Sorgett

CW: death, mention of alcohol/drunkenness, attempted violence

The other kids I babysat had imaginary friends like winged cats or blue penguins, but my latest client’s daughter Beth’s was much stranger.

Beth Bately was five years old and had dark shoulder-length brown hair and huge blue eyes. She was very creative and was always sitting on the floor drawing on whatever paper she could find or telling me stories about the dog or a roly-poly she had found outside, stuff like that.

She also liked to watch TV with me. I would usually turn on Pokemon. She would cheer every time Team Rocket showed up and would say their motto along with them, sometimes stumbling over the words.

I often brought my Nintendo Switch with me and would let her watch me play Pokemon Violet. It was fun to watch her smile and point at the screen whenever Miraidon or Arven appeared.

Sometimes she would ask why she never got to see her dad. I didn’t know if her mom had told her that he had left when she was a baby. 

I felt a tug on my shirt and turned to see Beth looking up at me.

“Stacy?” she asked.

“What is it?” I responded.

“Nevermind,” said Beth, shaking her head. “He says I can’t tell you.”

Every story I had ever read of children seeing ghosts flashed through my mind. “Who does?”

She smiled. “My imaginary friend.”

I smiled back. “What does your imaginary friend look like?” I asked her, praying it wouldn’t be some horrifying monstrosity. 

“His name is Sorgett, and he’s long like a ferret but he’s scaly like a lizard and he’s really big”—she stretched her little arms up as far as they would go—“like this big, and he has a head like Miraidon, and big blue eyes like a cat, and his mouth looks like a jack-o-lantern. And he has big wings like a Charizard, and he’s all black! Oh, and he has horns!”

I sighed in relief. “Where does he live?” 

“He lives in the forest by my house.”

“Oh, okay,” I said. “Is he nice?”

Beth nodded. “Yeah!” she said happily. “He talks in my head, and he always tells me how he wants to play with me. Can I play with him now?”

“In the forest?”

“Yeah!”

I shook my head. “Beth, you can’t go in the forest by yourself, especially not at night. It’s too dangerous. Besides, your mom wouldn’t want you to.”

“But Stacy, I’ll be fine! And I really want to play with him!” Tears pooled in Beth’s eyes, and her bottom lip trembled.

“Beth,” I tried again, “you can’t go into the forest alone.”

“You can go with me!” said Beth, a hopeful look on her face. “I really want to see my friend. He says I should play with him now.” 

“You can play with him tomorrow morning if your mom lets you,” I told her.

Beth opened her mouth to say more, paused as if she was listening to someone speaking, and then closed her mouth again. “All right,” she said.

I frowned. Beth had agreed quicker than I thought she would.

That night, I left Beth’s home and returned to my own after collecting my $20 from her mother. After putting the money in my wallet, I ate dinner and cleaned my room.

A few hours later, my phone began to buzz. I took it out of my pocket. My stomach dropped. Beth’s mom was calling. Had something happened?

I pressed the green button on the screen and lifted the phone to my ear. “Hello?”

The voice of Beth’s mom came urgently through the speaker. “Where is my child?”

I froze. “She was in bed when I left.”

“When I came to check on her, she was gone, and the window was open!”

My eyes widened. “I’ll be right there.”

My parents were still working, so jumping in my car and driving to Beth’s house was easy. 

Her mother and I searched the front and back yards and the forest beyond. We split up; I would look for Beth in the trees behind the house and her mother would look in the front.

I walked between the tall oaks, leaves crunching under my sneakers. The night was still except for the hoot of an owl or the whisper of the wind weaving through the reddening leaves. A chill had descended upon the area, and I shivered, wishing I had brought a jacket. 

I heard footsteps traveling away from me and a child’s voice crying, “Sorgett!”

I tensed. It was Beth!

I sprinted, following Beth’s shout to a clearing with a large boulder in the center almost as tall as I was.

Beth was standing in front of the stone, which had begun to glow.

The little girl stretched her arms toward the sky and chanted, “Veni, domine tenebrarum, rex noctis, mediae noctis reduc thronum tuum.” 

The blue light grew until it was almost blinding. I covered my eyes, waiting for the light to fade.

A roar shattered the silence. I forced my eyes open and ran to Beth, grabbing her and bolting out of the forest, my heart pounding. Beth struggled against my iron grip, crying, “Let me go! Let me go!”

When we reached the house, I held Beth tightly in one arm and used the other to get my phone, call her mother, and tell her that her daughter had been found.

The next time I went to babysit Beth, I discovered that the girl had been forbidden from going into the forest and was only allowed to play in the front and back yards. This upset Beth greatly, but I was able to distract her by challenging her to create the most giant pile she could from the leaves that had fallen into the freshly-mowed grass. 

This occupied her for a while, and she seemed to have forgotten all about seeing her imaginary friend.

Meanwhile, I was still reliving the memory of the tall stone and the strange blue markings. What was that roar? And why was Beth chanting in Latin, a language she had no exposure to, as far as I knew?

Beth tugged at my sleeve, interrupting my thoughts. “Look!” she said, pointing to her leaf pile, which was a few feet taller than she was.

“That’s amazing!” I told her, smiling although I was a little confused. “How did you build all that?”

Beth grinned. “Sorgett helped me! I told him I couldn’t come to play with him anymore, so he came to play with me, and he helped me make a super big leaf pile!”

“Oh, that’s nice,” I said a little uneasily. “Where is he?”

“He left,” said Beth. She pointed to a set of clawed footprints that began at the leaf pile and traveled through the yard for a few feet before stopping abruptly, almost as if the owner of the prints had flown away.

I frowned. How had I not noticed those footprints before, especially from a creature whose feet were bigger than my hand? And how had said creature been so quiet?

As soon as Beth’s mom got home and I collected my money, I drove to the library that was a few miles from Beth’s house and located in the more populated part of town, which was filled with supermarkets, restaurants, pet stores, and other establishments with peeling paint and chipped signs. There wasn’t a single blade of grass except in the yards of the houses around the fading buildings and in the forest behind the houses. 

Night had descended, and the street lamps had been lit, giving the town a surreal, almost eerie glow.

The library was on a street corner next to the high school. It was a squat, rectangular building constructed from faded red bricks and dotted with small windows. It only had one floor, but the shelves inside were packed with every kind of book you could imagine. I often went to pick up manga, YA novels, classics, and my mom’s favorite Jane Austen books.

I parked my car and headed inside the library, pulling at my coat’s sleeves. The librarian at the front desk, a woman in her early thirties, greeted me with a warm smile.

“Hi, Stacy!” she said kindly, as she did every time I showed up. 

“Hey, Miss Rose,” I said. “Do you have any books on ancient ruins? Like tall stones? Or is there some book about the history of our town? Or about ruins in our town, if there are any?”

“Yeah, there are a few,” said Miss Rose. “Is this for a school project?”

“Er… yes! Yeah, a project for World Regional Studies,” I stammered, hoping the librarian didn’t know I was a terrible liar.

Miss Rose raised an eyebrow at me before pointing to a bookshelf behind me labeled Archeology. “You should be able to find what you’re looking for over there,” she said. “Or maybe that section”—she pointed to a shelf away to my left labeled Thornborough History—“would help more.”

I thanked her and walked over to the Thornborough History section. I grabbed a few books and flipped through them, disappointed when I only found stuff about who had established the town, what crops were grown there, etc. Every book I found had this kind of information.

After looking for a while, I was on the verge of giving up when I felt something nudge my shoulder. I turned.

A small, barely-held-together book called Secrets of Thornborough was floating in front of me like an invisible person had picked it up and was holding it out to me. I froze, my body trembling. If this library was haunted, I was never coming back.

The book drifted toward me, and I reached out my shaking hands to take it. 

The book opened by itself and flipped to a page titled The Lord of Darkness. Below the words was a sketch of the stone in the clearing. Under the drawing was a couple of paragraphs that read:

The dwelling of a mighty demon who many people worshiped. This demon had telepathic powers, could turn himself invisible, and mask his presence so entirely that you couldn’t hear him at all. He was a powerful creature who destroyed anyone threatening him or his worshipers with scorching blue flames. He was said to be benevolent and playful but easily angered and almost immature. His worshippers chant this phrase: “Veni, domine tenebrarum, rex noctis, mediae noctis reduc thronum tuum.” They wished for him to become a formidable ruler of the night and obliterate any evildoers. However, after being sabotaged by one of his worshipers, he became uncaring toward humans and sealed himself inside a relic made in his honor, a huge stone decorated with markings that as of this writing, we haven’t been able to decipher.

Among other things, this demon was called the Lord of Darkness and the King of Night, but his real name was known by many: Solgheth.

On the next page was a drawing of a dragonlike creature with a long body, a head shape that resembled Miraidon from Pokemon, giant wings, almond-shaped eyes, curved horns, a mouth with jagged lips like the mouth of a jack-o-lantern, a lizardlike tail, and clawed feet. 

Realization hit me like a bucket of cold water.

Sorgett. Solgheth.

The book fell from my hands and hit the floor with a dull thud.

A masculine voice echoed in my head. Beth is in danger. Follow me.

Footprints appeared on the carpet next to me and headed in the direction of the door. Although I was still reeling from the revelations, hearing that Beth was in danger strengthened my resolve.

I followed the footprints outside the library, saying goodbye to Miss Rose, who was investigating the backrooms because the door had somehow opened on its own.

When I was outside in the chill night air, Solgheth appeared in front of me, his black scales rendering him almost invisible in the darkness. He swished his tail and crouched to the ground, beckoning.

I climbed onto his back and gripped his horns as he took off into the night sky.

Solgheth flew at a rapid pace, the town speeding by below him. I crouched down, the wind from his flight buffeting my face and pulling my lips away from my teeth.

In no time, we were hovering over the forest near Beth’s house. Solgheth descended into a clearing, the flapping of his wings stirring up the fallen leaves and shaking the trees, knocking acorns and disgruntled animals to the ground.

The demon folded his wings close to his body and sprinted through the forest, weaving through the trees with serpentine grace.

When we reached Beth’s house, my breath caught in my throat.

The front door had been smashed in and the windows were broken. Screams of “DON’T TOUCH HER!” could be heard from inside.

I jumped off Solgheth’s back, stumbled, ran to the door, and looked inside.

A man, the stench of alcohol and various bodily fluids emanating heavily from him, stood over Mrs. Bately, who was holding her daughter close to her.

The man, who was burly and bearded, grinned, revealing yellowed teeth. He lurched toward the mother and daughter, hoisting his fire axe above his shoulder.

Beth began to sob, her shoulders shaking.

I charged inside, followed by Solgheth. Due to the demon’s large size (he was bigger than a horse), he had to fold his wings and slide sideways between the door.

Beth gasped, her face lighting up. “Sorgett!”

The man’s eyes grew wide and he staggered backward. “What is that thing?” he cried, his words slurred. 

Beth smiled, extricating herself from her mother’s tight hold. “That’s my imaginary friend!”

“Solgheth, Lord of Darkness, King of Night,” I added, grinning.

Solgheth tipped his head back and roared, the scales on his underside glowing with bright aquamarine light.

The man screamed and held his axe out in front of him, trembling. 

When Solgheth crept toward him, his movements slow and serpentine, the man screamed again and swung his axe at the demon.

Solgheth covered Beth’s eyes with his tail before opening his jaws and incinerating the man with blue fire, leaving nothing but ash. 

After staring in astonishment for a moment, I ran to Beth and her mother. “Are you okay!?”

Mrs. Bately nodded, breathing hard. She stood shakily and wrapped Beth and me in a tight hug. Solgheth had begun to bat at the dead man’s ashes like an enormous housecat.

***

After the damage to the Batelys’ home had been repaired, Solgheth returned to the forest. 

He didn’t leave for good, however. As fall turned into winter, the demon would stop by to play in the snow with me and Beth. He mostly spent time with Beth because, as Beth told me, he was still figuring out if he could fully trust me.

The rest of the town didn’t know what had truly happened that night. The ashes had been thrown away and the burn mark was covered by a carpet, so according to us, someone had broken the door and the windows but had run off when Mrs. Bately came to investigate the damage with her shotgun.

Beth started kindergarten the next year and quickly made friends. I continued to babysit for Mrs. Bately, and Solgheth began to warm up to me.  

So, that's the story of how the imaginary friend of the girl I babysat turned out to be a powerful but friendly demon.