For You in Blood

Chapter One

Chapter One

            Within the confinements of her home Annabel sat on the window ledge with her arms wrapped around her knees her long white silk and lace nightgown hanging lowly around her ankles as her long wavy light brown hair fell over her shoulders in waves.

            Three months had passed since Andria’s death and her heart ached, her eyes looked to the calendar that was mounted on the small table today’s date was circled with the words Big Day in red ink. Today was the day they were supposed to be married; only now instead of happiness Annabel felt nothing but sorrow.

            What’s more she had no one to truly confide in with his death, the only person in her family that was still alive was her grandmother only now she too had resigned to death a month after losing her love. Tears began to form in her eyes as she looked away from the calendar, wiping away her tears before pausing to look at her left hand where her engagement ring rested.

            She thought about taking it off a number of times while healing in the hospital but couldn’t bring herself to do it even now.

            I should probably go and look at the things that my grandmother left me. She thought with a deep sigh as she got up from where she was sitting only to wince in pain from her left side. Her right hand grasped the left side of her waste as she gasped for breath, even after being in rehab; she still felt the stabbing pains inside her body.

            Even after three months Annabel still struggled to move even at a normal pace, in which she feared that she may never be able to dance ever again.

            Knowing that made her wish that she had died, if Annabel couldn’t dance she felt as if she could no longer live, but Annabel knew that she would never be able to take her own life.

            Taking a breath and letting the pain pass Annabel continued her way to the third floor which was her attic.

            Numerous boxes both open and closed littered the floor, the warm glow of the spring’s sunlight drifted into the dust covered room.

            “I guess I should ask for help in the cleaning at some point…” she said but didn’t bother making an attempt as she walked to one of the boxes and opened it, within the box were many books that her grandmother owned, many hardcover and old from time, but taken with much care and love by their previous owners.

            Many of which had been passed down by other family members have long since passed. You loved to read didn’t you Grandmother… she thought with a faint smile as she ran her hands lovingly through the many spines of books that were cramped together in one box. Only to have her hand go still when she sees one book that she had never seen before.

            With a slight frown she took the unknown book out and looked at the cover.

            “What is this?” she said as she ran her hand over the book, the cover had an old and Celtic design, something that Annabel had never seen in her life. It looked ancient, almost the kind of book that belonged in a museum of literature and not in her attic with dark brown leather soft and warn but still holding strong to its design, the silver that was tarnished with age and time yet somehow still looked bold.

            She undid the clasp that held the book closed, hesitating in thinking that it may open and spill its unknown contents to the dust covered floor, but when she opened it nothing happened.

            There was a page of old paper held on to the inside of the cover written with old impressive scrawl that read as such:

            To the one who now holds this book, within its pages contains the many ways of how to call those whom many believe do not exist, beings of great power and destruction, those that we worship and fear, beings that may one day be lost to time itself.