Silverbrook is my NaNoWriMo about demons who attempt to cross over to Earth because hell is freezing over due to Earth's global warming (at least that's their excuse).

I'm posting some sample chapters on my blogsite anneliesefox.com. In the mean time, since my story takes place over the course of a school year (September to June), I'm including one of the timelines here. The one for the demons and the school they are inhabiting... or is that infesting.

Silverbrook Academy is the official name of the school on the hill. The property is owned by the Methodist Church on Main Street.

When the story starts the school is a boarded up unoccupied building. Here’s the timeline:

September

The demons first move into the building. Through demonic magic, they are able to make the gymnasium and hallway leading up to it appear to be restored (it’s not). With that illusion in place, they begin to craft the experience of a school dance. There aren’t real dances at this time, but music can be heard outside the building by some. This event takes place nightly from around eight pm to ten pm.

Typical local entertainment for a certain youthful element is to break into the school at night and explore. Billy Martin, who lives in the house next door, with a couple of friends is the first to discover the music. At this point, they aren’t able to find a way into the building, but they can hear the music and are attracted to it.

October

By October, the demons have created a solid enough illusion to lure Billy and his friends into the building. Once the boys are inside, they meet the principal (chief demon) and faculty (demonic minions) and are invited to participate in the dance. Billy is given the authority to invite more friends, which he does.

November

The illusion gets stronger. Parents of children participating in the dances notice that their kids are ‘better.’ Their manners have improved, they take going to school more seriously, and the hang out with like-minded students rather than some of the rougher elements. 

Billy’s mom, Mrs. Martin is the first parent to get involved with the academy. Again, location probably has a lot to do with this. She gets involved with the dances and starts to recruit (invite) other adults in the community to participate as chaperones. Both young and old adults are strongly attracted to the music and enjoy the dances.

December

The demons have established a stronghold sufficient to begin making the illusory repairs to the building real. The energy to do this comes from tapping or shaking hands with the human dance participants. In general, this does no apparent damage to the human, but once in a while because of the unique makeup of an individual, the process explodes and the person’s soul gets ripped from her body. Some of these incidents might be accidental, but in the case of others for whom the demons think there might be problems, they have the ability to do this on purpose. 

[Note: there’s a whole lot of energy binding a soul to its body. That’s what the demons tap into when they’re collecting energy for their projects.]

January

By January, the demons have tapped just about everyone in the immediate area. They have the strength to be present more than a couple hours a day and they use their additional strength and power to make the school open for more hours, for more activities. They begin expanding the ‘repairs’, which are actually manipulating the arrangement of matter already present, to more parts of the building.

February

More of the same. The physical shell of the building is nearly completely restored to what it looked like in the 1950s. Surplus energy released by the manipulations is enough to warm the surrounding area to spring-like conditions.

Somehow Mrs. Martin has gotten wind from the demons that the dogs in the area (see dog subplot) are a possible danger to the demons. She first shoots her son’s dog, then proceeds to plot to get rid of the rest of the dogs in the area. As she begins to make a real nuisance, the demons strip her of her role and give it to Ernie Thompson.

March

The demons have collected enough strength and have sufficiently modified the environment of the school that they can exist nearly full time. They are around Monday through Friday, and Saturday mornings. They have to return to their demonic home Saturday-Sunday to recharge. They’ve brainwashed the humans by now to recognize Sunday as a day of rest which means the Methodist church now has large Sunday services.

April

The project continues to gather steam. By the end of the month it is possible to manipulate golems that can travel beyond the school grounds.

May

The school and grounds have been prepared. The demons use this month to begin operation to migrate their physical presence to earth. Heretofore, they have only been able to exist as a sort of projection or golem where they move and animate matter to look and act like a human being, but a golem is a temporary thing and can’t be maintained permanently. To establish permanence, they must create a kind of golem that has the capability of creating (or birthing) a creature fully of this world that can support a soul. This action requires a tremendous amount of energy and a perfectly prepared environment. It requires trial and error to determine the exact environment necessary. These experiments release a lot of wild energy. The demons manipulate the weather to create freak storms to mask their practice efforts.

June

If all has gone well with the demon’s time table, this will be the month in which they will be effect the final phase of their migration and be able to exist in the human realm permanently.