Rosehill Manor sits comfortably between the Northern Woods and Catskill cult country, so you could imagine my nights are rather busy tending to the craft’s menial sublimities. Invocations, blood magic, and casting keep me satisfied through the midnight hours, but the days have become unbearable. I’d forfeited ever finding solace in the light, but fate changed for the better when I found you in the attic tucked between Mother’s old mirrors and lace delicates; the better half of your pages filled with illegible doodles I regard as nothing more than forgotten magical praxis. If I found grimoires necessary to magic, I would consecrate the bindings, but oral traditions are more suitable for a witch. Truthfully, I’ve decided to document my days; I fear suffering from an untimely death in a horrid sanitorium, therefore I must record my lively tendencies while I am allocated such time. 

Monday was prodigious! Mother went into town and bought me a striking blue dress with a white and gold sash. I begged for Mary Jane’s for all our widowed pairs, but she refused, saying they would make me look twice my age. 

Tuesday was glee! After lunch it began to pour, so I wore the new raincoat Mother bought me. The yellow and white polka dotted plastic clashed grimly with my dress, but Mother didn’t say a word and Father has been buried in Scotch and Hemingway since last Tuesday. My wrangler, Patrice, showed me how to properly stomp a puddle. She gave way to her umbrella and scarf to hop in the nearest bit of water. Her stockings were ripped and dirty and she made a fool of herself, but I surrendered a smile to her playful ways.

Wednesday was a chore. Mother was out of the house, Father couldn’t find himself, and Patrice's cat died- my sincere condolences-, so I thought I would be able to do something particularly necromantic, but due to the previous day’s downpour, sun was to be promised for the remainder of the week. What a waste! I detest practicing when the sun makes its seemingly eternal rounds. Not to mention, my blue dress started to wrinkle, so Mother was bound to notice and whisk it away to a steaming board. Therefore, on that sunny Wednesday evening, I put my mandrake and mugwort away, and prayed on God’s all seeing day that Mother would turn a blind eye to the wrinkly blue fabric.

Thursday was strenuous. The blue on my dress started to fade and the gold and white sash ripped. Father couldnt locate Hemmingway, so he drank Scotch, and Patrice committed suicide, due to the loss of her imp—cat. On any given Wednesday, Patrice would bring her friendly calico to the house and let it drink from milk filled saucers, while her Familiar Spirit lingered in our light fixtures.

 It was never confirmed (nobody dared to ask) if our late Patrice was a witch, but I had my hopes that I wasn’t the only practitioner in our Queen Anne home. It can be quite rusticly boring at times, I find myself making conversation with Tibullus Time (a pet name for the grandfather clock in our parlor). Each morning and afternoon, he smiles at 10:10 and I make sure to make an appearance to witness his happy hands; that’s where I saw Patrice admiring him too. We didn’t speak and departed sixty seconds after his smile faded, to ensure nobody winded back the hands. I will miss Patrice and her imp.

Friday brought with it a miry morning. The rain resumed and mother died from choking on a medicine bottle. She was a foolish woman and must have forgotten to unscrew the lid and just swallowed the damn thing whole. 

Saturday was penny dreadful, both literally and figuratively. Time revealed our funds were tied to this house plagued by tiffany chandeliers and victorian stained glass windows. Father refused to sell his limited edition copy of For Whom The Bell Tolls, so Mother was still lying on the bathroom floor where she dropped dead all those hours ago. How morbid! There was a beautiful bathroom rug with a spread of printed peonies entangled under her fingernails; Patrice will have to replace it.  There’s nothing more a woman such as Mother, erected from New England tradition and Christain tidings, hates more than a naked floor. 

Sunday came quite timely. Wherever Mother went, the scent of blooming magnolia trees followed close behind, though she always prefered a billowing willow, with plenty of leaping spiders insight. Religious pretext would normally send her on a tryade of yellow fabrics that would tie around her waist just right, topped off with an overly southern architecture of magnolia scents to christen her wrists, but the dead tend to not be avid church goers. 

 Father thought Mother looked sickly, so naturally he called a physician. Pivoting the subject, even as a toddler, I was fascinated by cadaveric particles and molten monsters. On occasion,  Patrice would regale me in stories from her time as a diener. After one of Father’s particularly disagreeable sisters died, Patrice told me, A body off ice stays well and good for only so long, puer pythonissam. It’s their soul you pray doesn’t sour, ruining the heart of the house. Not to mention your dinner guests’ precarious fantasies. 

Mother’s blood had yet to turn and her hands were still very much married to the peonie bathroom rug, but it’s the impending thought of soul-preservation that still consumes me entirely. 

As I walked down our banister, dragging my fingers along the tough wood, I was met with abrupt silence that overpowered the dust bunnies that frolocked in Rosehill’s bookshelves. Once they’ve adapted to our infinite number of doors and walled gardens, spirits seem to lose all meaning of a clean home.

Later that afternoon, the physician pronounced Mother dead, condemning himself to an impalpable afterlife. At nightfall, I cremated Mother in the incinerator down stairs. Three hours and one very long burn later, she was ready for her proper ascentation. From ashes to ashes she would recite to me. I do apologize for my insensitivity towards Chritstain belief, but my interpretation of her wise words hold no liturgical euphony, but rather Traditional preference. 

 I contemplated salting the earth and sprinkling her remains into a ravine, but finding God in a gullie is far from a time well sent in the afterlife. After many hours of contemplation, I laid her to rest in Tibullus Time. A clock with reason is far more respectable than one of timely use.

  At 10:11, Patrice joined me to ensure the minute hand wasn’t cryptically turned backwards. Even in death, house rules still apply to all guests. 

“Let me wash your dress puer pythonissam. It’s starting to rot.” 

“That would be lovely, thank you Patrice… Oh, and Patrice?

“Hm?”

“Could you run into town and find Mother a new bathroom rug? Peonies are preferable.”

“Certainly Ms. Merna.”