The Secret Courtyard

They had to leave, and soon. But where they would go remained a mystery.

Feb 02, 2025

This post is part of the Soaring Twenties monthly Symposium, where writers, artists, poets, and filmmakers gather together to create around one theme. This month’s theme is “Resolution.”

It was Tuesday. They always came on a Tuesday.

”They still haven’t fixed the flickering,” Sophia said, gazing up at the dark shapes in the sky.

“Why would they?” Janus said. He didn’t bother to look up. He was far more interested in the stick he had found than what was happening above. Besides, he had seen the procedure dozens of times already. And the flickering was old news.

A cool breeze ruffled Sophia’s hair as she pondered his question. The jagged cliff they stood on always gave them a spectacular view of the procedure. Every time they climbed up to watch it, they tried to find new flaws in the illusion. The flickering was by far the most obvious.

“Craftsmanship?” she asked.

Janus laughed. “Why would they care about that?” He took the stick and began drawing with it, etching lines in a small patch of dirt. “They already have everything they need, so why spend any extra effort on fixing something that’s already working?”

“Besides,” he said, “the glitches make the spell more powerful.”

“What do you mean?” Sophia asked.

“Think about it.”

“I am thinking about it,” she said. “What do you mean? What spell?”

Janus smiled as he scrawled details into the drawing. His sister was younger than he, but she was certainly not naive. She just lacked the proper vision to see the bigger picture. The very fact that she could see through the illusion at her age was remarkable. Before she had awakened, he had been the only person in the village who saw past the lie. Everyone else was cursed, even their parents.

“The spell,” he said. “The magic spell they cast over human consciousness. It works better - much better - when the illusions they create have obvious errors or don’t make any sense at all.”

“But then wouldn’t people…” she began, but Janus cut her off.

“When people believe the spells, it destroys their reasoning. It frays their ability to think for themselves. But if the spells contain obvious errors, such as contradictions or outright falsehoods, and people still believe them, the result is even worse.”

“How so?”

“Because they must abandon their senses to do so. They start to become unconscious. They gradually lose their connection to truth and goodness and beauty, and it begins to destroy their perceptual sovereignty.”

Sophia looked at her brother with her huge wide eyes, wondering how such a young boy could know these things. Then she turned her attention back to the sky. The dark shapes inched closer and closer, softly cutting through the wispy clouds as they slowly imposed their shadows on the land beneath them. The flickering was really bad. On one of the ships, it looked like an entire wing was half there, popping in and out of existence like a wavering candle flame.

Far below them lay the village they both called home. Soon it would be filled with the sounds of chaos. Sophia knew these sounds well. She had heard them many times before. First, several loud shouts would come from some observant onlookers, the first to see the invaders. This would trigger others to look up as well, each providing their own unique cry of terror as they confronted their new place in the universe. The cacophony would continue to escalate, each villager cycling through a primal, subconscious array of vocal reactions to the unknown, until the entire village had become a symphony of panic. Then the procedure would begin, and there would be nothing but silence.

If only the villagers knew what was really happening, she thought.

If only they could see past the lie.

Sophia would always remember the first time she saw them.

She had been so scared. Everyone was. It was one of those moments that she would remember forever. Anyone would. Except for those who didn't.

The terror spread quickly. First it struck those outside, working in their gardens or perhaps sipping tea in their yard. Mr. Hadwin, sweeping his front porch, Mrs. Waltrout, tending to her geraniums. Sophia, playing with her dolls. But then came that sickening sound, like the sky breaking in two, and then all were staring upwards, eyes quivering in their cold skulls as they attempted to comprehend the awful sight floating overhead.

They had guests.

No one knew who they were. No one knew where they had come from. Dark floating vessels, shaped like sharp daggers, sat weightless in the crystal blue expanse, hanging overhead like demonic jewels mined in the pits of hell.

Sophia watched the vessels open up. She stared, petrified, the hairs on her arms standing rigid, as the demons within them descended. They landed and floated through the town, creating an instant panic. The townspeople burst into a tangle of mass hysteria. Some ran, some froze, some began speaking pure madness. But all of them were afraid, and their fear left an open door to their psyches, ripe for penetration, which the dark spirits immedialtely siezed. Cries of cosmic terror filled the village, and an unbearable spritual agony took hold.

Sophia froze. Where could she go for safety? Mother, father...no, they were already wrapped in the psychic grasp of the invaders, dark tendrils drilling into their souls. Neighbors, friends...each and every person she knew, all captured by the awful beings, spun up like helpless bugs in stygian cocoons. She ran and ran, her heart racing, demons surrounding her everywhere, feasting on the souls of those she loved. She had no where to go, no one to run to, no way to hide.

Dark spirits spun around her like a cyclone, growing closer and closer every second as they moved amongst their prey. Surely she was next.

And then...just as quickly as it had began...

It was all over.

The demons were gone. All of them, gone without a trace. Overhead, the blue sky was empty. It was as if nothing had ever happened. Everyone picked up where they had left off. Hadwin went back to sweeping, Waltrout to her geraniums. The whole town had just been psychicly ravaged by demonic colonialists, driven and dragged to the zenith of madness by these otherworldly intruders, and no one - not a single person - not her parents, not her neighbors, not a single soul in town, other than her - no one seemed to have noticed.

But Sophia could tell. There was something off in all of them. Something was missing. At first she couldn't put her finger on it, but as the day passed into the next, she could tell that something was definitely amiss. Their personalities had changed. Something had been taken. That glint of life, that shining force which had made each of their souls into a lamp of goodness, that indescribable spark had been tragically dimmed. It was as if everyone in the village knew that something awful had happened to them, but everyone was too terrified to remember it.

For a while Sophia felt alone. She thought she might be going mad. Did the invasion really happen, or had she imagined the whole thing?

But then, her brother Janus came to her one evening. He looked at her, his eyes fearless, that shining force still burning brightly in his soul.

Then he spoke.

"I saw them too," he said. "I remember."

And Sophia suddenly realized that she wasn't alone.

The dark shapes stopped moving. They hovered over the village like floating spiders perched on an invisible web.

Sophia turned to Janus. He was putting the final touches on his masterpiece. It was a drawing of a large eyeball, scrawled into the dirt, with rays projecting out from the center of the pupil, down onto a tiny landscape below. He looked up at her and smiled. Sophia wondered how an eleven year old child could be so detached from what was about to happen. Then she wondered the same thing about herself.

“It’s about to begin,” Janus said. “Enjoy the show, it might be the last time we see it.”

The shapes in the sky began to transform. Their wings and panels slid and pivoted, opening up like clenched fists unfurling. A glowing portal opened in the underside of each one, from which dark, wispy figures began to emerge. They swirled around in the space beneath each opening like clusters of ethereal jellyfish. More and more of the figures appeared, too many to count. They danced and bobbed around under the ships, more and more appearing until the spawning was complete and all of them had formed. Then they began to gently descend to their target below. The first cries of alarm from the village broke the eerie silence, right on cue.

“It’s time,” Janus said, his drawing complete. He tossed the stick aside and stood up, grabbing his backpack and hoisting it over his shoulder. Then he turned, but not towards the village. Instead, he directed his gaze in the opposite direction.

There stood their next destination - a grand, statuesque mountain. Cool hues and strong cliffs and clouds swirled around its base. It towered over the rest of the world, a visual promise of freedom and prosperity to those souls who sought it. There were others in the world who had chosen to walk the path towards truth. The mountain was where they had gone. For Janus and Sophia, it would soon be their new home.

“Wait,” Sophia said. Her voice sounded distressed, as if she was about to cry. Janus turned to look at her.

“It’s time,” Janus said again. His voice was cool and stern.

Sophia watched the dark wispy figures enter the village from above. The cries of terror began to escalate. She turned to look at the mountain and then at Janus. He could see in her eyes a lack of commitment.

“Sophia,” he said again, clenching his teeth. “It’s time.”

Next Tuesday the visitors came again.

The townspeople panicked as if they were seeing this all again for the very first time. But Sophia was strong. As the demons descended to once again wreak their havok, she found Janus. He took her to a special place where the demons would not go, a secret courtyard with an ancient fountain, surrounded by beautiful rocks and flowers.

They hid there, helpless, watching in horror as the demons tortured people, driving them mad. The demons never hurt anyone physically - the wounds they made were designed to exclusively damage the soul. Sophia couldn't bear to watch, but Janus forced her to do so.

"Look!" he cried out, pointing directly at one of the demons nearby.

And that was when Sophia saw it. The demon flickered, like a bad magic trick gone awry, popping in and out of sight. And as she looked at it more, it began to break apart into abstract symbols and chunky triangular blocks, fluttering like a fragmented illustion, until it finally vanished completely. The person in its grasp continued to writhe in agony, as if the exegenous tormentor was still there. But visually, at least through Sophia's eyes, it had vanished.

Janus and Sophia left the courtyard. Everywhere they looked, if they stared at a demon long enough, it would glitch out and eventually vanish. But the people trapped in their spells remained transfixed in agony.

A demon rushed towards them from behind. Sophia turned and panicked. In a moment it would consume them both. She turned away, hiding her eyes, but Janus grabbed her and pulled her close.

"No!" he cried again, forcing her to stare at it. "Look!"

It rushed upon them, and just when Sophia thought it would sieze her heart and curse her soul, it vanished, bursting apart into a cloud of dark fragments.

Sophia could not believe it. All around her, those she had grown up with - parents, friends, neighbors, all wrapped in this awful curse. Yet she and Janus now seemed not ony immune to it, but beyond it as well, as if they could see that it wasn't real.

Were they trapped in some horrible nightmare? Was none of this real?

Or were they now somehow able to see through this veil of darkness consuming everyone around them?

“We have to go back,” she said, her voice quivering. “We have to try one more time.”

“Sophia, that is not an option.”

“Janus, I’m sorry…”

“Sophia, no!” Janus shouted, throwing his backpack to the ground. “We had an agreement!” He stormed to the edge of the cliff, standing inches from Sophia’s face. “How many times are we going to play this stupid game? We’ve tried this before, and it never changes a thing!”

“This time is different.” She was crying now, and averting her eyes from his. Her head and hands were shaking. The busy winds whipped around her, tossing her hair against her face as she tried to catch her breath and keep control of her emotions. She looked at the village, the place she had called home all of her life, and wondered how things could have possibly gotten this way. Sometimes she wondered if she had somehow caused all of this terrible mess to begin with. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath. Then she looked at Janus, straight into his eyes, with intensity and determination.

“This time is different,” she said again. “I don’t know how I know, but I just do.”

Janus put his hands on her shoulders and looked deep into her eyes. The winds picked up in strength and the screams from the village intensified. It felt as if they were witnessing the end of the world, just like last week.

”Every time is different, Sophia. Every time. But the fact is that no one in that village wants to wake up. No one wants to see the truth. We’ve tried, Sophia, my god have we tried. We spend years trying to wake up our parents, our friends, everyone…but the reality is that you and I are…just different. The others - they just don’t want to know.”

“We have to try,” she whispered. “One more time.”

Week after week the visitors returned. But Sophia no longer called them by that name. She called them figments instead, because she knew that they had no power over her or Janus. But the figments - whatever they were - didn't seem to care. They must have known that she and Janus could see through their illusion, but they just ignored them, focusing thier efforts on consuming the spirits of the hypnotized townspeople instead.

But then something happened that changed everything.

One day during an invasion, Sophia and Janus returned to the courtyard where they had previously hidden. There Sophia found a dying bird. She scooped it into her hands, gently caressing the smooth feathers, feeling its waning pulse as it clung to those final precious moments of life, death seconds away.

Closing her eyes, she wrapped her fingers around the carcass, holding it tight as its heart finally stopped beating. But a moment later, she felt a jolt of energy flow through her, and the bird sprung back to life. In a flutter of wings, it burst from her hands and flew off into the sky, full of fresh life like a spring meadow. Sophia had no idea what she had just done, but she knew something about her had changed.

Then Janus discovered that he could split rocks with his mind. He could cut them into pieces with a single thought, cleaving them apart like ripe melons. He started with a small rock in the corner of the garden, for reasons he could not explain. With a simple thought, he cut the rock in two, leaving the interior faces as smooth and as flat as glass. Over and over he did this, until the rock was nothing more than a pulverized pile of geometric dust. Then he reassembled it, fusing each particle with another until the rock was back in its original form.

The children had changed. They had new gifts, new abilities. New insights into the nature of physics and the structure of the universe. Their consciousness had expanded, perhaps as a result of confronting such a terrible darkness directly. Feats which they might have once regarded as magic and sorcery, the subject of fairy tales, now seemed like common skills that could be developed through practice and observation. While their understanding of this strange new path was just beginning, their exploration of it seemed just as natural as if they were learning a new language.

But something had changed in the townspeople as well. After the figments left, they were no longer indifferent to the two children.

Now they were rude, abrasive, bitter. Hostile.

Sophia didn't understand why they were acting that way. But Janus thought that the figments had influenced them with their spells, perhaps as a reaction to he and his sister's evolution. Regardless, their home was no longer a place where they felt safe. They could not unsee what they had seen, and they could not unbecome what they had become.

They had to leave, and soon. But where they would go remained a mystery.

That night the mystery was solved. The children heard a voice call to them. They heard it in their hearts, in their minds, in their souls. It was the purest voice they had ever heard, resonating like a crystal chime. When they spoke to each other afterwards, they knew they had heard the same thing. Neither of them knew who was calling them or why, but they both agreed that they should heed its message and take action.

The call told them they needed to go to the great mountain. There they would find others like them. There they would find their future, their destiny, their place amongst the hands which would help to sculpt the world's salvation.

Janus released Sophia from his grasp and took a step back. He looked at the village. The screams of terror had stopped and the procedure was about to begin. He closed his eyes for a moment and took a long, slow breath. When he looked at her again, he knew that she had made up her mind and there would be no arguing against it.

Sophia reached into her blouse and pulled out a small, heart shaped locket. Made from fine silver, it twinkled and glistened in the afternoon light. She opened it up to reveal a picture of their parents.

“But we’ve tried so many times, Sophia,” Janus said, looking at the picture. There was a tone of compassion and understanding in his voice that had not been there before. Sadness, even.

“I know,” she said, staring at the picture in the locket. “I know. This time…I don’t know how, but I think...I feel….like I can do it.”

For a moment, the two of them stood there and neither said a word. It seemed like time had stopped. The dark shapes floated in the distance like terrible snowflakes, the flickering still persisting. The village was dead silent. The procedure had surely begun. Then Sophia stepped forwards and hugged Janus as tightly as she could, and he put his arms around her as well.

"Thank you, Janus," she said. "Thank you for helping me open me eyes."

Janus hugged her tightly, pulling her close to him. He turned his head to look at the mountain, the place where the call had told them to go. There was no doubt in his mind that it was the place where they were meant to be, but it seemed like every time they came up here, they found another reason to delay their journey. Would it be a viable option forever?

The familiar fear of the pathway to their destiny being closed off forever crept into his heart. Still, if he was brave enough to risk venturing to such an unknown destination in the first place, then surely he could be brave enough to confront his fear of not being able to go, no matter how much that scared him. Then he thought about their mother and father, and how terrifying the world seemed without them nearby, despite whatever magic they might be able to weave on their own. He thought about how much he loved them, and how much he loved his sister, and how he wished more than anything that their lives could be back to normal. He leaned back and looked at Sophia, brushing her hair away from her face. He looked into her pretty eyes, and he knew what they had to do.

“Ok,” Janus said, picking up his backpack. “We’ll try one more time."