The little attic room was bare, except for the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on three walls. The shelves sagged, loaded down with ancient, dust-covered volumes, the covers worn and faded. One book was open on the wood floor, resting between a circle of ten black candles.
Ruth-Ann’s anger had faded now, replaced by the excitement this room always brought. The excitement of delving into mysteries, dark mysteries that went beyond science, beyond human understanding.
Ruth-Ann’s secret was her ability to cast spells, and part of the excitement came from knowing that only she was capable of performing this magic. The books of sorcery, of evil chants and curses and strange powers, must have been in her family for generations.
Did her parents even know this tiny attic room existed? They had inherited the house after her grandparents died, and yet this room remained untouched. Did they ever explore up here? Did they know the powers the Fears could possess if they used the instructions in these old books?
Ruth-Ann had discovered the room by accident one afternoon when she was seven years old. An intense game of hide-and-seek led to her running to the end of the hall. She could hear her friends’ approaching footsteps and knew she had only seconds to hide.
The narrow door caught her eye. Seconds later, she was up in the hidden attic, gasping for breath, holding on to the wall, leaning over the stairway and listening for her pursuers.
They didn’t come. She heard shouts and more running footsteps. But no one tried the door. No one found her. She began to breathe easy. This was her secret place, she realized. Her secret hiding place from the world.
Years later, she had the curiosity to pull out some of the old books on the shelves, dust them off, and read what they offered.
The history of her family was up here. Did her parents even know any of it? Did they know about the Fears’ archenemies, the Goode Family? Ruth-Ann had never heard anyone mention the Goodes.
The two families had hated each other since the early days of this country. Since Colonial days. Since the burning of witches and lives ruled by all kinds of dark superstitions.
Ruth-Ann read of the hatred, of the curses the two families cast on each other, of the murders that were carried out, all in the name of the ancient family rivalry.
The stories made her feel cold all over. The history of my family is so strange and so evil, she thought. And that was before she began to comb through the spell books, before she learned of the sorcery that her family had learned, powers that even she could master with enough practice and study.
She read the spells. She memorized some of them. She practiced a few harmless ones just to see if they would work. She made rabbits dance in a circle in her backyard. She made squirrels chase a dog down the street.
She didn’t try a serious spell until her sixteenth birthday.
The day was lonely with few friends. Ruth-Ann spent the day envying Rebecca with her easy grace and all her many admirers. Rebecca, so popular. So bubbling and happy. The princess who seldom allowed Ruth-Ann to even stand in her shadow.
Yes, it was envy that propelled Ruth-Ann. Envy that drove her to the ancient spell books and the black candles and the rituals she needed to get what she wanted.
It was only then that Ruth-Ann decided she needed a boyfriend. And she knew how to get one. It was 1922, after all, and everything was modern. Everyone was modern. Including the girls.
She picked Peter Goodman. She had been attracted to him at school. All the girls talked and giggled and whispered about their “crushes.” Maybe Ruth-Ann had a crush on Peter.
She didn’t know if he liked her or not. It didn’t really matter. Ruth-Ann’s summoning spell was powerful and inescapable. Once she had chosen Peter, he was hers. And she knew the sorcery to keep him as long as she wanted.
Two weeks after Rebecca’s birthday party, Ruth-Ann decided she wanted him now.
To defy Rebecca, yes. Rebecca and her unwanted advice to say good-bye to Peter.
Rebecca had no clue as to who had the real power in the family. Ruth-Ann planned to keep it that way. How wonderful to perform miracles behind a cloak of shadows. How pleasing to control people without their knowledge, to manipulate them with just candlelight and words and songs.
And now she wanted Peter to arrive. She wanted her boyfriend, the only boyfriend she had ever had. “I want you here now, Peter,” she murmured, lighting the ten black candles one by one.
She stood in the center of the circle, in the pale white glow of the candlelight, and began to remove her clothes. She pulled off the frilly blouse and tossed it against the wall. Her skirt came off next, and then the petticoats. Her undergarments flew against the wall.
And Ruth-Ann stood naked in the shadowy light from the darting, swaying flames all around her. She raised her arms like bird wings, as if flying free. And she began to dance.
A delicate dance at first, on tiptoe, with her hands swaying slow and high above her head. She shook out her short hair and kept her hands high, her bare feet tapping the warm wooden floor. And she began to sing. A soft, tender song of words in a strange language, a song from the book at her feet.
Ruth-Ann sang and did her slow, sinuous dance, her body warm from the candlelight, her skin shadowy in the darting flames and the wisps of black smoke from the points of the flames. The wisps of her dark magic.
She sang the words in a whispery voice. Her skin tingling, so free and light without clothes that she felt she could fly.
And when the spell was cast, she dressed quickly. She snuffed out the candles, and shook out her hair one more time. Then she hurried downstairs, peeking into the hall, making sure no one could see where she was coming from.
She had to wait only a few minutes.
When the front doorbell rang, her mother started to the door. But Ruth-Ann stopped her halfway. “Don’t bother, Mum,” she said. “It’s for me.”
