Alicia
Esmè and her dæmon, now in the shape of a panther, tiptoed down the silent hall. If anyone found them, they were going to be dead. The cooks were just a wall away. Softly, Esmè stroked the mahogany table.
“Stop it! You’re not taking yourself seriously enough!” Her dæmon, now as a peacock butterfly whispered in her ear.
“You’re just a big scaredy-cat Beatrice (Bea)!” replied Esmè.
There was the sound of a key scraping in a lock and Esmè dived into a cupboard just in time to hide from the man that came in. The only reason that she knew him was because of his dæmon. A black panther. Her uncle.
Benjamin
There was a sound of scraping metal in the hallway as Esmè passed, now in the form of a fox. The fox is a silent creature it jumps unnoticed and in everyday circumstances barely perceived. The cooks were just finishing making dinner. As Esmè lurched behind a box, the Head Cook came out of the kitchen. His name was Jeb Ramsay. He had heard a slight noise somewhere and went out of the kitchen to inspect what the commotion was. There was nothing there. Then with a clatter of pots and pans, the rest of the cooks joined Ramsay. “Let’s Go,” he said and the rest of the cooks followed. Esmè’s uncle came up to her, gave a slight nod, and walked away as Esmè followed into the next room of the building.
Chloe
“Come on, Esme, we need to get out of here!” muttered Bea now in the form of a shimmering turquoise dragonfly, unlike the ones outside. “don’t be such a wet blanket,” whispered Esme, stifling a laugh. “I want to see what they do in here. I’ve never been in this room before.”
“5 minutes is quite enough for your first time,” snapped Beatrice. “Besides, you know that they lock this place up immediately after everyone’s out and I’m sure your uncle wouldn’t like you to be caught especially after he let you go.”
“Sshh!” interrupted Esme. “I hear somebody coming. In here!”
“I am not going to…” hissed Bea but Esme snatched him up and stuffed him into her pocket anyway and ran into an old cupboard full of old cloaks.
Alicia
The next person who came in was Esme’s stuck-up cousin, Esremelda-Lou. She always tailed around her and Esme’s uncle, doing everything for him, trying to get approval. However, Esme’s mum had told her that he secretly loathed Esmerelda. Esme smiled secretly. Her voice floated into the cupboard.
“But uncle…”
“Enough of your nonsense you idiotic fool!”
Esme slowly crept out of the cupboard then came rushing towards them, like she had hurried over from the room above.
“Uncle! Esmerelda! What just happened!?”
Esme was greeted by a soft sigh.
“Esme take Esremelda to the common room. Then come to the feasting room as quickly as possible. Esmerelda, you are the idiot of every year. And that is a huge understatement. WAIT TILL I TELL THE MASTER!”
Esme felt a rush of smugness as Esremelda whimpered and ran.
Benjamin
The Dæmon’s Bible 1792 Chapter 52 Verses 67-99
Without, the night was cold and windy, but perhaps only a dæmon may have experienced this; no single human being could perceive this supernatural storm but only a dæmon. Why is this the case? It is because a dæmon is considerably more “different” as the old folks might say; a dæmon is a human’s companion for their entire life, no exceptions whatsoever, harmless and annoying as they may well be, here is a rule that shall never be forgotten: NEVER abandon or harm or say anything negative about your dæmon for they are fascinating creatures owned by nature. They can do many things that humans cannot and therefore they have the right to politely obey or disobey their owners, the same goes for the humans; they will POLITELY. And now moving on to. . . .
Esme had just finished reading this when Bea, her dæmon came into the room…
Chloe
“Well Bea, did you hear what it was?”
“sort of, because from what I heard, Esmerelda broke uncle Lucius’s – I didn’t know what it was. I heard it was one of the artifacts that he brought back from the north- it looked a lot like it was something made out of a white rock or a piece of old clay. But then I spied on Lucius and he was telling the butler something. I listened in and I thought I heard him say, “that idiot girl, she smashed that skull, it was one of a kind and I was meant to show it to the scholars.” Then he seemed to notice me and started talking about the weather.”
“I think Esmerelda deserves what she gets, little rat. How about we play a trick on her?…
Alicia
Esme managed to convince Bea and soon, they were bustling with ideas. That was the start of Bea’s fixed shape. What happens is the daemon is 99% percent of the time, but if they find themselves in danger, will change. Esme found that for the whole thing, Bea was happy as a shimmering, golden fox with a black tip of ears, tail, and feet. And it was way longer than any daemon could stay in one shape, so Esme became nervous. “Bea, why haven’t you… changed?”
Bea had laughed. “You are one of the rarer ones, the ones of the same gender as your daemon, so, usually, they stay first don’t they?” Esme shrugged.
Bea could see her mind turning.
“Witch oil. I’m deceptive, like a fox.”
“Quite right!” replied Bea.
Esme opened her mouth as if to reply but she closed it again. They continued making “mud” spongy sticky chocolate cake to put all around her room.
Benjamin
Nothing interesting came into mind until a few months afterward in November. A young boy had disappeared one or two days before but that was quite common, thought Esme. “Surely he will eventually be found in the inner depths of somewhere.” But many a day passed, with no success. The whole town had been searching for ages, day and night, until a news report, reported that his kidnapper may have been found… As soon as she saw the front image, she almost fainted. It was found last night, read the caption. The being on the cover looked absolutely dreadful. You could see its veins sticking out of the body, bits of skin flapping around it, but the most and truly terrifying thing about this “humanoid” was its face, it was completely white and it wore a half-worn out the suit, with a jet-black tie flapping in the cold night air. “But” Reported the newspaper, “merely a few seconds after this photo was taken, the humanoid vanished.” Esme could not bear the thought of this being, however as if it were some supernatural force, she was curious about this humanoid and decided to investigate herself… It was almost midnight and Esme, noticed by her carers or her uncle, crept out into the woods. When she arrived, strangely enough, there was nothing there. But that was when she was proven wrong, the wind started to rustle, the howling gale blew throughout the forest, and just when things could not get any worse, there was a cracking sound, and there on the floor in front of Esme, there was that very same humanoid that had appeared the night before. And that was when it struck her. She remembered reading a particularly familiar line out of a book at Jordan. Now it had proved its use. It felt paranormal and coincidental, that line now… “It was on a dreary night in November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With a might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet.” “Frankenstein,” said Esme under her breath. Was it her imagination or was the humanoid edging ever closer towards her? Perhaps it was because she was a child and that boy was taken by it. Esme ran as fast as she could but it was no use now, of course, one moment the beast was there, the next, it was standing right in front of her making a horrible noise in its throat. Before Esme could do anything about it, however, it had paralyzed her in her tracks and then she saw and heard no more…
Chloe
The world rocked back and forth. She was on a boat. “Why though,” she thought. “Surely I wasn’t on a boat before?” and it wasn’t any odd boat either, it was her uncle’s boat. And just as this realization dawned on her, who should come in but the horrible Esmerelda-Lou. “oh, look, it’s Esme the loser! You are the most idiotic girl I have ever seen.”
“I’m not the one who dropped uncle’s special artefacts.” Retorted Esme, immediately wishing she hadn’t. “oh, you are really going to pay for that!”
“Uh, huh, I’m really scared now,” laughed Esme. “I’ve got some serious business to attend to with uncle and I don’t have time for baby losers like you. GOODBYE!”
Alicia
Esme squeezed her eyes shut and fingered her purse for the aleiometer and a dagger that Lord Darcy, her uncle had given her. She wasn’t to find out why it was so precious for a few years. Esme half opened her eyes and imagined herself one door away from Esmerelda.
There she appeared.
Why though? Since you are so “responsible” take these tasks. There was the shuffling of paper, the scribbling of paper and a gasp. A gasp of horror.
Esme lightly knocked and let herself in Taking a piece of paper from the paper drawer, she wrote a recount of this morning. Uncle grimaced. Your knife. You choose what to do with her. After all, she is in my care… Grinning, Esme slowly took out the knife that was stored in her purse. Quicker than a flash a lightning she had her cousin pressed against a wall. A knife at her throat. Flowers of blood were beginning to form. I know a secret about you and a secret of yours! I am winning!
Her eyes were huge saucers, full of terror. “Uncle! Please help me! I beg you!”
Uncle’s face was impassive. Instead of murdering her, Esme scratched a ‘I am a loser’ into her hand. “Remember, bag of filth, you are a loser!”
BENJAMIN
It was no use, Esme’s uncle hit her with a cold stare, and then, without warning, Esme, once again, fell into darkness.
She did not know how long she was asleep for when, she woke up. It was once again night time. Esme looked vividly around and saw that she was alone. Alone. A few minutes later however, she found herself standing outside, and then once again a few minutes later, she found herself standing right in front of the gates of Jordan Collage. Esme thought to herself, “There must have been references in those books.” Esme entered the library. She sat down and found Frankenstein and began to read. However, someone else had put a refrence to the bible in there from the chapter revelations. It read: “Time no longer”.
Chloe
At that moment, there was a hissing sound and the book she was holding floated out of her trembling fingers. Rapidly, the pages started turning over as if some invisible person was flicking through and suddenly stopped moving, still floating in mid-air. Esme walked towards the book, fascinated, and read out the title. “THE AURORA.”
Out of nowhere, a shimmering image appeared. It was of a night sky, but in a way, different from any she had seen before. Glowing, floating, ribbons of colour drifting lazily across the sky. Pale pink, mint green and deep red. For a brief moment, the image flashed, before exploding into a million colours.
Alicia
As soon as the firework-like display of ribbons of colour vanished, a magnificent white town of beauty, a Oxford, yes, but different. No Jordan collage. Places mixed up. Where was that? So, this had been the strange thing that the scholars had been talking about! Who knew! A tingly dust covered Esme, and, in a few moments, she was in a different world. The first thing she registered was a huge temple almost.
Then, the most curious thing yet happened. From out of the temple stepped a Esme. And an Esmerelda. Arguing with the other Esme. Just like they would in Jordan. After minutes of confusion only Esme learnt almost everything. Only the 2 worlds she had entered had parallel people since they were so similar. Esme’s parallel was Diana. Esmerelda’s was Diamond. But then, Esmerelda appeared, a malicious smile plastered on her face…
Benjamin
The Unfinished Tale of Jordan Collage, Oxford. Published 1849
Written by E. A. P.
The story in which I am about to retell concerning the earlier events of Jordan Collage in Oxford is a genuine story that happened to one person a few years ago in 1846. And now, let me retell the whole, extraordinary tale.
It is January 1846 and a young girl named Silvertongue set off on a journey to the north. The expedition was led by a man called Johnann Faa. They set off in a majestic ship called NORTHE.
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Page 745
And then as the followers of Johnann rejoiced,
The Beast of the North awakened….
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After that all that was left was just empty pages. Esme was about to put the huge book away when, on the last page of it, something caught her eye. There were lines of jet-black ink darker than the night sky, running across the page. That was when Esme realised that they were not lines after all: It read Lyra Belaqua and John Faa. If that was not enough below that there was more writing: “And the Beast shall be made legion, and the followers of Mammon shall diminish in numbers. The Beast continued its studies with renewed focus devouring many a number each day, and when He is finished, he shall vanish, under the murky waters of the Earth never to be seen again for twain centuries.” Esme felt cold. She pondered over those last markings in the book. She tried to decipher it, word by word. However, it just did not seem to make sense. Suddenly, it hit her. Lyra Belaqua: the famous 11-year-old girl who travelled to the north along with Commander John Faa back in 1846! It all made sense! Bea was peering over her shoulder, in the form of a robin open-mouthed in shock. However there was still one idea that did not make sense, the passage on the Beast. What did that mean?