sarah

Sarah’s Book of Shadows:

August 28, 1971

At the end of the summer the sea always seems to be railing against the thought of another long, fierce New England winter. The waves hurtle themselves against the rocks with blind rage. Fisherman think of August as a terrifying month, but for me, it's the most thrilling. Maybe it's because my family has lived in Gloucester for generations. Or maybe it's because were Wiccans, and that puts us in greater tune with nature.
It's ironic to think that my family settled so close to Salem- we were very lucky to survive the witch trials. It's strange to think that Wicca could inspire such terror when it's such a gentle, loving, nurturing religion. I guess people are always afraid of power that they don't understand. And Wicca does deal with raw power although the way my family practices it, it's never destructive. Both Mom and Dad are very into responsible uses of magick, which they drummed into me before my initiation three years ago. Now they are teaching the same thing to my younger brother, Sam. He won't be initiated for another seven months, but already I can see the energy beginning to spark in him. I know he's going to be a powerful witch. I'm looking forward to his rites, but it's hard not to envy him sometimes. My own power is more fickle, although I like to think that it is growing as I continue to study and practice.
Every day I pray to the Goddess to make me worthy of my family.
-Sarah Curtis

September 3, 1971

I feel sick. This afternoon Sam showed me a book he had just "discovered."
When I saw the cover, I nearly dropped the book in terror. It was a first edition of Harris Stoughton's book, On the Containement of Magick.
I couldn't figure out where he'd found it. My parent's haven't told him about their library yet, and even if they had, I doubt they own any books by Harris Stoughton. Sam told me that He'd found the book in the public library and had just taken it. He stole the book. He told me that he thought the book wanted him to have it.
I couldn't believe this was the brother I'd known for his entire life. I asked Sam if he had any idea who Harris Stoughton was, and of course he didn't. I should hope not. I explained that Stoughton was the most notorious witch in New England- that he used dark magick and antiwitch hysteria to wipe out as many non- Woodbane witches as he could. He even killed a couple of our blood relatives, although I didn't tell Sam that. I could tell he felt guilty enough as it was.
I thought that would be the end of it, but when I handed him the book and asked what he planned to do with it, Sam just said that he wasn't sure. I know my brother. If I try to force him to get rid of it, he'll only want to hold on to it more. Part of me wants to tell our parents about this, but a larger part of me is afraid of how they'll react.
Goddess, grant me wisdom. And grant me courage to live in the house with that evil book.
- Sarah Curtis

September 15, 1971

The sky is the color of steel toady, and the bitter wind has begun to blow from the north. The flags are flying at half –mast, and there seems to be a hush over the town of Gloucester. We heard this morning that the Lady Marie went down in last night’s storm.
All five fishermen aboard are believed dead –Captain James Dallman, Tim Flanagan, Arnold Jennings, Jason McGreevy, and Andrew Lewis. The storm came up so suddenly that the men on board weren’t even able to radio for help. They sank fifty miles off Eastern Point.
   They haven’t found the bodies.
Sam has been quiet all day. He knew Andrew Lewis pretty well. We all did, actually –Drew grew up only two blocks from our house. He was two years older than I am and was a big baseball hero in high school. He always let the little kids play in the neighborhood games and taught them how to field and bat. Sam looked up to him.
   Some people say that Drew should have tried for a career in baseball –he even got a college scholarship to play. But Drew just wanted to be a fisherman like his dad. He didn’t want to leave Gloucester.
And now he’s gone. Of course, that’s the risk you take, being a fisherman. It’s a dangerous job. Not even all the magick of Wicca can save you from the full force of a storm.
   -Sarah Curtis

September 22, 1971

   Today was Andrew Lewis’s funeral. Mother and Father didn’t want us to go, but Sam insisted, and in the end our parents had to give in. I don’t often have a chance to go to a Catholic church for any reason, and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the service. Sunlight steamed in the stained glass windows, and the whole ceremony seemed very ancient and peaceful, even though it was a bit too solemn. I couldn’t help comparing it with the circle we’d held the night before at Patience Stamp’s house. She’s a potter, and her house is very simple but filled with beautiful handmade things. We’d held hands and had felt the magick flow between us, easing the pain we felt at losing our friends to the sea. I felt the same kind of magick in the church –a healing magick that exists between people. In the middle of the service I noticed that tears were streaming down Sam’s cheeks, and I handed him a tissue. I was touched by his sorrow. But later I discovered he was feeling more than simple sorrow.
   After the service Sam walked into my room and sat on the edge of my bed. When I saw that he was holding the Book –the Harris Stoughton book –I was afraid.
Then Sam told me that he’d tried a small spell –a weather spell –because it hadn’t rained for so long. He’d just wanted to see if he could call up a little rain, so about ten days ago, when the moon was waxing, he’d tried it. He hadn’t known what would happen, he said, so it couldn’t really be his fault, could it?
    It took about half a minute for this to sink it. When I realized what he was telling me, I could hardly breathe. How could he? How? The storm that killed the crew of the Lady Marie was his fault. I grabbed him by the collar and started to shake him. “What have you done?” I was almost screaming, and Sam started bawling. The Book fell from his lap, and I dove for it. It felt warm in my hand, like something alive, and I wanted to throw it down, but I didn’t dare.
   I must burn the vile thing before it destroys us all.
-Sarah Curtis

September 30, 1971

   It’s been almost a week since it happened. I prepared the ritual, lit the fire in the cauldron, called upon the Goddess and the God for strength, and prepared to destroy Harris Stoughton’s vile book. But I couldn’t do it.
   It’s hard to describe exactly what I was feeling. Fear, yes. And revulsion for the book and its author. But I also felt a strange sense of longing. I suppose it’s my Rowanwand blood –the love of and hunger for knowledge that we are known for. At any rate, I simply couldn’t destroy the book and take this knowledge –even though it’s dark knowledge –out of this world forever. I had to find a safe place for it.
    My first thought was to bury it behind the house. Earth can be very powerful –it can purify objects that have been spelled. But I didn’t want to run the risk that someone, or even some animal, might dig up the book and find it. Besides, the book itself hasn’t been spelled. It’s a book of dark spells, and there is no mountain of earth in the world that could purify it.
   But I realized that there is a place in my very own house that is ringed with spells of obscurity…a secret place that no one but initiated blood witches can find: my parents’ library. I decided to put it there for now and to warn them about the book as soon as possible. I hadn’t wanted to tell them about it for fear of getting Sam into trouble. Then again, I thought that things had gone far enough.
    My parents keep their dark magick titles, of which they have quite a few, on the highest shelf in the library. I had to get a stool to reach it. I stood there for a moment, reading the titles before me. Some of them were fairly chilling, and as I placed the Stoughton book among them, I had a deep sense of foreboding.
   At the very moment that I slid the book in among the others, the reading lamp on the table in the corner began to rattle and shake. Then it started to move. Slowly at first, then gaining speed, it slid across the table and crashed to the floor. I squeezed my eyes shut tight. It’s an earthquake, I thought, and I wanted to believe it –although whoever heard of an earthquake in Gloucester? Besides, I would have felt the whole room shaking. Finally I managed to calm my breathing and opened my eyes. Everything was still, including the books on the top shelf. I left the library as quickly as possible and redrew the sigils in a hurry.
   I was so scared that for a moment I considered doing a circle in my room to calm my nerves. But instead I went up to the window’s walk and let the rhythmic crashing of the waves hypnotize me.
   I have to be honest with myself. Lately magick has seemed terrifying instead of wonderful. For now, I think I’ll let nature be my religion.
   -Sarah Curtis

October 3, 1971

    I finally worked up the nerve to warn my mother about the book, but she hardly seemed interested, let alone worried. I told her that the powers of Wicca were starting to seem uncontrollable to me –and frightening in a way that they never had before.
    Mother didn’t like that. She laid down her knife and told me that I was being “ignorant.” She made it sound like she thought I was a hysteric –like those people during the witch trials. Another Harris Stoughton.
     I told her that I had some good reasons to be freaked out, but she just said that she didn’t want to hear it. She said that we were responsible witches and that we had a right to our beliefs.
     Just at that very moment –I mean exactly as she said that –the silverware drawer flew out. It just flew right out of the cabinet and landed on the floor with a clatter. Then an icy wind blew through the room and the cabinet doors burst open.
    “Get down!” Mother yelled as the plates flew out and hurtled against the wall –crash crash crash!
    I screamed and screamed until the cupboard was empty. I screamed until my mother picked herself off the floor and took me by the shoulders. She shook me, but my scream went on and on until I couldn’t scream anymore.
     Then mother held me and told me that everything would be all right. But I don’t believe her.
    There is dark magick in this house. For a while I thought it was the book itself that was responsible, but I know that’s impossible. It’s just a book. It may be full of evil, but it can’t actually make things happen.
    I can hardly bear to think it, but I have to. Could Sam have been behind it?
-Sarah Curtis

October 4, 1971

      I can feel the darkness closing in.
     Today, the day after my argument with Mother, I went back to the library and pulled out the book. I don’t know what made me do it –I suppose I thought that it might have some advice on how to stop the same dark magick it unleashed. Which it did. Page after page on binding witches, both in secret and in the open. It even had a section on how to bind one’s own magick. But I wasn’t sure –I mean, I didn’t know for sure that Sam was behind the latest piece of dark magick.
    I decided to look for another option.
I flipped through the book, skimming it, and finally came across a chapter called “On the Movements of Objects Through the Aire.” Just like the plates and the drawer in the kitchen, I thought, and the lamp in the corner. So I read it. And guess what it said? It said that some witches, when they’re in an agitated state of mind, can mentally move objects without realizing it.
   So Sam could be behind these events, I realized. He wouldn’t have to be into dark magick to be behind them. As long as he is nearby and is familiar with the objects in question, he could move then with his mind. Obviously he’s eaten off the plates in the kitchen often enough to be able to picture them. And he was in the house both times.
   I went to leave the library. But as I stood there redrawing the sigils of protection and obscurity around the door, I suddenly realized something.
    Sam doesn’t know about the library.
He won’t be shown the library until his initiation. He doesn’t even know it exists. So how could he have made the lamp fall over inside it?
In fact, there’s only one witch in the house who knows about the library and is in an agitated state of mind. The same person who was present at both events. The one person I would never suspect.
Me.
   -Sarah Curtis

October 5, 1971

     I tried to talk to Sam about what’s been happening, but I never got the chance. The minute I mentioned the Harris Stoughton book, he became furious. He demanded to know whether I had destroyed it, and when I said I hadn’t he started shouting.
   I was already on edge, and having him yell at me set me off. I told him that he should have burned the book himself. He was the one who stole it, he was the one who brought it home, he was the one who tried one of its spells even after I told him the book was evil. I was sick of trying to help him! As we stood there screaming at each other, I was suddenly struck with a splitting headache, a piercing, stabbing pain.
    Sam threw up his hands and stormed out of my room. I followed him, still yelling -and so I saw what happened. As he reached the top of the stairs, the mahogany table in the hall gave a violent lurch. It slid as if the entire house had tipped on its foundation and slammed into him.
   “Sam!” I screamed.
Sam clawed at the banister, but he couldn’t stop himself from falling. He tumbled down the entire stair, head over heels. When he reached the bottom, he lay perfectly still for a moment, his leg twisted behind him. He looked up at me for one moment, then turned his head and vomited.
“Sam!” I screamed again, then ran to call an ambulance. I knelt beside him while we waited for it to arrive, but he didn’t open his eyes again. I felt numb as I rode in back with him to the local hospital. Luckily the doctors say that he’s only got a broken leg and a mild concussion. He’ll be all right. With a fall like his, they said, things could have been much worse.
   Much worse –if things had been much worse, he’d be dead.
This can’t go on. I know what happened with the table –I did it. I did it, and I can never do anything like that again.
I won’t let another person die because of the Curtis witchcraft.
-Sarah Curtis

October 8, 1971

     I’m so weak, I can hardly write this. I’ve told Mom and Dad that I have a bug so they won’t bother me, but that’s a lie. I’ve been in bed for over twenty-four hours. I can hardly sit up. And I can’t stop crying.
    I had to do it. Sam is still in the hospital, and I’m the one who put him there. Who would be next? My mother? My father? Me?
      So last night I pulled the Harris Stoughton book from the shelf. It took only a moment to find the spell I was looking for –the same one I’d discovered accidentally the other day. The spell to strip one’s self of magick.
    I crept up to my room and prepared everything, the black candle, the cauldron. At first I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to pronounce the chants correctly –they were written in a language I didn’t know. But as I started speaking, I found that the words flew off my tongue. For a moment I thought that the ceremony wouldn’t be so bad.
     I was wrong.
    After a few minutes I began to feel like there was a weight on my tongue. Something slimy. As I continued the chants, the weight slipped down my throat, into the pit of my stomach, as if I’d swallowed a snake. It stayed there and started to grow. I kept chanting, but the weight grew and grew, choking me. It spread farther, down my arms, down my legs, until I felt like my entire body was filled with a giant, black serpent. I was gagging on it, gasping for air. The weight pressed me against the floor, crushing me. I thought my spine would crack, but it didn’t and soon the weight turned into a searing pain. Then, thankfully, the whole room went black.
   I woke up on the floor of my room, feeling like a tree that’s been hit by lightning. Alive on the outside but dead on the inside…rotting away. I’ll never use my magick again. I hardly even know what I am.
    And I still have the book. I’ve hidden it under my mattress until I can decide what to do with it. I can’t bring myself to destroy it, and I can’t let it fall into the wrong hands.
    I can’t think about this now. All I want to do is sleep. Forever.
   -Sarah Curtis

October 14, 1971

    I couldn’t hide it from them forever. Even though I tried.
    My parents wanted to take me to see John Walter, the best healer in our coven. I knew he’d tell them the truth, so finally I had to admit what I’d done. My mother cried for two days, and my father stopped speaking to me altogether. My parents has always told me that there was nothing I could do that would make them stop loving me.
    But I guess I found the one thing,
    There’s nothing I can do about it now. I couldn’t bring my magick back even if I wanted to. And I don’t want to. Even though I’m still weak from the ceremony, I would rather feel pain myself than run the risk of putting someone else in danger. I know that Wicca is dangerous. Beautiful, but dangerous. I just wish that someone would talk to me, would try to understand why I did what I did. Don’t they understand that I’ve lost more than they have?
    I write this from a greyhound bus bound for Houston. It was the farthest place from Gloucester for the smallest amount of money. Even so, it took most of my cash –I’ve only got twenty-three dollars and thirty-seven cents in my pocket…what’s left of my life savings. With that, and a small bag of clothing, and the Harris Stoughton book wrapped in a black cloth (it’s no danger to me any longer, and how could I leave such an evil book with my family?), I begin my new life.
     I keep trying to tell myself that this kind of change is exactly what I need. That nothing has changed in my family for centuries and that I’m a pioneer, off to explore new worlds. I’m not really buying it, though.
    It might be easier if I had some idea of where all of this would lead. But I don’t.
    I guess no one ever really does.
        -Sarah Curtis