Author's note: this fictional work contains incest, scenes of fictional mind control, reluctant, dubiously consensual sex or such scenarios.
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My name is Shianne. I was nineteen when I got the heavy leather book as a present from one of my favorite aunts. Her name was Mara, and she had just died and left me the tome in her will, as I'd always shown interest in it when I visited as a child. I cracked it open and perused its pages, finding some recipes for tea and many herbal remedies. After flipping through some of the pages I shut it and put it on a shelf where it waited for three years before I finally remembered it around the end of October.
In those three years I had fallen in and then out of love, grown and become more confident about my interests and wants. I finished college and started a business in my hometown selling rare plants that allowed me to pay for my first apartment. I got into knitting, tarot, painting and even took up writing a bit. In that time the book sat on my shelf, occasionally catching my eye and reminding me that it was still there. One day on the recommendation of one of my friends, I began to inform myself about witchcraft.
The more I read about the different paths, secrets and truths present within the arts of the witch the more I was engrossed in the idea of being a witch. It felt so right and the more I studied and tried, the more I enjoyed it. There was something very freeing and exciting about being able to create a ritual or spell to help me or others.
Growing up, I was always the most well behaved of all my siblings. My parents were hardworking and strict but always very loving. They taught us how to work and save and they never shied away from expressing their displeasure when we did something wrong. I had 6 older brothers and being around all that trouble disposed me naturally to being quiet and reserved. I was always very responsible and I never gave my parents anything to be ashamed of. I was a good girl, and witchcraft was something I could never have imagined indulging myself in. It became my dirty little secret, the only thing I kept from my parents.
I was twenty two when I finally got around to reading the grimoire. It was a rainy day and I had finished cleaning my apartment and there was nothing to do. I had just finished studying a book of dark symbols, and something on my bookshelf caught my eye. I had never noticed it before, but the spine of my aunt's grimoire had a curious design, a stylized eye.
I took the book from the shelf and opened it. The smell of the paper and something distant and mysterious filled me up with warmth and made me nostalgic. This was the same smell that came from her house when she would sit with me and let me draw while she made her medicines. She would always let me give the funniest names for all the plants she cared for and used in her brews. Together we would make them into characters that lived in her house and I remember dreaming that the plants would come alive at night to play and cavort throughout the house.
The first pages of the grimoire were filled with notes. Anecdotes and musings about the recipes and spells and rituals contained therein. She was an old-fashioned woman, and her handwriting was very curly and beautiful, almost like calligraphy. The pages were yellow and brown with a leathery quality. Thin, but not brittle. The edges had been carefully cut with a knife or scissors and the writing was faded a bit, but still easy to read.
She wrote about her travels throughout the world, about the different traditions and people she met along the way. Spells and incantations, as well as various notes and scribbles about potion making were tucked into every space of every page.
She spoke of her first experience with magic, an exorcism of sorts, performed on her family farm when she was only 18. My grandfather had used his secret abilities to force a demonic spirit out of it's host and back to whence it had come. The spirit had taken possession of one of the workers on the farm, a young woman named Maria who had come from the mountains. My grandfather, being the kind man he was, offered her a place to stay and offered to help both her and the spirit move on. Maria's spirit was restless and confused and the spirit refused to let her go, holding on to physical life and Maria's body as a hostage.
Grandfather sent everyone from the farm except for Maria, himself and Aunt Mara, who had always been gifted in the healing arts and was studying medicine. They locked themselves in the barn for three days. At the end of the third day they emerged, the spirit having returned to its realm. Mara wrote about all she had learned about spirits and demons, their desires and how to draw them from a human form without harming the soul of the host. Specifically, my aunt noted the power of eroticism to lure and control otherworldly forces. According to my grandfather, it was the allure of physical pleasure that these creatures craved most.
After that Aunt Mara began her study in earnest, traveling all over the world. Her writing was full of adventure and wonder. I was engrossed in the book and spent the entire evening and night reading about the many experiences she had had and the secrets she learned. I found myself excited to try some of the spells I'd found in her notes, jotting them down in a journal of my own for later use.
The next morning, my alarm woke me from a deep sleep. I got ready for work and headed to the shop, opening at 10am. My mind was full of the book and I barely registered anything happening around me. I found myself doodling strange patterns and sigils in the margins of receipts.
On my lunch break I decided to run home and grab the book to bring back to the shop for the second half of my day. It was a slow day and I wanted to keep exploring it's dense pages while I waited for closing time. As I reached my apartment, I felt a chill and sensed someone else was near. The door was cracked, but no one was inside. My things were all in their usual places, nothing out of the ordinary aside from the book. It was lying on the floor in the center of my living room, its pages open to a portion I had not yet read.
I bent down to pick up the book and as I did, my eyes met with a strange drawing of a figure with wings, horns, and hooves. Despite these features the figure was clearly female, it had large pendulous breasts and a serpent slithered around its limbs, the serpent's head near the figure's vagina. I looked away, unable to process what it was I had seen. When I looked back the page was simply lines of writing, as though the image had been some sort of hallucination.
I was confused and shaken, feeling cold and a bit frightened. I didn't understand what I'd seen, but I felt a need to read the grimoire more closely. I flipped the page, but the image did not reappear. I put the book on my table and closed it. The binding was rich dark leather and brass fixings. The book seemed extremely old, but despite this the structure of it was in phenomenal condition. It opened and closed as though the spine had been broken a thousand times, but when it was shut there was no crease to be seen. I ran my thumb over the eye symbol absentmindedly.
The image from the book had stayed with me. It felt like the tome was trying to communicate something to me, but I had no idea what that could be.
I went back to work, taking the book with me. It was busy when I got back so I wasn't able to read as much I wanted. Throughout the afternoon I kept catching myself doodling the same figure, her long black hair falling around her face. Her body was sensual, and the image was clearly sexual, though there was something ominous and frightening about the horns and wings. I would never have called myself a lustful person, but something about the image resonated with a portion of me I usually kept tucked deep away.
The day passed and eventually things slowed down to a trickle. It was an hour or two 'til closing time, and I found myself sitting back in my chair in the back of the shop. I was leafing through the pages of the book. Suddenly, I felt a powerful urge to touch myself. My hand reach down to my crotch, my fingers slipping down beneath my waistband and panties. I was extremely wet, the folds of my labia smooth and slippery. I spread the lips apart and slipped a finger inside myself, massaging the walls of my vagina. I heard a noise and snapped out of it, shocked at what I found myself doing. I had never touched myself at work before. I was so embarrassed that I hid in the bathroom for a brief moment, washing my hands and face. What was happening to me?
