What would you think if your classmates believed in witchcraft?
What would you feel if your friends wished to bring the dead back to life?
What would you do when instead of bringing back a dead boy, those friends succeeded in resurrecting something...
At sixteen, I, Oliver Edmund Blackwell, came to a stark realization: life was anything but fair. While the sentiment might seem cliché, it was no product of teenage melodrama or borrowed wisdom from weary adults. It was the unvarnished truth that I, too young for such harsh lessons, was forced to confront.
Once, the lives of my two younger siblings and I brimmed with promise. We were blessed with loving parents, financial security that spared us the specter of want, and nightly suppers prepared by a devoted mother, shared with a father genuinely interested in the minutiae of our lives.
But happiness, it seemed, was not to be our constant companion. In the blink of an eye, our idyllic existence shattered, replaced by a haunting memory that still lingers to this day.
The guidance counselor at my affluent prep school summoned me to her office, requesting that I excuse myself from my final class of the day. As I entered Ms. Weathersby's usually inviting office, a sense of foreboding washed over me. My sister, Evelyn, occupied one nearby chair, with an empty one positioned between her and our younger brother, Noah.
As I settled into the chair between my brother and sister, the gravity of the situation descended upon me. Our mother, the beloved Genevieve Blackwell, had perished in a tragic house fire. Initial investigations suggested no foul play; instead, a gas leak in the aging basement was deemed responsible. The mere act of switching on the furnace had ignited a devastating explosion, engulfing our home in flames. Unaware of the unfolding tragedy, our father had been at the grocery store. It wasn't until he returned home to the sight of multiple fire trucks and squad cars that he realized his cherished wife was gone forever.
He was not able to collect his children from their elite K-12th grade school due to his mental breakdown. Edmund Blackwell needed to be immediately sedated and hospitalized due to his overwhelming grief for losing the love of his life.
From that fateful day onward, the trajectory of my siblings' and my lives was irrevocably altered. Our mother, a beacon of warmth and kindness, was forever lost to us. Gone were the comforting embraces, the shared laughter, and the simple joys of watching '90s shows like The X-Files, Family Matters, or Seinfeld with her. No longer would we engage in the cherished family rituals of crafting delicate ships inside miniature glass bottles or partake in her patient baking lessons.
The mantra "life is not fair" echoed incessantly in my mind in the ensuing months and years, a stark reminder of the cruel hand fate had dealt us.
Most of our clothes, furniture, and personal belongings went up in flames along with our mother. But the hardest blow came with what happened to our father. After Edmund was discharged from the hospital following his breakdown, it was clear we couldn't stay in Tiburon, California. He decided to uproot us and take a job at a small university hospital across the country. So, my siblings and I left behind everything we knew and loved for a small-town famous for its dark history of witchcraft trials centuries ago. We landed in Salem, Massachusetts.
There was no genuine reason for the move.
Our father insisted that the move was for the collective healing of our family. Yet, there was little truth to his assertion. Alongside our belongings, we left our mother buried six feet under in Royal Oaks Cemetery, as well as living relatives who resided in our California town. The cross-country relocation wasn't about healing; it was solely for Edmund's benefit, regardless of his reassurances whenever my sister and I pressed him for answers. Our father couldn't bear to remain in the same town where his beloved wife had perished, and so, he left California. It was as straightforward as that. The choice of Massachusetts remained a mystery to us. No family lived there, and we never received an explanation for why he selected it. He didn't have friends in Salem, either. There was no real reason to move to such a random place. Looking back, perhaps it was fate.
It seemed Edmund never truly moved on from the death of his wife. He engaged in occasional flings, finding momentary solace in the arms of a coworker or a stranger at the local pub where he drowned his sorrows. Yet, no one ever ascended to the role of Edmund Blackwell's wife again. I don't know who you are as you read these words. Perhaps you've stumbled upon this journal in my study, or maybe I've already passed away, and this singular book has found its way into your hands along with the remnants of my life's work. Alternatively, you might be one of the select few who truly understand the events of that haunting year in 1995...
No, forgive my folly. You are not among them. Surely, anyone who experienced the horrors of those events firsthand would not require a recap. Enduring it was a torment in itself. Reading about that ordeal would only serve to inflict more nightmares, some even more terrifying than the ones that still plague me to this day. I implore you to set this book aside and move on. Forget that you ever laid eyes upon it and return to the life you were leading, filled with whatever semblance of happiness or trivial emotion you felt before picking up this journal.
If you're ignoring my warning, there's little I can do to dissuade you from delving further into this narrative. So, here it is — the tale. It's not technically my own, but I played a significant role in its unfolding. I'm not quite what society deems 'old,' but my face bears the weight of experiences far beyond my years. I've witnessed horrors that would make even the darkest of novels pale in comparison. In all honesty, things didn't end as direly as I may portray them. I'm alive. Somehow, in some way, I managed to escape with my life when others were not so fortunate.
To truly comprehend any story, one must start at the beginning. As you read, you might mistake this for a love story. Indeed, there is an unconventional romance entwined within, but it's not the central plot. This is a horror story, plain and simple. There are no valiant heroes or flawless knights in shining armor. Instead, there's murder, monsters, treacherous betrayal, and a selfish misfit caught in the midst of it all.
Here lies the crux of the matter: my family and I never took religion too seriously. On holidays, our mother would take us to church for Mass. She was a devout Catholic and would have attended more frequently if our father had shown interest. Edmund, on the other hand, was agnostic, but he accompanied us to church on those occasions simply to honor his wife's wishes. However, when Genevieve passed away, Edmund saw no reason to continue with what he perceived as the theatrics of the Catholic Church. To him, Catholicism was nothing more than a production, a show, with priests akin to magicians conjuring up phrases and quotes from the proverbial magic book known as the Bible.
My father held the firm belief that being a believer in any God, regardless of one's chosen religion, was a futile endeavor, a waste of time, effort, and logic. Edmund's cynicism only deepened following his wife's passing, a sentiment that persisted until his death from a brain hemorrhage just a few months shy of his seventy-first birthday.
The passage of years since the tumultuous events of the '90s has granted me newfound insight. Perhaps our disbelief in any God, regardless of religious affiliation, inadvertently opened the door for monsters to enter our lives. My family never subscribed to notions of magic, witchcraft, demons, or angels. Our skepticism towards the unbelievable may have been the catalyst for everything unraveling so swiftly and disastrously.
In hindsight, I failed to grasp something of profound importance. To believe in a God is to acknowledge the existence of the devil as well. And so, dear reader, allow me to recount how the events of 1995/96 unfolded.
Sincerely,
The author who haswitnessed both the light and the darkness.
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