Enduring

The sound of the shop bell shook Harold out of his thoughts. The first customer of the day walked in and he was delighted to see Lizzie, one of his regulars. He pushed painful memories of his wife’s recent passing to the side as he greeted Lizzie, an attractive woman in her twenties with wavy hair and glasses.

“Hey Harold. How’re you doing today?”

“Same as last week. Taking it one day at a time.”

“That’s about all you can do, I guess.”

Harold shook his head and raised his left eyebrow.

“Anything new come in?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Ok, I’ll have a look around.”

Lizzie perused the shelves of the antique book store, as she had countless times before. She loved Silverlight Books, relishing in everything from the layout to the intoxicating smell of ancient manuscripts. She quickly gathered a stack of books. She was finishing up when she noticed a small black book, which she picked up and flipped through, noting it was blank. Lizzie recalled that her journal was nearly full, and could use a new one. She added the book to her pile and headed to the register.

“That’s quite the stack today,” Harold remarked.

“Well, you know I can’t stay away,” Lizzie responded.

“I swear you’re the only one keeping me afloat.”

Lizzie chuckled. “I’m sure that’s not true.”

“Close enough.” Harold picked up the black book. He looked all over it for a price tag, bar code, or ISBN number. “That’s odd. There’s nothing here.”

“Yeah. I was hoping to use it as a journal. How much?”

“Honestly, I don’t even remember ordering this. Tell you what, you can just have it.”

“No, I have to pay for it.”

“Don’t worry about it. You’ve spent so much money here over the years. I cannot accept payment for this book.”

“Wow, thank you!”

“You’re welcome, my dear.”

Lizzie paid for the other books, and put them in her tote bag. She headed out the door and walked the four blocks to her apartment.

It had been three years since Lizzie had moved to the Andersonville neighborhood of Chicago, after graduating from college. She loved everything about the area, from the small-town feel inside a large city to the eclectic businesses scattered throughout. She rented a room in a large apartment for cheap, and had become good friends with her roommate, Geoffrey. Geoff was tall and thin, with a thick head of hair. He had lived there for several years before Lizzie moved in. In the time she resided there, Lizzie had seen countless men come and go, none lasting for more than a month or so.

Lizzie walked into their shared apartment to a familiar sight: Geoff sitting on the couch in his underwear, eating cereal out of a mug. Geoff told her when she moved in that he didn’t like wearing clothes, but Lizzie didn’t mind the sight.

“Hi Geoff, I thought you were spending the weekend with Blaise,” Lizzie said.

“That was the plan, but when I went to pick him up, I saw that he had wicker porch furniture. Wicker! I can’t tie myself to someone who thinks that is acceptable.”

Lizzie rolled her eyes. Geoff was constantly dumping his latest boyfriend over small incompatibilities, but he always had a new one lined up.

As she closed the door, her orange tabby Simba greeted her. Lizzie strolled into her bedroom and added her new treasures to the bookcase which lined an entire wall from floor to ceiling. It was almost completely full, and she was considering renting a storage unit to hold her overflow.

Weeks passed. Lizzie sat at her desk and filled out the last page of her journal, and searched for the new book. She quickly found it and went to continue her thoughts. As she started writing, her pen dried up, which she found odd. Lizzie went out into the kitchen and rummaged through the junk drawer until she found another pen. She tested it on the back of an envelope, and it worked. She absentmindedly carried the envelope back into her bedroom and resumed writing in the book. Once again, the pen dried up. She was bewildered, and tried the pen on the envelope again. It worked fine. She tried it on the book once more with no luck. She even laid the envelope on the book and was able to write on the envelope, but as soon as her pen hit the page of the book, it stopped working. She tried several pages throughout the book, to no avail. Perplexed, Lizzie put the book down and got ready for bed.

The next morning, Lizzie got herself together and headed into work. She always talked about how amazing it was to be the assistant to the editor of the Chicago Tribune, but in reality, she was just an errand person desperate to become a journalist. Her day was more frenetic than usual which left her a bit unsettled.

At home, her thoughts went back to the odd experience with the book the day beforehand. She could not shake how strange it was. She began to think the pages were covered with something to make ink not stick, but she didn’t know enough about chemistry to even guess what it could be.

She sat at her desk and picked up the picture of her childhood cat, Chauncey, a grey ragdoll with striking blue eyes. Remembering how he comforted her as a child, her eyes began to well up. One tear rolled down her face and fell onto the black book.

Suddenly, the book began to glow in hues of blue and yellow, gradually intensifying until Lizzie had to look away. It was beautiful and terrifying all at once. After a few moments, the glowing subsided and she looked back at it. There were diagrams and writings on the pages in a language she had never seen before. She could feel an odd power emanating from the book, which had arcane and complex symbols and drawings of elaborate chalices, intricate rituals and human sacrifices. Her eyes fixated on a drawing of a crowd restraining a man’s limbs as his body was carved open like a jack-o-lantern.

She went to show it to Geoff, hoping he could provide some insight. As she handed him the book, a pipe burst in the bathroom, causing them to call maintenance to come and take care of it. While they waited, Geoff took a look at the book, but also had no idea what it said.

The next day, Lizzie returned to Silverlight Books, hoping Harold could help. Just as she handed Harold the book, the power to the neighborhood went out, darkening the shop. Harold moved to the window and looked through the pages, perplexed by what he saw.

“I have no idea what this language is. Or if it even is a language. There was nothing in here when you bought it. You said this appeared last night?”

“Yes. And beforehand it wouldn’t let me write in it.”

“That is truly odd. If you want, I can take it back and see what I can find out about it through my various connections.”

“Yes, please.”

Lizzie went back home and talked to Geoff and his flavor of the week for a few moments. She wandered back into her room and was stunned to see the book laying on her desk once more. This simply was not possible. She started to wonder if she was losing her mind. She once again took it out to show to Geoff and his paramour, who were just as confused as she was. When she handed the book to Geoff’s lover, she slipped on the floor rug and cracked her skull on the floor.

She went to an urgent care to get checked out, and fortunately did not fracture her skull or have a concussion, but she was nonetheless in intense pain.

Arriving home, frustrated, Lizzie threw the book in the trash and took the trash out to the dumpster.

The next morning, Lizzie woke up and looked over at her desk. The book was not there. She heaved a sigh of relief, believing this odd series of events was over. She climbed out of bed and walked past her bookcase only to see the book was back where she first put it. She thought that Geoff must be messing with her, as that was the only plausible explanation for what had been happening. She asked him if he had anything to do with it, and he denied it profusely.

Lizzie went into work as usual and brought the book with her. She handed it to one of her coworkers who was also an avid reader, and as she did so all of the copiers on the floor started shooting out copies of what appeared to be the same writings and drawings from the book. She told her coworker to keep the book, and went about the rest of her day, consciously ignoring her rapid descent into madness.

That evening, upon returning from work, Lizzie immediately went into her bedroom to see if the book had returned. It was not on the desk or in the bookcase. Truly believing her nightmare to be over, she went into the kitchen to pour herself a glass of wine. When she opened the refrigerator, she was shocked to see the black book sitting on a shelf inside. Perplexed, and on the verge of insanity, Lizzie grabbed the book and rummaged through the cabinets to find a pot. She set the pot on the stove and put the book inside. She found a pack of matches in the junk drawer, lit one, and threw the match into the pot. The match went out the instant it hit the cover of the book. She opened up the book and tried again, yielding the same results. She tried a third time, using three matches at once, and they took. The book quickly caught fire. After a few moments, the book was burning intensely. As she watched the flames, they crescendoed into an inferno. The fire was well beyond her control and quickly took over the kitchen. She yelled to Geoff to grab Simba, and they ran out of the building. She called 911 as soon as she got outside, and turned to see the fire spreading throughout the apartment building. She backed away from the fire into the street where she was abruptly hit by a passing car.

Lizzie awoke untold days later in the hospital. She was in a full body cast and in intense pain. Geoff was by her side. He told her that the building burnt down to the ground, and three of their elderly neighbors died. Lizzie was distraught.

After a few minutes, a lawyer entered her room. He represented the owner of the car who hit her, which was owned by a wealthy Chicago businesswoman. In order to keep the ordeal out of the news, he offered to pay for all of her medical bills and give her $20,000 to stay silent on the matter.

Lizzie mulled over his proposal and considered that she could likely get more if she brought on a lawsuit. However, the realization that she started the fire, caused deaths, and now had nothing weighed heavily on her. Ultimately, she decided to accept the offer.

Two months later, Lizzie was out of the hospital and able to walk with the use of a cane. She was able to get a new apartment and replace many of her belongings, but it wasn’t the same. She couldn’t stop dreaming of her neighbors in the fire. Her only comfort came from the idea that the book was destroyed and could no longer hurt her.

Back at Silverlight Books, an elderly man flipped through an unremarkable blank black book. He set it back down on the shelf, where it sat waiting, ready, as Harold cracked a smile.