Witch’s Magic Book

SNEEK A PEAK

Once upon a time, there lived a sorceress in a solitary house, with no family or love in her life. One unexpected rainy day, a Mercenary stumbled upon her small house with his horse. The mountain were she was staying had particularly less shelters. He requested the witch to provide him some space until the rain stopped. The sorceress's eyes lit at his presence and heat generated in her stomach, clarifying her human feelings.

She let him in with a fake cold expression. She made him stay with her for a week using her witchcraft to bring rain right above her house. They soon found the feeling as mutual but the obvious tragedy fell over them as a war broke out and he had to go to participate. She used her witchcraft to make a pair of identical books which could be used to communicate between two destined people.

The mercenary took one of the books with him to the battlefield so that they both could communicate with each other timely as the witch waited for another rainy day to arrive with the same man in front of her house. Months passed away in a rainless year but he hadn't returned. They only talked through the book. The day after he promised to return soon through the book, there wasn't any message from him at their usual time to communicate.

The mercenary camping area was lighted on fire the same night by a spy and everything burned away into the night sky of endless abyss. As the mercenary felt his life coming to an abrupt end, his body crumbling to the ground in the smoke, he wrote in his book- "I am sorry for the empty promise". The witch discovered the last statement and broke out into burning rage and despair and sky thundered along with destructive rainfall. The whole world shook in her thunder and rain.

She set out in the rain to find the mercenary using the book to detect him. His half burned and half wet body from rain was found at the camping site the next morning. She once again shook the world in her fury and her soul left her despair stricken body along with the mercenary's soul on that same beautiful dawn of rainbows. The day when the most powerful elements of destruction came to that camp, among all the debris and mud left, only two books resembling the leftover heat of an unspoken love was left unharmed.

The books eventually reached a merchant and he discovered that the book had a blessing and curse over it. Few gods were infuriated by the witch's disruption of cycle of weather while others were touched by her love which resulted in the books being cursed and blessed at the same time. The blessing was discovered by the merchant. The first person to receive one of the books will become the other half of the owner of the second book. They will be soul mates for that lifetime. Even though the curse was found out by the merchant, the curse was kept a secret among the men of who were his descendants.

In his stupid and curious stage of crush over his beautiful classmate, Josh put the book into Sarah's bag and soon enough regretted his actions. But there was no turning away from the situation. He was trapped in his first love for ten lengthy years, with his book sitting ideally on his study table. He dragged down an innocent woman into his mess as well.

'Why would you do that?'

'Why would you do that?'

'Why would you do that?'

The question rang for a good half an hour of that night as she sat in her room with the diary she stole from her mother, saying that the diary was important to her. after few minutes of gawking at her date's name, she decided to stop pondering over her choice of words and climb to bed for a peaceful sleep. It could have been just because she was thinking about him all the way home. That was the only justification to put her teen hormone struck thoughts to peace. But as she got up from her seat, she looked at the page for a last glimpse but stopped in her track of thoughts as she noticed something more written on that book. Right under "Josh", it read "Sarah?"

(The woman was too stunned to speak.) Let's hope she did get some sleep that night.

The same snowy night, Josh came in a better state of mind than he had been lately. At last, he felt like he still had a chance as he had really lost belief in those mythical books as he grew older and mature. He took a warm shower and came out in the middle of brushing teeth when he heard his phone ringing. As he entered his dark room, lightened only by the moon and city sky, he noticed an object shining on his study table. He grabbed his phone from the bedside table, which was still provoking the calmness of his room and moved towards the table from where he saw the light coming. The light was coming from the mythical book. The light stopped as he opened it and at the same time he picked up the call which read "UNCLE". He brought the phone close to his cold ears with his eyes almost about to slip out its socket.

'This book really worked?'

On the first page top corner it read, "Josh". The caller at the other end of the line didn't wait for his greeting as he reported-

"Your father is in the hospital! Come quickly! He wants to see you! He doesn't... have much time…" The caller was trying to catch his breath and his unstable mind. That was his uncle three years younger than his father, leaning onto the hospital pillar to notify the family members about the sudden illness of his brother and that he was taking his last breaths. There wasn't much time to look at Sarah's message, as he grabbed his coat and keys. He looked back at the open book and felt uneasiness leaving it as it is. He grabbed a pen wrote on it.

"Sarah?"

That was the last thing he did before rushing to see his father lively eyes for the last time. He was his only parent as he grew up. His mother suddenly passed away in a car accident when he was a toddler, hence he didn't have any memory of her. he stumbled into the fourth floor of the hospital were his Uncle, his daughter and a small baby sleeping soundly, were waiting. They looked way more than uneasy and after few minutes, he found himself alone with his father in a closed room with a huge window out looking towards the buzzling night of London.

His father was gripping on to his soul, to give his son the information that had been kept secret among the men of the household. His wrinkled, kind face was illuminating the room more than the sky of deep blue canvas. He breathed in and out as if walking on egg shells. Josh sat close and kept his face as bright as possible. He wasn't going to let his father die, watching his son weep.

"Josh. Ah. What a beautiful name…" the dying soul breathed out. "Your mother gave you that name after pondering over it for a year. She… was my only mistake, my only love, my only wife. I took pride in... calling her my wife. If only I had chosen to back off, your mother must have lived long, in a happy family, with kids and grandkids. I was selfish... All our ancestors were selfish. Knowing that the gods cursed all the women holding that magical book to depart from earth early, we all still made them our spouse and watched them die."

His father's words weren't making any proper sense. He was confused but let his father finish speaking. So, the curse that the magical books had was that, the woman in the relationship will have to face early death and the death could be by any means. The news had yet to settle in. His mother died because of his father? "I should have burned those books down but it was too late by the time I found out. Your mother was pregnant with you. I had no other choice. Forgive... this old man…"

The night again fell calm leaving the beeping of machines around his father. His father was dead and he felt nothing for few minutes. The beeping was also going on in his head. He stared at his dead father; eyes rolled back, hands lying loosely by the sides. He moved closer to give his embrace and a loving kiss on his still hot forehead. He then closed his eyelids and stepped out of the room. He fell to the floor, right after clicking the door shut. His knees were weak.