Back in the early days of Kyorinrin, I was still working full time in Tech, and so my evenings and weekends were spent scouring Friends of the Library book sales (because they were usually donated from people’s collections), yard/garage sales and estate sales. Initially I dealt in antiquarian and limited run books – but my personal interest has always been occult and grimoires, and of course ephemera. And once in awhile I got lucky on eBay or local thrift stores, but not often enough for me to make a habit of checking.
One weekend, I was at estate sale, looking for antiquarian and occult books. I asked the manager of the sale if there were any old books and was directed to the library attic. Up some very rickety stairs I went to look. It was quiet because few of the estate sale attendees ventured up to the shadows in the attic where things felt unsettled and a bit scary.
I immediately noticed in the shelves and piled tomes that there were clearly grimoires in amongst the very old, very dusty books. I was about to pick one up, when a voice in my head said “don’t touch that one, it’s dangerous”.
Cautiously I asked out loud and in my head “who are you?”.
“Promise not to run and scream and I’ll show you” and then a silky black bat landed lightly on my shoulder. We looked deeply into each other’s brown eyes for a moment and I felt a lightness and warmth of heart.
He then offered “I’ll show you which books are safe if you take me with you because I don’t want to stay here – my witch passed away. No one else has seen me or could hear me and then you came. Please.”
I smiled and asked his name. “She never gave me a name, it was always just ‘bat’” he thought into my head.
“Then if you don’t mind, I’ll call you Twinkle, little bat. And I would be pleased if you would come and live with me.”
And there the deal was made. That’s how Twinkle came to be my familiar and my friend. I didn’t know at the time that Twinkle had the ability to shape shift. That came later.
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