The book spoke to Violet on its first night in her apartment. She didn't hear its whispers, but they seeped into her dreams turning them to nightmares of a black place. When she woke up in a cold sweat, she clutched at Tanner's snoring body for a moment to compose herself. As the dreams faded, she blamed the wine for her uneasy feeling, and went back to sleep.
She spent the following day with Tanner, lazing around the apartment watching television together. Violet loved her boyfriend. She knew this because of the stinging feeling of loss when he finally went home to his own apartment. They lingered by the door, pawing at each other and giving half-hugs. It had been a perfect birthday weekend, a fun night followed by a day of serenity and comfort. From that the world at large pulled them back. Tanner's apartment shaved off forty minutes from his commute, otherwise, they'd have moved in together already. For the moment, it worked better to live apart for the week, meeting in midtown for lunch and dinner. Violet survived it by knowing they'd be together on the weekends.
With her boyfriend gone, the press of her own responsibilities took her. She cleaned, shoving the two days of garbage down the chute. She showered, changed the sheets, started laundry, and a half dozen other small tasks that cropped up while she was lost in Tanner's aura. With all that finally done, Violet went to her desk, retrieved the book, and sat down to admire it. As she gently touched the outer cover, she looked around her apartment, wondering where it would best be displayed. Some of her collection stayed in a special box, each volume inside a polyethylene bag. Those only came out on special occasions. She'd shown them to Tanner, and he pretended to be interested. Others sat around on the shelves, at a glance no different than an airport bought paperback. Yet, each of her collection had a specific spot to accommodate it. She cleaned them regularly and made certain to rotate their positions from time to time.
The journal, Ossagalitha as she'd come to think of it, was in remarkable shape considering its reported age. She wanted her own, trusted specialist to evaluate the book before she took any official steps in its preservation. Tanner certainly meant well, but it wouldn't surprise Violet to learn that a clever shopkeeper sold him some novelty book with a fancy story behind it. The main impediment to this idea was the reputation of McCondrin's shop. They'd have sooner shooed him out of the place than sell him a knockoff. Still, she had her doubts. It wasn't beyond possible for McCondrin's to be fooled, especially by something so niche.
With gloves on, she began her own examination. She turned through the pages, admiring the feeling of the paper. The cover's stitching was unusual, and bejeweled covers were rarely so simplistic.
Perhaps the set made more sense together. I wonder how much Tanner paid for this.
He'd refused to tell her, but from the look in his eyes, the gift hadn't come cheap. The dye in the pages intrigued her. She lowered her face to the book, inhaling slowly.
Lilac? Any kind of scented infusion would have worn off a century ago. Maybe it was the wrapping paper.
As she raised herself back up, she looked again at the page. For several seconds, Violet's thoughts clogged together in a jam of confusion and disbelief. The page had words on it. They gleamed in fresh, purple ink, as though written moments before. The vibrant color contrasted with the dullness of the paper, almost glowing from a light somehow behind them. The script was identical to the word in the back of the book, and it read, "Lilac? Yes, and lavender, depending on my mood." Except the words transcended the journal. As Violet read them, she heard them as well. A lilting, feminine voice that seemed to drift into one ear and out of the other spoke from the page.
As her senses returned, Violet pushed back from the table, toppling over her chair and looking around for the source of the voice. Seeing no one, she attempted to fill in the impossible with the plausible. A trick book with some kind of camera and paper thin display that could create words on the page based on what she was doing. Obviously then, the voice did come from the book, but a hidden speaker. Tanner had given her a gag and not gotten to see it pay off. Somewhat more calm, she approached the table again. The page no longer said anything about lilac, but instead displayed a number "12". At the corner, Violet saw page numbers.
Overwhelmed by curiosity, she turned to the twelfth page of the journal. As she touched each page, she tested it for some hidden circuitry or light, but found nothing. As she laid out the directed page, new words appeared. Each letter scrawled out in a shaky and unsure fashion before resolving into a perfect script of gleaming purple. The page read, "Notes and ritual regarding the first invocation. Prepare a circle wide enough to comfortably fit your body, preferably of powder rather than paint as this allows more measured flow of energy. Within the circle write the name on sheet of paper. With this journal placed safely outside of the circle, press a finger of your left hand against the gem. Press a finger of your right hand against the name."
In large part, Violet was a woman of logic and reason. She received a good education that spent no small amount of time thoroughly dispelling notions of myth and superstition. At the same time, she loved books more than many, including her boyfriend, would consider reasonable. She loved them enough to believe they had power unto themselves. In a library, no matter how small, she could feel that presence. In the larger ones, the presence became a gravity that threatened to pull her over into something more than simple paper and bindings. In her own small collection of antique and precious books, she found artifacts and relics of ancient power, invested by those who owned them before her, those who treasured them. And so, despite a world of technology and reason mere inches away, Violet fell easily and quickly into a simple idea.
"Magic book," she said aloud. Her heart thumped with excitement. "But magic books are dangerous. They're always dangerous. This spell or whatever it is will summon something. It'll steal me down to hell and let some succubus take my place." Yet, her mind settled on the word "first" on the journal's page.
If this is the first invocation, that means there's more than one. So it can't take me to hell on the first one. I could try it. See if its real. And if I'm sitting in a circle of salt with nothing happening, I'll take it to my grave and thank Tanner for the gag gift by flicking his right nut.
She gnawed at her bottom lip as she considered her options. Finally convinced that she would only have to be embarrassed in front of herself, she grabbed the journal and headed to the kitchen. Not wanting to make too much of a mess, she measured out how big she would need a circle to fit herself. Salt seemed the logical choice. She poured out a ring, making sure not to leave any breaks. With the book placed on one side, she took a sheet of printer paper and wrote Ossagalitha. She did not pause to question how she knew that to be the name the spell described. She took it to the circle, placed it in the center, and knelt beside it. With a deep breath, she placed the tip of one finger on the sheet of paper. Slowly, she reached over and pressed her other hand to the gem on the book.
***
Violet wanted to scream. Her throat tightened, and adrenaline coursed through her veins. She widened her eyes to see, but it seemed as though all the light in the whole world, or perhaps more, was falling away into a stifling darkness.
As soon as it began, it stopped. She was in her apartment and a piece of paper was burning under her hand. Driven back to reality by sensory demands, she snatched her hands away as the page curled into a smoldering ash. Violet looked around, wondering if some hideous demon would emerge from around the corner, forcing her to cower in the safety of her circle. Instead, movement underneath the crumple ash drew her attention. Something wriggled beneath the small pile. As it moved, it flicked away the bits of burned page, growing upward a little with each movement. Grotesquely amazed, Violet swept away the rest of the ash and peered at the curious thing attached to the floor of her apartment.
"A tentacle?" she said. The thing stuck out from the floorboards. It stopped growing at roughly a foot long. "A tongue?" Neither possibility settled the unease in her stomach. One side of the thing was ridged with hard nodules while the other was flat but with small indentions that resembled taste buds. "Fuck, that's so fucking weird." She bent as close as she dared to examine where it attached to the floor. It didn't break through the wood or seem to interact with the floor in any way. The thing emerged from the fabric of existence at the point where the floor began. As she neared it, the thing undulated and a thick sheen of goo suddenly oozed from various pores on its body. Globs of the slime rolled down its sides, pooling at its base as it resumed its wriggling pattern.
Violet's cheeks flushed.
