to it, but as a business woman, I had to set my priorities.
I went under the kitchen sink to find a cleaning bucket, some rags, garbage bags, and general-purpose cleaner. There was also an engraving tool, the version that plugged into a wall and heated a nail-like head. It could burn wood. In this case, flooring to set sigils.
Thank you. So cool. The house provided before I even knew what I needed.
As I walked past the door to Winnie’s room, I noticed it slightly ajar. Geoff said she’d been by to grab some stuff.
A peek inside the crack showed the bed, neatly made, her clothes folded on a chair sitting beside it. Beside the door was a wastepaper basket filled with crumpled paper. She’d been working on something. I grabbed the handle of the door to close it, only to notice a word written on a discarded ball of paper garbage.
Fire. The loopy scrawl was Wendy’s. I reached for it and smoothed out the sheet. Beside the word fire was a symbol I recognized. It was part of the one I’d recently drawn for light.
It made sense, light and heat being related. Under fire, another sigil labelled, “Wind.” A comment beside said, “Can propel or repel. Located on the roof, used by the tiles to prevent damage?”
Wait a second. Winnie had studied the sigils in the house? She never told me. Then again, why would she? I had more or less mocked the spells she’d tried to replicate from the recipe book. She didn’t understand my epiphany. That not only did I now believe but I also wielded magic.
Should I tell her the things I’d experienced and seen? Would she believe me?
I knew Kane would.
Bending, I retrieved more balled sheets from the basket. Winnie had drawn symbols I’d seen around the house, and some I hadn’t. She hypothesized their meaning, crossing things out as she dug deeper. A few she slashed and scrawled, “Fuck this.” I assumed it meant she couldn’t decipher it.
How had I not known she was doing this? Had she tried to activate any of the sigils? Did she have the same magic I did?
And for a moment, the horrible person in me was jealous that perhaps I wasn’t special. That my child would take it away.
The wrongness of it filled me with guilt. Why shouldn’t my daughter achieve great things? We could share this. The Rousseaux witches, doing magic together.
It made me want to seek her out and tell her everything. Explain our roots. Maybe omit the father part. We’d cry and hug. Make high protein waffles together.
I kept her drawings as I rose from the bed where I’d unconsciously sat. I took a step to the door and saw it. Opened wide on the desk. Grandma’s missing book of spells. It never even occurred to me Winnie would have taken it. Why hadn’t she said anything when I’d mentioned it being lost?
As I entered her room, and neared the book, was when I noticed the damage, the sliced edges of sheets where pages had been removed. A utility knife sat beside it, a damning clue as to the culprit.
Why had Winnie done this? It boggled the mind. One did not just cut stuff out of a family heirloom. Maybe I’d not instilled her with a sacred duty toward the written word, but surely, she knew how wrong it was to desecrate a book like this.
I grabbed the tome and flipped through it, searching for more damaged spots. Only the single section. Four pages in total. No idea what used to be on them.
I tucked the book to my chest. How would I deal with this?
It wasn’t Winnie taking it that bothered me. I would have loaned it if she asked. But to destroy it was wrong on so many levels.
It also raised another point. If Winnie had gone into my room and taken the spell book, she might have glanced through the family tree.
I doubted she could have read it. After all it, took a combination of a ring that I wore on a chain around my neck and UV light to see anything.
What about Martin’s books though? I glanced at the ceiling. I should hide those in a better place. The family tree and Martin’s musings went into the trunk of my car. I’d leave them there until I could properly dispose of them.
I drove into town and parked by my shop. Standing outside the front door, I took a deep breath. Time to