The Witch's Diary Part II

Continued from Part One

As Melissa walked from the car to her house, her golden retriever, Sierra, raced out to meet her.  The puppy who had shared Melissa’s adventure in the old house was the last of Sierra’s five puppies to find a permanent home.  The dog jumped up and licked her owner’s face. 

“Don’t worry. Your baby has a good home,” Melissa said as she scratched the dog’s ears.  “Maybe we can go and visit him sometime.  You’d love a ride in the car, wouldn’t you?”

Sierra suddenly stopped licking her face and jumped back as if Melissa had struck her.  She started barking and sniffing at Melissa’s coat pocket, the one that held the diary.  Melissa pulled out the diary and held it out to the dog.

“What’s the matter?  It’s just an old book,” she said. 

The dog sniffed the diary and then jumped back and started barking again.  She quieted down when Melissa replaced the diary in her pocket, but stared at the pocket warily.  Melissa finally patted the anxious dog on the head and entered the house. 

“Oh, my goodness! Melissa, what happened to you?” Mrs. Andrews asked as her daughter walked in to the kitchen.

“You look like a drowned rat,” her sixteen year old brother Eric added before Melissa could answer.

Melissa gave Eric a dirty look and explained about going off the road and walking to the old house, once again leaving out the girl in white and the diary.  She remembered that her father had grown up a few miles from the Garrett house.

“Dad, do you know anything about the people who lived in that house?” Melissa asked.  “Mr. Miller said there was a story about their daughter being a witch.”

“She was a lot older than me so I only know what I heard,” Melissa’s father replied.  “Some silly girls at the high school found some poems she wrote and thought they sounded like spells. They were probably just jealous because every guy in the school wanted to ask her out. I'm sure she was no more a witch than I am. The way the family abandoned their place in the middle of the night was really strange, though. They had a lawyer sell the horses and the pasture land, but they never sold the house.  It doesn't make sense to build a mansion like that and just leave it.”

“Melissa, you had better get out of those wet clothes,” her mother interrupted.  “Go and take a shower and I’ll save you some supper.”

After Melissa had showered and eaten, she told her family she was tired and was going to bed early.  She sat up in bed and examined the diary for the first time.  The cover had once been bound in dark red leather, but it was almost black with dirt and grime.  Melissa opened it to the first page and once again noticed the faint scent of lilacs. The beautiful handwriting that covered the page resembled the copperplate script Melissa had seen in an art book.


January 1, 1959
Book of shadow, book of light
Book of black and gray and white
With heart and mind, paper and pen
Another year I do begin

My name is Rebecca Elizabeth Garrett.  Mama gave me this diary for Christmas so I could write down my thoughts, but I'm not really comfortable doing that yet.  I'm so used to keeping my thoughts to myself that it is difficult to share them, even with a book no one will ever read.  That's the reason I don't have many friends, even though the kids at school have been nice.  I'm afraid people will think I'm a freak if they know too much about me.

I wish we had never moved here. Building this house cost Daddy so much money, and he and Mama are so proud of it. I don’t have the heart to tell them I don’t like it.  I can’t explain it, but I feel that something is wrong here.

The next several pages were typical diary entries of a teenage girl, filled with phrases like, My little sisters are SO annoying! and I hate Chemistry!, and Billy Thompson is cute.  He smiled at me today.  Melissa caught herself falling asleep. 

“I’m sorry, Rebecca, but I’m going to have to finish reading your diary tomorrow,” Melissa mumbled as she closed the diary and placed it on the night stand.

As she reached to shut off the reading lamp, she heard a loud CRACK!  Startled, she jumped back, striking the back of her head on the headboard.

"Ow!" she said, rubbing her head.  Her eyes widened when she saw the source of the noise. The diary had snapped back open and the pages turned, as if flipped by an unseen hand.  The scent of lilacs became overpowering.

“Okay, okay, I’m awake now!” Melissa said as she tried to force her heart out of her throat.

Instead of turning off the light, she picked up the diary again.  The pages had stopped turning at this entry:

May 24, 1959
Lilacs are blooming everywhere today and they smell wonderful!  Lilacs remind me of Grandma Becky.  They were her favorite flower and she always brought them in the house to keep away evil spirits.  I miss her so much since she died!  Even though she was an old lady, she understood me better than anyone else did.  When I started having dreams and visions that came true, she was the only person I dared tell, because the same thing happened to her all the time.  Once she helped the police catch a kidnapper, because she saw the place where he took his victim in a dream.  She didn't advertize her abilities, but people came to her all the time for charms and amulets.  When I was little, I thought of magic as something fun to play with, and begged my grandmother to teach me how to use it.   

"Rebecca, you were born with more power than I will ever have, but it isn't a toy," she told me.  "Learn to use it well, because a day will come when you will need every bit of it."

She agreed to teach me only if I promised never to tell Daddy. She was his mother, but they didn’t get along.  Her "mumbo jumbo", as he called it, embarrassed him and scared him a little, too. He thought she got her powers from the Devil, which was funny, because she didn’t even believe in the Devil.  She taught me that magic was a force of nature like fire or water, and all I had to do was learn to work with it. The lessons I learned from my grandmother meant more to me than anything I ever learned in school. I worked and studied very hard, but right now I wish I had worked harder.  I'm afraid the day she warned me about is coming and I don’t know if I’m ready.

"So Rebecca really was a witch, and a psychic as well," Melissa said. "Maybe her poems were spells." She turned the page.

May 26, 1959
A huge noise from the basement woke us all up this morning.  We went down to see what had happened, and there was a big hole in the basement floor!  Apparently, there is a small cave under our house and the basement floor collapsed into it.

In that hole, I saw the most horrible, loathsome thing I have ever seen in my life.  At first I thought it was a den of snakes, thousands of snakes writhing and slithering over each other.  When I looked closer, I saw that they were not snakes at all, but tentacles surrounding a mouth that was big enough to swallow a horse. Each of the tentacles had its own little mouth and they hissed and spat. The big mouth seemed to go down to the center of the earth and was lined with terrible jagged teeth.  The whole creature glowed with a weird green light.  When I saw it, I screamed and my family looked at me as if I were crazy. I realized that I was the only one who could see or hear it. 

I don’t know what to do.  I can sense its thoughts, and they are thoughts of hate, anger, and revenge.  It is very old, maybe as old as the earth itself, and has been sealed up in that cave all its life. It is made of pure energy, a strange energy I’ve never felt before from any living creature.  I get the feeling that guns or bombs won't kill it and will probably make it stronger.  It hates humans, because we woke it up and destroyed its home.  It is weak right now, but is growing stronger and bigger every minute.  When it is strong enough, it will kill us.  My family can’t see it, and they never believe me when I see something they can’t.  They’ll probably take me to the insane asylum if I try to explain it to them. Even if I can find an excuse to get them out of here, it won’t do any good.  Eventually, the creature will be so big and strong that it will kill everyone.

Melissa jumped as a tree branch scratched her window.  Suddenly, the dim light of the bedside reading lamp seemed inadequate.  She switched on the bright overhead light and drew the covers around her with a shiver.  Afraid to keep reading, but more afraid not to, she picked up the diary and turned the page.

May 27, 1959
Last night, when my family was sleeping, I spoke to the creature.  It didn’t understand English or anything, but I could sense its feelings and it could sense mine. It had grown so large that it covered most of the basement. I told it we were sorry for disturbing it and we would go away if it promised not to hurt anyone.  I don’t know if it can laugh, but it seemed to think my offer was extremely funny.  The anger and hate coming from the thing were so strong that I could barely stand it.  Then, beneath the anger and hate, I sensed a different emotion, loneliness.  The creature had been alone for eternity, and wanted company.  I took a deep breath and said that I would stay forever if it let my family go and did not hurt anyone else. I knew I was dead anyway if it didn't agree. The creature laughed at me again but seemed to hesitate.  Then I told it I loved it.  I told the disgusting, horrible thing that I loved it.  I knew it could sense my thoughts, so I was afraid it wouldn’t be fooled.  I kept thinking of how much I loved my family. I guess the creature sensed that love, because it believed me and agreed to let my family go if I stayed.  My family still can’t see it, so I don’t know how I’m going to get them out of here, but I’ll think of something.

At this point, a hasty scrawl replaced the beautiful handwriting.  It was barely readable in some places.

May 28, 1959
Yesterday, I took Grandma Becky’s wedding dress out of my closet and put it on.  She left it to me to wear at my own wedding, but that isn’t going to happen now. I’ll never fall in love, get married, or have children. At least my sisters will have a chance to do those things. Wearing her dress made me feel that she was with me, and I needed her strength and magic. 

I found Daddy’s rifle, loaded it, and walked into the living room where my parents and sisters were sitting.  I pointed the gun at them and told them all to get out or I would kill them.  I have never felt so awful in my life.  My two sisters were screaming and crying and Mama and Daddy looked so confused and sad.  Daddy looked me in the eye and said, “Come on, Rebecca, you don’t want to hurt us.  Just give me the gun.”

He came toward me and I knew he was going to try to take the gun from me. I wasn’t strong enough to keep him from taking it, and I was afraid I would really have to shoot him to save my mother and sisters. Suddenly, he froze and stood staring at something above my head.  I’ve never seen him look so frightened.  Then a green tentacle snaked around me from behind, and I knew the creature was back there and Daddy had seen it.  I don’t know why he was able to see it now when he couldn’t before, but he obviously had.  Daddy’s eyes dropped to me and the expression on his face changed to anger and sheer hate.

“Damn you and my mother to Hell!” he whispered to me as he backed away. He thought I had summoned the creature!  I wanted to explain, but I knew I had to let him keep thinking that, or my family would not leave.  He gathered my mother and sisters together and practically shoved them out the door.  That was the last I saw of any of them.  I know it was the only way I could save them, but I still hate myself for what I did.  They will probably despise me forever.

When they were gone, I went outside and gathered all the lilacs I could carry and scattered them around the outside of the house.  I remembered how Grandma Becky told me lilacs would prevent evil from coming in, and I hoped that meant they would also keep it from getting out.  I used every bit of protective magic I knew to place a shield around this house, to keep the creature inside, but I know that the real reason it will stay is me.  As long as I am here and it believes I love it, it will stay.

This will be my last entry.  I don’t know how, but I will try to get this diary to my family someday.  If you are reading this, I beg you to do one thing for me.  Find my family, if they are still alive.  Give them this diary and tell them everything I did was because I love them. My parents' names are Roger and Elizabeth Garrett and my sisters are Katherine and Deborah.  My parents are in their late thirties now, Katherine is eight years old, and Deborah is six.  If any of them are still alive, they probably live somewhere near Savannah, Georgia.  Please find them, or at least, find out if they were happy after they left here.

The rest of the diary was blank.  Melissa closed it and just sat there, dazed, thinking of the sacrifice Rebecca had made for those she loved.  Questions raced through her head.  What had the creature done to Rebecca?  Was it still in the house, and if so, would it stay there?

She figured out that Rebecca’s parents would be in their eighties if they were still alive and that her sisters would be in their fifties.  Melissa and her boyfriend, Nathan, had planned to visit New York City at the end of the summer, but now those plans might have to change.  She picked up the phone and dialed Nathan's number.

"H'llo," he mumbled after the fifth ring.

"Nathan, I have a great idea," Melissa said.  "Instead of New York City, how would you like to visit Savannah, Georgia."

To be continued…