Dark Magic

• Zachary Lovett, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2020

"Creeeak," went the door to the dark and daunting basement of the house, immediately awakening Jacob's parents from their deep sleep. They wondered who dared to enter the forbidden basement. They bolted to the basement as soon as they got their grip on the reality that their child might have found their deepest, darkest secret. As the Diggersons approached the door they found it was left ajar with muddy foot prints leading out of the house. ***
"Dan!" Jacob shouted hoping to get his attention away from his video game. Dan took his headset off with anger before yelling,
"You messed up my game Jake!"
"I found it dude, call the others" He exclaimed with a massive grin on his face, holding the shiny yet daunting book up.
Slowly everyone arrived, Conner and the twins, Brock and Hudson were at Dan's house waiting to see what was inside the book that they had discovered in the basement many weeks ago. Slowly Jacob opened the cover of the book and was greeted by a warning that shook him to the core!
"This book is cursed and contains the darkest magic in the universe. TURN BACK NOW!" He read with a tremble in his voice.
As the information sunk in they became more and more horrified, all except for Dan, who was laughing as if it was a joke. Jacob continued flipping the pages all filled with gibberish, or what they thought was gibberish. He repeated what he saw in front of him, until he was abruptly stopped by Conner yelling.
"It’s a spell to curse us all!"
Dan hastily pulled Conner down and whispered, "Shut up Conner."
The footsteps pounding up the steps echoed throughout the house.
"What's going on up there?" Dan's mum inquired stopping on the stairs.
“Nothing” he reassured her.
Jacob continued reading until he reached a part in English and paused before reading "You will find them in the..."
"keep reading Jake," Dan said eagerly.
"I-I-it's been torn out," Jacob stuttered. ***
Jacob's parents stepped into the eerily quiet basement and began to rummage around in the piles of junk they had used to hide their book of dark magic. The soggy, muddy floor sloshed under each panicked step as their fear grew that Jacob had found the book.
"I knew we should've thrown that terrible book away after we wrote it for our master many years ago... or kept it safer," Jacob's father muttered under his breath.
"It's not our fault it's that stupid child of ours," Jacobs mother stated annoyed, "Now he and his friends will pay." ***
The next day Jacob arrived at Dan's house to find detectives out on the driveway talking to Dan's distraught mother about Dan being missing. Wondering what was going on, he raced around the corner to Conner's. This surely couldn't be a coincidence that both were missing, his mind started questioning if this was the work of the cursed book or whoever had hidden this book.