Into the witches lair

This is a work in progress, please feel free to review


Looking through the bookshelves in the library. You trip a catch that pops ajar one of the bookcases. Not much but enough so that you know it was supposed to open up farther.
Mainly as you’re looking through the books on the bookcases you spring a catch (one of the bookcases spring ajar) to reveal a small hallway that leads into the dark. As you poke your head into the opening, torches light as if by magic. Which it is. Fearfully you walk through the opening and see a hand carved stone stairway leading down and around a bend so you can’t see any farther. You follow the stairway down to a heavy iron bound oak door that is darkened with age. You feel a tingle in your fingertips as you reach out to the hand hammered black iron door handle. With excitement or is that trepidation you continue to grasp to door handle and turn it. It turns easily with your efforts, as if it was recently oiled, but you know it could not have been for a very long time. As the door opens, you look into a room that looks like a scene from a witch movie (or something like that). There are jars of, of something, sitting on shelves along one wall and under them, what looks like a heavy wooden work table, scarred and stained with god knows what. On the wall next to the doorway there are shelves with containers that have neatly handwritten labels, almost like calligraphy from the time when people cared for the way their handwriting looked. On the labels were names of herbs and plants. On the far wall was what looks like an alter. And on this alter there are what looks like, a silver bowl with some sort of engravings, and a couple of knives, a silver goblet with the same kind of engraving as the bowl, and some type of stone statue of some deity or being. Nothing that I’d like to meet in person.
And in the center of the alter, on an old rich looking book stand made from oak and silver, was a large leather bound book with a mystic symbol engraved in the center of the cover. I can’t clearly make out what it is, but it appears to be a pentagram that has been set ablaze. The pentagram is gold, but the flames are yellow, red, and orange. It looks very ominous sitting there, making me want to run away. But I can’t, there’s a power that’s holding me in place, not letting me move. No, it’s not some mystical power. It’s my own curiosity that’s holding me in place. I can’t seem to take my eyes off of the book setting there. Maybe it holds some secret that…that will what? Give me …, what will it give me? What do I need? I need to get out of here and get myself together. That’s what I need. I slowly turn my head away from the book, but my eyes seem to be glued to it. Still think there’s no mystical powers holding you here? I suddenly feel a pop in the back of my head. As if pressure has been released. I notice the floor for the first time. There’s a large pentagram inscribed or carved into the stone. And then I notice placed all around the room there are large candle stands. Two on each side of the alter, one on each side of the work table, twelve against the last wall, as if waiting to be placed around the room where needed.
How did I miss all this? Not to mention all the sconces on the walls that lighted when I entered the room. As much as I wanted to stay. I turned around and walked through the door and slammed it behind me. I ran up the steps two at a time. I kept hearing the booming from the door echoing up the stairway with me, or is that my heart trying to beat out of my chest. I get to the little landing at the top of the stairs and the bookcase is closed.
How the hell am I going to get out of here now? I stop to think. How do they open these things in the movies? One of the torches must be the lever. I start trying to shift the torches on each side of the door. The second one I try does the job. The bookcase pops open, thank god. I push the bookcase open and then close it behind me. I’m not going back down there any time soon. I need a drink. I quickly walk over to the amour with the bar and grab up the first bottle that comes to hand. I remove the stopper and take a long draught from the bottle, not bothering with a glass. Then I grab a tumbler and go over to my desk and sit in that nice overstuffed chair and pour myself another drink.
I wake up with my head flopped back in the chair. My neck hurts from the awkward position I slept in and my head hurts from too much…too much what? I look at the little tag of the empty carafe and as my vision clears I can read it, Brandy it says. Then I remember the dream I had. God, I better stay away from this stuff. It gives me nightmares. I stretch and roll my head around to loosen up my kinked neck and get unsteadily to my feet. I feel terrible.
I head to the kitchen to start some coffee and I gulp down a glass of water to help offset some of this hangover. I heard drinking water during and the morning after of a night of hitting the booze helps. While the coffee brews. I head to the master bath for a shower, then going into the master bedroom I put fresh clothes on. Feeling better I head back down to the kitchen for coffee and then some breakfast. Fueling up with the four basic morning after food groups. Coffee , greasy sausage, four over easy eggs, and four heavily buttered pieces of toast. None of that whipped butter flavored oil; they call margarine, for me. What’s that one cook on T. V. say? Pork fat rules. That’s it.