Ancestors



I did it last Thursday, from a book I found in my loft…

This is the story of why I am sorry for you. Now you have read this there’s no turning back.

I am a normal person, normal house, normal job, normal friends, and normal life. Just about everything to do with me is normal. Or so I thought, until I researched my family tree.

It seems I am distantly related to one of those not found guilty and therefore executed at the Salem Witch Trial. The legends go that she actually was a witch, and could therefore hide her secret powers and plead not guilty. There might have been a bit of enchanting helping her case, as well.

That was an old legend, but obviously not real. Many families had stories about their ancestors, most in an attempt to feel royal or simply special. Some actually did have famous ancestors. Many did not even know.

I read about my ancestor after I researched her, and it appears she was quite infamous in those days, but they could not find anything to convict her, so they dropped the charges against her.

She would, for many years before, go round dressed in an old black silk cloak and wave a Hawthorn stick around in the air, chanting aloud in strange words from unknown languages. She would scream out curses on those she saw.

This was an elaborate hoax, a way of making sure robbers and thieves stayed away from her small cottage. She lived alone, and there was nobody to guard her house when she went out. She had nothing of value in there, but still she thought that they would come and defile her house, and then she would die alone, unloved, unwanted.

She was so terrified of this event coming to pass that she kept up this witch act her whole life, up until the point she died. Her bones were left alone to moulder; nobody wanted to go near the so called sorcerer.

I was poking around in my loft the other day, when I found an old book. It was dusty and leather bound and very thick. It must have been a thousand pages long at least, and it captured my natural curiosity.

Opening it to the index, I found the contents page used to sort out whatever this book was into even sections. Reading the scrawl on the first page with difficulty, I managed to make out ‘Property of Ms. Mary English’. I gasped when I read this, but I shouldn’t have been too surprised. This was the book of my ancestor! Quickly turning pages now, I came across spells.

They were written in old English words, and the illustrations were truly gruesome. One spell in particular caught my eye.

I laugh as I write this, for two reasons. One was that, even before Robert Louis Stevenson, there were men and women attempting to separate the bad side of us from the good. My distant ancestor had tried to do just that, through a spell.

I chuckled as I realised I was taking this all in my stride. Spells, witches, things I wouldn’t have believed in a few years ago.

Standing up from my crouched position in the loft, I took a few paces forward and fell through the floor. The old timber had cracked and rotted with age, and my weight was enough to crash right through it.

I landed hard on the floor. It was extremely dark in here, and I wondered where I was. Taking a match from my pocket where I always carry them, I lit one.

I screamed louder than I ever have before, for I was staring right into the grinning skull of a dead rotted body.

Recovering myself, I looked around. It seemed I had fallen through the loft into a place between the walls of my house. They were not as solid as I had thought, but had a large gap in between them.

Inspecting the skeleton nervously, I noticed it was wearing the tattered rags of an old black cloak. Could it be?

Now I was just grasping at straws. Turning around, I saw the book had fallen with me. It did not seem damaged by its fall, which was very lucky. It was old, and I thought it would have been broken, but no. It was in the exact same position, too, open at the page I had opened it to.

Caught up in the moment, I decided to try the spell. It was a simple one, requiring only that you chant the words aloud. I didn’t think it would hurt, and it was worth a try.

I am chanting now, as I feel myself change. I should be worried, the spell went wrong. Or maybe this was its proper intention?

I am laughing as I write this, another reason is as follows:

The spell definitely separated the good and evil sides of myself. Unfortunately for you all, it has trapped the part of me that yearns for good and released the side of me that lives for destruction.

As I change, I am hurriedly writing this and posting it. I want to tell you something… My brain is turning evil, but I know so much more. I can now track people down by the electrical currents in their brain and the resulting ‘fingerprint’ of energy when they access a page online.

By reading this, you’ve told me where you are.

I yearn for destruction. I can no longer hold back. Go away from this page, delete your history – or I will find you.

Cackling like my ancestor, I go out to hunt.