxiously around herself, but the houses remained empty and still.

She steadied herself as best she could, then hurried along to the next house.

The sigils would be seen by people, she reflected as she drew the next one, her chalk stuttering over uneven boards and rough brick. Perhaps not the ones she was currently working on, tucked as they were in an empty, still part of the village…but eventually Violet knew that she would need to put them in more public places. Carefully, of course, but it would need to happen.

A part of her wondered what would come next, but Violet fought that thought down. It didn’t matter, she told herself as firmly as she could, just so long as the sigils were placed.

As it was a market day there weren’t many people out along the village periphery and it was surprisingly easy to make her marks. Some were more visible than others, for Violet supposed that the demons could be coming from any direction at all. She drew sigils on fence boards and over the sides of planter boxes, on walls and even the few patches of street that were cement rather than gravel.

On the most prominent one she hesitated, then drew an arrow pointing to the sigil. People would need to know what it did, she decided. Otherwise it would just be a big scary unknown.

Quickly, she scrawled a few words beneath the arrow and the sigil:

This will protekt u!!

Violet backed away from the words, satisfied that they were legible, and then turned and continued onward, heart hammering in her chest. Undercutting the nervousness she felt was a new and wild joy, like an arc of lightning cutting across the sky. She was doing something bold, something that would defend her village and keep the demons out.

But that feeling only lasted as long as the chalk. After perhaps a dozen more sigils the stick had been reduced to a pebbly pink crumb and suddenly Violet was standing still once more, her activities having carried her halfway across the village.

Very suddenly she was alone, the fervor of her activities fading. It seemed as though she’d just been snapped out of some awful mania and was only now viewing things clearly once more. A cold pall of reality settled over her and Violet knew right then that even if she wanted to, it was far too late to take back what she’d just done.

There were sigils all across the village now, some with explanations and some without. Soon enough people coming back from market or maybe investigating the noise she had made while drawing them. Nobody had directly seen her making them…she didn’t think.

Perhaps they hadn’t realized what she was drawing, but if the sigils generated conversation then it was all too possible they’d put two and two together.

She made herself walk, putting some distance between herself and the last sigil she’d drawn. Her hands were coated with chalk dust and Violet jammed them into her pockets, a barely subdued terror squeezing her heart.

Suddenly she thought about her notebook at home, the sigil displayed clearly on its cover. She’d left it beneath her bed but suddenly, somehow that didn’t seem like a very secure hiding spot. What if her mother turned it up?

As unlikely as she knew that was, the possibility turned inexorably into an absolute the longer Violet walked. Slowly, her gait quickened, then turned into a run, tokens jangling in her pocket. It was an awkward way to run, since she still had her hands in her pockets to hide the telltale chalk dust, but she had to move quickly.

Seeing her front door, Violet hesitated, then cut through the alleyway instead. She did this hesitantly, for there was the drainpipe and the bricks stacked over its entrance, but the demon did not stir when she edged past. All Violet felt was a hint of static in the air, like invisible needles caressing her skin.

Then she was past and pushing up her bedroom window, glancing cautiously inside.

Nothing had changed, and Violet found that her notebook was exactly where she’d left it. She could hear nothing coming from the parlor, it seemed that her mother had retired to her room to rest.

Violet hugged the notebook to her chest and slid back out the window. In daylight the garden shed was disarmingly ordinary and she welcomed its dusty confines with unhidden relief, closing the door and resting against an old sack of potting soil.

Though she’d successfully isolated herself, Violet still felt nearly sick with dread. She let her notebook drop into her lap, then stared down at her hands, bright with chalk dust. Fetching a rag, she wiped them clean, but that didn’t make her feel any better.

For a single incandescent moment she wished she had the cat to talk to, then quashed that notion entirely. The cat was cruel and rude. She didn’t want or need (especially need, she told herself) its company or advice.

The people who saw the sigils would also see the messages that accompanied them. Repeating that little bit of logic to herself again and again, Violet tucked her notebook away in a corner of the shed, then picked herself up.

Despite everything, she still needed to do what her mother had asked and go to market. Plus, a quieter, craftier side of her mind added, if she was seen going about her day like usual then it would help preclude the idea of her as a suspect.

Taking a deep breath, Violet left the garden shed, locked it behind her, and once again walked out into the village, heart thrumming anxiously in her chest. She walked the shortest route and ducked into an alleyway between houses. Even as she did so Violet felt a tingling prickle pass across the back of neck.

She whirled around just in time to see a pair of silver eyes open in the shadows just short of the alleyway’s entrance. It was the cat, sitting primly in place. She’d walked right past it.

“I’m glad to see you’re keeping busy.” The cat said, and its words had the feeling of an olive branch.

“I don’t want to talk to you.” Violet muttered, and turned determinedly away. But even as she squared her shoulders and picked up one foot the cat was speaking again.

“Do you really think they’ll react the way you hope?” It asked, and though its tone was light there something close to admonishment curling underneath.

Violet knew it would probably be wiser to simply not respond, but her mouth was already opening.

“Go away.” She snapped, and couldn’t help but feel slightly surprised at herself.

“As you wish.” The cat sighed, then dissolved into a feline shaped puddle of nothing with all the suddenness of a light flicking off.

Violet blew out a breath, took a deep, bracing one to replace it, then continued on to market.

The market was arranged in an empty place in the center of the village and Violet ducked in amidst the people there, keeping her eyes down. It was hardly necessary, for nobody gave her a second look. They were all much too busy perusing wares and talking. Their tones remained relaxed and Violet could not pick up on any emerging panic or upset.

The marketplace was laid out in a rough circle, people selling the contents of their gardens as well as useful things they had made. Most everything Violet wore had come from this market at some point in time and though she still felt tense, she relaxed just a bit as she joined the throngs of neighbors.

She bought big brown potatoes, scarlet radishes and a bushel of twisted orangey-purple carrots. These were joined by a glass jar of strawberry jam and then a plastic bottle of cooking oil.

Then, with the necessaries purchased, Violet moved to the center of the market, where one last stall stood. It was the largest of all of them and operated by the Trade Master, who oversaw the shipments that came in from the outside. Everyone in the village was entitled to a dozen of the steel cans that the outsiders put ashore, but not everyone took them. Violet’s mother, though she distrusted outsiders intensely, was not nearly picky enough to turn down their food, and Violet joined the small line without hesitation. She’d brought a little burlap sack to stow her cans in and when it came to be her turn the Trade Master smiled down at her. He was a big man, round and somewhat hunched from sitting all day, wisps of grayish hair sticking out from around the brim of the battered cloth hat he wore. The Trade Master had a name but Violet had gotten so used to referring to him by only his title that it had almost gone away entirely.

“How’s your mother?” He asked.

“She’s well.” Violet said, almost mechanically. She did not know whether it was strictly true or not, but she had long since learned that it was the polite thing to say.

The Trade Master let her make her selection of the cans and Violet turned them over next to one ear, listening to the sounds they made. No sound at all meant that the contents were packed tight, or were solid. Solid meant minced meat or maybe flour. Violet had once brought home a container of what her mother had eventually figured out was bone meal. When selecting a can that made no noise it was always best to pick the heavier ones.

A can that made a liquidy slosh perhaps had pickled vegetables or soup inside. Violet selected a few of these and was very careful not to pick any cans with bulged out sides or pronounced dents. There were only a few of these in the latest shipment and Violet was glad that she had not arrived any later, for she might have had no choice but to pick those or end up with less than her deserved dozen cans.

It was polite to give the Trade Master a token or two, even if the cans he safeguarded were ostensibly free, and Violet dutifully did so. As she moved to give them over, her eyes caught on the Trade Master’s hands, which were dotted with sticking plasters, the unbandaged flesh splotched with pink and bluish bruises.

The Trade Master followed her gaze, then tucked his hands discreetly away and welcomed the next person in line. It was a common enough reaction, Violet supposed, like how most everyone her mother’s age and older covered their heads in order to hide the places where they’d begun to lose patches of hair.

As she turned to venture home, having gotten everything she’d come for, Violet became aware of a strangeness settling over the market. Something had happened, everyone present seemed to understand that automatically.

Violet edged into a corner between two stalls, heart squeezed by bands of excited dread, suddenly certain that she was about to be pointed out.

But no eyes found her. Instead Violet heard frightened whispers began to circulate, riding a sour tide of nerves and fear.

“Did you see what they wrote?” Someone asked.

“It’s a trick. A trap.” Another person answered.

“It’ll draw the demons here. Or worse.”

Violet edged further back. Even as she went, making what she hoped was an inconspicuous retreat, she could see grim little bands of anxious people being organized, equipped with water and rags. Some carried weapons as well, cudgels and axes and rakes.

“In broad daylight.” The Trade Master muttered, and there was a sick, helpless fear at the bottom of his voice that curdled Violet’s stomach.

She hurried away, mind crowded with half panicked thoughts. But out of them all, one rose far above the others. She could still be caught. It pulsed against her temples like a migraine, so intense she thought she’d be sick.

Then, mercifully, she was home. Violet piled the results of her market trip onto the dining table, mindless of how scattered it all was, then went to her bedroom and slipped out the window and into the back garden. She ended up in the shed where she’d hidden her notebook, trembling there in the dimness.

Even as she tried to order her thoughts, the cat suddenly appeared opposite her, perched comfortably atop a stack of splintered clay flowerpots. It regarded her for a moment, then stared pointedly down to where the corner of her notebook stuck out from behind a sack of potting soil.

“If you bury that out here then you wont be able to get to it when you need it.” The cat said, stroking one paw across the notebook’s cover, dragging it more fully out into the open.

Violet groaned, exasperated. This was the last thing she wanted to have to deal with.

“I told you to go away.” She grumbled, almost pleadingly.

The cat ignored her words, beginning to groom one front paw instead.

Violet bristled.

“This is all your fault.” She said, and though logically she knew her words weren’t true, they still ignited a little flame of righteous anger in the bottom of her stomach.

At that the cat gave up on its grooming, fixing Violet with a decidedly unamused look.

“I warned you,” it said. “…And while perhaps I might have been a bit too harsh in how I communicated my perception of the situation…I was still right.”

“I meant what I said last night.”

For a long moment the two of them stood at an impasse, girl and cat staring at one another. Finally, the cat looked away.

“I deserved that.” It mumbled after a bit, a clear reluctance in its voice, then sniffed and looked down to Violet’s notebook once more.

“Would you like to learn another sigil?” It asked.

Violet blinked. Somehow it hadn’t occurred to her that there were other sigils, the one she’d been taught already seemed so universal.

“Another…?” She asked uncertainly.

“Another.” The cat confirmed. “You might as well know these things.”

A large part of Violet longed to say yes, but at the same time….

“What use would it be?” She asked. “They’d probably just erase them too.”

“You’re still thinking of them?” The cat asked, but there was more surprise than contempt in its voice.

Violet threw her arms up, exasperated by the cat’s frustratingly predictable return to form, but it was backpedaling even before she could open her mouth.

“Wait…I…I’m not used to this,” the cat said. “I don’t understand how people who are so different can care about each other. I’m sure it happens, but…um…how about I show you something.”

The cat looked pitiful enough in its embarrassed discomfort that Violet nodded, deciding to release the poor thing from its fumbling quasi-apology.

Greatly relieved, the cat leapt from the flowerpots to the overcrowded metal table set before the shed’s one window. The window itself was made up of a single pane of glass and overlooked the back garden, though what view could be seen was ghostly and indistinct, clouded by a thick skin of dust and grime.

“Draw your sigil.” The cat instructed, and gently tapped the window glass with the very tip of one paw, clearly not wanting to muss its fur.

Violet hesitated.

“My sigil?” She asked.

“It’s the first one you’ve used. I figure that gives you a degree of personal ownership over it, don’t you think?”

Violet nodded slightly. The cat’s words felt right somehow, like she’d made a mark even upon a system as strange and nebulous as the new power she was tapping into.

She drew her sigil large and steady, the circle and then its bouquet of pointed ovals coming together so neatly that Violet couldn’t help but feel a bloom of pride tickle its way through her center.

“There.” She said, wiping her finger off against the fabric of her skirt, mindless of the grayish streak it left behind.

The cat nodded appreciatively, then met her gaze, silver eyes newly intense.

“This is your mainstay,” it said. “Your bladed circle.”

“Bladed circle…” Violet tried the new moniker out for herself, examining the sigil once more. The ovals did look a bit like blades, she supposed, jutting out from a central axis. A new flutter of anxious excitement rolled through her, turning her stomach strange and twisty. But the sensation wasn’t bad, even if it made her feel a little like her legs were about to give out.

“The bladed circle is a base that other sigils can be layered on top of,” the cat explained, and used one paw to delicately trace new symbols in the space within the protruding ovals. They seemed to burn with potential, the little hairs on the back of Violet’s neck standing straight up as she watched them take shape.

Suddenly the debacle at the market seemed very far away.

“Are there sigils that only demons can see?” Violet asked.

The cat chuckled to itself, then realized that she was serious and shook its head. Still, her question seemed to have reminded it of something, for it shifted to one side of the window, where the grime coating the glass was still undisturbed.

“I want you to draw something else.” It said.

Violet pressed her finger against the glass and followed the cat’s instructions. The new sigil was simple, a vertical slash joined with two shorter equilateral lines that met at an angle next to its center.

Even as she turned to see if she’d gotten it right, Violet realized that the cat was gone. For a moment she stood very still, wondering if it had perhaps slipped underneath the table or off into some dark corner of the shed, but she was quite alone.

Then she caught a flash of movement from outside. There was the cat, standing next to the ash-pit, at the corner of a shadow. It nodded at her, looking very pleased with itself, then turned and strolled casually into dissolution.

“That’s a very useful symbol you’ve drawn.” It said a moment later, suddenly back on the table.

Violet jolted away, hitting the nearest wall of the shed with a bang and upsetting a delicately balanced pile of disintegrating cardboard boxes. She stared hard at the cat through a grayish cloud of disturbed dust, then sneezed. The cat seemed amused by her reaction.

“But…” She looked around herself but the door to the shed was still firmly closed and, of course, so was the window.

“That symbol lets me pass through any wall or window that’s been marked with it.” The cat explained.

“So…I could put this on the wall of my house and you could come in without using the window?” Violet asked, quietly astounded.

“I could,” the cat said. “But walls are tricky. If you don’t know exactly what’s on the other side then you could end up in real trouble.”

“What do you mean? Don’t you just pop out on the other side?”

The cat offered a humorless smile.

“You could…or you could end up stuffed into the insulation, or suspended over a long drop. It’s just tricky is all.”

Violet furrowed her brow, slightly troubled by that, then cocked her head at the sigil once more.

“…Can demons use it?” She asked after a moment.

“Of course.” The cat said, and laughed when Violet sprang up and hurriedly rubbed the mark out of existence.

“But,” it continued. “All you have to do is layer some protective sigils around the mark and then they wont be able to approach.”

Somewhat reassured, Violet took her notebook and studiously copied the new sigils down before wiping them off of the window. Then she sat back down, leaning against a bag of potting soil.

Everything was silent for a moment and Violet turned her notebook over in her hands, silently reviewing what had just happened. She probably wouldn’t get caught…but at the same time it was now painfully clear that her village was not going to defend itself no matter what.

“Cat?” She asked.

“Hmm?” The cat glanced up from where it was cleaning its paws once more.

“…What if I went to see the Glow?”

The cat blinked, visibly surprised.

“You’d do that?” It asked.

Even airing the possibility made Violet feel shivery and strange, like she should have been scared but just…wasn’t. The idea was too out there for her mind to even properly react to.

She managed to nod.

“Hmm.” The cat vocalized, looking faintly troubled.

“What?” Violet asked.

“If you went as you are now you’d almost certainly be killed and eaten by something. I don’t really want that to happen to you.”

Violet stared, caught between outrage and horror. The cat saw her stricken gaze and sighed to itself.

“Well…do you know how to set a camp or light a fire?” It asked.

Silently, Violet shook her head.

The cat contemplated for a long moment.

“…Would you like to learn how?” It asked at last.

Violet tried not to think about the cat’s blunt pronouncement of her likely fate, but it stuck in her head. Still, she knew what she had to do.

“Yes.” Violet said, and managed to keep a frightened tremble out of her voice.