Amarum

 Once again, I wrote a short story. This one was written in a few hours while I was at work. Honestly, if I ever become a published author, I may consider crediting my current job. I spend a lot of time writing when I should probably be finding something to clean while we're slow.

Regardless, I wrote this one. I'll let you find your own interpretation for it. I have one for myself, and I hope that you find one for yourself as well.

He found the journal on the train. He hadn't been looking for it, it just sort of appeared one day as he was taking the red eye on the way

home after a long day at work.

It didn't look old, but neither did it look particularly new. The old thing honestly gave Thomas a pit in

his stomach, but still, he couldn't help himself as he reached for it.

Real leaves?

Indeed, green ivy was twisted through the cover of the journal, offsetting the golden filigree that danced

along the edges in a pattern reminiscent of a language one has never learned.

A woman was depicted on the front in raised leather. She had no face, but if anything was to be told from

the shape of her body, she was meant to be extraordinarily beautiful.

Thomas slid his fingers along the edge to open the book, but despite how much he strained, it would not

open.

Odd, he pondered, Who would want a journal that cannot be opened?

Regardless, something about it made him look around the train, boarded by only a few strangers -

some familiar from previous commutes, others completely foreign to him - and tuck it into his backpack

before slipping the bag between his calves for safekeeping until he got home.

Once in his house, Thomas took the book out again.

Why did I even keep this old thing? He studied the cover for a short time, running his fingers across the cover in admiration of the distinct

patterns there. He noted that the pages seemed to be a deep forest green - at least the edges were, he still

couldn't open the damn thing. A golden fabric bookmark was attached to the top of the book, having been

placed between two pages at the very end of the volume.

They were almost finished with it.

No.

The voice came surprisingly into his head, raspy and afraid, almost as though it had been tattered and

wasted from hours of screaming.

Thomas dropped the book to the floor. Nothing happened. Breathing hard, he crouched down to examine

it.

After having chided himself for being afraid of an imagined voice, he reached for it again and stood with

it in his hands.

“Sorry, old thing,” he mumbled as he dusted off the cover, “something startled me. Father always said to

treat books like they were bricks of gold. He might have sent me to bed with no dinner if he had seen me

drop you. To be fair, he also told me to stop collecting empty notebooks, but here we are-” he extended a

hand toward his shelf of unused notebooks and suppressed laughter. His habits had certainly grown odd

as he'd gotten older. “He would have been mortified by both my notebook shelf and my dropping you, so

I do apologize.”

Thomas stared at the journal for several minutes before realizing that he was waiting for an answer.

He shook his head and drew a hand down over his face.

“Time for bed, I think. Your fifty-three years are getting to you, old man.” He slipped the book

face-forward on the mantle - somehow it felt right putting it there. It was too nice to put with his other

empty notebooks. Before he did, though, he tried one more time to open it and almost thought he had a

grip on the pages, but found that he was still unable to pry it open. Scratching the back of his head,

Thomas set it in its new home and left to take a shower and go to bed.

-----

The next morning, Thomas couldn't stop staring at it while he ate his breakfast. The language on the

cover was so odd - he had been a linguist for almost thirty years and had never seen this one before.

He couldn't figure out why this particular one was so extraordinary to him, but something about the way

it was written caused a desire to grow inside of him. Maybe it was his own pride - it could be that he was

simply dumbfounded that he, Thomas Euen Patlock, head of his field, expert linguist, was stumped by a

simple language of all things.

Perhaps if he reached out to his old colleagues, one of them may have an answer for him.

>Hey, Tommy-boy. What can I do for ya?

“Hey there, Patrick. I've got a bit of a puzzle for you. Think you're up for the challenge?”

Laughter came from the receiver. >Send it my way, Tom-o. I'm always up for a challenge.

Not long after, Tom clicked send on an email with a few pictures of the book attached.

“It's an odd sort of thing - I confess I've never seen the like! I'll reach out to a few of our old mates and

see what I can find.”

With a sigh, Thomas closed the laptop and pushed back from the table. Time for work.

-----

Days passed, then weeks and none of his old friends could give him an answer. He made a sort of

routine of trying to open it - even going so far as to take a pry bar to the thing, but nothing seemed to

work.

There was something....disturbing about them. He cradled the book in his hand one day, feeling particularly disheartened by his

failure.

The runes on the cover looked almost...scrawled. As though the person who had written them had been the unfortunate recipient of some sort of

hand injury causing their fingers to shake while writing.

But why would someone like that be in the business of making journals?

As time passed, Thomas came to the unfortunate and disappointing conclusion that the Golden pattern

on the front was no more than scribbles.

Patrick finally gave up as well.

> Sorry, old mate. I tried, but I really don't think you'll find the answer. If it is a language, it's far too

archaic for anyone these days to recognize. I hate to say it, old friend, but I think it may just be a pattern

on the front.

Thomas opened his mouth to argue, but what use would that be? No one could give him the answers that

he wanted.

So finally after three years of research and wasted time, Thomas gave up. He couldn't find out what the

symbols meant.

Laying the book gently on the mantle, he sighed while letting his fingers gently slip down the cover.

“Sorry, old thing. I guess I'll never know.”

Maybe someday I will tell you.

There was that voice again, soft and silky but timid and quiet as though afraid of speaking too loudly.

After all this time, he had only ever heard it speak to him once.

“Did you say something?”

Nothing.

Furrowing his brow, Thomas reached a hand back to scratch his head. “I may be going mad, but I

think I believe I heard you speak.”

Only silence responded. Thomas pondered the six words as he ran a finger along the outside edge of the

book again. To his shock, he found that his fingers were between the pages! He strained and pried, but

the book would open no further than the space of his thumb.

This was the strangest notebook he had ever seen.

“There's definitely something unique about you,” he muttered.

Not as unique as you might think.

Thomas jumped, the sound of the voice having spun into a mournful one.

“What do you mean?”

But there was no further answer.

This is certainly no ordinary book.

He gently set it back down on the mantle and left, pondering the words of the strange journal.

-----

It was two decades before he heard the book speak again. After trying again to open the book a number

of times throughout the years, Thomas left it alone and fifteen years passed in which his life went on, and

the book remained untouched on his mantle save for the occasional dusting. He would admire it from his

chair across the room while sipping a cup of tea and even occasionally speak to it as though it could hear

him.

Maybe it can.

But it was when Thomas was a seventy-seven-year-old man with white in what little hair he had left and

pockmarks on his skin that he finally touched the journal again. He had long since either used or given

away or gotten rid of his other empty notebooks, but he couldn't seem to find it in himself to give this one

up.

It's...special somehow.

Wobbling across the carpet on his cane - inscribed with the same runes as the book - that had been a gift

from old Patrick before he died twelve years before, Thomas stood before the warm fire and reached a

hand out to touch the cover of the book. He brought gentle, gnarled fingers down the leather, a smile

lifting his old lips.

“It's been some time since I've disturbed you, hasn't it, old thing?”

Thank you.

Thomas nearly fell over. The book had been silent for so long that he had wondered if he had simply been

in the middle of a midlife crisis at the time. Dropping his cane to lean on the mantle, Thomas used his

free hand to rub at his eyes.

“I'm going mad again - just as well. Old men aren't so interesting unless they're mad in one way or

another”

You're not mad.

He looked at the book again and carefully lifted it with wrinkly fingers.

“Don't you think so?”

I do not.

Thomas's eyes disappeared in a smile, his eyebrows dipping down to cover them. “Why remain quiet so

long? It's been quite a time since you've spoken to me.”

Silence persisted long enough for Thomas to wonder if that was all he would get out of the old journal.

I won't last another thirty years to hear from it again.

He had begun to set it back down when it spoke again.

I didn't know if I could trust you.

Confusion bent Thomas's face. “What do you mean, trust me?”

Another bout of silence passed, but Thomas waited patiently this time.

Perhaps the book - like me - has aged. Its mind may not be as fast as it used to be. He chuckled inwardly at the concept of a book with a brain.

Open my pages.

“I cannot - I have tried a number of times over the years and have as of yet been unsuccessful. Did you

think that in my old age, you would make a fool of me?” He laughed through closed lips.

I kept you from opening my pages. The answers you seek are inside. You have my permission.

Thomas thought hard about his next action before he moved shaky fingers to the book's pages.

Be gentle!

He had never heard the book speak so loudly. Nodding silently - not entirely sure if the book could see

him -, Thomas cautiously opened the book to the first page.

His shoulder slumped and his breath began to come faster in his chest. On the very first page was a picture

that I shall not attempt to describe to you, but I will say this: every line was gouged into the page, creating

trenches of ink. The paper had clearly been handled frequently as it had been worn to the point of near

transparency. 

Unable to bear looking at the wretched drawing, he turned to the next page. This one made him take one

hand off the book to press against his mouth as tears built behind his eyes. This was a list of names -

names and addresses. Next to each was a checkmark and a method of death.

Hanging

R*pe

Blood loss

Euthanasia

Drowning

His eyes went no further down the list, he simply flipped the page. Another sight greeted his eyes that

made him consider throwing the book from him and never picking it up again. 

How did one gouge out one’s soul to forget what he has seen?

Lists, names, drawings, words - page after page, all worn through until Thomas was afraid that his

trembling fingers would tear through them like tissue paper. Finally, he arrived at the bookmark.

For years he had wondered what that bookmark had been there for. He had assumed it had been a

stopping place, and indeed it was.

He set the journal down on the mantle and wept bitterly. Cradling his head in his hands, Thomas wished

for the first time that he had never brought the book home from the train. He picked it up gingerly.

“I'm so sorry. Your pages - they're all ruined.”

Not all.

No. There was one empty page left at the end of the journal.

Gripping the bookmark, Thomas turned directly to the empty page to avoid the ones already used. He

brought shaky fingers down the paper.

They all made their mark on me - every one. They used me until they were finished, and then cast

me aside. I decided that no one would open my pages ever again.

The tears on Thomas’s face dripped down, and he frantically caught them with his arm before they fell

onto the pages of the book.

“I'm so sorry.”

A soothing voice responded.

Do not be sorry for me, old man. For almost thirty years, you have kept me safe, never using me,

never abusing me, never ruining my pages with images or words too horrible to speak on. You

simply admired me and left me on your mantle to open when I was ready, desiring more than

anything to decipher the language of mourning on my cover.

Thomas sobbed into his hand, remembering the day he had tried to force his way in.

Now, I offer you this: make your mark.

“What? No, I couldn't.”

Please, old man. I have many marks in me, not a single one from someone good. Please - make your

mark on me.

Thomas reached to his coffee table for a pen, but as he held it hovering over the page, he found himself

unsure of what to write, and unable to put pen to paper. Its last page was still clean and unused.

But she had asked him to make his mark.

“Please, tell me. What is your name?”

A thrill of happiness and contentment ran through him as he heard a single word.

Amarum. 

Nodding, Thomas called on his old linguist skills to discern the meaning.

The tears threatened to fall again, but he held them back. Using his old techniques for steadying his hands,

Thomas wrote her name. He wrote it in rolling cursive and bordered it with flowers and vines. He did not

press the pen down, but laid it gently against the paper, careful to only use as much pressure as was

needed.

When he was done, there was a masterpiece of work on the page.

Thank you.

Thomas kept the book with him for the remainder of his days. He lived to the respectable age of

ninety-three and when he was buried, they placed the book with him, cradled gently under both hands

on his chest, so that no one would use it again.

Well there it is. Thank you so much for reading it - I did little to no editing on it before posting. I invite

you to find your own meaning in the story. I wrote it with something specific in mind, but I would never

tell you what to grasp from my story. I will say this, though, in closing: Some of you may find this a story

about trauma. Some may find it to be a lesson about survivors of SA, and for some of you, it may just be a

story with no particular lesson or moral, but regardless of what you gather from the story itself, I want you

to walk away from this blog post remembering this: There are people out there who will treat you gently,

and you are not alone.

Blessings to you all in our Lord Jesus Christ.

-Marisa Lu Makil

Beginning Again: The Red Book

 So I've recently started writing again due to some encouragement from a few people in my life. I know that no one actually reads this blog, but I'm going to post a short story that I wrote anyway. I didn't edit it at all, I didn't even read through it before posting. I wrote it raw and quickly at work this morning. So if anyone finds this, I hope you enjoy. It's a bit creepy, so here goes.

The Red Book:

A gown and two sweaters. That's all that was left of her. She must have packed before she left. I had been gone too long, and she took the opportunity to act.

I had told her.

I had told her not to touch the red book, but something about it had been pulling at her, she told me. Like a fool, I thought that if I locked it up and hid it away, that wretched pull would go away. Or at least she would have been searching for the book until I returned. But to my dismay, I returned to our little home with my arms full of vegetables from the market to find that there was nothing more left of her than three pieces of clothing.

I let the food fall out of my arms when I saw the house in such disarray. Books, dishes, and my clothing had been thrown about the cottage, evidence of her search for that which called to her. The book with red pages was gone, and she with it. My beloved Aster, lost to me. What the hell was I going to do?

-----

It started on a Sunday when we were taking a stroll to town down the dusty, rocky path. I remember how the sun dappled through the leaves, casting shade on Aster’s white hat. I always hated hats, but she made them beautiful.

We had nearly reached the end of the road where it met the town of Bawning when my beloved Aster gasped. I turned to ask after her wellbeing, but she rushed ahead several steps to the side of the road where she fell to her knees. I rushed to her side, concern beating with my heart. I found her clutching in pale fingers a book that had been lying in the grass. The cover was a solid brown except for a gold symbol that had been inlaid on the front. Curious, I crouched down beside her. She flipped open the book. The page was a deep blood red, but there were no words or symbols. She flipped to another. And another, but not a single page had a jot of ink on it. Not a sentence, not an image, not a word. But she insisted that it was lovely. I asked her if I could hold it, and she gave it to me. I could feel even through my leather gloves that it was like fire, and should I hold it for very long, it would burn through to my flesh. My dear Astor begged me to keep it for her. She said that a book must never be discarded, and requested me to put it in the pocket of my trousers. I kept it there for her. It was hot against my leg as it had been in my gloved hands, but to a bearable degree. We continued our stroll and wandered through the market. I thought nothing of it then, but for all that walk, her eyes kept darting anxiously to where the book sat in my pocket.

We arrived home, and at her asking, I gave the book back, albeit warily. She immediately began to flip through the blank pages curiously. I made dinner that night, and when at last she came to the table having put the book on the shelf, she was silent for most of the meal.

In the days that followed, she grew stranger still. The book migrated from its shelf to the bedside table every night. I lay with my darling wife, and sometimes I would wake to find her curled up with the book against her chest. A week passed and her eyes grew red-rimmed and tired. She spoke less and less. But after eight days of her immersion in this book, I finally asked what she was looking for.

“I'm reading,” she replied with a scoff, “what else would I be doing with a book?” 

I peered over her shoulder. There were no words in that book - I'm certain of it. I circled around her to look at her face, and surely it did seem from the movement of her eyes that she was reading, but as I said, there was nothing to read. Try as I did to convince her of this, she waved me away, and at the last snapped that she would not be deceived by one such as I.

I retreated then, and watched her wither. Day by day, the book seemed to consume her. It took her body as well as her mind, leaving her a shell of a woman, her soul stolen by some hidden evil on those red pages.

Two months passed since that day on the road when she fell victim to that tome, and again, I urged her to speak to me of the words she saw, for I could see nothing. She said not a word, only held the book to her closely but weakly as though all her strength had been sapped. It was that night that I heard a horrible piercing shriek of agony and horror. I leapt from my bed to find my wife on her knees in the main room. She wept and held herself around the abdomen as though in a terrible pain. I fell to my knees beside her, and took her shoulders in my hands.

“What is it, My love?” I looked nowhere but her eyes for my fear for her. “What has happened?”

She brought trembling hands between us, and I could see now that they were burned. Blisters of fire had built on her hands, and the skin was red and falling apart. I held my hands to either side of them, longing to hold them, but dreading to cause her more pain.

“Come, my love.” I placed a careful hand under her elbow and helped her to stand beside me. With a hand on her back, I guided her outside to the well where the water was fresh and cool from the night wind. Drawing a pail, I instructed her to put her hands inside and take comfort at the temperature of the water. I helped her to sit in the grass, and placed myself in front of her. While she bathed her hands, I wiped the tears from her cheeks, and brushed her long flaxen hair behind her ears. I asked her many times what had happened that she should have burned her hands so, but she continuously shook her head, not speaking a word except to beg me to take the book and hide it from her.

She need not have asked me so desperately, for long had I wished to take it from her and cast it into the fire. So unyielding were her demands to be rid of it that I at once rose and did as she asked. Leaving her there under the pale moonlight with her hands burned, I found the wretched book. I dared not touch it with my bare hands, and quickly donned my gloves before handling it. It burned again, almost seeming to turn to fire in my hands yet it remained in the form of a book. I took it to the garden behind the house and there I buried it deep in the dark soil near the flowerbed. I dared not plant it in the garden itself, for fear of what devilry should accost our growing things.

I returned to my beloved Astor to find her asleep beside the well - in perhaps a deeper sleep than she had seemed to have for months. I woke her gently only to wrap her hands, then I carried her to bed and placed myself beside her. I did not sleep that night, but she did, and I was the happier for it.

A few days passed and she seemed to be better. On occasion, she would inquire as to the location of the book, but I insisted on it being kept a secret. As time went on, she began to grow increasingly frustrated with my persistence in keeping the secret of the red book's location. I knew that every time I left the house, she would search for it, but I was so confident that she would never find it that I paid it no mind. She became angrier. Her hair began to fall out and her skin seemed to shrink so that her eyes popped from her face like marbles on a paper. She was weak and wouldn't eat. She stopped sleeping or washing, but still I would not give her the book. That was what had made her this way. If it hadn't been for that ill-fortuned volume, I would still have my dear Astor, not this bent creature that shared my house.

It was on a day when I walked alone to the market that it happened. She had long since given up coming with me on walks. The animal that now lived in place of my wife had no use for sunlight or joy or fresh air.

I had come to enjoy my solitary strolls if only to get away from the darkness that the woman who had been Astor seemed to efuse.

I took my time on this particular venture. Perhaps I knew that it was near the end, and I didn't want to watch her devolve even further into that beast into which she had turned. Perhaps I was selfish and simply longed for the joy of sunlight. Perhaps I, too, could feel something from the book and it was keeping me away as my sweet Astor disappeared.

But when I emerged into that house to see the wreckage that she had wreaked upon our home, I knew that I had been gone far too long. And more than this, I knew that I should never have allowed her to convince me that bringing the empty book home with us was a good idea.

We found her three days later in a dress marred with her blood. She lay with slit wrists and burned hands on the edge of the river, her skin having already been sunburned from being out for so long. She didn't look like my wife anymore. My wife had died months ago, but still I mourned. We buried her underneath the apple blossom tree in the back garden. I painted a white cross to mark her grave, and placed it as a headstone of sorts in the ground above her.

I wept there for many hours after the guests had left. I sat there on my knees with my face in my hands, angry hot tears running down my skin to water the ground beneath which lay my beloved Astor. When I rose, the sun had set. I went to the place where I had buried the book, and I dug it up. My tears continued to fall, and I paid no heed to how they sizzled and steamed when they struck the ground. My shovel hit the book, and I dug it out. Holding it in my hands, I noticed that it was not hot. Dirt was caked under my fingernails, but the book was so light and cool in my hands that I dared not put it down. With a sneer, I opened up the tome, and flipped through the pages. I screamed in rage. There were no words. I threw it to the ground and stomped on it, yelling and cursing the day it was made. I picked it up and carried it into the house. I left it on the table, but when I tried to go to sleep, I found that it was all I thought about. I got up and went to it again, gently taking it in my fingers and flipping to the first page. To my shock, there was text there, written in an even darker red than the pages themselves. How could this be? I read it through and flipped page after page, unable to put it down. When at last dawn came, my eyes were pained and weary from reading. It had nothing to do with the strange heat that the book had pumped up into my face while I read. I finally closed the book, and sat contemplating its contents. It spoke of an old war and an older beast. Destruction and ruin. On the very last page, there was a command. Curiously, I obeyed it, and thought not to my own welfare before I plunged my hands into flames. Next, it commanded me to kill. It began with small things- animals and birds- then progressed to my neighbor. I had never liked him anyway, so I took that same shovel with which I buried and unburied the red book, and I crept into old farmer Sorrel’s home. He awoke that night to see me standing over him. With my burn-scarred hands, I lifted the shovel and I beat him until his blood sprayed up at me. As I left the house, I smiled. I passed a mirror in his hallway, and caught a glimpse of myself. My hair came down my head in thin threads, and my eyes were red-rimmed and wide. I grinned. I had never looked better.

Aaaaand that's it! Creepy, relatively low description, just my messing around with a writing prompt that I found at about 12am this morning. I hope you enjoyed!

Blessings!

Marisa