The Whisper of Forgotten Ink

Beneath the dust of Oakspire’s shelves,

where cobwebs clung like whispered spells,

a tome lay bound in fractured skin,

its title etched in ghostly grin:

“The Chronicle of Never-Was.”

Old Margot, keeper of the stacks,

her hands like parchment, heart like wax,

unearthed the book on Tuesday’s gloom,

when storms outside sealed the room.

A single page—blank—stared back.

But when her thumb graced brittle spine,

the ink awoke, a serpentine design,

words cascading, black and bold,

a story hers, yet centuries old:

A girl who drowned in Willowmere…

Margot’s breath caught—she knew that face.

The girl was her, in time’s embrace,

but in this tale, the waters stilled,

the child lived, the void unfilled.

What if the past could rewrite its sin?

She scribed a line with shaking hand,

“The girl climbs back to solid land.”

The library trembled, shelves upended,

as history fractured, then mended—

a locket clicked ‘round Margot’s throat.

Inside, a face she’d never known:

her mother, young, her smile sewn

from threads of time now rearranged.

But every edit bore a cost—

the book’s next page began to frost.

Forbidden ink now pooled and hissed,

a voice slithered through the mist:

“Each word you steal, a soul you trade.

The drowned must drown; the debt is paid.”

Margot’s pulse thrummed—choices, choices.

She burned her plea, a final line,

“Let all forgot, but leave her mine.”

The book snapped shut, its power spent,

the locket cold, its image rent.

Yet in the mirror, silvered hair…

now streaked with black, a truth laid bare.