The myth was true: hard work really was the best sleeping pill.
The next morning, she headed straight for the Theurgy club. Turns out, she had always had their poster lying on her desk.
Their club was tucked away in a corner that no one bothered to visit. But when Jane arrived, the silence was replaced by excitement. Students holding cardboard boxes were pouring out. A van parked nearby, its open doors blocking the view of the statues, pots, and plenty of bigger boxes labeled ingredients, books, tools….
She had arrived at the wrong moment.
Jane slowly backed away, intending to leave, when someone stepped out of the door, someone she knew.
“Hi, need help?”
She stepped in just in time to catch a dagger sliding off a high pile of books. Her eyes slightly moved to the spines. The name she wanted wasn’t there.
“Thanks,” the girl said, her midnight blue hair peering from the stack. Her head was bent awkwardly to the side like she got a neck cramp. “I didn’t know your name last time.”
Yeah… the time she was spooked out by the reading.
“Jane.” She smiled.
“Kaira.” She smiled back.
Jane felt a slight guilt for forgetting to introduce herself, and she didn’t normally feel that way, so she reached out and untangled a strand of Kaira’s hair that was caught in her bag strap.
One thing led to another. Before Jane knew it, she was already sitting in the back of a golf cart with a box on her lap.
The route was getting familiar, and ended up right in front of the Theater Club’s building.
Kaira’s club moved to the 3rd floor, opposite the Astrology Club.
“Is putting this here okay?” Jane asked, in her arm was a glass terrarium.
“Yeah, it’s fine,” Kaira replied with a simple glance. Her hands moved quickly, arranging jars of dried herbs on a shelf.
An hour passed. Kaira had done her part, and so had Jane. Together they sat on the floor, watching the others bustle around, their cheeks sunken as they sucked on juice boxes. For one straight minute, there was nothing but the sound of liquid rushing down their throats.
“Can I borrow Lucien’s diary?” Jane asked.
She said it casually, her fingers unfolding the empty carton box and squeezing it flat, a habit she had kept since primary school.
Part of her thought she deserved the diary. Part of her didn’t, because she had fun participating in the work.
“Sure.” Kaira stood up and walked to the desk. She then pulled out a book in pristine condition. “You’re in luck. We just finished copying it.”
Jane took the book. It was heavy, quite thick, but not so heavy that she couldn’t balance it in one hand.
“Lucien’s diary I” was written on the simple front page.
One? Did that mean there were more, or I was for “1st edition”?
“Thanks. I was scared you wouldn't give it to me,” Jane admitted. She decided to keep the question to herself.
“No need. Your VP had a word with our President already.” Kaira smiled, a hint of mischief glimpsed in her eyes, but Jane didn’t mind it. She had actually enjoyed the work, decorating the space, seeing the empty room come into life.
“So, have you thought of joining our club yet?” Kaira asked.
The question caught Jane by surprise. She hadn’t thought about it.
“To be honest, I like your club,” Jane said, a faint crease appearing near her left eye as she smiled. “But I’m already in the theatre club. So yeah, I might join when I have more free time.”
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By handling their objects, she had formed a rough idea of what the Theurgy club was. It was a study of extraordinary things: divination, religion, and the occult. Kaira here was a Hekate devotee, but Jane also spotted a bible, a Buddha statue on a high shelf, and symbols of deities she couldn’t quite catch yet.
‘Take your time,” Kaira said. “You’re welcome anytime.”
***
That night, the light in her room stayed on until the sun came to replace it.
She had finally found it, the missing piece, the justification for her wasted time in the library, and the solution for their play.
The diary was quite entertaining to read. And through it, the image of Lucien North Wing slowly formed in her mind. A weird nobleman who possessed a lot of fortune, and so people had no other choice but to join his interest in witchcraft. His favorite pet was a cheetah, shown through different pages describing a normal day with his “Stella”.
Jane managed to read through his fascinating life, no human sacrifices or anything, just a bored man in a boring world.
Towards the end of the diary, there was a portion where he focused entirely on his latest discovery.
It opened with a bold title: The 30th Aethyr.
And honestly, the only thing she could understand was the number counting down. In the 24th Aethyr, he met a room that had a pink sky falling down to the ceiling? And in the 11th, he was pulled into a vortex of bats?
Then, finally: The Tenth Aethyr.
It was only at this point that Jane realized these were conscious realms that he accessed through rituals. They weren’t real.
But this specific realm told a story that didn’t seem to belong to Lucien.
His handwriting was swirling, then straight, messy, and out of line. Throughout the page, she could see his excitement that he got to document this.
It was a story about a magician who fell in love with a princess, only to be met with disdain by her father, the King. Desperate, the magician journeyed through the Aethyrs to find a solution.
At the Tenth Aethyr, he met an entity called Choronzon.
The narrative skipped ahead. The magician returned with newfound strength and demanded the princess. They wed, built a family, and a child was born. Years later, the magician—now a King himself—continued to spread his power across the world.
Spread?
Jane paused at the word. Sounds like a disease.
In conclusion, it was a story about a man who got a wife, became a king, and went on to conquer the world.
She closed the heavy book and sat in silence.
Was it a romantic story? Not really, unless they decided to add some details. Was it a heroic one? Hardly. It was clear the magician was a practical man, not a good one.
Jane turned off the lights, her eyes stayed fixed on the ceiling until it closed without her knowing.
The next day, she walked into the meeting room. Her hand was firm and her steps were certain when she pushed through the door.
She was the first to come. Five minutes later, Melissa appeared, followed by Ryan, and lastly Chace with his dull face.
“That’s it?” Chace threw the question at Jane.
“Yeah, that’s all I found,” she replied. Her initial enthusiasm slowly faded away. “How about you? What did you find?”
She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest.
“I got caught up in schoolwork,” he answered, scratching his scalp. His eyes darted from the table to Melissa.
“We went to the library but didn’t find anything much,” Melissa explained quickly, her words tumbling over one another. “Then I went to the Theurgy Club, but they didn’t let me borrow it. They said they were copying it.”
Jane pulled her eyes away from Chace and Melissa after listening to their explanation.
“Yeah, I have that copy here.” She tilted her chin toward the book on the table. “You can borrow and I will return it.”
She gave Melissa a reassuring smile.
As for that pig Chace, she would make him sit here and read it.
“So, we are basing our play on this story,” Jane said. Her voice pitched up at the end, like how she would ask a question. “Does anyone disagree?”
Silence.
“Okay, let’s divide our roles then.”
She would take care of the outline and the final edit. Melissa would deal with the princess storyline while Ryan took the latter parts.
And Chace? He would do the typing, on a computer, at the library, and when the play happened, he would be the one feeding lines to the actors whenever they forgot.
Basically, He got the simple work, the one that couldn’t be messed up, plus the one job no one else wanted.
Of course, he wasn’t happy, but what else could he do? Literally.
Her original plan was to sit there and watch him read. But that would torture him, and torture her too.
She stood up from the table, her mind already formed a checklist.
- Do the outline
- Pass the book to Melissa and Ryan.
- Wait for them to finish and return the book.
Her lips pressed together while the shine faded from her eyes. She didn’t feel like waiting, finishing her part, and still had to go back to check their work.
Jane sighed.
She was the only one bringing something to the table today. Doing the main writing would be unfair, but only doing the outline wouldn’t be enough. The role of an editor, then, would be the last drop to fill the cup.
The students moved to the sides, seeing a dark storm coming in their direction. A meaningless worry; the storm dodged them without even looking.
Jane’s eyebrows squeezed together. There was a place she needed to go first, another thing to tick off the list.