previous part here: https://jordynsaelor.com/2025/08/21/ruse-never-lose/
all parts here: https://jordynsaelor.com/cant-catch-me-now/
***
in three years
I think I aged
twenty,
from a little girl
to a teen in ratty clothing
and poorly brushed hair.
But I learned runes,
summoning circles,
how to defend myself
with spells scrawled on my sleeves
and tattooed on my toes.
But the bullies got better too
so my classes were more of a
battleground
than lectures of learning
but I went
and fought
while the teachers sermoned on;
Simone
the scythe demon
loved to
prank me–
make my
papers
attack my face,
or my pencils
sprout legs and run–
and Garf
the grotto demon
got more physical,
shoving me into walls
or yanking my chair away
or
throwing things at me
in our sports classes,
and both
had interchangeable friends
constantly watching
to add some laughter
at totally unfunny things–
but I
gave all my shirts spell shields
and
tapped the runes on my toes
to make my pencils walk back
and
wrote something on my desk
that turned Simone’s assignments to flame
before learning
retaliation
made her think
she had permission
to burn my hair off
and I wasn’t ready for that one
or for the time
she poisoned my lunch–
so when I say battleground
really I mean
that I showed up to classes
so the teachers wouldn’t write me off for punishment hall
with the negative thought headphones that drill your self-worth to dust
that you couldn’t skip
or else the gremlin rats would be “forced” to drag you to it–
I showed up to classes
and healed my injuries
when they came
and kept backup pencils
in my artificed bone-finger brace
and copied
assignments
into memory runes
before the papers up and danced themselves to pieces
and when I missed a class or two
for getting shoved into a trash bin with teeth on it
the teachers
just thought it was a mortal thing
and thought nothing of me–
unless I missed a whole day or two.
So I never brought up bullies to them again,
and didn’t mention the one time
Garf ripped the bone-finger frame off my arm
and crushed it
so I had to spend a week holding pencils between both arms again
and eating straight from the bowls of soggy soup the cafeteria had
and that wasn’t so bad
it was just
I worked hard
to make that thing
out of bones
from the artifact creation class I’d been signed up for
the year before,
and to make a new one
I had to skip
two meals every other day
for two weeks
to sneak into the artifact closet
and steal bones
and spell them properly again–
in three years time
I think I aged twenty
but I kept my head down
as much as possible
and the blankets
kept my room
safe enough
but sometimes
the demons still got
runes on the door
that’d blast me with foul onion odor
or boils
but I survived
on the fury
of petty demons
someday
having no power over me
ever again,
and I learned runes
and summoning circles
like nobody’s business
but kept
all the fancy things I knew
locked up in a drawer
in my bedroom’s desk
shrouded by oily vines
and I stayed nice
to the blankets
so they wouldn’t betray me
and tell somebody what I hid,
like,
I fed them
crumbs of stale bread
and told them my weird dreams
and let them wake me in the middle of the night
asking strangely specific questions about my hometown
such as the dimensions of the stones used in the roads
and I took them out in the halls sometimes
so they could look around
and I started to resent them
but I needed them
on my side
to escape
so I dealt with it,
I dealt with it all
and I kept growing stronger
and wiser
and caught on to the liar
classmates who said they were nice
and the liar
teachers
who said they thought I was struggling and were willing to help.
And I sought a way past the gremlin rats,
these liars
of a higher
sort, who’d never intended to shield me from the bullies
but just did their job
of not letting anyone leave.
But after three years
and three nights
and two days
I was ready
to break my way out.
***
get Graveyard of Lullabies here: https://www.amazon.com/Graveyard-Lullabies-Jordyn-Saelor-ebook/dp/B0DB499LN9?ref_=ast_author_mpb
Jordyn Saelor 