Grandpa's insanity

The familiar sound of harps cascaded in my bedroom window, signaling it was Wednesday. I stood absentmindedly as I came to realize I did not have money for food at the farmers market today. With a heavy sigh I crossed my small yet messy apartment in search of food that would not come. I had odds and ends which did not meet.

Choosing to instead pop into a warm shower amidst the loud boom of music which I sang along to in the hopes of providing vocal tracks for my creative partner. We were always working on a project or two, hoping dearly to have our voices heard, unsure if it would be in vain.

With the heavy steam of the shower filling my lungs I lathered my hair only to hear the jolly tone of my phone over the loud speaker. Dripping as I went, I rushed to answer my phone, knowing all too well it could be the job I had applied with recently.

"Hello?" my voice came out sparse and short of breath.

"Hello, Lydia? Lydia... ********" the voice was official and bland over the speaker

"Speaking" my voice had recovered and taken the shape of a peppy upbeat customer service voice

"Okay, well, your mom's dad, your grandfather? Well, he passed leaving you his house, a lump of money, his cats, and a small library" it sounded as though the man on the phone made these calls all day. I was never close with my bio mom's father, but he did know my fondness for reading as well as cats, so I suppose it made a little sense. He owned a prominent business as well as having accumulated quite a sum of money and a small mansion.

"Oh, uh, okay," I spouted, not quite sure of how to react to such news, nor what this would truly entail. He emailed me all the info I needed to get started, and I was off to meet him a few days later

I found out at the meeting I was being awarded $20,000, more money than I had ever held in one place. Not to mention I intended fully to sell his house, because I certainly would not be living in sacramento again. I packed up his house hastily, not wanting to delay in the house my mother and her sister had met such I'll fates.

It all happened so quickly I was back at my apartment, watching star trek in a weeks time, sorting through the contents of his library. The cats who were previously his did not get on well with my cat, yet I did not have to heart to get rid of any of the three that I would gently caress when nervous.

As I sorted through the books, I came upon one that seemed to be distinguished from the rest. It was unmarked, worn black leather, soft as sheep skin. I found it enjoyable to touch, and could not set it down. The sounded of the television faded along with each sound in the background of the neighborhood as I stated deeply into the front of the book. When opening the book, I found the paper to be cold and smooth despite the head of the day, it smelled of ceder welcoming me in.

I stared at the random page in awe as I saw it was my face on that page, the same picture he had taken of my as a very young child and blown up to three feet tall. He...he kept a copy, a thought that send a sickened chill into my stomach. I always knew due to my mother's stories, due to my father too, that my grandfather was a pedophile but this was newly concerning.

I swallowed deep before flipping through the pages, mostly blank, but some pages were written on by hand. I came to realize the book to be less nepharious than I had imagined, but by very little. The pages were filled by accounts of seeing my of how very much I resembled my mother or my dead aunt. How much I differed from her personality. He wrote of me being the force that would save the family, he wrote that I would break many a cycle brought by himself, and all the women on my maternal side.

I found among the pages that while, yes, he beat his wife, he did awful things, that he had not intended to. Due possibly to the face that he had a great evil in him or possibly due to the insanity that ran rampant in my blood, I could not find it in myself to believe there was a great evil that entered him.

He claimed to be taken over by the soul of a man who would follow my mother's lineage to torture them for some unspeakable evil. In short, he claimed the women in my family had been cursed for several hundred years, as well as claimed that I would be the last. This journal of sorts claimed that the curse would only inhabit half of my life, leaving me free to live normally past then. This is where I began to feel a bit scared as until 25 I had lived a rather hard life, I am now 27.

I decided given that the book could be true or could be the ravings of a drunk rich man would have fully plaid out, I need not worry. I placed the book down, and began looking at apartments.

I currently shared a very small apartment with my boy friend and now three cats who hated each other. I had decided my first move would be a literal one, to a larger apartment. After applying to a few, I chose to go to bed, where I rested, but not well.

In my dreams I found the old man I hadn't seen in several decades, the man who left me so much. "Hey! What's up with that black book?" I blurted chasing after him on a cold side walk.

"Hmm, oh, hi pumpkin...that book was a revision of a book I found from your mom's grandma on her mom's side. I nearly added the proper names and a few pictures. Everything in there she dreamed up" This was a shocking realization. "But if she was right, you're free now lit-lit" He dissipated as I woke in a screech, scaring my boyfriend and cats.

I'm unsure what to do with this thing, it haunts my dream, it occupies my every thought. I have attempted to start my own massage business, yet it failed due to my procuration with the book. I have begun sleep walking when I do sleep.