I, Henry Ballinger

To whoever finds this book, I beg of you to get rid of this as soon as possible. This book may seem like a dream come true but beware, everything comes at a price. I didn’t realize this until it was too late. I wrote this to try and warn people. If someone ever gives you anything from Madame Tchokasky’s shop, get rid of it immediately. Tear it, burn it, throw it to sea. However you see fit, just do it. Your future will thank you.

Oh, I almost forgot. Let me introduce myself. My name is Henry Ballinger. I’m a 19-year old from Madison, Wisconsin. This book was given to me by someone whom I thought was a friend. When, or if, you finish this letter, you’ll see why I say this. This person gave this book to me and said,

“Dude, this book will legit give you nightmares.”

I took that as a challenge. It was known among my friends that I wasn’t scared of anything. Tony pushed me off the cliff when we went to Yellowstone Lake State Park, a little southwest of Madison, and they all said I didn’t even flinch. Gabe has told many scary stories during our late-night bonfires. The other guys couldn’t sleep those nights, but I slept fine. Steven’s bad driving almost cost us all our lives on I-41. The other guys stopped riding with Steven and took the bus for a month straight, but I was fine being his driving buddy after we all recovered. But Jonathan, he has succeeded in making me scared of something, and I really wish he hadn’t.

There is this old woman that lives in town. She immigrated over from Russia with her husband. They are probably the nicest people in the whole town, but they do have their quirks. For example, Mr. Tchokasky would only ever be seen at night. He was always doing the same thing; sitting on his rocking chair, smoking his pipe, and watching the neighborhood. Madame Tchokasky was an avid gardener and had all types of plants in her yard, plants most of us had never even heard of. They had two children, but they were rarely ever seen as well. I actually doubted they even existed. Gabe told me he saw their son in the window one time, but none of us believed him. Madame Tchokasky was known all over town and loved by everyone. At least, everyone that was still in town. Madame Tchokasky runs this little Russian knick-knack shop on Mineral Point Road. It was super cool and she said that anything you bought would bring you immense good luck. Tony told me that his science partner bought a pencil there and then aced the next three tests they had.

“Bro, it was weird. She literally has never gotten over a 60. Then she uses this pencil from Madame Tchokasky’s shop and boom, 3 100’s in a row.” he told us. We were all impressed. We went to the shop many times but never bought anything. We all agreed that we didn’t need any mojo jojo to have good luck. At least, I thought we all agreed. Until that day.

I was sitting on the bleachers at the basketball court, just doodling and waiting for my little sister to get out of school. Jonathan came up to me and asked if I was busy.

“Nah, not really. I’m just waiting for Sabrina to get out.” I told him, as he sat down next to me.

“Cool, cool. Look, I did something and I’m lowkey terrified.” That made me sit up straight.

“What?”

“Kyle gave me a book from Madame Tchokasky’s shop.”

“Dude, what? We all agreed… Is it good?”

“Yeah it is, but I think it’s a scary story or collection of them.”

“Oh haha, you’re gonna try and scare me with some stories? Dude, just give up, I’m not scared of anything.”

“Dude, this book will legit give you nightmares.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Don’t believe me? Fine, see for yourself. But read it at night, it’s scarier.”

“Bet. But, I’m telling you right now, it’s not gonna scare me” I looked at my watch, “I gotta get going. Sabrina’s almost out.” We did our handshake and I left with the little black book in hand. I flipped through the pages while I was walking. I had noticed that there were a bunch of different kinds of hand-writing inside. Hmm, strange. Must be passed around a lot. I thought. God, how I regret taking that book now.

Later that night, I opened the book. I noticed that some of the pages were in a different language, I assumed Russian, and grabbed trusty old Google Translate to help. The first page roughly translated to;

I am the book of luck

The book of good

The book that can do the things

You never thought I could

Find a page, write your name

You shall never feel the same

Write your dream, write your wish

Then look at what you accomplish

Don’t be wary of what I can do

Just write it on the page

And I, the Luck Book, will make it true

I laughed at that. “So you write your dream in the book and all of a sudden you have good luck? Yeah, right.” I said to myself. Then I thought, Why would this give Jonathan nightmares? I started flipping through the pages and noticed that there were some torn out. In fact, the whole bottom half of the first page was drawn all over. I figured some kid got to it. I saw some words between the scribbles and translated the few I could make out. “Pass this book on, will be returned, or else...” It didn’t really make sense, but that was what I could see. At least, I should say that it didn’t make any sense then. Why not give it a shot? I thought. I flipped through to a blank page. Right before I started writing, I saw Jonathan’s page. He wished for his sister to not be sick anymore. “I didn’t even know she was sick,” I said to myself. I thought for a bit and then wrote on my page that I wanted $20,000 to help pay for school. I doubted it would work, but boy was I wrong. The next thing that happened, is the reason for my warning. The reason I will never leave.

The next morning, I saw Jonathan sitting on the bleachers. I walked over and sat next to him.

“Hey bud, what is this book?” I said, slightly waving it at him.

“Did you read it?” He asked me.

“Yeah, I saw your page too. I didn’t know your sister was sick.”

“Yeah, cancer. But she’s doing better now, because of that,” he pointed at the book and said that with such animosity. “Did you write in it?”

“Yeah, but I highly doubt it’ll come true.”

“It will, trust me. Just make sure you pass it on. Or else the book will take it back.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“Well, Lilly has been sick for a long time and the chemo wasn’t helping. It just seemed like she was getting worse. Then, Kyle gave me the book and told me to write a wish in it. I did and all of sudden, she was doing better. Her last chemo session went great and she was feeling better. But then I didn’t pass it on fast enough, I guess. I only had it for a week. She had a really bad relapse and was doing worse than before. I couldn’t see her like that. So I passed it on, to you. The book is twisted so be careful what you wish for.”

“Bro, why the hell would you give me this then?” I said, a little annoyed. If that happened to him in a week, what would happen to me and how long? I thought.

“I’m sorry I didn’t know what else to do or who else to give it to. What did you wish for by the way?”

“$20,000 to pay for school.” Jonathan nodded and then my phone rang. I answered and my heart stopped. I ran straight to my car and sped to Sabrina’s school. She was so confused, but I couldn’t tell her what was going on yet. I couldn’t even process it. We got to the hospital and I feel like she knew.

“What happened to mom and dad? Why are we here? Is everything okay?” she asked.

They were gone. Car crash. Died on impact. The words kept going around and around in my head. I couldn’t believe my parents were really gone. I knew this was the book’s doing when my mom and dad’s executor told us that we both inherited $20,000 from them. I was appalled. I couldn’t pass this book to anyone. I didn’t care if I lost the money. This book killed my parents. I couldn’t live with myself if I passed this on to someone else.

So, I didn’t.

The book did take its wish back, technically. It couldn’t bring my parents back from the dead, so it took me instead. And it seems I’m not the only one. Souls of others that didn’t pass on the book are with me as well. Sucked into the depths of the handwritings and wishes on its pages. Forever trapped. Now, that I’m not physically there to warn you, I wrote this to warn you. I beg of you, whoever finds this book, please get rid of it. Don’t write a wish. Don’t write your dreams. They’re not worth the price, or possibly your life. Life may be hard, but don’t take the easy way out because you never know what could happen. I lost my parents, my sister, my life. Don’t lose yours, please.

-Henry Ballinger