I examined the sigil, in the upper left a brown rusty smudge, then around clockwise a symbolic bell, a stepped line like stairs, and a foot. I used the eraser on the back of the pencil to break a line in the circle.

  My pencil in one fist and the note in the other, I descended.

  I stepped out of the pool of light from the stairs into the dark, reaching above me with the pencil hand for a pull chain or light switch. I dropped the pencil and it went sliding across the floor under something I couldn’t quite make out. There was a noise behind me. I froze. My pulse drummed in my ears, pressing against the silence. I heard it again, a wet noise. I held my breath. This time I could tell it was a dripping noise. I turned around slowly, my hand still reached out for balance in the dark until it brushed a box. I felt along its face and switched the light on. I braced myself to face the potential horror. There was nothing but the open expanse of the basement. The noise happened again. It was the work sink against a support pillar in the center of the basement. The faucet was dripping. I had never been down here. It would make sense that I would have at some point, but I had no memory of this space, how it was laid out, or what was down here. The shape of the room held no familiarity. There were peg boards with tools lining most of the walls. Workbenches below most of them. Some had fixtures like vices attached. Some had saws atop them, or embedded in them. The tools on the peg boards ranged from saws and pliers, to sets of vials.

  I approached a set of vials close to me. “Mustard,” “Mugwort,” “Mandragora.” This was not my handwriting.

  I couldn’t think about what that meant for my plan or hypothesis.

  The grimoire is in the lowest drawer of the filing cabinet.

  On your way out, replace everything as it was.

  Replace the line in the sigil.

  Replace the hair on the door.

  Use the right sigil to re-lock the door.

  We cannot take the grimoire out of the basement unless it is certain we can break free. We think he will know.

  I identified the filing cabinet in the corner. It was old and rusty where it met the floor.

  I squatted down on my heels and opened the bottom drawer. A thick book covered with an inky black leather sat flat and squarely in the center of the drawer. The air around me suddenly felt dry and dusty, in contrast to the wet and musty smell just a moment ago.

  I reached in with a shaky hand and grabbed the book. Its size was surprising. It felt as heavy as a book two or three times its size would be.

  I sat back on the dusty floor and rested the book in my lap. I could feel the edges distinctly on my thighs.

  The cover lifted easily, like something beyond the force of my hand opened the book. The first few pages turned immediately after the cover to the title page.

  The Briar Hags Grimoire, 1302

  A few more pages turned seemingly on their own.

  A Spell For Reducing Power

  The pages flipping now could not be confused with gravity or momentum from the cover. The pages flipped quickly, as if a stiff gust was blowing across them, but the air was stale, and it didn’t explain the pauses that came as suddenly as they went after I read the title of the page.

  A Spell For Partial Binding

  The pages came faster now.

  Summoning A Sea Spirit

  As if the book knew I had accepted the impossibility of natural causes for the page changes, a huge chunk of pages flipped over. The cover pressing into my thighs with the impact and the dull noise echoing in the basement.

  Complete Bindings

  The book did not move again after I read the title.

  I have not found a way to bind a creature completely. It may not be possible. It also seems irresponsible to document even if I was successful, knowing the nature of man. I will not document or pursue it any further.

  The corner of a piece of paper was sticking out, bright white, against the yellowing of the pages in the ancient book. I flipped to the pages the loose paper sat between and pulled it out to reveal the grimoire page underneath.

  Forgetting Spell

  The target of the spell will forget what they have done for 80 breaths and undo what they have done before returning to a spot chosen with intention. Many afflictions of this spell cause one’s memory to become faulty. When inscribed into the skin of the target, specific memories can be repressed with intention. Created to relieve one afflicted with a traumatic past. If they are exposed to many details of the spell or their past, the spell will be undone.

  The page I had pulled out had a hand written title in ballpoint pen ink.

  Complete Binding by John Grimm

  There was something breaking inside of me that I did not know was there until it started to crack.

  My hand shook against the book. I unclenched the crumpled note in my fist and flattened it out gently with trembling hands. It was the back side of the note.

  It had much more than one word.

  We have yet to find the item he uses to bind us, or the substance of power for the spell, or where the sigil is that imprisons us. We are so much more than this existence he has subjected us to and without the missing components we will not be able to return to what we are meant to be.

  The sound of something falling onto the paper broke my train of thought. There was a wet spot that destroyed the letters. The ink swirled within it. My fingertips found my cheeks wet. A tear had run down my face, off the tip of my nose, onto the paper.

  I felt sick. I felt panicked.

  I had not cast the spells.

  I had not been wrong. Magic was real, and it had been cast on me. I did not remember my family, my past, who I was, because my memory had been taken from me. Again, and again, and again.

  My skin felt constricting, like my hand was in a glove that was too tight. My insides strained to get out. To take their true form. I couldn’t breathe.

  John had done this.

  I had written the notes. The “we” of these notes was me reaching across a divide of time and interference to free us, all of us he had erased.

  John had trapped us.

  My complete breakdown was interrupted by a distant but piercing noise. After another stilled moment it happened again. It was my telephone. I grabbed everything in my lap and ran up the stairs. I tripped over the top step onto the landing in the front entryway, the book flew open to the back cover. A red powdery smoke spilled out emitting a high pitched shriek.

  I covered my ears with both hands against the auditory assault.

  The sound suddenly stopped. When I pulled my hands away my palms were slick with blue-purple.

  I took a few moments to catch my breath. My head was pulsing against my skull. My fingers still felt too tight against what was inside of me.

  The ringing started again. I clambered up and stumbled into the living room. The sound led me to the couch, where my phone was. I did the only thing I knew how to do with it, which was answer.

  “Hello?” My voice was hoarse and unfamiliar to me.

  “Annabel? Are you ok, darling? The alarm—” Johns voice was equally unfamiliar to me. The warmth was sickly sweet, and sounded disingenuous to my ringing ears.

  “What?”

  “The alarm… company called. They said the alarm had gone off. I’m nearly home. Are you alright?”

  We didn’t have an alarm.

  “Is everything alright?” He repeated. Nothing was alright. I was at a loss for words. How much had gotten by me before? How many times had these flimsy excuses worked? How many times had he turned around my confusion from his violation of my mind back on me?

  “Annabel. Are you still there? Are you well, sweet?”

  “I was just…” I looked at the scorch mark in front of the fireplace. “…resting. Like you suggested, John.”

  “I’ll be there in five minutes. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of everything.” He hung up.

  I looked around at the state of the downstairs. I couldn’t put it back. I had failed us. I could not pretend everything was normal the way it was. I had amassed all this evidence to show John what I had been up to. Everything we had lost to time and tampering then worked so hard to regain would all be lost.

  There was a giant burn mark in the floor in front of the fireplace. The brick missing from the fireplace had left an imprint where I dropped it. The ashes, soot, and blue-purple spread around by hands, and footprints, and drawing. The chairs in the dining room were knocked over. One leg was actually broken. In the kitchen I could see flour coating the floor, shredded paper and broken porcelain were scattered all over.

  What could I do?

  I could not put it back. There was no hope to go back.

  There was no hope, unless I could end it, unless I could unbind us. I could only move forward.

  My heart was pounding in my chest. Five minutes. I looked at the clock. It was 11:47. I had five minutes. Forward. Forward meant breaking the binding. I reexamined the back of the note I found still in my clenched hand. I accidentally ripped the corner free in my tensed fingers as I opened it back up.

  The item he uses to bind us…

  The substance of power for the spell…

  The sigil that imprisons us…

  These are the three things I was missing to free myself. The sigil that imprisons us. I thought about the locket. What if John had used something like that. I yanked my wedding ring off my finger and poured over every edge and facet. It was a plain band with a simple solitaire raised stone for an engagement ring. There wasn’t any place to hide anything. The stone was secure. There was no sigil or engraving on either of the bands.

  There were so many places to look in the house. The components I needed could be anywhere. I looked towards the kitchen again, and remembered the floorboards. The mystery that started it all. I just had to not look at the sigil.

  I ran to the rug, my dusty feet sliding against the hardwood and falling onto my hands. I threw the rug out of the way, some of the chairs jostling around again with the force.

  I closed my eyes and felt around for the nail. When the metal met my hand I pulled it and threw it in the direction of the kitchen, out of sight.

  I looked down into the hole in the floorboards.

  There was something I could just barely make out in the darkness. I reached my hand into the unknown space. Everything I could fit in my hand was pulled up onto the floor. My hand touched a cylinder of some sort. I pulled it back out to examine it. It was a small glass vial with what looked like some of that same oil slick substance, some red residue on the walls of the glass, and a large pointed blue-purple scale. As big as the bowl of a tablespoon. The top was sealed with wax that dripped down the sides, a sigil pressed into the top. I sat the vial aside and reached back into the hole and pulled out a stack of old magazines tied with twine, the pages weathered yellow with age. Good Housekeeping, Family Circle, and Ladies Home Journal among them. There was a tag tied with the twine with a sigil on it. I realized I could recite the articles corresponding to the cover stories. John had put this in my head somehow. I had no recollection of reading these magazines. I didn’t have time to think about this. I pulled the twine off, ripping the tag in half in the process. My mind was more my own than it had been for as long as I could remember. There was no useless knowledge on how to please my husband, or award winning braised beef recipes, or how to keep my hair style for seven days after my appointment. There was room to think. I flung the magazines across the room. Several pages coming loose and fluttering in the air. I reached my hand back into the hole finding nothing but the wood surrounding the space.

  I revisited the vial with the strange scale, holding it in my hand again. It felt oddly warm in my palm. Could this be one of the components I needed? I heard a whooshing in my ears, like the wind across the ocean, louder and louder until I could hear nothing else.

  Then there was the sound of glass shattering and silence. My hand came back into focus. I had crushed the glass in my hand. The mixture of blood and the blue-purple substance was dripping from my hand. I sucked in a breath as I peeled back my fingers slowly. Chunks of glass fell to the floor. I braced for a wave of pain, but it never came. It didn’t really hurt. The scale sat in the center of my palm coated in the oil slick liquid, and trails of blood swirled around. There was barely any blood, but I could see the glass sticking into the flesh of my palm and fingers. There was a lot of the mystery substance. I pulled some of the glass out. The oily liquid just kept coming, dripping down my arm and through my fingers. It was oozing from my cuts.

  Was this coming from inside me?

  This was my blood. I was not human. I was a summoned and bound creature. Of course my blood was not red.

  The pieces started to fall into place. The substance of power was my blood. The shimmering blue-purple liquid on all the sigils was my blood. It was how John was controlling me. He was harvesting my blood and wiping my memory. I was not human, but he was the monster.

  It was at this moment that I heard the jingle of keys in the front door lock.

  I froze for a split second. I hadn’t found the sigil binding me. I could not escape. John would know and take all the knowledge away from me. He would know every hiding place we had cultivated. He would know we knew.

  I ran to the couch and laid down in the position I had woken up in countless times before. I had always assumed John had laid me down like this after finding me passed out somewhere. It was actually a spell to control me, not a doting husband, but a jailer.

  The door creaked open.

  “Annabel.”

  The door shut. A hesitant step.

  “Annabel?”

  Footfalls approached the doorway to the living room. I shut my eyes.

  “Annabel! Oh darling. You really overdid it, didn’t you? All this resetting isn’t good for you. But I’ll fix it. I’ll make it so we don’t have to use those anymore.” His hand caressed my cheek. I pressed the scale and glass shards into my hand for the courage to keep from shuddering.

  Would he free me? Did he realize his mistake? Was he not quite the monster I had assumed he was?

  He left my side and walked back towards the door. I heard him rummaging through the tools by the closet.

  He returned to my side. I was focusing on keeping my breath even. I hoped this was something he expected. I was relieved and disgusted that he acted as though a trashed house and my catatonic state was behavior that he had seen before.

  “You know I had an epiphany while I was on the drive home. I had been so afraid to leave you alone. Something like this always happens when I do. The lesser binding spell called for blood. But blood changes over time. Blood loses its power. It dries and coagulates. It isn’t static. What if we could use something of yours that was more… permanent. More unchanging. That’s when I had a lightbulb moment.” His hand brushed across my lips.

  “Bone. We’ll use bone to do the full binding.”

  My deliberately slowed pulse started to race again. Was he going to cut me open? Take one of my bones? Break something? Could I stop him?

  His hands started to part my lips.

  “So we’ll just take a tooth. No one will notice a molar missing, now will they?”

  I let my jaw go slack. I needed another moment to think how to stop this, how to break free. His hand reached into my mouth, deep to my back molars. I fought a shudder as his wedding ring clinked against my teeth, and I realized where I had seen a sigil before tonight.

  John’s wedding ring. He wore my binding in plain sight, cast right into his signet style ring. My eyes flew open. John had one hand in my mouth and the other wrapped around the handle of the pliers, poised to enter my mouth. If I could just get the ring off.

  John froze.

  I angled his fingers a little deeper into my mouth and bit down as hard as I could. I thought about the moon blessed salt I had eaten and the intention another me had set to be strong and sure. As John’s screams filled my ears, and John’s blood filled my mouth, I thought about all the versions of me he had murdered. The time I had lost to his hubris and folly. As he stabbed my face and cheek with the pliers in an attempt to free his hand I thought of how free I would be when this skin wasn’t holding me back. I thought of when I could return to the sea. He wrenched his hand back and forth, jerking my head around.

  A memory returned unbidden of a time we were in a similar position. In the ocean, on the beach, when he summoned me, before stealing one of my scales, and placing it in a glass vial. My blood mixing with his, binding me to him.

  John’s hand came away from my face, and I was afraid I had failed. He scrambled backwards on his back toward the fireplace. The loud thump of the grimoire tumbling from his lap onto the floor punctuated a small moment of silence before John looked at his hand and started to scream. Blood gushed from his hand, streamed down his arm, and soaked into his shirt. It streaked across the floor in his wake. He screamed and screamed. “You monster. You bit my fucking fingers off. Annabel! You bitch. You cunt. Fuck you! I will fucking destroy you. I will get another.”

  I removed his two fingers from my mouth and examined them in my hand. I pulled the ring off the finger and wiped some of his blood away. There was the sigil. The symbol of my binding. How brazen. How monstrous. It was cast into the metal. I didn’t know how to break it.

  John continued to scream at me, how he would undo me. How he would destroy me. But he couldn’t catch his breath. He kept looking at his mangled hand. Tears streamed down his face.

  I saw the burned floor next to John. The scorch marks were filled with John’s blood in a very satisfying way.

  I dipped my hand into his blood on the floor and started to reinforce the fire sigil I had written earlier onto the floor with his blood. I would see how he liked the turnabout.

  John realized what I was doing and crawled towards my glyph on his knees and elbows, shaky like a newborn fawn, slipping and unsteady. His hand reached out to break the circle but he just added more of his blood. He couldn’t break the circle of his blood with his blood soaked hands. I looked around for anything to stop him. I reached for the brick from the fireplace. By the time he thought to go for me instead, it was too late. I pulled my arm back and up and hit him in the face with it as hard as I could. The impact broke his glasses into his eyes and knocked him backward. His screaming began anew, but this time with less coherent thoughts, more curses to my name.