Five-Finger Discount
15 Apr 2019Today’s prompt: “What you would shoplift”
You meander through the magic shop, running your finger along the crystal case, studying the decks of tarot cards, and holding various amulets with stones or Celtic symbols up to the light. At last, the shop owner turns her back and you stuff the book into your coat.
If you had bought the book, the shop owner would have thrown in a hamsa for free. And warned you not to read the book without wearing the charm.
After admiring the book, with its matte black cover embossed with a pentagram, you leaf through the pages. The spells are simple, with only an incantation and a few household ingredients required – nothing you couldn’t dig out of a closet or a spice rack. You begin with a simple levitation spell. You light three candles, burn three dried leaves, and read from the book in a voice that starts as ominous, but then devolves into silliness. But it works. First, you levitate a plate with a cookie on it. Then, yourself. Then, your cat, who hides from you for the rest of the day.
Next, you try a fire spell. You decide you’d better be outside for this one, but you don’t want to deal with any nosy neighbors. You drive to an abandoned Kmart. Behind the store, you sprinkle sand in a circle around you, open the book and read the words. It looks like Latin or something. You’re not sure. But apparently, you get the pronunciation right, because flames burst from your fingertips. You howl with laughter.
You go home, and now you’re ready to try a summoning spell. The spell says it’s a helpful spirit. Maybe it can help you clean house or something.
You draw the symbols in chalk on the concrete basement floor. You take the precautions listed at the beginning of the summoning chapter to smudge some sage and make a circle of salt around the area where you’ve drawn the symbols. And then you step into the circle and begin to read aloud.
Immediately, something seems wrong. The house shakes. A window shatters, and the wind carries the sage smoke away from the center of the room and scatters the salt circle. An eerie, deep, disembodied laugh echoes. This does not seem like a helpful spirit.
You flip through the book, looking for the banishment spell you saw earlier. But when you flip the page, instead of words, all you see is a picture of an eye. You turn the page. Another eye. You flip through page after page with your thumb. Eye. Eye. Eye. Eye. Eye.
You step back, but find you cannot move past the chalk symbols. A sharp pain hits your stomach, and you double over. The pain eases for a second, then comes back with renewed vigor. It feels as though something is tearing you up from the inside. And so it is. A demon claws its way into this world through your midsection. As you die, eviscerated, the book falls with a thud to the basement floor.