The Recipe Book

Prompt: Write a short story or poem about finding a witch's spell book and trying to do one of the spells inside. What is the spell, and what happens when it's tried????

816 Words


She entered the library angrily. Perhaps "enter" isn't the most appropriate word. She bustled into the library and shoved the book into my unsuspecting arms. I dropped the other six books I had almost managed to shelf. "I don't want it anymore!" she cackled. She sounded like a dying bird choking on its own tongue. Muttering, mumbling, she swooped out of the room like a hawk after its prey, and then she was gone. Not so much as a feather fluttered to the ground in her wake.

Well, she certainly wasn't the first lunatic I've met around here, but little did I realize she'd be the last.

I stared at the book. "Oh, hello," it announced.

And then I realized I was one of them. One of the lunatics. One of the grungy old men who sat at the street corners and mumbled to themselves, and their heathen gods, or perhaps more like one of the woman with only a tooth or two who declared the end was near in the middle of rush hour traffic. Books, at least under any circumstances I've ever known, don't talk.

"Hello.." It persisted. I heard myself reply, and felt the downward spiral of senility sink in deeper. "I've gone insane" I stated.
"Have you?"
"Books don't talk," I explained patiently.
"That's obviously untrue," it responded smartly.
"Well, yes..."
"We're having a delightful conversation."
"Yes," I agreed.
"Now then, how may I serve you?"

A shot of whiskey? Perhaps a glass on the rocks? Hell, hand me the bottle!

I didn't respond.

"What spell shall we cast," it questioned eagerly, it's voice coming from nowhere. Coming from everywhere. It had raised its voice in its excitement. I reminded it that we were in a library. It quieted at once.

"Spells to make you big, spells to make you old, some may make you hot, others make you cold!" Not only did the book speak, it sung. And not badly, I must say.

"Spells," I replied dully. My mind was trying to make sense of this. I could hear my brain churning, clicking, a clock that had ticked it's last tock.

"Do you see Betty Crocker written anywhere on my cover? Of course you don't! I'm a spell book. Not a recipe book. Not a good old mystery, or a hot romance, my friend! S-P-E-L-L-S," it gently spelled with delight, "That's it."

I agreed. Of course I agreed. To disagree would be admitting that I had truly gone insane. To deny that this wasn't really happening and that it was all in my head. But there is an undeniable truth that I've known forever, and it is this: Books can't talk. And they certainly shouldn't talk. Imagine a library filled with talking books. Talking about the weather, or last night's big game, or the color of the new shades. No, no, no.

"Silence!" I shouted, my voice echoing through the shelves of paper and leathery bindings, and dust and spiders.

"Oh, that's one of my favorites," the book exclaimed with glee. Too much glee. The glee of someone who just won the company bonus cruise to the Caribbean.

I found myself on my knees. The air had shifted. It had shifted and pushed me right to the ground. I didn't hear it though; I didn't hear anything at all. I didn't hear a car outside or a bird flying by the window, I didn't hear the rustle of pages being turned, or the sound of voices that needed a good hushing. The world had turned absolutely, absurdly, impossibly silent. Oh, but the book, the book I heard. It laughed at a joke I didn't comprehend. It laughed at me, it laughed inside my head, it laughed and it was the only terrible thing in all the world...

"Go away," I begged...silently. I begged inside of my head, and I didn't hear it over the laughter.

"AWAY!" The book's booming voice filled my head. So loud, so..so..so..dark! Why was it so dark??! "We went away, away, away to where they'll never find us. Oh, look! It's empty here inside of your head!" It screeched in sheer delight, like a child who just discovered a new toy under the Christmas Tree. "So empty, so dark, inside your head!"

And so now here I am. Locked up without a key. Stuck inside of my own mind. My companion is a book that has long ago went quiet. I speak to it sometimes, I tell it jokes. I laugh my hideous laugh, here inside my head. But upon its cover is written 'Betty Crocker' and for the life of me I can't remember if it ever said anything different at all.