Grimoire
Chapter 2
Jake woke to the sound of an alarm clock beeping. Loud and jarring. Insistent. Muscle memory guided his hand out, slapping the air where his alarm should be. Rather than finding the annoying contraption, he stumbled—suddenly off-balance.
The whole world seemed to topple over itself as Jake fell to the ground, bewildered and tired.
Wha?
It took him a moment to recover from the fall, register what had happened. He’d fallen out of bed?
No, not out of bed. Off his chair.
He’d been sleeping at his desk.
The screeching of his alarm clock drowned out all other thoughts. That annoying, obnoxiously loud beeping had to stop.
Slowly, Jake forced himself onto his feet. It was more difficult than he would have expected, his body aching, his mind numb and slow. Still, he managed it. And within a few seconds, he had turned off the alarm and flopped face-first onto his bed.
Distantly, he knew he’d have to get up and get ready for school soon.
Just a few minutes. Not long. Just a few.
Tired. So tired. Why was he so tired? His mind, dazed and sleepy, could find no answers. He felt himself quickly drifting away, ready to doze off into oblivion. His bed was so comfortable. So soft. Not like the dumb chair. Why had he even been sleeping at his desk anyway? His mind wandered, drifting away.
The grimoire.
That single thought shot through Jake, purging every ounce of fatigue from his body. His eyes shot open, mind suddenly alert.
Without a moment’s pause, he pushed himself away from the comfort of his bed, leapt across the room to his desk and the leather-bound book that sat neatly upon it.
The grimoire was closed, clasp tightly shut.
Jake frowned down at it, not remembering closing it before falling asleep last night. But then, he didn’t really remember falling asleep either. He shrugged to himself, it wasn’t important. What was important was the tome itself.
He’d spend a long while last night pressing his cut fingertip to the grimoire’s blank pages, watching as the blood turned into text on the paper.
Tentatively, he opened the grimoire’s leather cover, looked down at the first page.
“The Undying’s Grimoire of Body, Mind and Soul,” Jake read aloud. “Written by Malath von Graas-Weix circa 1710.”
Below that title, there was nothing. An otherwise blank page.
1710. That was impossible.
The paper and cover looked old enough, sure, but the rest of it made no sense. The writing was all in modern-day English. And the trick with the blood, that couldn’t be possible without modern tech and trickery, surely.
Was this a translated copy of the older original text?
There was no denying that it was real. The spell he’d tested last night proved that. If every spell in the grimoire worked just as well, who knew what kind of power he now possessed?
Careful not to give himself another paper-cut, Jake flipped open the next page.
No contents. No foreword or introduction or guide. The grimoire went right into the meat of things. On the page before him was a potion recipe.
Body: Remedy for All Ills.
It claimed that the potion, once completed, would be able to cure almost any malady and illness a person might have. It couldn’t regrow lost limbs, or cure and condition a person had been born with, nor could it heal physical wounds. But any disease or infection would disappear once a person consumed the remedy, it claimed. A bold claim, and with no way to test it—the potion requiring ingredients that Jake had absolutely no access to. The milk of a pure-white mare, for starters. Horse milk. Who in the hell milks a horse? Interestingly, the instructions specifically stated that the potion would not cure ageing—that no magic in the world could stop or slow a human body from growing old and dying.
The book was called the Undying’s Grimoire, and yet the very first thing in it stated that there was no way to prevent a person from dying.
Someone was bad at naming things.
Jake flipped to the next page, reading over another potion recipe. One claiming to grand temporary super-human strength to the drinker. This one at least seemed do-able, though obtaining all the ingredients would take time and money, neither of which Jake had much of.
The next page was not a potion, instead containing step-by-step instructions on how to create a magical charm. According to the grimoire, it would increase a person’s physical senses beyond their natural limits. Sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch; all would be amplified to unnatural heights. All the items required were easy to collect, and the process didn’t seem to complicated.
Something to test out later, Jake mused, making a mental note to do just that.
He turned the page, finding himself on the last one he’d fed with blood last night. Every page after this, all the way up to the Stick of Broken Memory, was blank.
Body: Breast Enlargement Potion.
His eyes didn’t roam further than those words, his mind wandering to Jess, her body. He’d imagined her naked countless times, imagined how slender and toned her athletic body must be. He’d pictured her ass, firm and round. He’d imagined her breasts, small and cute and as pretty as the rest of her. Every time he’d pictured her like that, he forced himself to stop, shamed himself for thinking about his sister that way.
Yet now, as Jake thought about her, pictured her naked, he also imagined if her breasts were larger. Fuller. He pictured them bouncing, jiggling as she walked his way-
The image was cut off by a sharp wooden tapping. Someone knocking on his bedroom door.
“Jake,” a soft, beautiful voice said on the other side of the door. “Are you ready yet? We have to leave soon. Mom isn’t going to be happy if you’re late again.”
Malath von Graas-Weix. The original author of the grimoire. Jake searched the name online. It took hours of checking his phone when no-one was looking, ignoring his teachers and lessons, hours of sifting through nonsense and unrelated search results.
In the end, he learned very little. Malath von Grass-Weix was supposedly a man who died around the time the grimoire was written. Burned alive for being a heretic. Apparently, the man had lost his mind one day; forgetting how to speak, how to eat or walk, practically became a vegetable. Before that, he’d been a priest or a scholar of some kind, well-know and respected in the city he’d lived in. The only reason Jake had even learned that much was because the city in question had issued an apology years ago for its historical treatment of the mentally handicapped man.
It wasn’t exactly the well of information Jake had hoped to find. Still, better than nothing.
He found his mind wandering back to the grimoire constantly, making it impossible for him to focus on anything else. Could it really teach him how to brew a potion to make his sister’s breasts grow bigger?
He’d only tested the one spell so far. Could that have been a fluke?
Even if it wasn’t, and the potion did work, should he attempt it? What right did he have to do that to Jess?
The question was enough to spark his imagination again. Images of his sister entered his mind—as she was now, with her small breasts, and as she could be, with huge melons hanging from her chest, bouncing and jiggling and shaking with every step she took.
He shook the thought away, tried focusing on his schoolwork.
A few moments later, he was back to imagining.
For the first time in weeks, Jake headed straight home after school. He needed to test the grimoire more. Needed to be certain that it worked, that what happened with the Stick of Broken Memory and Jess hadn’t been a fluke or strange coincidence.
He needed to test the grimoire properly. And for that, he needed a test subject.
Unfortunately, there weren’t many options. His family were the only ones close enough that he could observe and test with any kind of logical accuracy. And it couldn’t be his father—he was barely ever home. Which left his mother and Jess and Jake himself.
Jake slipped into the house as quietly as he could, not wanting to draw the attention of his mother. He didn’t have time to deal with her bitchy attitude. He crept the way to his bedroom silently, opened the door and slid himself inside.
The grimoire was on his desk, waiting to be read.
He walked over to it, unclasped and opened it to a random page somewhere around the middle of the book.
Yesterday, he’d used blood to reveal the grimoire’s words. But did it have to be blood? Could he use ink, or dyed water, or any other fluid that wasn’t his own blood? He glanced down at the finger he’d accidentally cut on the grimoire’s pages. It was red, sore, the cut scabbed over and beginning to heal.
If there was some other way of reading the grimoire, one that didn’t require him to cut and bleed himself, he’d take it.
First he tested ink from one of his ball-point pens. Knowing he might well be about to permanently stain the paper, he pressed a blob of black ink onto it. Watched and waited.
Nothing happened.
The blob of ink stayed in place, unmoving.
Jake continued to watch silently, eyes never leaving the black blob. Finally, after what felt like several minutes, he gave in and let out a sigh. Ink, it seemed, would not work.
He placed a finger on the page, used it to rub away as much of the blob of ink as he could before it could ruin even more of the paper. To his surprise, it left no stain as he wiped the blob away. The page looked exactly as it has before. Blank.
Next he tried water coloured with black paint. Much more fluid and much runnier than the ink.
He poured a few droplets onto the page, watched on amazed as the coloured water flowed cleanly off the paper, down onto the book’s leather cover, and onto his desk. Not a stain left behind, not even the tiniest hint of moisture. The paper was immaculate.
Jake’s eyes moved from the page to the small stain forming on his desk and back again. His mind raced. Slowly, his eyes turned to his own hand, his thumb.
It looked like blood would have to do.
Finding a pin to prick his thumb with was easy enough. Actually going through with it and poking a hole in his own thumb was slightly more difficult. But he managed it, painful as it was, and pressed his now bleeding thumb to the page.
Slowly, blood flowed out from the point where broken skin met paper. Words appeared on the page, sentences formed and the page’s title came into shape.
Mind: Admirer’s Lamp.
Ignoring the sudden fatigue he felt, Jake read the description of this new spell, eyes widening as he went.
This couldn’t be true. Surely not.
And yet he’d thought the same about the Stick of Broken Truth, and that seemed real enough.
The Admirer’s Lamp did one simple thing. It forced one person’s image into another person’s thoughts. It didn’t change anything, didn’t grant power or control. It simply made a person think about someone else.
If Jake made the spell correctly, he could have an image of himself pop into Jess’ head anytime he wanted.
Why he’d want to do that, he had no idea.
It seemed somehow both harmless and dangerous at the same time. All it would do was make Jess think about him, imagine him in her mind’s eye. Nothing else. And yet, that felt wrong.
Making the lamp seemed easy enough. Everything he’d need would be simple to obtain. And, once the flame was lit, all he’d need to do would be to burn a single on of his own hairs in it and an image of him would appear in Jess’ mind.
But why? What good would that do? He couldn’t even test if it worked or not.
Jake shook his head, turned back to the beginning of the book and pressed his still-bleeding thumb to the first blank page he came across.
Silk. He needed silk. His mother would kill him if she ever found out, just the thought of how she might react was enough to make Jake tremble. He stared at the white bathrobe, silk and expensive.
She’s going to kill me, he thought.
But he needed a long cut of silk for the spell. He needed to make a silk blindfold. This was the only way.
Taking a deep breath, hoping that he wasn’t about to make a huge mistake, Jake began cutting away at his mother’s bathrobe with a pair of sharp scissors. One long strip was all he’d need. He could dump the rest of it somewhere his mother would never find it. Hopefully that would be enough to avoid her loosing her shit on him.
Finally, the deed was done. Jake held the length of white silk with a racing heart.
If this spell worked, there would be no denying that the grimoire was real. No chalking it up to a fluke or coincidence.
He wrote his sister’s name on two pieces of paper. Using a needle and thread stolen, along with the bathrobe itself, from his parents’ bedroom, Jake began sewing both pieces of paper onto the blindfold, directly over where each of his eyes would be.
More than once, he accidentally pricked a finger.
Sewing was something he’d never done before. But, after a few minutes, and the guiding instructions of the grimoire, he got the hang of it. When he was done, he set the blindfold to one side.
The grimoire detailed a recipe requiring him to make ash out of burned paper, Jess’ hair, and several other minor ingredients.
Burning hair, it turned out, really stank.
But, as he applied the grey-black ash to the blindfold, he couldn’t help but feel a sense of satisfaction. It was complete.
Now to test it.
The grimoire gave instructions on this too, how to activate the so-called Band of Blind Sight. Jake went over to his desk, looked down at the open page to double-check. He withdrew a moment later, satisfied he knew what he was doing.
He left the grimoire open on his desk, switched his bedrom light off, climbed into bed.
Laying down comfortably, blindfold in hand, Jake closed his eyes. Putting the blindfold on himself was simple enough. He checked to make sure his eyes lined up perfectly with the paper.
And, when he was ready, he opened his eyes.
In front of him was a phone screen, a text conversation. The phone was held by smaller hands than his; dainty, girly hands. His sister’s hands. He was seeing what Jess was looking at. He could see through her eyes.
The blindfold was working.
Jess was messaging one of her friends, talking about the future and plans and dreams. Jake watched, amazed and awed.
It was surreal.
He was laying in his bed right now, could feel the blanket on top of him, could feel the mattress beneath him. And yet, as he looked through his sister’s eyes, his sister who was sitting up, a part of him felt detached, unnatural.
Jess continued tapping her phone screen, oblivious to his presence.
He couldn’t do anything but watch. Couldn’t move her body, couldn’t dictate where here eyes were facing. He couldn’t even hear what Jess was doing. Only see it. He was a passenger, along for the ride, with no control over the destination.
Time passed without Jake noticing.
He read through the conversation Jess was having with silent interest. His sister, it turned out, wanted to be a doctor. She wanted to help people, make the world a better place. She wasn’t interested in dating, at least not until she was done with her education. She wanted a pet dog.
Jake and Jess had spent their entire lives living under the same roof, and yet he knew so little about her. How was that even possible?
He was distracted from the thought by unexpected motion. Jess set her phone aside, stood up. For a brief moment, Jake felt a sudden sensation of vertigo. He watched, bewildered, as Jess opened one of her clothes drawers, began rummaging through bundles of socks and panties and bras.
It was odd seeing how messily her clothes were organised. Jake had always imagined his sister to be neat and pristine, keeping everything in order. It seemed like her clothes drawers were almost as messy as-
A bright blue object appeared from underneath the pile of clothes, his sister’s hand wrapped tightly around the base.
Jess owned a dildo.
Every thought left Jake’s mind instantly.
Jess owned a dildo.
He watched through her eyes as Jess walked over to one of her bedroom walls, close to her bedroom door, and flicked a light-switch off.
Guided by the dim light of her own alarm clock, the faint glow of the digits displayed on it, Jess climbed into her bed, dildo still in hand. Jake watched, dumbfounded, as that hand, and the blue dildo it held, disappeared under Jess’ blanket.
A moment later, everything went black.
What.
What!?
She must have closed her eyes, a logical part of his mind told him. Her eyes are closed.
He knew it must be true. Right now, just a handful of feet away, in a room just across from his, Jess was sliding that blue dildo inside herself, eyes closed, enjoying herself.
Right now, this very second, his beautiful sister was fucking herself with a blue dildo.
The thought, the image it conjured in his mind, was too much for Jake to resist. Almost by itself, his right hand found its way to his crotch, wrapping around his cock. He couldn’t help it, couldn’t resist. He began moving his hand, Jess clear in his mind.
When he was done, spent, Jake clumsily tugged the blindfold off, dropped it on the floor next to his bed. A moment later, he was deep asleep.
Over on his desk, shrouded in darkness, pages of the open grimoire began to move. Flipping, one over the other. The old book’s cover closed atop the pages, silently shutting itself. The grimoire’s clasp moved, the two pieces clicked together perfectly.