Out of the Darkness

162

An elaborate room, white with gold trim was on the other side of the door. It was decorated with style and class. I saw a marble bookshelf, with gold designs etched into it's surface. A fat, cushy white chair sat beside it, with a plump, gold trimmed pillow propped up on it's side. A chandelier with two gold trimmed levels, was hanging from the ceiling. There were large, intricate crystals hanging from below the flame shaped bulbs. I had to admit that it was beautiful. A little too polished for my taste, but still beautiful. I waited, cautiously inching the door open a little more, to see if I could hear anyone speaking again. After a few minutes of silence, I eased the door open wide, and took a few steps into the room. I heard a soft clicking sound behind me, while I studied the room. When I turned back, the door that I had entered was closed, and the outline of it was fading. I dove back towards it, reaching for the handle, but my hand passed right through it. My escape route was gone and I was stuck in this weird place. "I guess it's now or never," I whispered to myself, wryly. Since I didn't hear anything, or anyone, I decided to explore the room that I was in. There was an huge, old mahogany desk that had been refinished sitting against the back wall of the room. I walked over to it and sat in the cushioned, white desk chair that sat behind it. I saw one of those large calendars that took up most of the desk space, sitting in front of me. There were dates circled and short hand that I couldn't understand marked inside the spaces. After a few moments of trying to figure out what the dates were, I gave up and opened one of the desk drawers instead. I went through each drawer, rifling through all of the random paperwork, hoping that something would stand out to let me know whatever it was I needed to know. I found nothing. At least nothing that I thought was useful. I sat back, letting out a breath of frustration, and looked around the room again. There were paintings on the walls, a couple of the night sky with a full moon, a couple of renaissance style ones, then the last one. It was stuck on the wall, half way behind the bookshelf. If I had been on the other side of the room, I wouldn't have even been able to see it. I immediately knew what it was. I got up and walked slowly over to the painting. It didn't look like it had when I had went there. The house looked newly built, the wood shining and the windows open. It sat in the middle of a forest clearing with a lake behind it. It wasn't overgrown, or scary looking at all, but I knew better. That house may not have been an evil place back then, but it was now. The longer I stared at the painting, the more I noticed. There was a woman sitting in a rocking chair, on the small porch. A man in overalls stood by the lake, with a fishing pole in his hands. Two little blonde girls were running in the sunlight, maybe in a game of tag. Then I saw her. I knew it was her. A dark haired little girl, on the outskirts of the woods, staring at the other little girls. Her face was in a tight frown, and her little fists were clenched. I looked closer and saw a blade in one of her small hand. It had blood dripping down the tip, onto the ground. The sunlight took over most of the painting, but in the back corner, over the girl in the woods, there was a dark storm cloud. I shivered and back away from the wall. I already knew that Lilith had wanted to hurt her sisters, from the other picture that I had seen at the actual house. Or was it in the Demon Realm. I couldn't remember. It was hard to keep it all straight. I looked through the book shelf to see if there was anything in it, that might tell me what I was supposed to be doing here. Most of the books were dusty, like they hadn't been picked up in a very long time, their pages crisp instead of worn. Then, I noticed that there was a clean space on the shelf, in front of one particular book. I reached up and pulled it down, feeling the old, worn leather beneath my fingertips. It had an old fashioned latch around it. I admired it for a second, wishing that I had one like this to use as my journal. There was two symbols on the front, something that I had never seen before and something that I knew to be evil. The 6 pointed star. A hexagram. I didn't know much about witchcraft or any of that, but the 6 pointed star had always been a sign of evil. It signified the Devil. The other symbol beneath that one, was more intriguing. I traced it with my finger tip, feeling the indent in the old leather, as I did. It was a straight line down, with two lines above it, and two curved lines coming out from the top, and going down. I had no clue what it meant, like most everything else that I had been introduced to since I had went into that fucking house. I unhooked the belt-like latch, and flipped it open. The first page sent shivers down my spine. In old, intricate letters, old English calligraphy maybe, the words "Book of Shadows" stood out. Underneath the phrase, a signature made in red ink...I hoped it was ink, was scrawled. I couldn't read the name, no matter how hard I tried. The 'ink' was too smeared, leaving the page with a crusty appearance. I noticed that there was a long black ribbon sitting in between the pages of the book, so I flipped it open to that page. The words were in the same script, but in another language. Latin came to my mind, simply because I knew that most old spells were in Latin. At least, according to television shows and such. A few of the words were highlighted, or underlined. There was a folded piece of paper, yellowed with age, sitting in the crease of the pages. I pulled it out and shook it open gently. It was the same spell that was in the book, only some of the words were marked out or different. Like someone had tried making corrections. "Might come in handy," I whispered to myself.