Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 83281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
I had another flash of memory while looking at the tub. I remembered being in it with the bubbles up to my chin, laughing and using the foam to make a unicorn horn for myself.
Grandma was laughing with me as she watched me have fun with the bubbles and I suddenly missed her with all my heart. I wished I could hug her and be enfolded in her arms.
But she was gone now. How had the Orc put it? She had “faded”—which seemed like an odd way to say someone had died. Anyway, it was just me and Sebastian and the little voice which sometimes spoke in my ear. I still wasn’t sure if that was her spirit or just an echo of her, left behind.
I waited, but the voice didn’t say anything, so I moved on to the next room in the house at the other end of the hall.
It turned out to be a library with a fireplace on one wall and a window seat that had been turned into a reading nook with a mound of fluffy cushions. There were lots of very old-looking books that were bound in leather but also plenty of tattered paperback Harlequin romances. I seemed to remember that Grandma had always had a romance tucked in a pocket of her apron or her cardigan. She called them her “love stories.”
There was a desk in one corner that would make the perfect place to work—if the house had Internet connection, which I kind of doubted. I hadn’t seen any Wi-Fi router anywhere so far and there was no computer either—not even a clunky old one. I was going to have to get that fixed somehow, if I was going to keep working from home.
Lying on the desk was a big, ancient-looking leather-bound book. On the front of it I saw an intricate scene had been worked into the leather—a willow tree with many trailing branches that dipped into a flowing river. It looked like the tree in the backyard, I thought. On the spine was stamped a single word—Pruitt—my Grandmother’s last name.
Opening it to the first page, I saw a kind of family tree had been drawn. I read my Grandma’s name and my mother’s and mine too. It went all the way back to the 1600s. Of course, I didn’t recognize most of the male names—I saw my father’s and then I looked for my Grandfather on my Mom’s side. When I saw his name, I frowned. Morris? Had Grandma named her house after her late husband? It seemed like a weird thing to do, but whatever. I shrugged to myself and moved on.
I turned to the next page and saw the word, Grimoire in flowing script. Wait—wasn’t that a book of spells? I flipped through more of the brittle old pages carefully and saw that I was right—the book was filled with all kinds of herb lore, advice, and yes—what looked like rituals for magic.
A Spell for the Banishment of a Man Unwanted, read one.
Light candles three of honeycomb stained black.
Place them in a triangle, picture he who you wish to banish, and chant the following:
“I Banish thee Once
I Banish thee Twice
And if I must
I Banish thee Thrice.
Never more to Darken my Door
Get Ye Hence
And come No More
So Mote it Be!”
Blow out the candles and the Banished Male will bother you no more.
“Wow, that’s convenient—if it works,” I murmured, still flipping pages.
There were other spells too—love potions, spells for fruitful harvests, lots of protection spells for home and family and children, spells for good health and for finding misplaced items and healing the sick as well as hexing enemies and repelling evil…there were so many I couldn’t count them all.
And mixed in with the spells were pages and pages of herbal lore with recipes for curing different ailments. Many of them included drawings of the plants in question or even dried specimens. One especially looked interesting to me. It was a plant called Valerian and it was supposed to “Loosen the tongue and gladden the heart.”
To make a tincture of Valerian, take equal parts crushed root and flowers and add to it equal parts dried blackberries, fresh Passionflower blooms, and dried Lavender. Steep in hot water until a sweet scent fills the room. Sweeten with honey and drink, it read. But be cautious! For this tincture may loosen more than the tongue.
Hmm…I thought I had seen most of those ingredients down in the greenhouse room. Along with the many plants, there were also jars filled with dried herbs and bottles filled with other concoctions. Could it be that Grandma had actually made some of these recipes or cast these spells?
Had my Grandmother been a witch?
The thought was both weird and shocking. Witches were bent old crones with crooked noses who rode broomsticks. They owned black cats and stirred potions in cauldrons and cackled menacingly. They weren’t kindly old ladies who made the best brownies and apple pie and quilted and knitted and read Harlequin romances—right? Surely Grandma hadn’t really followed any of the pages in the book…had she?