The Book

As I sat on the couch and slowly began to stand again I started to remember the strange man I seen that handed me the book that somehow is tied into my family. I look at it lying on the table and then I look at Issy. "Did you see a man in front of my door before you pulled in?" I ask her.

"No I didn't see anyone," she looks at me more concerned than she was when I first woke up, about an hour ago.

"I promise I'm not going crazy, Issy. I just could have sworn I seen a man at my door..."

"Well, there wasn't anyone there but you and I want to know if you're truly okay because you wouldn't stop mumbling about that old book."

I look at the book and notice that there wasn't any marks on the spine like it had ever been opened before. "Someone was there because they handed this book to me. Look at the spine, remember how my mom always read her book? It would have marks from being opened."

She picks up the book and examines it and whispers, "Wicked..." she looks at me in amazement, "I didn't see anyone but you're right about this being a different book."

I lightly take the book out of her hands and carefully open it to what should have been the title page. "There isn't even a title to this book." I say flipping through the pages that should have had the publisher and author on them.

"That's weird," she takes the book back from me and looks at those pages also. "So about that guy. What did he say to you or did he just hand you the book?"

I looked at her and said, "He didn't just hand me this book." I commenced into telling her what I remembered from the moment we hung up the phone.

"Wicked," she said looking at me in disbelief. "So are you going to read the book and decide?"

"I don't see a better choice. I really don't want to die like the rest of my family." I look at the book that is now resting on the table. "I will start reading it later, for now, let's hang out like we planned." I smile at her and she smiles at me because we both loved a good mystery.

She walks into the kitchen and gets everything back out that I had prepared previous to my little encounter and we enjoy ourselves until we both feel like we're going to pass out. "We should get to bed," she says groggily.

"Let's go pass out on my bed this time so nobody has to try to drag us there," I say with a small laugh. We walk up to my room, flop onto my king sized bed, and instantly fall asleep.

I wake up in a strange room surrounded by pillows and large blankets. I sit up and look around at the tapestries on the walls and the curtains hanging from the bed posts of the bed I am in. 'Where am I?' I think looking around once more. I get out of the bed and walk over to one of the many windows to look out. 'Wow, what is this place?' I look down at myself and realize that I'm in a fancy nightgown.

I walk to one of the giant doors and open it, inside are hundreds of shoes. I walk to another set of doors and open them, inside of this one are dresses. I walk to the second to last set and open it, inside was the most beautiful dress that looked liked a wedding dress. The shoes that sat next to it complemented the dress perfectly and the hair piece was a perfect combination of jewels and flowers.

I walk back to the first room with dresses and choose one to wear. Then I go to the room with shoes and choose the pair that matches it. I get dressed then open the final set of doors to a long corridor. I walk through the corridor and look at all the fancy doors and paintings that lined the walls. I reach the end and there is a staircase I choose to go down the stairs hoping to find my way out of this what I assumed was a castle.

All of a sudden I'm jolted from my stroll down the stairs and wake up in my bed to Issy shaking me. "What's wrong?" I ask her noticing the fear on her face.

"Look!" She points to my dresser and I follow her finger to see the book sitting on the top of my dresser and it looks like it was on fire.

"Did you bring it in here and set it on fire?" I look at her wide eyed.

"No! I woke up to the smell of smoke and saw it there!" She looks like she's been crying. "I tried to put it out but it wouldn't go out it kept getting bigger and it burnt my hand." She shows me her hand that now has the burn cream we always kept in the house on it. "I woke you up because I was scared it was gonna burn the whole house down..."

"Issy, it's okay. It's out now and we need to get you to the hospital for that burn. It looks bad." I know I shouldn't have said that but I was being honest. She starts crying and I take her out to her car then go back inside to get her keys and my keys for the house. On my way out I see the book laying on the coffee table again. I walk over to it and pick it up, there wasn't any sign it was on fire at all. I go back into my room and my dresser looks fine as well.

I walk out, with the book, and lock the door so I can take Issy to the hospital. I get in her car and she is sleeping in the passenger seat. I look at her hand and it looks worse than when I first seen it. I quickly drive to the emergency room and wake her up to go inside. I realize that she was actually passed out from the pain so I carry her in so I can put her in a wheelchair and check her in. They took her back immediately because I told her that her hand was burnt really bad from our gas stove and that she had passed out from the pain.