A disturbing secret

Zoe entered the imposing mansion, closing the tall gates behind her. She slid the keys into the lock of the dark red wooden door and twisted, pushing it open and stepping inside.

Zoe flicked on a light switch, as well as the fan switch that started the big wall fan on the ceiling to bring in much needed air circulation in the stuffy house.

Zoe looked around the wide room. She had rarely visited her grandmother's place, her grandmother choosing to visit her instead. The last time she had visited was 9 years ago, when she was 14.

For the most part, the interior hadn't changed. Smooth wooden floors, white fur rugs, and beige walls with segmented designs. The mansion was 1 story, but it was wide and had a a huge basement, which was where Zoe wanted to go.

Making her way to the basement, Zoe left the big basement doors open, wanting to have easy access in taking useful and valuable items out.

Down in the basement, Zoe flicked on the neon lights, the fixtures humming as they increased in brightness, glowing white and rendering the vast musty space visible.

Zoe dug around a few boxes at the front, stepping over other smaller boxes on the floor.

"Beethoven... Vivaldi..." Zoe read out the covers as she flipped through the big box containing various record vinyls. "These are so old fashioned, but I bet collectors would love 'em." Zoe had always thought her grandmother a bit of a dinosaur, even having a record player in the mansion that was still used from time to time even though smartphones and computers could play classical music and more.

"These could be useful." Zoe placed the box to the side near the entrance, before going deeper in.

"Is that... A cauldron?" Zoe eyed the black mass that was inhabiting the very back of the basement room, stepping over more stuff to find out that it was!

"The hell is a cauldron doing here?" Zoe eyed the object curiously, noticing the layer of dust as she looked to the sides for any other weird objects.

At the side was a box of books, a particular one with a dark red colour and extremely yellowed page sticking out.

Zoe felt even more curious and compelled, leaning down as much as she could before her wide fat ass bumped into anything at the back and taking the red book out, coughing as a puff of dust was released into the air.

"This looks ancient..." Zoe held the book carefully, dust staining her hands and feeling like it could crumble at the slightest wrong touch.

The mysterious book's cover was marked with gold lines, thick with yellowed old pages, and had words stencilled in the front and center with faded gold lettering:

ADVANCED GRIMOIRE

Zoe blinked to make sure she was seeing it right. Grimoire? Wasn't it the stuff witches and wizards in movies used to catalog spells?

Zoe flipped through the ancient pages, ignoring the dust entering her nose as she looked upon various instructions and guides inked in dark letters, with some pages illustrating strange ingredients or symbols.

"This can't be real!" Zoe was in disbelief and trying to laugh it off, putting the book down and looking through a black one titled "The essential witch's spellbook", detailing much of the same things.

"These are just... Props, right?" Zoe tried to rationalize, before she stopped on a grey book with bright gold lettering in the title.

THE ART OF IMMORTALITY

Within the book was a piece of black ribbon acting as a bookmark and a scroll at the side, tied up together with rope.

Dying to know more, Zoe Menny undid the rope and quietly flipped open to the bookmarked page, starting to read a bit.

Method 41: Spirit and body duplication (risk level: extremely high)

First performed by Weradueg the elder in 1038 AD, this is an extremely potent spell, not for novice witches and wizards.

Due to the extremely dangerous nature of this magic, it is recommended that those performing have revival methods on hand.

If the spell works, it will enable the caster to gain immortality by ensuring the next of kin will resemble the caster in appearance and speech, with a tiny piece of the caster's soul residing in each subsequent offspring down the family line to ensure that the original caster will never truly "die".

Below were long and arduous instructions of the steps to take and rites to perform, yet Zoe barely read any of it, her mind still in a state of shock.

With trembling hands, she picked up the rolled-up scroll (which looked less dusty than the other books) and unfurled it, gasping at the contents.

MENNIUS FAMILY TREE

The first few entries were normal, either having no pictures or drawn portraits. This continued until it came to the picture of Zoe's 6th great grandmother.

She looked exactly just like Zoe, a mirror image staring right back at her.

Down the line, the family surname changed to "Menny", the subsequent ancestors each bearing an incredibly uncanny resemblance to Zoe. Scratch that, they all practically looked the same.

Finally, Zoe came down to the end of the line. It was a picture of her grandmother, looking exactly like her, then her mother, and stuck on the end was Zoe herself, picture taken from her 12th birthday and already looking set to grow up into the many women with Zoe's face looking back at her.

"The hell?!" Zoe was officially freaked out now.