We pieced the old book back together as best we could… it was terribly damaged after being stuffed inside the fireplace for so long; it must’ve been there for at least a hundred years, the fireplace had been closed off, bricked up and had another wall built over it when the study was built before we even moved in.

We found the original plans to the house when we decided to extend the conservatory, which was how we noticed there was originally a fireplace in the study.

As well as the book, there was a limp and ragged doll dressed in soot-covered Victorian clothing, it was filthy, and one of her arms was missing, we binned her as soon as we got her out.

The book is some kind of journal, hand-written, and a lot of the pages must’ve become damp over the years as a lot of the ink has run and bled, causing several, quite a few, actually, of the pages to stick together.

Sadly, one of the pages had come away totally, and there are no clear clues as to where in the book it actually came from… to be honest, it doesn’t look like it belongs in the book or came from it anyway… the paper is larger, has a more whitish colour, and the ink is a different colour. The writing on this page reads curse the one who discards this page, as the something something something, something then a complete splash of blue ink and a word that ends age… and reading that makes me think the fireplace wasn’t really bricked up for the study.

Written for Six Sentence Stories. This week, Denise’s prompt word is Curse.