Something a little different than my usual fare, but I hope you all enjoy a foray into a little more of a magical realism/psychological mythical sapphic corruption story. This was originally written as a commission and the client was kind enough to let me post it here. I had a really good time writing in this new genre and so I hope you all enjoy reading it!
I'd always heard growing up that books were windows into other worlds, that they could change lives. It wasn't that I didn't enjoy reading books growing up, but I never got so enthralled by one that it would really be considered "Life changing" as my more literally inclined friends like to attest.
My brother Owen has always had a thing for old trinkets and artifacts. As long as they didn't stink too bad, I never really cared what he'd bring home to show me and my family when he was a kid. I think we were all a little surprised when he followed through on that interest and decided to pursue a Master's degree in Archaeology when he finished his undergrad, but he's stuck with it, so more power to him.
Owen was attending graduate school at a small, progressive liberal arts college in Western Mass, but lucky for him, I'm in my senior year at Millsport College. Millsport is a typical old-school Massachusetts coastal town with old brick buildings and centuries-old houses that look like they could be the sets of period ghost stories. They like to say around here that "if" H.P. Lovecraft's stories were true, there's a good chance at least some of them would take place around here. I tend to agree, there had always been something that felt just slightly...heightened or off about this town, like you feel all the souls and presences of those who had walked these centuries old cobblestones every time you stepped outside.
As such, there were of course quite a few stores that specialized in supposed "haunted antiques" and items of the occult. I'm not mad at him for it, but we both knew that the reason Owen started coming to visit me pretty regularly once I started my freshman year at Millsport from his school an hour away, was because of these occult antique shops he would like to peruse before or after we hung out.
One day, I met up with Owen for lunch after he had hit up another one of these shops like I had many times before. He'd approached me with a bag in his hands and excitement in his eyes.
"Lucy!" his voice called out, breaking through my post-class reverie. I turned to see him rushing toward me, a wide grin on his face. He was clutching something tightly in his hands, excitement radiating from him like an aura.
"Hey, Owen," I said, my own smile blossoming in response to his infectious enthusiasm. "What's got you so worked up?"
"Ohh, I found a good one, sis," he exclaimed, holding out the loose hanging bag that was wrapped around whatever ancient occult treasure he'd been swindled into buying this time. "Let's get a table and I'll show it to you!"
We stepped into the local sandwich joint, H.P.'s 'Wich-craft, (Like I said, this town really doubled down on the theme) and after ordering, Owen pulled out his latest find. I was a little surprised to see a pink, inherently feminine-seeming book in his hands as he pulled it out from the bag. As I looked at it from across the table, my eyes were drawn to the intricate designs adorning the cover and binding of the book. Delicate variations of the Greek feminine symbol were woven together in barely visible outlines, almost like a hidden puzzle waiting to be solved. When caught in the light, the symbols seemed to shimmer and dance in a pink hued rainbow flare, revealing their true beauty. It was clear that great care had been taken in crafting this book and that it had been made a long, long time ago.
"The Sapphonomicon?" I asked, reading the old timey stylized calligraphy on the cover. "Owen, what the heck is this thing?"
"Okay, so it's from this new antiquities shop on the other side of your campus, Pandora's Goods!" Owen started explaining, his eyes alight as the words seemed to erupt out of him. His eyes were locked on the book as he talked, it was like I was barely there. "So the proprietor of the store, Sebastian Faustus, sees me come in and immediately asks if I have a sister. I give him my whole explanation about what I'm studying and he's interested but again, he won't stop asking if I have a sister, so finally of course I tell him I do and he turns around and hands me this. I shit you not Luce, he says 'I think Lucy will get a lot out of this' and I don't think I had told him your name. Isn't that wild?!"
I gulped and looked from my over-excited brother down at the strange pink book in front of us. I wasn't sure how to feel. Parlor tricks and cold reads were hardly a new phenomenon around these parts, but something about my brother's anecdote and that shop guy knowing my name didn't feel right...neither did this weird pink book.
"Owen," I started, but he cut me off with a fervor that I'd rarely seen from him.
"Listen, Sis," he said, his glasses glinting in the dim light of the deli, "this book... it's old. Really old. And rare. I mean, I've never heard of a 'Sapphonomicon' in all my studies."
The fact that Owen hadn't come across this name despite his countless hours spent pouring over dusty tomes and obscure texts certainly gave me pause. It piqued my curiosity even as dread knotted in my stomach.
"But," he continued before I could get a word in edgewise, "what's even more intriguing is that it feels... alive, somehow. Like the words are waiting to be read."
I frowned at his words, considering them carefully. My sweet brother wasn't usually prone to flights of poetic fancy, so his description gave me pause.
"The thing is," he kept on, again almost cutting me off before I could get another word out edgewise, "Faustus said the words within it can only be read by someone with 'Feminine Spirit' and well, judging by the fact that it's nothing but blank pages for me..."
"Because you're just the paragon of masculinity, right bro?" I needled him playfully, if only to try to deflect from how weird this was all starting to feel.
"Exactly. But you...my SISTER, are quite the feminine spirit so..."
