Angela had propped open the attic door, dust lazily floated down on her as the ladder slid down to the floor. She peered up and her face turned into that of concern, it was too dark to see in the attic and she feared of anything small crawling around in there. Thankfully, there was a flashlight laying around on the hallway table. She tested the device in her hands a couple of times, making sure that it wouldn't die out in the middle of her exploration up in the attic. When she finally felt that it wouldn't betray her, she points the ray of light upwards and a circular white light illuminated the trusses of roof. Angela steeled herself and took the first step up the ladder when someone from the stairs called to her. Turning around, she saw her father walking towards her.
Chris Walters, his fair white skin covered in sweat as he had just returned from his morning jog. He eyed her and turned his attention to the open attic door. "What're you getting from up there?" he asked.
"Nothing, really" she replied. "I just wanted to check some stuff out before we leave for home"
Chris, feeling the heat, took off his shirt, revealing his marvelously sculpted body, a thin lining of fur coating his chest that ran all the way down below his shorts. Angela wasn't fazed by her father's beautiful body, she had grown up with him since she was just seven, after her real father left her and her mom. He gave the open attic door one last look before turning his attention to her again.
"Just don't take anything from up there without permission from your grandmother" he warned. "Some things up in there are memorabilia's to her, especially your granddad's things."
"Dad" she said. "I already told you, I'm just going to look at stuff, probably some of the old photo albums stored there"
"Okay, just be careful" he said turning around and walking off. Just before he stepped down the flight of stairs he called out to her again. "We leave after an hour, okay?"
"Yeah, sure" she replied as she climbed up into the darkness of her grandparent's attic.
The attic was filled with old items from Angela's grandparents' youth. There were the usual dining chairs, a cabinet with a broken mirror and lots of boxes covered by white dusty sheets. She pulled a large drape over some of the boxes and pointing the flashlight unto its content, she found what she was looking for; photo albums upon photo albums were stacked against one another in one box, and another had her old stitched up yarn dolls. Pulling one of the albums out of its place, a puff of dust was sent to her face as a result. She coughed and dropped the album, sending more dust high up. She fanned the front of her face to avoid sucking in dust as she let it settle down again.
After the dust finally settled under her feet, she bent down to pick up the album. She turned a few pages until she found a photo of her when she was still a baby and was in her real father's arm.
Ned.
That was what her grandmother called her real father by. In the picture, he had a darker color of skin, he was deep ebony oppose to her light and almost almond tone, but the resemblance was there. She couldn't help smile at seeing her father's smile. She had gone up to the attic a lot of times they had visited her grandparents and every time, on the day they were going home, she snuck into the attic and looked at his picture. She flipped the page and saw her mother and Ned dancing at a house warming party, then on the next page was Ned and her mother with her in her arms, smiling at the camera, the beach and setting sun behind them. Tears began rolling down her cheek as the pages slowly became empty of photos. She closed the album and pulled out another from the box, this time as carefully as she could to stop the dust from being blown in her face.
This one had Chris in most of them. The first time her mom brought him home to meet her family and six year old Angela, the next page showed a picture of her mom taken by Chris by his Polaroid camera. Her mom was smiling just like she smiled in the company of Ned, her mother's smile told her all that she needed to know; Christine loved both men in her life and Angela felt happiness both for herself and her mom. She closed the photo album and went on with the rest, trying to finish her routine 'walk down memory lane' before leaving her grandparents' house.
-- o - o - o --
She felt the young girl's presence. Her eyes shot open from her deep slumber, she saw the girl walking around the dark attic, a form of light source in hand, as she scoured the boxes filled with captured memories. Her cat-like eyes watched her, judging her if whether she was of the wretched woman's bloodline. The entity, who's her own name she had forgotten, silently waited, the girl went through the books of captured memories quickly, tears rolling down, wetting the wooden floor beneath her. The entity curiously honed on her face, she had the same presence of the wretched woman, but she was different, it was weaker than the one who had locked her inside this damned, infernal tome.
The entity tried to call out to the girl. A desperate plea for freedom. She called her with all her might but alas, the young girl turned away and headed back to the light shining from the floor. The entity, disheartened, turned her attention away from the young girl when all of a sudden, she felt her gaze. The entity saw the girl looking at her direction. She called out to the young girl again, this time, she tried all of her might to be heard. The girl seemed to hear her and stopped moving towards the light. She was coming towards her! Excitement filled the entity as she saw the girl reach out towards the tome and grab it in both hands.
Now, if the young girl could just read out the phrase in the first page, the entity hoped, then she could finally get her revenge on the bloodline of the woman who had trapped her in the tome.
-- o - o - o --
The book, bound in dark leather, felt warm to the touch. It was bound by a thin rope that was neatly tied into a ribbon on the front. It didn't have any title or any image, it didn't have anything on the back either. Angela, as the curious young girl she was, untied the rope and pried open the book. Her brows scrunched up when she realized she couldn't read any of the words written on its pages. They were written in some old language that she guessed had long gone died. Turning to the first page, she found there was a phrase written in English, which was strange. The words seemed to call out to her, wanting her to recite them. Her mouth opened and the words fell out as if they had possessed a mind of their own;
I hear by thee, call upon the sacred stars to set all souls free from their entombment.
A gust of wind seemed to blow through the pages of the book until it stopped on a particular page depicting an image of a voluptuous female with horns and leathery bat wings. Angela's fingers traced over the drawing's lines, they felt smooth against the roughness of the book's other pages. The winged woman's skin was a deep purple, her eyes were like that of a cat and glowed a menacing emerald. There was a name below the image, a name for such a creature, but Angela could only read the first part as the second part was smudged and could hardly be read.
Eu'entia,
it read.
-- o - o - o --
