More Than Just A Book

It was always quiet in my shop, but today was different when a young man burst into ‘Macnair’s Antique Store’ demanding I give a refund for a particular book he seemed quite afraid of.

“Here!” the young man roared, slamming the book on my counter. “Take your book! I want my money back, and I want something… anything that can erase everything your book caused.”

My impulse was to call authorities. But I sensed nothing dangerous about this man — he only seemed afraid.

Instead, I looked around bewildered, not even glancing at the book. “What is this? Who are you?”

“Don’t remember?” the young man said through gritted teeth. “You sold this, falsely advertised, to my mother years ago. If I had known… but I was a kid. You took advantage of us to get rid of your demon book.”

“Now, I’ve sold many mysterious items over the years, but never have I sold a demon book!” I exclaimed. “However... yes I remember now; your mother was a loyal customer… I remember you accompanied her as a child whenever she passed by. What was your name again?”

“Jack,” the young man growled.

“How could I forget, Jack?” I said with a warm smile as a couple customers walked out. “I think there must’ve been a misunderstanding. I never falsely advertise any of my sales.”

Jack exhaled shakily and leaned over the counter. “Then help me,” he whispered after a moment. “Help me undo what it made me do.”

This request startled me, melting away my smile.

“And what exactly did the book… make you do?” I asked slowly.

Jack’s silence disturbed me even more.

I glanced at the few customers, who were staring. “Come, Jack. Let’s go somewhere a little more private… just you and I.”

Jack hesitated, but he followed me towards the back end of the shop, as I limped down the dark hallway, a sharply sweet incense exuding from the room at the end.

We entered my hazy office and I sat down heavily at my desk. Jack took the chair in front of me, not meeting my eyes.

“So, Jack,” I started. “I will do my best to clear up any confusion, but you must first tell me what exactly happened.”

“I always thought there was something wrong with that book,” Jack started. “Then it was finally confirmed two months ago.” He rummaged through the black book in his hands.

“What was confirmed?”

“Tell me if there’s anything wrong with this,” said Jack, and he read with a shaky voice: “‘A long break from my daily, tedious routine will come soon.’”

“Wrong in what way?”

“In any way! Any way that might require a price to be paid… or maybe deserving of punishment?”

I frowned. “A price?”

“You told my mother years ago that any desire written in this book would realize itself, but—”

“Well, not exactly,” I interrupted. “I said writing your desires tends to find themselves in reality a lot more often than otherwise.”

“Still, everything I write in it comes true,” Jack went on, staring at the book. “But you failed to tell her that it came at a cost.”

I laughed nervously. “I think you misunderstood the purpose of the—“

“Answer the question. Do you think there’s anything wrong with what I wrote here?”

“Not particularly.”

Jack exhaled deeply. “Exactly! That’s what I thought… but the book didn’t think so. See, that’s what’s wrong with it. It always demands a price in return.”

“But Jack, don’t you think it could be coincidences?”

Jack laughed hysterically and raised the book. “I thought so at first, but I got my break alright, in the form of a winter storm that shut down the whole city. How coincidental is that?”

“Wait… you mean to tell me the reason why the town’s most devastating winter storm came this last February was to give you a long deserved break?”

Incredulously, Jack nodded slowly.

“During the power outage, I thought long and hard. I was tired of depending on a book for my happiness. But there it was,” Jack breathed, gazing at my desk. “There was the little black book, facing me from my bookshelf, digging a hole into my deepest desires… So, even though I knew what happened after my last desire, I asked for one last one: My life will change for the better, very soon.”

“And did it?” I asked quietly, though I had a feeling I already knew.

“Oh yeah,” whispered Jack. “I didn’t ask for anything specific, because that was riskier… But when it came I knew it was the book. It was March, the twelfth to be exact, after everything was back to normal. An old man had stopped me on my walk back home from work. He asked me to help him read a lottery ticket. I was surprised to find he won forty grand, but even more surprised when he promised me half of it for my hospitality.”

“Did he really?” I asked, impressed. “What a kind gesture.”

Jack shook his head. “It was fate. He was an old man, he told me he didn’t need so much money. I knew then that the book had done its work. But after the man left, the book decided to outdo itself. It came to me in the form of a boy.”

I sat up in my chair; suddenly I wasn’t so comfortable. “The book… approached you as a boy?”

“He was very pale and wearing all black; it had to be… He’d overheard my conversation with the old man. He asked me if he could borrow the money whenever I received it. Told me he was sick. I declined. He was an orphan, he said, with no adult around. How could he have returned my money? Besides, I knew the book was trying to take away my chance for a better life, to guilt-trip me into not receiving my desires to begin with. But not this time.” Then he looked at me with such intensity that a shiver ran down my spine. “And who was I to contradict fate, right?”

“N-no one,” I spluttered, “I suppose.”

“Right… right,” said Jack, redirecting his gaze at my desk. “So I left the boy and went about my day. Over the course of the next week, the old man transferred in bits exactly twenty thousand dollars into my account. Twenty thousand. That was enough to turn my life around… I could finally get a car and grow the rest. So that’s exactly what I did.

“But to my dismay, that little boy in black showed himself again, exactly where I had left him. Every day on my way to work, in fact, I saw him. Every day back home. It got to the point where I considered taking another route, but any other would’ve been too time consuming.

“Yet, with every sight of the boy, my wealth increased. I’d already doubled my money… If this was my reward, I’d gladly face the guilt every time I looked at the boy. The book had lost this time,” Jack added, glaring down at the book in his hands. It was then I saw it for the first time, as I finally took my eyes off Jack.

“Jack,” I began to say, but Jack continued.

“In fact, I no longer even needed the book. It had given all I needed to get my life going. I’d finally beaten it! So one day, I was about to dispose of it once and for all, when I stopped myself. I had beaten the book.” Jack looked up at me once again. “Who was to say I couldn’t do it again?”

“Jack, there’s something I need to tell you,” I said, involuntarily glancing at the door. But Jack glared at me and amplified his voice.

“This morning, I received a call from the hospital… It was my mother, Macnair. My mother.”

I gulped. I dared not interrupt him.

Jack suddenly dropped the book on my desk as if he just realized he was holding dung. “I thought it was that thing’s doing again, after all my fortunes, but when I arrived at the hospital, the doctor told me my mother was fine, that she had just gotten a minor stroke. Then I thought to myself, did the book really think it was fair to play with my mother’s life?”

I opened my mouth but Jack interrupted.

“That was when we heard a scream next door. I ran out and saw a nurse sobbing into a doctor’s arms. I immediately assumed that the woman had lost someone, someone who’d been fighting for their life for a while, maybe. Only I never imagined that someone would be that young boy dressed in black.”

I gaped, incredulous at this poor man’s bad luck. I was a man of superstition indeed, but this was an entirely different matter.

I leaned back in my chair as Jack slowly rose to his feet.

“Tell me, Macnair,” he said. “Was the book right to think that the price for some good fortune to finally happen in my life was another’s life?”

“Dear boy, I meant to tell you… this is just a regular book!” I cried, gesturing at the journal. “I have never seen nor sold such a book in my life!”

Jack let his head hang. After a long silence that rang in my ears, I was shocked to find he was laughing.

“I wish you hadn’t said that,” he said, looking back at me. “Now you know too much! If the book blamed me for that poor boy’s death, then no one but I should know it! Besides, if I were to be punished for murder, then I would regret not committing one, if I didn’t take it out on you.”

“What on earth are you saying?! You didn’t kill the boy! Now think reasonably, Jack. There has been no crime. There is nothing to punish you for.”

Jack leaned closer. “The book would disagree.”

“Well then destroy it!”

“What?”

“Destroy the book! Even if it only stands as a symbol, as we now both know it does, then destroy it, and sever yourself from it, here and now!”

Then Jack attacked. I covered my head. There was ripping and stomping but no harm was done to me. When I opened my eyes, the black book was gone, and Jack was leaning over the trash can, taking deep breaths.

“Better?” I asked.

“Better.”

I managed to convince Jack to accompany me into my car at great risk, but I thought it was necessary for his and others’ safety. When we reached the police station, they took Jack and I recounted these events as best I could to the police.

“Look sir,” they told me. “I understand you went through quite a fright, but due to the lack of evidence…”

“I fear for my life and others he might encounter,” I said desperately.

“We’ll have an eye on him. But I’m afraid we don’t have enough to hold him here.”

That was when Jack walked by, accompanied by two officers. He gave me a look of betrayal and walked off. But not before handing me something small.

It was a black, pocket book; my breath caught in my lungs. When I looked up at Jack, he gestured to open it, giving me one last intense look before stepping out of the station.

Scribbled on the first page, was a note. I knew my life would never be the same after reading it.

‘You were right, about the book being a symbol. I think we all have one that haunts us, in one form or another. You knew about my case, yet still pretended to help, only to betray me, like my book. So, now this is yours. And in the case you destroy it, or get rid of it, then I will be your little black book.’