Blood-Inked Pages

Behind the wall... behind the plaster and the bone... A cavity the house kept hidden, kept alone... Bound in skin that isn't leather, isn't cloth... Bound in something that was once a Thornwood daughter... The ink is red. The ink is wet. The ink remembers what we all forget. I open it — the spine CRACKS — And every candle in the manor Lights At Once. The pages scream before I read them Words I've never known but I don't need them Translated — they translate themselves through blood Through the veins running underneath my skin like flood Chapter One: "The Binding of the Blood" Chapter Two: "The Language of the Flood" Chapter Three: "How Thorns Remember Pain" Chapter Four: "How to Make It Rain in Crimson" Every page is an instruction manual For rituals my grandmother performed by candle For spells my great-aunt whispered into walls For the ceremonies held in Thornwood's halls I can't stop reading — the words are MOVING Through my eyes into my mind — I'm losing Control of what I know — it's flooding IN The grimoire isn't read — it enters through your skin Blood-inked pages, blood-inked mind Every secret of the bloodline Written here in crimson script On the pages where the dead have dripped Blood-inked pages, blood-inked soul The grimoire is making me whole I was half a thing before tonight Now I read by sacrificial light Chapter Five: "The Waking of the Roots" Chapter Six: "The Wearing of the Suits of Skin" Chapter Seven makes no sense at first — Then I realize I'm reading it in reverse Mirror writing, blood calligraphy Each letter is a tiny catastrophe A spell embedded in a spell embedded in a spell The grimoire is a matryoshka doll of hell The margins hold annotations — My mother's handwriting — her observations: "This one works." "This one hurts." "This one brought the ravens back from dirt." My grandmother wrote: "Don't read past page thirteen" My great-aunt wrote beneath it: "I have seen What lives past page thirteen and lived to tell —" The rest is smeared. She didn't live that well. Blood-inked pages, blood-inked mind Every secret of the bloodline Written here in crimson script On the pages where the dead have dripped Blood-inked pages, blood-inked soul The grimoire is making me whole I was half a thing before tonight Now I read by sacrificial light Page thirteen... The ink is fresher here... still warm... The page itself is breathing... in... and out... It says: "THE READER BECOMES THE READ THE STUDENT BECOMES THE CREED THE BLOOD THAT WRITES THE BOOK IS THE BLOOD THAT TAKES THE HOOK YOU ARE NOT LEARNING MAGIC — MAGIC IS LEARNING YOU" Every ritual the book contains (Flooding through my system) Written here in MY blood now (The grimoire chose its reader) I'm the newest page somehow (And the reader has surrendered) Blood-inked pages — I am INK Blood-inked pages — I am DRINK For the book that feeds on Thornwood blood I am the next page in the flood