Sabrina Gets Her Witch On

It seemed to stare at her, fixated, with unblinking eye. It is inanimate, inorganic – a thing. But there it is on the table. A small black book. The kind for keeping contact information. The kind for random scribbling. College ruled pages neatly ordered between the black moleskin covers. A red silk bookmark tip protrudes from the end. A world of unlimited possibilities awaits.

“Why did you buy that as the first item with your winnings?” Marsha inquired.

Sabrina stared back at the book. Her friend asked a legit question. Why? But she knew why. Marsha is such a bitch about these things, she thought. Always has to hear something spoken aloud.

“Because my Spirit Guide instructed me to do so,” she replied with cool stoicism.

“Oh come on,” Marsha retorted, “Don't give me that 'Spirit Guide' bullshit! You have always wanted, coveted, an item you regard as sacred.” She emphasized that last word for dramatic effect. Just to piss off her friend.

Sabrina lowered her chin, and shot her a gaze with hauntingly dead eyes. A hammy rendition of black and white classic horror victims under the shaman's spell. “I owe it to my Spirit Guide to buy this very artifact.” She pointed to the book on the table for emphasis.

“Ugh,” Marsha replied with her own dramatic eye rolling, “must you be such a poseur?” She put down the crystal she had been twirling between her skinny fingers. “You have been acting really weird since you stole that big-ass winnings scratch off ticket.”

Daggers from Sabrina's eyes telepathically made their way towards the unbeliever across the table, “I won that ticket! I made a bet with my uncle Walter, and when I won he failed to pay up.”

“So you went through his wallet and took the only thing of value gracing the leather folds. A scratch off ticket?” And thinking it would be a long shot anyway you decided to try your luck? And boy did you win. Twenty thousand dollars from a lousy scratch off?”

“That's right.”

“Were you planning on telling your uncle that you 'liberated' the ticket from his wallet? Or will he remain none the wiser? He can't be that clueless about you going from broke to tons of cash overnight. He will figure it out.”

“Maybe,” Sabrina said, “but by the time he does my Spirit Guide will have taken care of him.”

“You know,” Marsha replied while lighting another incense candle, “I would have thought that having some serious money to be responsible with would actually help you grow up. Grow beyond this new age nonsense.”

“Don't speak of things you know nothing about,” Sabrina replied. Her head turned to the side, eyes wide with a permeating maniacal quality, she glared at her friend. “My guide has not led me astray yet. And this book is proof of that.”

Marsha laughed. A rude, condescending laugh. The kind that taunts a person. Belittles them. Humiliates them.

“So what is this book? The one you purchased from that kooky occult book shop. It looks like a regular old notebook you could've bought from a drug store for a fraction of the price. What makes it so special to you, huh?”

“It is a magic book. Not a book of spells, or names of demons. It is a book that grants whatever the owner writes on its blank pages.”

“So how do you know it works, my dear?”

Sabrina reached to first get the book, and then handed it to her friend. “Open it to the first page, and read what I have written there.”

Marsha grabbed the book and opened it as instructed. She read what was written aloud. “It reads: 'Please let my Spirit Guide utterly destroy my friend Marsha'.” Her expression conveyed a combination of ridiculousness and disgust. “What? What are you... is this some sort of sick joke? Is this supposed to get a laugh out of me?”

Sabrina shook her head slowly from side-to-side, all the while locking eye contact with Marsha.

“Okay, look, I thought we were friends? But when you suddenly start acting all weird and shit, and then start writing creepy things like this... what is you problem?”

“I just want you to be useful for once,” Sabrina said without hint of emotion.

“By getting your hokey 'Spirit Guide' to 'destroy' me? What the hell does that even mean?”

“Turn to the next page and read those words aloud,” Sabrina said. Still no trace of emotion.

Marsha did. Her brow furrowed as she mouthed the words, and then spoke, “It reads: 'I want my money back!',” she studied the person she at one point considered a friend, “Are you implying I took your winnings? The twenty thousand dollars you won? You have completely lost your ever-loving mind, honey.”

“Nineteen thousand, nine hundred and fifty dollars to be exact – I'm not counting what I paid for the book. But yes, I want my money back. And you gone. For good. Permanently.”

“Just when I thought this evening could not get any more strange...,” Marsha mused.

“Oh, it's about to get real,” Sabrina said. And then the ambiance shifted from uncomfortable to surreal.

The room they were in, a small studio with exposed ceilings and original wood flooring, lighted only by two score of candles placed around the open space, suddenly got darker. Colder. More creepy. Sinister. From the corner of her eye, Marsha noticed a few candles flicker, caused by a slight breeze, attributed to the humanoid shadow that passed by no more than a foot away from her proximity.

“What was that!” Marsha said with a noticeable shrill in her voice.

Sabrina sat back and watched the terror drench her friend's expression, and the luminescence of the candles decrease by an exponential factor. From her vantage point she watched the manifestation of the Spirit Guide position itself behind where Marsha was seated. She watched as Marsha emitted a choked gasp as she quickly turned to her right, and then to her left.

She heard her breathing increase, and the drumming of her heartbeat in her ears. Now the time is right! Now the time has come to right a wrong.

With a barely perceptible motion the Spirit Guide stepped into the psyche of Marsha – it was like watching a transposed image overlay a living person – and slowly started to envelop her corporeal form with an inky blanket of oblivion. Sabrina delighted at the muffled cries extinguished slowly, faintly, and then eerie silence. What was once a discernible human form became a wispy, pixilated array of sandy black dots. Within the face region could be seen empty eye sockets and the mouth cavity permanently fixed in an eternal scream. It was as though an invisible force were holding these remaining atomic constructs together, awaiting instructions from the summoner, for them to give the word to let go of this transmutation.

Sabrina leaned forward across the table, and reached out to where her now mostly annihilated friend's shade held the book in hands which now resembled decaying silt. As the particles systemically released from their nuclear force, it offered the illusion of the book suspended in mid air as if by magic. She grabbed the book, and in doing so the remaining blackened elements of atomic mass vanished into the Ether. The ensuing vacuum formed a breeze in the room, and grew into a mild swell – just enough to push the candles close to being extinguished whereby the room darkened to a twilight glow. And in the silence Sabrina heard the strange sound of thousands of small sheets of paper land on the floor almost at once. And then the breeze subsided, followed by the candles resuming their glow, followed by the disappearance of the shadowy Spirit Guide from behind the chair where her former friend was seated.

She placed the book back on the table, almost in the exact same spot where it was before she handed it to Marsha. Next, she stood up from her seat at the table and walked around to the other side. On the floor, mostly coalesced around the empty chair, were thousands of small, greenish, strips of paper in a loosely-jumbled pile. She got down on her hands and knees and grabbed handfuls. Each of the strips had different numbers on them, and she knew instantly what they were. Sabrina smiled and started to count and stack the slips of paper. After about twenty minutes or so she finished with small stacks portioned by denomination, which came to a tidy sum of nineteen thousand, nine hundred and fifty dollars.

Sabrina smiled, and then cocked her head back and laughed hysterically.

*****

The convenience store was slow this evening. Sabrina noted three other patrons wandering the candy isles and perusing the drink coolers. She, on the other hand, made a bee line to the counter where the cashier was located. She was on a mission. When it was her turn in line, she purchased a single five dollar scratch off ticket. The same one for the same contest that her uncle had purchased. The one she stole from his unattended wallet. Too bad, so sad.

She then moved to the side, procured a quarter from her coat pocket, and proceeded to scratch off one choice from each of the six rows. Each row presented the player with five silver-colored circles. The trick to this game of chance is to hit the winning number combination for the day. And her Spirit Guide informed her that the stars were aligned for great personal success. Her guide had not thus far lead her astray. Sabrina also brought along her small black notebook as a good luck charm.

She pinched the coin between her thumb and index finger, and rubbed furiously at seemingly random silver circles. But through the chaos she sensed a pattern. Her hand guided by a totemic force. One by one the numbers behind their overlay coloring presented themselves. As the last circle was erased, Sabrina wiped the remaining material away and held up the card. The numbers she revealed – 13, 1, 18, 19, 8, 1 – held sway over her curious mind. Anxious to determine her fortune, or failure, she sidestepped towards the counter in front of the checkout clerk. She handed him the scratch off ticket and he fed it into the computer.

“Hey,” the clerk cried from behind the counter, “we have a winner! A big winner!” His bulging eyes grew wider as they scanned her face. A toothy grin of gold and green hidden amongst the yellowed enamel of his grill widened with clownish delight. He continued, “Lucky lady, she just won twenty thousand dollars! Oh wow, and the winner purchased the ticket from my store. This is a lucky day for us both, eh?”

“Very lucky indeed,” she said. Sabrina did her best to feign the expected shock that one would project if one did, in fact, win such a significant amount of money. Only she really was surprised. But not from her winning luck.

The clerk behind the counter seemed to burst with joy not just for her but for himself too. Good for him. His shitty store could use some improvements. He proceeded to give her instructions on how to contact the local lottery commission, but she just smiled to herself when she realized the surprise of what the numbers she randomly revealed spelled out: “Marsha”.

See, she thought to herself, it really is a lucky small black notebook.