by Brian Rella
Jessie stepped in and was awestruck by the amount of books strewn all over the store. The place was in complete disarray with books piled on shelves and spilling out of boxes on the floor. The shelves stretched all the way to the back of the store. She walked down the middle aisle, weaving her way between boxes, scents of old, dry paper filling her nostrils. At the end of the aisle was a little island with an old cash register; the manual kind that you had to punch big metal keys to make the price and then pull the long handle with the bulb at the end to ring up the sale.
Behind the cash register, up high on the wall, was a big clock. In the center of the clock was a strange figure with big, black eyes, tentacles for a beard, and bat-like wings sitting cross-legged. The creature’s arms told the time. Jessie stared at it for a minute thinking the creature looked familiar, but she couldn’t place where she’d seen it before.
She walked back up the first row of books, swiveling her head from side to side and glancing into boxes on the floor. She’d never heard of these books before and the strangest thing was, she didn’t see any authors’ names on most of the covers.
She pulled a book down from a shelf, opened it to a random page, and noticed the writing wasn’t in English. The book had lots of strange pictures too. They were old, black and white photos of a family that looked regal or something and they were in all these different poses in front of a huge castle. No one was smiling in any of the pictures which Jessie thought was kind of strange. From their clothes and the castle, Jessie guessed they were some kind of European royalty from the 1800s maybe.
“That is the biography of the Princess Esteria,” a voice said from behind her, drawing a startled gasp of breath from Jessie. “She was a German princess and lived over one hundred years ago. Do you speak German?”
“No,” Jessie said. It was Olga and she was wearing the same clothes and smile as she had been this morning.
“A wonderful language, though a little harsh to my ears. Always sounds like I’m being scolded when I’m being spoken to.” She laughed and tossed her head back, brushing her long, grey curls out of her face.
“Now,” Olga said, “this is not the section you are looking for. Horror is what you are looking for, isn’t it?”
“How did you know that this morning?” Jessie asked.
“Like I said: I can always tell a book by its cover,” she said. “This way, Ms. Jessie.”
She lead them to another shelf. “Now, here are all of my horror books. If you can’t find something that interests you, please let me know. I haven’t organized everything yet, but I’m getting there,” Olga said.
“Wow,” Jessie said. “These are really old.” She ran her fingers across the cracked and frayed bindings on the shelf.
“I’ve been collecting for years,” Olga said. “Longer than most.” She smiled again and there was something mysterious behind her smile. Olga left Jessie to browse the books and went to the back.
She started searching through the box in front of her, waiting for a title to jump out at her. She stopped when she saw a book with red binding and faded gold letters. She pulled it out and looked at the cover, rubbing the palm of her hand over the edge of the book, pronouncing the title in her head.
Arraziel. Something about the name grabbed Jessie’s attention. She ran her fingertips gently over the letters. They were silky smooth and faded. Like with most of the other books, Jessie couldn’t find an author’s name.
She immediately opened the book and started thumbing through the pages, but found the pages were all blank. “Huh?” Jessie said. She flipped to the cover and read the title again. Something about the title held her. And the blank pages…it was more than curiosity. She felt like she couldn’t part with the book, like she had to hold onto it. She heard Olga in another aisle and walked over to her with the book cradled in her arms.
“Olga,” she asked, “what’s this book? The pages are all blank.”
Jessie thought she saw Olga flash a scowl for the briefest of moments, but then her face went back to its normal happy grin as she swiftly reached for the book and took it from Jessie’s arms. Jessie felt a strong desire to take it back and frowned.
“Now, how did that get on the shelf?” Olga asked herself. “These darn movers. I told them the box that this book was in was supposed to stay in the back. This one’s not for sale, dear.” Olga placed the book on a high shelf where Jessie couldn’t reach it and went back to putting other books away from the box at her feet.
“Why are the pages blank?” Jessie asked.
Olga hesitated. “They’re not.”
“What do you mean they’re not?” Jessie said. “I just opened the book and all the pages are blank.”
Olga turned to her and bent down so that they were eye level. Her mouth stretched ear to ear. Jessie couldn’t tell if it was a genuine smile or not. “Sweetie,” Olga said, “that book’s not for you. It’s a very old book and it’s mine and not for sale. Now please run along and find another.” Olga looked Jessie right in the eyes and Jessie felt a little tingle go up her spine.
Reluctantly, Jessie moved back to the horror section without another word to continue searching the shelves for other books, but her mind was still on Arraziel. Something about that book had captivated Jessie and she wanted it like a petulant child wants a toy another child is playing with. She had wanted to grab it out of Olga’s hand when the woman had taken it from her and now all she could think about was taking it back.
Jessie heard the phone ring and Olga go into the back room. She found herself back in the row where she had just spoken to Olga and where Arraziel was still on the shelf where Olga had put it. Jessie looked up and down the aisles and stood still, listening. She heard Olga talking on the phone in the back.
Jessie’s blood rushed to her face as a burst of adrenaline shot through her veins. She stepped up on the bottom shelf and knocked Arraziel off the top shelf and into her hands. She quickly moved toward the door, stuffing the book in her bag, nervous Olga was going to come out any second. Finally, she had the book in her bag just as she reached the door. She pushed the door open and ran up Main Street toward her shortcut back home, a smile on her face. She felt no guilt at stealing the book, in fact, she didn’t feel like she was stealing at all. She felt like it was hers.
***
“We have a surprise, Jess.” Her mom said with cheeks that looked like they might explode. She was standing in the kitchen doorway, with Steve, beaming. He had his arm around her waist with his hand touching her bottom. Gross. Marie was behind them and had a devilish expression on her face. Jessie’s heart sank as her intuition told her what was happening. She knew it before they could say it. She was going to be stuck with these two forever. Jenna and Steve were…
“We’re getting married!” her mother shouted, then she turned and made out with Steve. Steve ran his hands all over her back and bottom while Marie stood behind them, her hands clasped together under her chin, a horrible grimace plastered on her ugly face.
Jessie ran into her room and slammed the door. She jumped onto her bed and screamed into her pillow. No no no no no! Over and over again, the words repeated in her head, “We’re getting married!” She had hoped one day her mother would wake up and see these two for who they really were and realize they didn’t love her or her mother. Steve and Marie were parasites and they just wanted her mom’s money. How could this be happening? How could her mother be so blind? Memories played out in Jessie’s head of Marie punching her and kicking her the night before; of Steve, her creepy stepfather—stepfather, oh God!—leering at her over the past few months. Jessie’s mind was spinning. She was hysterical.
Her door opened. It was her mom.
“Hey, baby,” she said. “What’s wrong? Why are you so upset?”
Jessie wouldn’t look at her. She couldn’t. She was afraid of what she might say. Better to just keep it inside and not say anything, because saying anything would just make it worse because her mother didn’t understand
, or maybe she didn’t care. She was doomed. She’d be stuck with these a-holes until she was eighteen. Or until I run away.
“Jess,” her mom said. “Look at me, honey. Talk to me.”
“No!” Jessie screamed into her pillow. “Just go away! Get away from me!”
“Jessie, come on, honey,” she said. “We need to talk about this.”
Talk about this? Talk? Did you ever talk to me about it? Did you ever think to mention it to me? No, you just blurted it out when I got home from school. Why should we talk now? Why? You don’t care. You don’t understand! You’re blind! I hate you! I hate you all!
Jessie buried her head deeper into the pillow. She wanted to burrow into her pillow and never see any of them again.
“Hey, Jess, come on,” Marie said from the doorway.
Jessie stopped burrowing and looked up from the pillow, her eyes wet. She was shaking. Shaking with rage that Marie was in her room. Quaking with rage at what Marie had done to her last night. She wanted Marie dead. She wanted them all dead.
“Get out!” Jessie shrieked. “Get out of my room, you bitch! I hate you! Don’t you ever come in here again!”
Marie wore a fake shocked look on her face like as if to say, “Me? What did I do?”
“Jessie!” her mother said. “Don’t you say that about your sister!”
Jessie was all rage as she turned to her mother. “She is not my sister! Get! Out! All of you! Get out!” she screamed.
“What the hell is going on in here?” Steve said, popping his head into the room.
Jessie slammed her head back into the pillow. She couldn’t even escape them in her own room. She was doomed. She wanted to shrivel up and die.
“Let’s just leave her alone for a while,” her mom said. “She just needs some time.” They all left and closed the door finally leaving Jessie all alone in her room. She cried until no more tears would come from her eyes. She wanted to run away right now, but where? She lay in bed, curled in a ball, as the sounds of champagne popping and the clink of glasses drifted into her room making her feel even more wretched.
She turned on her noise machine to block out the celebration from the other room. This is bullshit! I can’t believe this is happening to me. My life sucks! It just keeps getting worse. Why? Why is mom doing this to me? Doesn’t she know I hate them? Doesn’t she know what Marie does to me?
She lay there for a while feeling sorry for herself, wishing them all away, thinking about running away, and where she would go to. Finally, when she couldn’t think about it anymore, she did what she always did when she wanted to escape. She picked up a book.
She pulled her bag up on her bed and removed Arraziel from inside. She opened the book and turned every page. They were all blank. Why would Olga have a book of blank pages? She ran her fingers across the binding, the cover, and some of the pages, looking for something, anything to give her a clue about what might be in the book.
Maybe it’s like, invisible ink? Maybe water activates the ink? She grabbed her water bottle from her bag, splashed a little bit on her finger and touched a few spots on a page. Nothing happened. She sighed. She was getting frustrated. She felt like the book held some secret and it wanted her to find it, but she didn’t have a clue how to access it.
Heat? Maybe heat activates the ink like in that horror movie I saw. She took the lamp shade off of her lamp by her bed and held the book up to the light. Nothing happened. She touched a page to the light and held it there until her finger burned. “Ouch!” she said and dropped the book in her lap. She looked at her finger and it had turned red. She glanced down at the book—and there it was. Where she had held the page to the light, there were some partial letters visible on the page.
Jessie’s heart started pounding. Heat! That’s it! She wracked her brain how she could keep continuous heat on the pages and then she remembered something. She jumped off the bed and ran to her closet. In the back of the closet, buried under a pile of shoes, was an old shoebox with a pair of Uggs in it. Inside the left boot was a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. When Marie and Jessie had first met and before Jessie knew what an a-hole Marie was, Marie had shown Jessie how to smoke. Jessie hated smoking, but still had the cigarettes and the lighter.
She grabbed the lighter, ran back to the bed, and picked up the book. She flicked the lighter a few times before it lit, and once she had a steady flame, she ran the lighter under another page. It worked! To Jessie’s amazement, the pages didn’t burn. Instead, letters started appearing.
Jessie started reading. There were some words in English, but there were also words in some language she’d never seen before. It kind of looked like a cross between German and maybe Russian or something. She had no idea.
The English words she could read just fine and she was immediately engrossed in the book. It was a book about demons and black magic and some sort of cult from centuries ago that worshipped a demon named Arraziel. Arraziel’s followers could call on him to fight their enemies. The book described all kinds of demonic rituals, evil spirits, human sacrifices, torture, and other cool stuff that Jessie loved to read about. Mid-way through the book, there were what appeared to be chants and spells in a language she couldn’t pronounce. She studied them for a while until her eyes grew heavy, desperately wanting to finish the book. There was so much more to read and understand, but she was tired and had to put the book down and sleep. She went to put the book on her nightstand, and then stopped. She wanted the book closer to her. She put it next to her in the bed under the covers and fell asleep with her arm over it like she was protecting it.
***
Jessie opened her eyes and rolled over. Someone was standing over her bed. She could smell the alcohol and see the silhouette of a man.
Steve.
She was suddenly wide awake and scared. Adrenaline coursed through her body. He was breathing heavy. He was clearly drunk, swaying back and forth, standing over her, not saying anything. Jessie was terrified.
“You’re going to get with the program. You’re not going to fuck this up for me,” Steve snarled.
“Get out!” Jessie whispered.
Steve moved closer and chuckled softly. “What are you gonna do about it?” he wheezed. “Your mom and me are gettin’ hitched and there ain’t a damn thing you can do.”
“Get out!” Jessie whispered again.
Steve came and sat on the edge of the bed. Jessie was about to scream when she felt Steve’s hand cover her mouth. He leaned on her chest pinning her down, pressing all the air out of her. She was trapped under his weight and all these thoughts of what he might do flashed through her mind. Horrified, tears fell from her eyes. Then Steve leaned in close and she could smell the booze and sweat coming off of him. Her heart pounding, she could hardly breath, as her mind raced thinking about what he was going to do. This is it. He’s going to kill me. I’m going to die tonight…
“Now,” he snarled, “don’t you go getting your panties in a bunch and screaming. I ain’t gonna hurt you…less you give me a reason too.” He grunted and continued. “You need to understand something: this here, is happening, and there ain’t nothing you can do about it.” His lips were so close to her face they were almost touching her. She could feel his damp, foul breath against her skin as he spoke. “And who knows, you might even start to like me a little…like your mom does.” He moved his hand down over her chest, pressing her down to the bed, then down her waist, and finally to her inner thigh. “You ain’t much now, but in a couple of years…mmm, you’ll be ripe as a peach.” He sneered, then licked her cheek and laughed softly, gutturally.
Jessie’s whole body was trembling. She felt pain in her chest and her head and her eyes bugged out as the panic welled up in her, ready to explode.
“Now I’m going to take my hand away from your mouth and if you scream and I’ll snap your neck like a twig. We clear?” He smiled menacingly.
Jessie nodded, his hand still over her mouth.
“Good girl,” he said, an
d slowly released her.
As his hands moved away from her mouth and her body, and he rose from her bed, something cracked inside of Jessie. Before tonight, there had been hope that the whole situation with Steve and Marie might end. At times, Jessie had thought she could see the end. She could envision herself laying low, keeping her head in her books, and her mom would eventually see Steve for who he really was and then, maybe she’d bounce from loser to loser for a while after they broke up until she figured things out and maybe, maybe, she’d wake up from her blindness and find a decent guy to remarry one day. But in these few moments with Steve, all that hope vanished. This wasn’t going to get better. It was going to get worse. And Jessie couldn’t take it anymore. Something had broken loose from deep inside her. The innocence and hope she had held onto splintered and disintegrated and a hole had been left in its place and she knew her fate in her soul: she was doomed. She knew if she let this happen to her, she would spend the rest of her days being a victim of abuse at the hands of her soon to be stepfamily.
As quickly as that hole appeared inside her and she recognized the reality of her situation, that hole was filled, and what filled it was something evil and perverse; something dark and all-consuming. In her mind, she could hear the snap as the innocent reality she previously believed was her life, was shattered and replaced by something sinister, dreadful, and dark. And the darkness grew inside her rapidly, infecting every cell of her body, every synapse of her mind, until one thought gripped her: revenge. And one name came to her mind: Arraziel.
She stopped trembling and a peacefulness overcame her. She sat up in bed and her hand grazed the book she had been reading. She placed her hand on the cover as a phrase in another tongue from the book she had just read came to the front of her mind. She couldn’t pronounce it before, but she knew she could now.