Rose has interesting study habits

I try my hardest to ignore her, but the noise that Rose makes while reading those stupid books is really jarring. Whatever language those incantations are written in, it is full of guttural embellishments and heavy aspirations, and an awful lot of that harsh H sound at the back of the throat used in Arabic. Meanwhile I’m studying –my- books in -English,- and –quietly- to myself, by the way. But I can’t take it anymore.

“Rose,” I say, trying my best not to sound miffed, “do you think you could do that outside or something?”

She turns to me and says, “Outside? People would hear me! I’d sound like a crazy person.”

“You already sound like a crazy person,” I reply, “Why are you trying to speak some dead language anyway?”

Rose flips to some pertinent passages in her book. “Apparently, some of these spells don’t need any special reagents—just the properly spoken words,” she explains, “but I can’t figure out how to pronounce some of this stuff.”

Obviously.

“Even if you say something right, you won’t know it anyway, right? So why bother?” I say.

“Well if the spell works then it must mean I said something right, right?”

“You –do- believe in this stuff, Rose! Admit it!” I reply, almost scolding her. “Even if this stuff was real, it would take an expert to read it!”

Rose’s eyes widen, and she smiles enthusiastically, like I’d just said the –opposite- of what I’d actually said.

“That’s it!” she cries, “An expert! I’ll talk to someone in anthropology or—or—maybe even Professor Crowley can read these! Thanks, Alex!” Then she hugs me, more aggressively than ever. I thought she was scary the first time, but now…

“Hang on. Gotta pee.” Rose leaves our embrace and runs from the room. Curiously, I take a small peek at what she’s been reading while she’s away…to see what all this fuss is about. The words are illustrated in their native hieroglyphs with English phonetic transcriptions below. It doesn’t look that hard.

“Su liu c’ephora du makak.”

As soon as I mumble the words I get to feeling a little knotted in my stomach, and am overcome with an overwhelming sense of dread, like something horrible has just happened. I feel as though a great weight has been foisted upon me, something to be cast off and unleashed to wreak havoc upon an unsuspecting world.

“Oh!”

I have to use the bathroom, too.