Chapter 3
I’ve had too much schnapps, I thought as I jerked my hand back. Locks don’t open themselves. But my hand shook as I carefully opened the lid, releasing the scent of old paper and dried herbs and winter air.
The trunk was filled with books. Not the pristine, mass-produced kind, but very old books, their leather covers cracked and worn, their pages yellowed with age.
Some had titles embossed in gold that had faded to ghost impressions.
Others had no titles at all, just strange symbols that might have been decorative or might have meant something once.
I slumped back. The books might have some value, but it was hard to believe that it would be anywhere near enough to save the shop.
The only thing in the trunk that wasn’t a book was a small wooden box, about the size of a shoebox, with iron hinges that protested as I lifted the lid.
Inside, wrapped in oilcloth, was another book.
No, not a book, some kind of journal. The leather was dark—black or maybe deep brown, hard to tell in the dim light—and worn smooth from age and handling.
The cover had symbols embossed into it, faded but still visible, and the pages inside were hand-written, the ink faded to brown.
Some sections were in English—old English, the kind with extra letters and strange spellings—but others were in what might have been Latin, or German, or something older.
Winter folklore and rituals, the first page declared in elaborate calligraphy. Being a collection of the old ways, for those who remember what the modern world has forgotten.
Unable to resist, I started skimming through the pages.
Of the pages I could read, half of them seemed like folklore.
The other half read like an instruction manual for things that shouldn’t exist. How to ward off frost spirits.
How to appease the house guardians. Illustrations dotted the margins.
A woman standing in a circle of salt. A man with antlers.
Creatures I couldn’t name, drawn with unsettling precision.
Then, about halfway through, I found a section titled “Yuletide Aid.”
For those in direst need during the longest nights, when hope has fled and despair sits heavy upon the heart, the old ones may yet be called. They who walked before Christmas was Christmas, who remember the wild winters and the bargains struck in darkness.
But beware: their aid comes with a price, and they are not gentle.
Below the text was an illustration—a circle drawn on the floor, with four candles around the rim and bowls containing… something. And in the center, swirling lines that might have been wind or smoke or magic.
Draw a circle with salt, and place candles at north, south, east, and west. Prepare offerings—grain for abundance, honey for sweetness, bread for sustenance, and willing blood to seal the bond.
Light the candles at midnight and speak the summoning thrice, with conviction, with need, and with the understanding that what comes may not be what was wished for.
There was a note in the margin in my grandmother’s precise handwriting. Mother did this once, in 1943, when Father was at war and we had nothing. It worked. But she never spoke of it again, and she never used the book after.
A chill ran down my spine that had nothing to do with the attic’s temperature.
She never spoke of it again.
I flipped the page, and the summoning words were there. The letters were English but the words made no sense—long, complicated words that weren’t in any language I recognized. Words that twisted the tongue and that felt heavy just looking at them.
This is ridiculous, the rational part of my brain said. I’m not seriously considering performing some ancient pagan ritual, am I?
Why not? the desperate part countered. What do I have to lose?
There was another section of text below the summoning, written in what might have been German.
I tried to use the translation app on my phone but it struggled with the elaborate handwriting.
It said something about “calling the horned one” which was probably a mistranslation.
Maybe it meant a deer? Reindeer were horned. Christmas had reindeer. That tracked.
There was a warning at the bottom of the page, in smaller text that my app also struggled to translate. Beware… something something… true intention… something… price… balance… something something.
Very helpful. I took another drink of schnapps as I flipped through the rest of the pages, but I kept coming back to the Yuletide Aid section.
By the time my mug was empty, I was in the pleasantly fuzzy state of not-quite-drunk-but-definitely-not-sober, and the idea of trying a weird attic ritual seemed less insane and more like why the hell not?
Besides, nothing would happen. Of course nothing would happen. This was folklore, not fact. Stories, not spells. But if—if—there was even a one percent chance…
I walked very carefully back down the stairs to my apartment, my knees not quite steady.
At the bottom of the steps, I almost stumbled over the bucket of rock salt I kept for spreading on icy sidewalks.
Salt was one of the ingredients, and I decided it was a sign.
The other ingredients were simple enough.
Four of my cinnamon-scented red candles, a packet of instant oatmeal for grain, honey in the little bear bottle, a left-over hotdog bun for bread.
The part about blood made me hesitate a little, but in the end, I picked up a safety pin, then piled everything into a basket and carried it up to the attic, along with another mug of schnapps.
The single bulb cast more shadows than light, making the stacked boxes loom like silent witnesses.
I cleared a space in the center of the floor, pushing aside a box of tangled garland and what looked like a deflated Santa.
Once I had a large enough space, I made a circle with the salt, wobbling only slightly from the schnapps.
Then I used the compass app on my phone to position the candles, and placed four Santa candy dishes between them, adding oatmeal, honey, and bread to the first three.
The fourth one was the hardest. Blood. Willing blood.
It took two more swallows of schnapps before I found the courage to prick my finger with the safety pin.
I barely managed to squeeze out three drops, but it would just have to do.
After lighting the candles, I sat cross-legged in the center of the circle, the book open on my lap, counting down the minutes to midnight. Eleven fifty-five.
Last chance to back out, a voice in my head whispered. Last chance to admit this is crazy and go to bed like a normal person.
But I was desperate and I’d come too far to stop now.
Midnight.
Speak the summoning thrice.
“Here goes nothing,” I muttered and started reading the words.
They felt thick in my mouth, like trying to speak through honey.
My tongue stumbled over syllables, my throat catching on sounds that seemed designed to be unpronounceable, but I kept reading, my voice gaining confidence with alcohol-fueled bravery.
The words started to flow easier, as if my mouth was learning their shape.
Twice.
I started again, and this time the words came out smoother.
The rhythm of them sounded almost musical, in a discordant, minor-key way, like a carol sung backward.
The house creaked, and the candle flames flickered, even though there was no breeze.
I hesitated, my fuzzy brain finally catching up to the fact that something was happening.
It’s just a draft. Perfectly normal…
I kept going. I finished the second recitation and started on the third. This time there was an odd echo to the words and I could almost sense the meaning of them as I spoke.
“…I call to the keeper of winter’s dark. He who walks between the worlds, who sees all debts and deeds.”
Something shifted in the air. A pressure, like the moment before a thunderstorm.
“…come forth, keeper of chains and judgments. Come forth and hear my petition.”
The final syllable hung in the air, vibrating, like a tuning fork struck in an empty room.
The candles went out.
All of them, simultaneously, as if someone had blown them out with a single breath.
The only light was from the screen on my phone.
The wind had stopped. The house had stopped creaking.
Even my own breathing seemed muted. Then the salt circle began to glow.
Just a faint luminescence, like foxfire or phosphorescence, tracing the line I’d made in the dust.
This isn’t real. This isn’t—
A wind blew through the attic. Not a draft but an actual wind. It swirled around the circle, lifting my hair, making the salt line shimmer and shift. The offerings trembled in their bowls.
“Okay,” I said out loud, my voice shaking. “Okay, this is… This is just…”
Sparks erupted from the northern candle point. Actual sparks, like someone striking flint, blue-white and crackling. They danced in the air, multiplying, spreading to the other cardinal points. East. South. West. The circle became ringed in dancing, impossible light.
My phone screen flickered and died.
No, no, no, I thought, shaking it uselessly. Not now. Come on.
The sparks intensified, forming patterns in the air. Spirals. Runes. The same symbols I’d seen in the book, now written in lightning across the attic.
Then came the whispers. Soft at first, so faint I thought I’d imagined them. But they grew louder, overlapping, a chorus of voices speaking in languages I didn’t recognize. German, maybe, or older. Something ancient and guttural that made my teeth ache.
The temperature plummeted. My breath misted in front of my face. Frost began to creep across the windows, delicate fractals spreading like living things.
“Stop,” I whispered. “Stop, I didn’t… This isn’t…”
The whispers rose to a crescendo, a sound like wind through winter trees, like ice cracking on a frozen lake, like chains dragging across stone.
Chains.
I heard them clearly now, jingling softly in the darkness. Not the cheerful jingle of sleigh bells, but something heavier. Older. The sound of metal on metal, of weight and restraint and purpose.
The sparks swirled together, coalescing in the air above the circle. They formed a shape—tall, massive, definitely not human. The light pulsed once, twice, then exploded outward in a shower of blue-white brilliance that left afterimages burned into my vision.
When my eyes adjusted, the northern corner of the attic seemed darker than before. Shadow pooled there, thick and tangible, like spilled ink. Or spilled blood, I thought hysterically.
And then the shadow moved. It detached itself from the wall, from the floor, pulling itself free with a motion that was both fluid and wrong. It rose, taller and taller, taking shape. Taking form.
My heart stopped. Actually stopped. I felt it freeze in my chest, a cold fist of pure terror.
The shadow became solid. Became real. Became him.
He was enormous. Not just tall—though he had to be at least seven feet—but big. Broad shoulders and a muscular frame, covered in dark fur that seemed to absorb the candlelight. Powerful legs ending in… hooves? Heavy boots? I couldn’t tell.
But I could see the horns. Massive, dark, spiraling up from his forehead in elegant, terrifying curves. Like a ram’s horns, but larger and more dramatic, impossible to miss.
His eyes glowed. They actually glowed, burning with an inner light that was somewhere between gold and amber, like embers in a dying fire, and flashing red when he turned his head to survey the attic. Those eyes found mine and I forgot how to breathe.
He came towards me with a grace that should have been impossible for something his size.
Each step was silent except for the soft jingle of chains—they wrapped around his torso, crisscrossed over the fur and leather, binding him or decorating him or both.
His hands ended in claws, long and black and wickedly curved.
A tail flicked behind him, long and tufted at the end, moving with the irritated precision of a cat who’d just been woken up.
He stopped at the edge of the circle, tilting his head, studying me with those burning eyes as his nostrils flared, scenting the air. Scenting me. The salt line glowed faintly where it faced him, like it was responding to his presence.
I tried to move, but I couldn’t. My legs had turned to stone, my whole body frozen in a mixture of terror and something else, something I didn’t want to examine too closely.
Because underneath the fear was a thrilling awareness, an electric charge that made my skin tingle and my pulse race for reasons that had nothing to do with self-preservation.
The silence stretched between us, broken only by the soft jingle of his chains as he shifted his weight.
My mind screamed at me to run, to scream, to do literally anything except crouch there like an offering.
But I couldn’t do anything except stare up at this creature I’d somehow summoned from the darkness, this being that should not exist.
“You called?”