Forgotten

By EgyptianGoddess

EG: Did you guys like the prologue? I hope you did, because this is Chapter 1.

Chapter 1—Lady Margaret and the Disappearing Bag

We live on an island, so we know everyone here and I think we actually scare some of the people that aren’t witches. Mama owns a shop with all kinds of things just for witches, but we sell special stuff there too for people who don’t have the gift of magick. Most of our neighbors though, are witches, which makes us feel very included in everyday life. They say my house is haunted. That a being of supreme darkness took over the house many, many years ago and that it never quite left. They say that it all happened because of a stupid curse put on the house before the original owners died. Lady Margaret was the person who owned the house originally, supposedly she practiced magick. Well, the story goes that one day Lady M was walking along the beach chanting a small spell and that all of a sudden this demon came out of the ground. He was Satan and he wanted her to be his wife, since she was a witch. Lady M said she was a good witch and would be in no way associated with the Devil. Well, you can image that Satan wasn’t happy, so he put a curse on her and the house. That evil spirits would bug Lady M for the rest of her life. She scoffed him, saying that she could take care of any evil spirits he tried to unleash upon her. So, the Devil said that he would send the most evil demons in hell to plague her. Again, Lady Margaret scoffed him saying that the most evil demons in hell were but flies around her buttermilk: Annoying, but easily taken care of. So, the Devil said that he himself would be the bane of her existence. She once again stood up to him saying that she could take care of him. She was one of the greatest witches alive! She could fend him off with all kinds of spells. The Devil had no come back, so he merely went back to the bowels of the earth where he had come from.

However, Lady Margaret was a tad worried and quickly went home, took out her bag of ointments, herbs, and things and did a protection spell. It seemed to work, but as Lady M got older and older, she realized that the protection spell was wearing off. So, she had to go upstairs and get her things together for a new batch. However, just as she was pulling it out, she dropped dead. The next morning, her neighbor came to visit her and found her, lying on the floor of her room, holding a bottle of ointment in her right hand. No one could understand why she died. She had been getting older, yes. But she was in perfect health. The doctors didn’t find anything wrong with her. It couldn’t be explained. So, the doctors said it was a heart attack. Although, her sister and neighbor couldn’t believe that. Later on her sister and neighbor were cleaning out the house and her sister stumbled across the bag. In it she found all of Lady M’s things—except for one small bottle of ointment. Her sister turned to the neighbor and asked her what she had done with the ointment. The neighbor said she had put it on Margaret’s dresser. They checked, but didn’t find it. They searched high and low and in each of their houses, but it was never found. Lady M’s sister lived in the house until her dying day and then the house was sold. And it’s been in my family ever since. My family too, is a family of witches.

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I remember when I was little the attic was always a place of intrigue. My mother said that all of Lady Margaret’s things were still up there. But I never found anything. I asked Mama where the bag with her things went and she said she didn’t know, but the story was that her sister thought the bag was a sign of the devil and threw it into the ocean and it was never seen again. So, boy was I surprised when I found a brown bag on my front porch on a Saturday morning. It was in fact March 16, 1900. I looked inside it and discovered ointments, herbs, things that I knew for a fact must have belonged to Lady Margaret. In fact, on the outside of the bag, in very intricate lettering, but quite worn off, were the initials: LMR. I hid it in my room, under my bed before setting out to the library in search for the history of this bag. I searched Lady Margaret and found many, many books and things on her. I searched for hours to figure out what happened to the bag, but everything I looked at just gave me the same answer: Lady Margaret’s sister threw the bag into the ocean and it wasn’t seen again. I was on the verge of giving up when I spotted an article, very small, sticking up in the very back of the book. I flipped to the page and read it. The headline read: BROWN BAG FOUND! PLEASE CONTACT US AT (888) 762-8363 TO VERIFY OWNERSHIP. The article was as follows:

A simple brown bag washed up on shore of a small British town, Middleton. Inside were some special oils, herbs, and an old book in a strange language. If you recognize the bag and things described, please contact Melanie Richards at (888) 762-8363 for verification.

That was all it said. A simple brown bag washed up on shore of a small British town. I slumped back in my chair. That proved the story then. The bag had washed up on shore of some dinky town in the middle of nowhere. Even the town name proved it was the middle of nowhere: Middleton. I had just wasted 5 hours of my life searching for a stupid answer that just lead me in a big circle. I stared at the paper. And a thought occurred: What if somebody had actually picked it up? What if Lady Margaret’s sister or some other relative actually picked it up? I looked at the date of the article. It was in the 1800’s some time. The last two digits were blurred, but the first two were March 16th, 18-something or other. So, maybe I couldn’t get in touch with Melanie Richards, but I could certainly see if the number still worked. I looked around to make sure that no one saw me, and took the article. I was sure no one would discover it was missing, no one ever checked. That was the way things were.

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I asked the librarian if any of the old phone numbers would still work. And she didn’t know, but she said that I could use the phone in the Lounge to try and call the number if I wanted. So, I did. I went into the Lounge and closed the door behind me. No one was in the room. Perfect: I didn’t want anyone to burst in on my conversation, but having someone already there would make things even more awkward. I picked up the phone and dialed 1(888) 762-8363. It rang, and rang, and rang, and rang, and did half more a ring and somebody picked up.

“Hello?” It was a woman’s voice, young as far as I could tell.

“Hi. I was wondering is Melanie Richards there?” I asked. It was a stupid question because there was no way Melanie Richards was still alive. And even if she was, she was probably incapable of talking to me.

The girl said, “There’s no one here by Melanie Richards. She hasn’t been alive for over 100 years. Are you sure you have the right name?”

I said, “ Well, is there someone there who is a living relative of hers? That was close to her? That I can talk to?”

The girl paused, as though she was thinking over telling me who she was. She sighed slightly and then said, “Yes. She was my grandmother. My name is Vivian Richards. What do you need?”

I couldn’t help but smile. “Can you help me with something? I found an article that had a description of a bag on it and this number. Well, I found the bag, but it has the initials LMR on it. And I was wondering, does the bag belong to Melanie Richards?”

Vivian was silent for a few minutes, and then slowly, carefully, like she was trying to prevent herself from giving out too much information said, “ No, I believe the bag belonged to a Lady Margaret Richards.”

My eyes popped at that one. Lady Margaret’s sister was Melanie Richards? That was hard to believe! So, the first thing that popped out of my mouth was, “So were Lady Margaret and your grandmother related?”

Vivian said, “Yes. Although, I never actually met Margaret, my grandmother told me that they were very close.”

That didn’t compute with me. If Margaret and Melanie were sisters then wouldn’t Melanie have known that the bag belonged to her sister? Why would she have put the ad up in the paper? And why would Melanie have thrown the bag into the water if she just ended up finding it again? It didn’t make any sense. I started to ask another question, but Vivian said, “ I wish you hadn’t called. Look, throw the bag away. Burn it if you like. Just don’t touch anything that’s in it. And especially whatever you do, don’t use anything in it! It will bring utter disaster to you and your family! Don’t touch it, throw it back into the water if you want, just get rid of it!”

Then it was silent. She had hung up. Why was she so desperate to get rid of the bag? It didn’t make any sense! Wouldn’t she have wanted to hang on to something of her grandmother’s? I didn’t understand. It was all so confusing! Melanie throwing the bag into the water, only to find it again, and then post an ad in the paper. And now, Vivian, the survivor of Melanie and Margaret telling me to get rid of the bag. I didn’t get it. What was so wrong with the bag? Why was it such a bringer of disaster? This, I had to look into………….