FORGOTTEN

JOURNAL

◊

JAMIE RIPP

The Forgotten Journal Copyright © 2021 Jamie Ripp

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the email address below.

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, events, and places portrayed in this book are products of the author’s imagination and are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

Published by Ink Street Press

support@inkstreetpress.com

Edited by Blair Thornburgh

Cover Design by Jane Dixon-Smith

Formatted by Lorna Reid

Books by Jamie

Paradox Trilogy:

Paradox

Revelation

Ascendance

Bonus Chapter

The Forgotten Journal

Forgotten Journal

WITH EVERYONE IN THE mansion having meeting after meeting, the threats on my life had become severe, so I remained out of the spotlight and locked myself in the library. Even as I rummaged through all the books, I could still hear bits and pieces of the meetings. I locked myself away from my stagnant life by reading. In secret, I pretended to be a heroine who saves the world from annihilation, and at the moment, all I’d wanted to do was stay alive. I found that I’m not much of a heroine, and I felt as though I lacked the courage to even pretend to be one anymore.

I picked up a book on pirates and world-renowned treasure and flipped through the ancient, dust-filled pages, looking for something that sparked my interest. Yet it was hard to even feign interest when I was living an adventure of my own that was more real—and sometimes a great deal more intense—than even these stories.

With a small creak of the floorboards outside the library doors, I could feel Nana lurking just outside.

“Come in, Nana,” I called out as I approached the old, cracked wooden doors.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, Miss Arri, but if I may have your assistance…” Nana fumbled over her words for a moment before looking me in the eyes.

“Sure, Nana. I wasn’t finding much in here anyway.” I smiled, then placed the book on the chair near the window where I was standing. I followed Nana back out into the main foyer.

“What can I help you with?” I asked as Nana straightened a few vases on the antique table in the center of the large and extravagant room.

“We have more company coming, and Michael asked me to clean and ready some rooms, but I need an item from up in the attic. With my old legs and my wobbly knees, I’m afraid the stairs are too steep for my aging body. Would you be a dear and fetch a few things for me?”

“Wait, we have an attic?” I cocked my head and furrowed my eyebrows.

“Naturally, dearie,” Nana said as she shook her head at me. “Now, come.” She smiled, as though remembering that she’d said those same words to me the first time Michael brought me through the front door, when I’d stood in this exact spot protesting my abduction.

“Ha ha. Very funny, Nana.” I laughed as I followed her up the stairs then to the right and down the long hall. At the end of the corridor, we came to a door that matched the rest of the manor—the same as the rest of them.

“I thought this was just another room,” I said as Nana took out an antique-looking key. The bow swirled like an old stamped wax seal, and its elegant and braided shaft was at least three inches long, with a thin and rounded bead at the shoulder stop as a simple addition to the masterpiece. But it was the end that caught my undivided attention. The iron key’s bit was strange. Unlike the other skeleton keys of earlier times that had a jagged square shape with notches and grooves, this one had a unique and definitive bit—like a coat of arms, one that I recognized it from the newel posts of Michael’s staircases and of the portrait of Michael in the library. But a coat of arms? Wasn’t that a little odd and cumbersome? I was no locksmith, but wouldn’t the design get caught up in the lock?

“Nana, are you sure that is a key and not just a decoration?”

Nana smiled and patted me on the shoulder.

“There is only one key.” She chuckled before pushing the key into the antique lock. It seemed odd that Michael would have a locked room in a house of vampires. I doubted that a mere lock could keep them out.

Then Nana did something odd: she placed her thumb on the doorknob.

“Print verified,” an electronic voice declared. Nana turned the knob and opened the door, then placed the key back in the front pocket of her pants.

I smiled and laughed, knowing that Michel would have thought of the same thing I did. He was living in a world where locks and keys hold no security.

“There is a mahogany floor-length mirror just off to the right.”

“A mirror?”

“Yes, dear, my old hands just aren’t what they used to be. They couldn’t hold me up when I lost my balance while cleaning the credenza and the mirror and I went topsy-turvy.”

“Oh, Nana, you are everything you should be,” I said, trying to reassure her, but she knew better. Her grin and raised eyebrow told me she thought it was a bunch of hot smoke.

“Now, enough of my age. Let’s get that mirror down here.”

“Of course, Nana.”

As I started up the stairs, I heard Michael’s voice calling for Nana from down in the main foyer. When I looked down at her from the steep and rickety old steps, I saw conflict in her eyes.

“No worries, Nana. I’ve got this. Go help Michael before he comes up here and I’ll have the mirror down and set up for you when you get back.”

“Are you sure, dear?”

“Yes, I’m sure. I promise it’s no big deal. Now go!”

For a second, Nana looked torn. Then Michael called for her again and, without a second look, she left me to the attic and the stairs that looked and felt like a dilapidated bridge from the movies right before someone fell through and plummeted to their death. I thought of how I would tell Michael to fix these stairs if he were planning to have mortals use them, but I was sure he already knew. Michael rarely missed a thing, if you didn’t count Sara.

I was barely up to the top of the stairs when I turned on a light switch off to the left side of the railing. A slow illumination started to glow, filling the attic with a warming light. With hesitant steps, I walked the length of the attic and looked at all the treasures that lay hidden and buried up here from the world.

What is Michael doing with all this stuff? Half the items up here were still in good shape; they were just covered in dust and filth. It was as if the things up here had just been thrown away and forgotten. But Nana knew there was a mirror up here, so there had to be a reason these specific items ended up in this attic. Looking at a lamp in the corner, I heard a loud thud. My heart thundered and I closed my eyes. Random items clattered to the floor and scattered in all directions.

“Really?” I chided myself as I opened my eyes and looked at the mess I made. The chilling sight of broken glass with my fragmented reflection of disappointment told me I’d broken a small hand mirror. Shards of splintered wood littered the ground like a broken puzzle.

“Ugh,” I grunted as I bent down to pick everything up. The mirror handle was metal and small, like many of the hand mirrors used to have. Decorative scrolling adorned the handle and back. The small palm-sized mirror was only half-broken, which didn’t change the fact that I still broke it, but from behind the glass was a little slip of folded paper. I carefully unfolded the ancient piece of parchment and read the words written in a masculine script.

Meet me under the floorboards. Truly yours, S.

What? That was it? I thought as I flipped the paper over several times, hoping that something would magically appear. No luck. The writing was unfamiliar and definitely not Michael’s, unless it had changed dramatically over the years, but nothing else in the trunk looked as if it were his. The clothes were feminine.

Examining at what I tipped over, I hoped that there would be a clue as to what the paper meant or who the note belonged to. There had to be more. A hidden letter in the back of a mirror buried in the bottom of a trunk in a forgotten part of an attic belonging to a vampire was too much of a mystery to pass up. Even if that wasn’t the case, a note about meeting under the floorboards was weird enough on its own. Who writes like that?

“Arri, dear?” Nana’s voice carried up the stairs. “Did you find the mirror?”

“Yeah, Nana, just untangling a lamp cord,” I answered quickly before easily lifting the antique mirror and retracing my steps back to Nana and the rickety old stairs.

“Hay Nana?” I asked as I lowered the mirror. “What is all this stuff?”

“Oh, just knickknacks from before Michael had the house built. He usually stores unwanted items up there, things he doesn’t want.”

“Really…do you think I can take a look around, see if there is anything I’d like in my room?”

“I guess I can’t see why not. There’s nothing of real value up there, dear.”

“Well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

“No truer words were ever spoken.” Nana smiled as I carried the mirror down the hall and to my room, at which point Nana disappeared. When I walked into my room, I saw a freshly cleaned space and a bare spot in the corner of my room where a mirror used to stand. Smiling, I placed the mirror in the corner.

“Well, that’s it, dearie. I’ll be heading down to the library to vacuum the rug. Good luck on finding what you’re looking for.” Nana smiled warmly as she held out the attic key.

“Bye, Nana,” I said as I took the key and headed to the attic, where a mystery awaited.

Anxious and determined, I climbed the scary stairs and returned to the scene of the forgotten trunk.

“All right, trunk,” I said, putting my serious face on and placing my hands on my hips. “Let’s get this mystery solved and this mess cleaned up, huh?” I laughed at myself then picked up the old trunk and placed it back up on the small end table it fell from.

Wow. The trunk was a lot heavier than I thought it would be. Judging by the number of stickers it had on it, it had been around the world and back again a time or two.

Cairo, Tokyo, London, Istanbul, Baghdad, Rome…and those were the more recent stickers. Whoever this trunk belonged to had been a serious traveler.

As I folded the scattered clothing and placed it back into the trunk, I noticed that the garments were all from different times and places, just like the stickers. There was an elegant dress fit for a queen and right next to it was a sarong and a pair of lace-up sandals. Small items like a purse of makeup and a hairbrush to match the broken mirror lay on the floor right next to a….wetsuit? Dozens of diamond hair clips littered the floor like spilled glitter. But even as I picked everything up and put it in the trunk, I saw nothing that clued me in to the owner of the chest. Michael wasn’t a girl by any means, so whose was this, and what had happened to her?

Closing the trunk, I looked around the vast space and spied another chest that matched this one. Just like the woman’s luggage, stickers of similar origin covered the trunk, and a few were rubbed and scratched beyond recognition. Taking a deep breath, I clicked opened the old lock and pushed open the lid. Similar items lay inside, except tailored for a male: old razors, cologne, that sort of thing. Rolled up inside of an old pair of shoes was a faded, yellowing photo. If I looked close enough, I could make out a woman in her early twenties—late teens, maybe—but her face was unrecognizable from years of wear. My heart sank, but then I realized the dress she wore was in the trunk—the one I just folded that was fit for royalty. At least I knew that the two chests were a matching pair. But the same question remained—who did they belong to? If it was Michael’s, then who was “S.” Too many things didn’t add up, but if I poked around a little more, then...yep, I knew it. My hand hit something. A journal?

Wow, what a find. I was a little scared to open it. A journal was a very personal article. Whatever was written on these pages meant enough to whoever wrote it to keep it safe and hidden all these years. I pulled up some random blankets and pillows, blew out a heavy sigh, and opened the secret and personal leather-bound book. Several of the words were smudged, and my Greek was rusty, but I scanned the pages for what I could.

Fall

I’ve written down my thoughts and experiences as a matter of record. The best way to do this is to start from the beginning.

When I was younger, I didn’t crave the thick crimson blood of others. I never abandoned my loyalties or shirked responsibilities like some of my fellows. No, I worked hard for what I got and did more than my fair share, and I never would have done what I was about to do.

The day started like any other. The sun was trying to make an appearance as the moon dominated the predawn sky. I lit the lamps before I got dressed and left. The marketplace had been busier than usual, so I wanted to get there before the sun rose, and I had hoped before the crowd. I was glad I wasn’t a slave, being born from an upper-class man. Walking around the main square, I passed many shopping for their masters. I felt terrible for their working, but as my father’s father had been before him, most of our ancestors began as slaves. It was a hard reality and truth, one I learned early on. They taught me to be grateful for the place I held and not to snub anyone below my status. As I picked up my supplies, I greeted the merchant and noticed a slight drain in his color. He seemed paler than usual, and the bags under his eyes confirmed his ill status.

“Sir?” I asked as I picked up my purchase. “Are you feeling well?”

His sunken gaze already told me the answer.

“I’ll fetch the apothecary.”

“No,” the man said as he reached out his hand and grabbed my shirt. “Go. Run. Save yourself.” His words slurred together and his voice was gruff, as if he were speaking through sandpaper. “Please. Pl—”

His final plea fell short as his eyes rolled back and his heavily rounded body thudded to the ground.

“Young man!” a hearty voice thundered as I cradled the merchant’s head in my lap.

“Gruth! Gruth!” I called out to the merchant as he laid there, unconscious and limp.

“What have you done?”

I tried to tell him as I shook my head as stunned tears streaked my cheeks. “He told me to run and save myself, sir. What did he mean?”

“I know treachery when I see it, young man.” He grabbed my arm and yanked me from the ground.

“Leave him, good man. It wasn’t him,” the apothecary said as he approached with a bag in his hand.

“Sir, I did nothing, I purchased my goods then realized he looked sickly. Please help him,” I begged as he came to sit beside me.

“I know you did nothing. I have been seeing Gruth.”

Like everyone else my age, I had hopes, dreams, and aspirations to become more than I was. I had responsibilities, and I was well on my way to becoming someone, but something happened that night that had changed my life forever. Something I will never forget no matter how long I live.

After the sun sank behind the mountains and darkness crept into the valley, my skin burned, and my heart pounded. I felt feverish, and hot chills left beads of sweat on my skin. My ears rang, and I knew. This is what Gruth had warned me of, but how? Had he known something I hadn’t?

Then it hit me: the apothecary.

I ran from my bed and pounded on Romud’s door. Squinting into the darkness until he saw me, he cracked it open, then pulled me in and locked the door shut behind me.

The apothecary eyed me carefully. “Did he cut or scratch you?”

I tried to think. “No, sir, not that I know of.”

“Here,” Romud said before pulling on my arms and lifting my shirt off over my head. Yelling in triumph, he poked at my back.

“See, here!” he said, poking again at the tender spot on my back.

“What?” I gasped for breath.

“Gruth scratched you, and now you are ill. I knew it. I knew it would work.” The apothecary seemed elated by his discovery, but I did not understand why. I felt like I was dying, and he was happy?

“What worked? What have you done to me?” I accused him, but he seemed to ignore me and was writing in a book. “What have you done?” I yelled through labored breaths as I pounded my hand on his writing.

“The merchant was ill because of what I gave him when he came in with a burning heart. Maybe you will survive.”

“What?” I cried as the room went black. I hit the ground. My body aches vanished, and my thundering heart stilled. Even my fever abated, but after that, I couldn’t move or open my eyes. I was trapped in my body with no control. Soon after that, I heard the apothecary speaking to someone.

“Did he have someone at home?”

“No, he was the son of Mazleous.”

Then that was it. After that, I remember nothing. I felt nothing, heard nothing, thought nothing. Everything was blank and black. I don’t know how I came back into this world. I suppose I could hallucinate that I might have been someone of importance for this to happen, or that I am just a man down on his luck, but in all honesty, I don’t have a clue. That’s when it all started. I remember the excruciating pain of burning from the inside out and how no matter what I did, I couldn’t escape it. I felt the torture of death drowned me in agonizing torment. Every move I tried to make felt like red hot daggers stabbing into my sides. Breathing became horrifyingly excruciating, and my eyelids felt like molten branding irons piercing my retinas. When I awoke from my painful death, this terrifying hell, I felt an inextinguishable burning along the lining of my throat every time I fought for air. I wished for the sweet release that only death could bring, but my prayers were unanswered as I fought for either life or death.

Summer

Finally, as the pain subsided, I stumbled to my feet. I didn’t know where I was or how I got there, but years had passed as I lay dying. I faltered and shuffled around in the bleak and unforgiving darkness. That is how I remember waking. I battled with something new and foreign that I don’t remember ever feeling before, a dominating inner turmoil that toiled and played with violence and brutality like it was second nature. After seeing the world through such indiscernible eyes, everything seemed to change. Instead of seeing people, I felt them through the pulsing of their heart. For every beat that coursed through their veins, I felt and smelled them like the delicious scent of a savory, mouthwatering morsel. The hunger to sample that aromatic snack was pulling and tantalizing.

Winter

Today I came to a small creek. My hunger became consuming and it invaded my mind, my thoughts, and my soul. All I could think of was that I needed to eat next. A smile curved my lips when I heard a few exchanges of voices in the near distance. That’s when I felt my new inner demon perk up with increasing interest. When I rounded the brush, I saw what my senses were demanding. I needed to have them, and I knew that I would. Two brawny and disheveled men laughed and jeered. I felt their inner selves as if they were my own, and that’s when I knew. I would now and forever crave their crimson nectar. With purpose, with intent, I approached them. A devilish smirk creased my lips as I watched them. As I came into view, past the thinning of the trees and the receding shadows, their faces paled, and their hands shook. They were seeing me as what I was: a demon of death.

Before the first one could yell in fear, I hushed his silent cries with a swift and effective attack and went for the second. It only took me seconds before I had realized what I had done. As their blood dried on my lips, I saw my attack through their eyes and relived the events that made me, me. My determination to live and my insatiable addiction to blood kept me alive and thriving. I was reborn from the ashes of death with a feverish bloodlust. Seeing the two men lying lifeless at my feet had me retracing my steps and recounting my actions. My ability to kill them with ease and accuracy infuriated me and fueled my growing anger. Feeling both angered and scared of my newfound skills, I ran back to the catacombs whence I came. Shame and disdain for myself followed me like a plague in my wake.

Summer

It has been several summers since I started to hunt the streets by night, and stories of ravaging animals ran wild. They warned us to stay inside, but people have been acting odd around me and avoiding me, which made me angry. With my new sense of resounding anger and revenge still running and coursing through my blood, I scoured my corner to find out why it happened to me. I searched for the apothecary, but he was long dead and left nothing of what he wrote. I even searched myself and my clothing to once again come up empty-handed. The only thing I found were a few small incisions along my right wrist. The markings matched nothing that I had ever seen, but I knew they had something to do with my current change.

An inner demon awoke in me that night many falls ago, a demon that consumed my very soul. I never knew if my life had meant anything, but since then, I looked out for number one—me. The only thing that mattered more than the insatiable need for more was the thick, smooth, red liquid that quenched my hunger. As my desire became intolerable and impossibly hard to handle, I began looking for any reason to fill the ever-growing void in my soul. At first, it was easy. I pinpointed and homed in on anyone who stood alone and secluded from the larger groups. But soon after people turned up missing and or dead, there was a massive panic throughout the region and picking out anyone alone was becoming a little more challenging as they all started to hover and circle in large groups.

Summer

My hunger has become painful, and I move from place to place, trying to remain undetected. For centuries, I hunted in the dark of the shadows, hidden from the rest of the world. Looking back, I realize that there was no real reason for me to hide. I was a formidable and unbeatable predator, unmatched by any. The more I hunted and tasted, the more, more, more I wanted. It was as if I couldn’t get enough. The more I took, the more obvious it became that I was different from everyone else. Stories started to spread of a horrifying monster that sucked your blood and killed you in the dead of night. Rumors began to spread far and wide, horror stories about me and my sundering of souls, and each time they told the story I became more and more of a legend rather the real threat I was. Tales of a cannibal that ate the heart of others and ingested their souls and life force became popular. With each passing year, I started to feel the weight of loneliness, solitude, and guilt like a heavy cloak about me.

That was until I came across a group of men just as vicious and barbaric as I was. At first, I thought they were much like me, soulless and bloodthirsty, but I was wrong. They didn’t seek the blood of others as an unrestrainable thirst; they saw it as a thrill. A game.

Winter

Hiding among these men was natural and filled my want to be among the living and breathing without hiding. With blood-stained lips and a loyalty to no one, they made it appealing and tempting. It made it only natural to hide among them and use our commonalities of cruel and inhuman heartlessness as a disguise for my callousness.

After that dreadful night hundreds of years ago, I woke up in this world as a monster like no other, but there was one, a man, that led the others. He was not like me. His time was borrowed. Unlike me, he and his men lived off the life of others. He was a formidable opponent to other tribes and killed without regret or remorse. But his time would eventually end. The others called him The Old One. He had lived longer than all the others. Then, one day, he invited me to his side.

“What do you call yourself?”

I thought of my old name, but that was from another life.

“Stefan,” I said.

“I knew of your coming, and I see your future. You will make an enemy with your ability, but ultimately befriend him. He is your answer to the balance. When the time comes to leave him, you will know.”

After each book ended, I started the next. Except for the other books in my library, I had never been so interested and restless to know the ending.

Wait! What? That’s it. No more books? I rummaged through the trunk, throwing everything to the ground until it was empty and that was it. No more volumes—no!

I wanted to yell out in frustration until I saw a corner of the lid pulled back just enough to pinch. I pulled back the edge further, carefully bending it back without tearing the delicate and fragile fabric.

Peeking out, like the mirror, was a small, folded piece of parchment.

You will not and cannot hide from me. I know your secret. N

I recognized the handwriting.

Nicholas.

With a gasp, I placed a hand to my heart and stilled. Could it be?

“Dad!” I whispered.

About the Author

Jamie Ripp was raised in Nevada. She now lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and three kids. When she isn’t writing, you can often find her volunteering at her kids’ school, sitting on the porch admiring the pine trees, hiking, kayaking, paddleboarding, or in Utah at her Mothers. Jamie has a passion for life and loves to teach and explain real-life things to her kids through a story.

Books by Jamie

Paradox Trilogy:

Paradox

Revelation

Ascendance

Bonus Chapter

The Forgotten Journal