Chapter 72: The Grimoire and the Notes
This was, without a doubt, the witch's personal grimoire, her life's work, her obsession. Its pages were interleaved with dozens of smaller scraps of paper and bookmarks, most covered in a neat, elegant script. And as I flipped through it, a familiar, frustrating reality set in: I couldn't read a single word. The script was an older language, more ancient than the Castilian of the notice boards. The very letters were different, alien. If Castilian was a twisted cousin of English, this was something else entirely. And to make matters worse, there were two languages in the book. The second was not alphabetic at all. It was a language of thorns and bones, sharp, angular symbols that looked less like writing and more like scratches from a dead and terrible civilization. This text was not handwritten, but printed, as if it were a rubbing taken from a stone tablet.
After a few moments of careful examination, I understood. The core of this book, the "original text," was the eight pages of strange, pictographic script. The rest of it, the thirty-plus pages of handwritten notes, the countless inserted slips of paper, the sticky notes pasted in the margins—all of it was the witch's own research, her desperate attempt to decipher the ancient text. She had filled the spaces between the lines of the original text with her own notes, and where there was no more room, she had attached folded sheets of paper, covered in her dense, spidery handwriting. On other pages, she had painstakingly copied the ancient symbols herself, surrounding them with her own annotations, some of which had been furiously crossed out, the angry scrawl a testament to her frustration. In some places, where words had apparently failed her, she had drawn strange, grotesque diagrams—a goat wreathed in flame, a series of complex, interlocking geometric patterns, a Vitruvian-esque man with too many limbs. The book was so thick with these inserted notes that as I turned a page, a small, folded slip of paper fell out. I picked it up, but had no idea where it belonged. Each note was a specific commentary, a key to a single lock. Out of place, it was meaningless.
I stared at the book, a wave of helpless frustration washing over me. I had thought, for a fleeting, insane moment, that I might have a chance, that I might be able to learn magic myself. But what good was a secret manual if you couldn't read it? So angry!
“What is it, Parula? What does it say?” Jared asked, peering over my shoulder, his curiosity piqued. He was even more illiterate than I was; he couldn't even recognize the letters.
“I don’t know. Don’t ask me,” I snapped, my voice sharp with a frustration I couldn't contain. First, the witch, then this useless, unreadable book. My mood was as black as the city's soot.I was about to toss the book aside in disgust when a sudden, searing pain exploded behind my eyes, as if a hot iron nail was being hammered into my skull. It was a pain so intense, so blinding, that I cried out, clutching my head.
“Parula! What’s wrong?” Jared asked, his voice filled with alarm as he rushed to my side. But the pain vanished as quickly as it had come, leaving behind a strange, echoing silence in my mind. And in that silence, I felt as if something new had been… installed.
“I’m… I’m fine,” I gasped, my breath ragged. My eyes fell upon the open page of the grimoire, and this time, I couldn't look away. The strange, angular symbols… they were no longer just meaningless scratches. I could… I could understand them. This one, I thought, a sense of dizzying vertigo washing over me… it means… the void. Nothingness. The end.
And this one… to soften. To melt. To dissolve.
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