Family Legacy

“Your mother had a stroke.”

Those words changed my life, maybe not for the better, but they changed quite a bit. Instead of finishing the semester and getting my degree, I went home to take care of my mother. The stroke left her unable to walk, to talk, and so I had to help her do everything. I was willing to do it at first, we never had the best relationship, but she was my mother so I owed it to her.

The house stank when I came home: the cats had messed all over the floor, the litter hadn’t been changed in a long time, there was rotten food in the kitchen that had been left out, there was trash in random places, and I won’t even mention the bathrooms. It took a week of deep cleaning to get the house in order; it still stank but it was a lot better than it had been. It was while cleaning the house that I found this little black leather book, hidden in my mother’s pillowcase, and I didn’t recognize it.

The leather book was old and wrinkled, smelled musty, and the pages were yellowed and crinkly. There was no title so I opened it, just curious about why Mom had hidden it, and decided to read it. I got comfortable on her bed and stared reading.

The ink was a faded reddish-brown color but it was easy to read; it appeared to be some kind of spell book, it spoke about how to summon a demon named Clauneck and how to serve him. One ritual caught my attention, it was about making sacrifices in return for riches. It was titled “The Sacrifice for Wealth” and below it was some kind of ritual circle and then instructions.

“Draw the circle in black and place a green candle at the two points of Clauneck’s sigil. Light the candles. Call for Clauneck 3 times. Place your sacrifice in the center of the circle, it must be alive, and either burn it or kill it with a knife. The more that you love the sacrifice, the more you will receive. Due to the advances and changes of time, the method of delivery has changed as will the currency.”

A loud yowl broke me away from my reading and I looked up to see Bailey, Mom’s 20-year-old Siamese cat, using the area rug as his litter box.

“No, no, no!” I yelled as I stood quickly.

The little black leather book fell to the floor as I rushed for the cat but Bailey had finished urinating before I got to him.

“Damn cat,” I muttered as he sauntered away.

I would have to clean the rug so I quickly got to work rolling the small rug up; only to stop when I saw a curved black line under it. Continuing to roll the rug up revealed a strange black circle with an odd symbol in the center of the circle. Pushing the rolled-up rug against the rug, I then went back to the little black book and opened it to the ritual that I had been reading about. Looking at the book and then the circle, I saw that they were the same.

“Oh boy.” I muttered.

I knew Mom was into some weird things but this took the cake. I began to think back to how Mom was always very lovey-dovey with her cats and how so many of them she claimed were hit by a car or that ran away. Mom always come into some money soon afterwards. My eyes wandered to where Bailey went.

“He’s old, I can tell her that I found him dead.” I murmured to myself, as I set the book down by the circle.

I had seen a box of different colored candles in Mom’s closet and I quickly found two green ones; I also found an ornate but sharp knife in the box of candles. I set everything up before I went to find Bailey.

The day that my mother came home, I found an envelope with my name on it and inside was $500 in cash. I didn’t love Bailey so I figured that was why I didn’t get much for him.

I did love my mother though. I loved her enough that I got $20,000.