Balance Of Power

Everything has a price. Sometimes the price is way too high.

Samantha was sitting on the window seat of her tiny one bedroom apartment on the seventh floor of her building, which didn't have a doorman. She had worked her way through her four years of college and still had a mountain of student loans to pay; even though she hd landed herself a job at "The Times", a local newspaper. The pay was only enough to make the minimal payments on her loans, the monthly rent, and still have enough to feed herself. It took every ounce of her pay just to survive. She was looking out at the dark sky with the dark ominous clouds looming overhead, the rain falling heavily, and the intermitten light show the streaks of lightening made across the sky, dazzling her in the darkness. It was Nine Pm on a ZFriday night and she had been asked to go to the clubs with her friends, but she hadn't had the money, so she was stuck inside watching the storm. At least the rainfall soothed her aching a little. She ached for the perfect life, the perfect man, and the perfect house. But, she was always working and never had the money to go out. Just keeping her head above water was all she could do. At least she would get out tomorrow, her friend, Mandy had called to say she was coming into town and wanted to meet for lunch. Even better, she was treating. Mandy's family was well off and owned their own law firm, Saunders and Saunders. Mandy was working there as a secretary while she went to law school. She was almost done and would soon be a full partner of her parents' firm. At least Samantha had something to look forward to, even if her life seemed like a disappointment to her. She thought to herself 'Great I get to hear about Mandy's perfect little life.' It may have made her slightly bitter. It wasn't that she was jealous, she loved Mandy like a sister. Samantha had no sister or brother for that matter. She was an only child, and Mandy was the closest thing she's ever had to a sister.They Knew each other from about age 3. They grew up in the same neighborhood and went to school together. That is until Samantha's father, a doctor, left for a Nurse at the clinic he worked at when Samantha was thirteen, taking everything from them and forcing her mother to move to another city where she could find work to support Samantha and herself. Their place was a two bedroom apartment in a building as shabby as the one she sat in at this very moment. It was a hard life for them both, but Mandy was the only friend from the old neighborhood who kept in touch, and that made it a little easier.
Her and Mandy were the same height and build. Their facial features were even very similar. Except Mandy was the dark haired beauty with the olive complexion and chocolate brown eyes, and Samantha was fair skinned and had blonde hair and ice blue eyes. They were like Night and Day. The same, but opposite. And they always drew questioning stares wherever they went together because they also dressed similar and had the same taste in colors.
Samantha decided to turn in early so that she would have plenty of time before noon to choose what she'd wear. She always took forever deciding what she thought would make her look good.
As the daylight brightened her room at six am, Samantha groaned and rolled over to face away from the curtainless window and she drifted back to sleep. By the time she did wake up it was nine am. She quickly got out of the bed and padded off to the bathroom to shower. She turned on the faucet and felt with her hand until it became warm enough and switched the arrow to the shower position and got into the tub/ shower combination as she thought to herself "One day I want to have one of those stand alone showers and a big Garden tub next to it.' "Hmm, Someday." she said aloud. Going through her closet for at least an hour she finally found the outfit she would wear. It was a brown camisole top with her Beige skirt suit, and her favorite brown sued heels. Of course they were faux suede, But they were a deal and they she was always getting compliments from people on them. She was satisfied with the outfit she chose. She got her clothes on and went into the bathroom to fix her hair in a sloppy bun, leaving two strands of hair on the sides of her face and curling them with the curling iron. It was now 11:30 am and she had just enough time to make it to Eve's Garden Restaurant where she had planned to meet Mandy.
As she pulled her old banged up blue Ford Escort into a parking space at the front of the restaurant, she saw that her friend, Mandy had already gotten there and was walking up the walkway to the front door of the restaurant. She got out of her car and locked her doorss, and she ran over and embraced her friend with a great big hug. Mandy looked like a million bucks, as always, and probably not far off what she paid. "Wow! What a greeting!" Exclaimed Mandy. "Of course it is, Mandy, it's been so long since I have seen my BFF!" Answered Samantha. "Yes, it has, Sam. Shall we go in and get ourselves a table?" Asked Mandy, To which Samantha replied "OF COURSE!" So Samantha followed Mandy into the establishment, and the hostess at the podium led them to a nice booth near the bar. The hostess then said "Your waitress will be right with you." The waitress came over and said"Hello, I am Hillary and I will be your waitress today, can I get you anything to drink?" Mandy said"Yes, please, we'll have two glasses of champagne." And the waitress said"Ok, I'll go get that for you while you look at your menues." Then she flashed us a smile and went off. Samantha's eyes were as big as saucers, and she said"Ok dish, what's going on? I know you have some kind of news, ordering champagne!" Mandy says "Why, yes, I do..." And she put out her left hand to show her third finger with a giant rock on a plantinum ring. It must've been two carats. Samantha's eyes got even bigger. "Wow, You're engaged!" She exclaimed. "Yes," Mandy answered " I'll tell you all about him after we give our orders to the waitress." The waitress was standing there and they gave their orders to her. After she left to take the orders to the kitchen, Mandy said "He's a wonderful guy I have been seeing in law school, we had many classes together and one day he just asked me out." She went on"He's so gorgeous and he's very charming and he really treats me well. I've been seeing him for a year and on our anniversary, he proposed to me."

"I came here to ask you to be my maid of honour.," she said"YES YES YES!!!" Samantha said. "of course I'll be your maid of honour!" Then their food came and they talked about the plans for the wedding which would be in May, six months away. And discussed the responsibilities Samantha would take as the maid of honour. After they ate and the bill was paid, they decided to walk around outside, and check out the shops lined along Wicker street. It was the main street of the city and always had interesting stuff to see and do. They came to a used bookstore. Samantha said "Hey, why don't we check out this bookstore?" Both of the women, in their twenties now, shared a love of books. "Sure, why not?" said Mandy. And they went into the store that smelled of old leather and ancient paper. The books were all over the place and not in any particular order. Their were shelves filled to the top, but also stacks along the aisles, seemingly there because the shelves were full. Samantha began looking through titles on one shelf and Mandy was browsing another. Samantha saw a book titled "The Power In You". It was an occult book with magick spells and rituals, said to bring anything the reader desired if the spells were performed. Supposedly they were also secret and not known by many others. She decided to buy the book, as it was only three dollars. And maybe she could try one of the spells and get everything her heart desired. She went to Mandy and told her she was going up to the counter to pay for the book and Mandy came along with her. They then left the store and went to a nice little coffee shop to get lattes and talk some more.
As they were leaving the coffee shop, Samantha nearly ran over a woman wearing Gypsy garb. The woman looked her in the eye, staring with her cold dark blue eyes into Samantha's, and said "Be Carefuuuul what youuuuuu wish forrrrrr, youuuuu just might get it!" And she went russhing off. The women looked at each other and together they said"That was weird."
It was getting late and Mandy had to meet her fiancee for dinner, so the girls went back to their cars at the restaurant and got in their cars and left.

When Samantha got home she made herself a sandwich and a cup of tea and curled up on the couch to read the book she had bought that day.

Three weeks later Samantha was done reading the book and had bought the supplies she needed for a certain spell that was said to be the most powerful one in the book. It was a spell that could get you whateveer you visualized in your mind as you did the spell. It would be done during the full moon, which was next week. So, Samantha waited for the night of the full moon.

On the night of the full moon, Samantha cast a circle and called the four quarters and lit the candles on the four sides, one black, one white, one red and one green. Just like the book instructed. In the center she had a small cauldrin with the herbs and oils in it. She took a knife and started to chant the words the book provided as she sliced her palm and bled into the cauldrin, concentrating on the things she wanted most. As she was finishing the spell, a strong wind blew open her front door and blew out the candles, leaving her standing alone in a dark apartment. There was nothing that could explain that wind, no windows open anywhere, not in her apartment,not in the hallway. But, she shrugged it off and completed the ceremony, closed the circle and dismissed the four quarters like she read in the book. It was well after 2AM when she finished the whole thing And she had started at midnight. She felt exhausted when she was done, so she decided to go to bed. She went to her bed and fell fast asleep. During the night, however she had strange, vivid dreams that frightened her. She woke up and figured that it was probably an overactive imagination after doing all that mumbo jumbo.
She got ready and went to work. When she got to the newspaper, the boss asked to see her. She wondered if she had done something wrong, but that was not the case at all. He began by telling her that the lead journalist had a freak accident and had been killed and that he wanted her to be the new lead journalist, which would be a six figure job. She agreed right away. This would mean more hours and more travel, but Samantha was thrilled. This is the chance she'd been hoping for when she did the spell the night before. Not only that, but that Friday evening she met the man of her dreams while she was out on the town with her friends. Things were going exactly how she hoped they would when she performed the spell.
A couple of months later she found the perfect two story colonial and her and her new love moved in. His name was Drew and he was an artist that worked at a Gallery by day and did his artwork at night in one of the rooms they had converted to a studio. Things were perfect. But it wouldn't last long.
May had come at last and Samantha had to go back to her home town to be Mandy's maid of honour. And that was the last good thing that would happen to Samantha.
When she returned home, Drew was still at work. She unlocked the door to her house, she entered the large living room and could see straight into the kitchen as it was right behind the living room and had no wall to seperate it. There at her kitchen table were two children,a boy maybe 5, abd a girl about 4. She walked towards her table and said"How did you get in here?" And the children looked at her, then she noticed what was wrong with them. Their eyes were black and their faces pallid. They had dark circles under their eyes and dried blood on the sides if their heads. They were Dead! They were Ghosts!!! She couldn't beleive it, it was impossible, she didn't believe in those things! But, here they were, plain as day. She turned to run out, but then she heard a loud CRASH! And she turned bacj towards the kitchen... (CONT)

WHen she turned, she saw the kitchen table had been thrown across to the other side of the kitchen. And the children were under it crying"Mommy, mommy, Why did you hurt us, Why?" Then she saw now they were not ghosts, but alive and bleeding from their heads. She ran over to them and she reached out and could feel that they indeed were alive and there. 'But it's impossible.' She thought 'how could they be alive now?' And she pulled the girl out from under the table and was crying, holding her to her body. Then she heard the sirens and the cops broke down her door. They said that they were taking her away for trying to kill her children. She screamed "But, I don't have any children! I am not even married, this is a mistake!!!!" They weren't listening to her and they finally decided to put her in a mental institution for the criminally insane. The universe had gotten paid in full. Be careful when messing with something you have no understanding for.

Wow, very nice story. Great twist at the end, although it seemed a bit abbreviated. Definately a good objective lesson on the hazards of tapping into elemental forces that are not well understood. Besides, the main character needed to start small and work her way up.. (not in your story, just in general)

BTW, love the avatar of Hag there

Originally posted by rogerstigers
Wow, very nice story. Great twist at the end, although it seemed a bit abbreviated. Definately a good objective lesson on the hazards of tapping into elemental forces that are not well understood. Besides, the main character needed to start small and work her way up..

(not in your story, just in general)

BTW, love the avatar of Hag there

Thank you very kindly. Yes it is an abridged version. It was far too long to type out in entirety, and far more like a short book than a short story , but wanted to post a short story. I get an idea and it just grows so short stories are kind of difficult for me.

[edit on 1-6-2009 by ldyserenity]