Disclaimer: All the characters from the "Magnificent Seven" T.V. series are property of Trilogy Entertainment, The Mirisch Group, MGM Worldwide.
Books are odd things.
Sometimes touted as the greatest expression of human achievement, their reputation is also mired by the fact that no stain on civilisation can be forgotten so long as it is recorded in the pages of a book. A book is a different thing to different people, it can expand the mind to boundaries beyond comprehension or seal it off irrevocably through content and dogma. Throughout the ages, there seemed to be some mythology associated with paper for books were made no other way. There was a permanence in seeing ink, no matter what its substance, seeping into the rough surface, etching itself into the mind with as much totality as it did into paper.
There are also books that are held sacred and hidden in dark places where none may consult who do not know the proper ritual to access what is contained in its yellowed pages. Through time and possession, these are kept secreted away from men by its authors, for reasons inexplicable to all but themselves. Such books contain secrets best forgotten by all and yet from time to time, they seem to surface in order to fall into the hands of those who have no idea what it is they have stumbled upon.
Such books are usually called Books of Shadow.
Sometimes known as Grimoires, the secrets contained within speak of things incredible and yet terrifying. They are not merely recordings of past times but are instead gateways to the worlds that is hidden within the mists, known only to the select few who are able to cross the threshold. They exists as windows to all forbidden knowledge, best forgotten by those who are unable to appreciate that reality bends as easily as light might do so on a sheet of glass. It takes skill to understand what is contained within a Grimoire. Certainly, its authors understood that and riddled their writings with cryptic and fanciful words, designed to addle the minds of the uniformed and yet accessible to those who knew the craft.
The Grimoire that travelled from the old continent to the New World certainly had as auspicious a pedigree as any written throughout the ages. Its author had been a genuine practitioner of the craft, a man who was a mage in every sense of the word. Written in the time before Christianity paralysed the world and made anything it did not understand a sin, the Grimoire held the knowledge of the craft from its more basic spells to the more grandiose enchantments that could see the heavens shake upon conjuring. It fell into the hands of many owners, some good, some bad, some who sought to learn and some who sought to abuse.
The Grimoire itself held no malevolence or enlightenment, it simply was what it was.
For most of its existence in the new world, it was considered little more than a family heirloom, an oddity to be kept in a box in someone's attic, never considered further beyond the knowledge of its being. It sat inside its confines, a benign power awaiting release by those who had no idea of what its pages contained, what those words written in old script was meant to signify. It was not to say that it never reached the hands of those who knew exactly what it was and exploited the forbidden writings trapped within its pages. In those occasions, there were usually terrible consequences for those who sought to dabble in the arcane especially when non-believers, usually puritanical Christians, learnt of these attempts. Death and destruction usually followed, leaving a stain of violence that left neither side unscathed. Eventually, the Grimoire fell into the hands of a pastor who knew what it was but could never bring himself to destroy it.
The book knew how to protect itself.
Being a man of the cloth who felt it a mortal sin to even possess such a thing, he could never understand why the resolve to rid himself of it never came and so it remained locked in trunk, forgotten. It remained in the pastor's keeping who never told anyone of its existence and the trunk continued to gather dust over the years, keeping its greatest secret locked inside its wooden confines. It remained anonymous as long as the house was occupied by the pastor's kin, unseen and lost as the generations continued to thrive with the years until finally one day, a widow wishing to make a new start in a new place, chose to sell up and move away.
The woman, who was in herself as unique a specimen as the Grimoire she unknowing had in her possession, had surveyed the attic where the trunk had been secreted for so long and at last noticed this relic from her family's history. With a girl child beside her, both that managed to prise open the rusted lock that kept the box sealed and released air that had been locked away for more than a century.
The woman, scholarly that she was, saw it as a book of spells from a time where people were foolish enough to believe in such superstition. She examined it without much scrutiny, her fascination lasting no longer than the realisation that it had been in her family's possession for a long time and that she would not be the one to discard it. It was an oddity to her at best and she tucked it away with the rest of the possessions that would make the exodus with her into a new life.
However, the girl child found the book to be more than just a bit of curiosity. As her small fingers scanned the pages before her, she found her mind expanding to the idea that nothing was as set in stone as she believed. Her mother had always said that the world was an arena of unlimited possibilities and until she read the first lines in the Grimoire, had no idea how true that could be.
She scoured its pages with youthful eagerness, unaware of that what she was learning had power to change her irrevocably, caring only that a new world had opened up for her and it was a world through which only she had passage. Her mother saw no reason to discourage her, making an attempt to explain that what was in those old pages of faded ink were not real and merely a collection of old wives tales. Never one to impede her child's desire to learn anything, she allowed the girl child freedom to explore this interest. However she was mindful of how the more Christian members of the community might react to this and offered the child a hint of warning regarding to whom she should exposed this new hobby. Besides, she had greater things to concern herself with at the present time then to concern herself with her child's extra curricular interests.
With a husband not long into the ground and the town that they resided offering nothing but sad memories of a life now gone forever, she had made the decision that it was time to leave. Finding a position in her line of work had never been difficult but finding a place had been. She was not a conventional woman in any sense of the word. She loved life and she loved living it to its fullest, her husband understood that and until the fever took him away forever, she had never thought any reason to think she would ever have to evaluate how she lived. Her husband had accommodated her eccentricities just as she now tolerated her young daughter's fascination with the strange book she had found. However, while he had always played the stabilising influence in their family, she found it disconcerting that the role now fell to her and the decision to leave was based much on that reason.
It was no easy thing leaving behind all she knew but then nothing ever was. As the winter arrived, it was a symbolic ending not only to the year that had been but also to the life she had lived in a town that was quickly sliding into the shadows of yesteryear. As everything treasured that would make the journey with them was loaded into their wagon, she and her daughter left their entire world behind and embarked on a journey into the unknown.
Almost as unknown as what was contained in the Grimoire that went with them.