All the keepsakes of my aunt I had were safe. When I reached home her yearly portraits met me in the corridor. The hints of a figure in the background resembled an omen of atrophy now, and I had to fend off memories of Bella’s reversion to the earth. Making for the kitchen took me past the portraits in reverse, so that I watched myself grow younger. Perhaps I had the opportunity to recapture some of the wonder I’d experienced in my youth, or even to discover visions I’d never had.

The bitter aroma of coffee lent the air in the kitchen an edge as I filled a mug and took it to my desk. A train intoned its stations before preaching safety while across the bay the windmills scratched the low clouds raw. The sky was only growing red with sunset, and I didn’t need any safety advice. My aunt’s journal was secure in the drawer of my desk, and I was immune from its influence. I believed I was just as safe with the remains of the other book.

That was the word that had followed me up from the dark valley: book. I’d concluded that the denizen wanted me to return his chronicle to him, but I was never going back. I had no way of restoring it to the library either, but I could at least read it myself; in fact, I felt compelled to do so. One page a day might be enough of a task to decipher, or perhaps I could forge ahead. I retrieved the pages and their binding from the drawer, where they lay on top of Thelma’s journal. When I spread the binding wide on the desk, a page slipped out as though eager to be read. The true mage is conceived by the cosmos, and is its fleshly incarnation… I thought I felt my mind begin to open like a blossom, and I was already less resolved to destroy the pages once I finished reading them. Perhaps when I came to the end I would know how to proceed.

About this book

About this book

This is a FLAME TREE PRESS BOOK

Text copyright © 2020 Ramsey Campbell

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.