previous part: https://jordynsaelor.com/2025/08/28/in-3-years-time/
all parts here: https://jordynsaelor.com/cant-catch-me-now/
***
The rats and I had agreed
I would break their curse
and they’d let me free.
Of course,
they never
did anything
about the demon tormentors
or did anything to speed up my learning
so I
didn’t intend
to let them go.
No,
I planned to put them under a new curse
with a summoning ring–
I wished
I’d learned the summoning rings
that opened portals
but
those weren’t taught to the early years,
not until they knew they could trust you
to not summon angels
or worse,
so the floor of the library
with books about portals
was off-limits
for younger students,
and I wasn’t waiting more years
to figure out how to sneak in
and teach myself how to make one.
So
my escape
needed the door
guarded by
oversized rats–
one night, the blankets and I
snuck through the halls
lined with rooms
of studying
or sleeping
demons,
using a folded paper rune ring
to make ourselves invisible
to the late night
Trouble Clubble
whose club seemed to have no purpose
but yakking
after hours,
and I crept
to the exit
where the gremlins rats waited
with naked tails
and green fur
and sharp ears
and they raised noses
to my invisible form
and hissed,
“Ah,
she’s back,
ready
to set us free.”
And I swallowed,
said, “Yeah”
and set down the blankets
then cinched a pen
to my bone-digit frame.
The blankets,
to cover the sound
of my pen,
asked
if the rats were prepared
to be free
and the rats wondered
what changed
from last time
so the blankets said
Ola believes she can beat you now
and so do we
and the rats chuckled at that.
“I do believe that,” I whispered
and began scrawling
invisible runes
on the floor
that I didn’t need to see
to get exactly right
due to all the times
I’d practiced this
on papers
arranged in my room. “I do believe
I can beat you.”
And the rats said, “Then free us
and find out”
and the blankets
sealed all their lips but two
who muttered
and hissed
and clacked
a magic spell
slowly.
We’d agreed to free the rats
to ensure
my spell would stick,
but still I hurried with my summoning ring,
squiggling the last symbol
twice over
in the blankets’ last exhale,
then the rats around the door
froze
like statues.
I asked, “Is it done?”
The blankets said, “Yes.
The curse wasn’t that hard,
whoever made it
must have depended on
no one trusting the rats enough to break it–”
then the rats
charged,
screaming
at us
so I
thumped my foot
on the ground
to activate the runes
and a ripple
pulsed out from us–
the gremlin rats
kept screaming
but they
could no longer move
since I’d turned
their fur
to stone.
***
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Jordyn Saelor 