You Should Not Be Reading This!

• Lynn Chaaban, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2021

BANG! A book dropped dead on the creaky floor spreading its reeking smell across my grandma’s attic. My curiosity drove me to take a sneak peek.
“It must be the forbidden book,” I gasped for air, “people have gone missing because of it.”
Like a torpedo I threw the book away.
My grandma had died few weeks back. The police said that her body must have been driven by a heavy water current.
“How did it get here?” I questioned my sanity the next morning when I saw the book in my room.
The book had an eerie feel, seemed vintage and was the colour of autumn leaves.
Written inside, ‘you should not be reading this’.
POOF! I wake up in a different dimension.
“Welcome to Gloomy Hallows,” a lady dressed in black giggled mischievously, “I am Bellatrix, the witch.”
“What do you want from me?” I cried.
“I can’t tell you, or else I’ll have to kill you!” she murmured.
Just as she was about to beam me, I screamed “Grandma!”
Suddenly, it hits me like a comet,” Grandma has been pretending to be dead to lure the evil witch out!”
“Fight me instead,” grandma requested.
“Let the fight begin,” Bellatrix cackled with a confident grin.
“Take this,” Bellatrix beamed my grandma with her magical wand.
“Leave my granddaughter alone.” Grandma said in a whining painful voice.
I was doomed, as my grandma dropped dead.
“Now it’s your turn,” Bellatrix exclaimed pointing her wand at me.
I was trembling with fear, I was clueless I didn’t know what to do.
“Believe in me and I can protect you.” A strange low voice muttered.
The book was talking to me! I am losing it as I am running out of time.
The book lit in my hands. I got scared and threw it on the ground. The book flip open and many white tiny witches come flying out of it. The book seemed like a gate to heaven on earth.
“Don’t worry we will save you,” the witches said softly.
They surrounded Bellatrix, hummed a familiar hymn. I knew it was a ritual that my grandma engraved in my head when I was young.
With a heart of a lion I stood up, joined the witches and hymned along the spell.
“Avada Kedavra, demolish black cast from this earth, send it to the land of dead where it belongs, “I yelled with all my might.
Suddenly wind howled, trees were trembling and the ground was shaking. We have disturbed nature.
“Get, ready it is happening now,” one of the witches excitedly said.
The ground opened and the evil witch was sucked into the earth.
“Are, you hurt?” I shakenly rushed to my grandma and asked her.
“Now you know who you are, I have a lot of things to teach you from my book,” my grandma whispered.
Laughs echoed in the air as we headed towards a new bright future, where I finally found out that I am a witch!