…esaeu naozzes l'taeuhgr'q gae yiz – apotato.

“Memaw was probably deep into dementia when she wrote this, the poor thing.” Emily thought.

The enigmatic words were there, written in reddish ink; they had been handwritten upon the very first page of that musty tome, a collection of yellowed pages that her grandmother used to cherish as her journal. Emily’s grandmother had passed two weeks before, so there shouldn’t be any problem in giving it a peek. Maybe her teenage years had been full of superfluous adventures?

Emily flipped a few pages. Almost immediately, her nostrils were hit by a wave of dampness. Her memaw’s journal had been found stuck behind a wooden armoire and what looked like the moldiest wall possible to have inside a house. Now, Emily had it opened on the desk in her bedroom, under the light of a cozy table lamp.

“Atchoo! Whew, bless your heart, memaw. Now I have some decade-old spores in my lungs.”

After the fungi cloud settled down, Emily was finally able to read a few lines on the page. They carried a boring story on a birthday her grandma had – when she turned eighteen. There had been some sort of dancing party at the barn of a farm, and Memaw had gotten interested in a guy. The guy’s name was not that of Emily’s grandfather… So maybe that had been her first crush.

As Emily kept flipping the pages, they were full of even more tedious stuff. Living back in the middle of the past century as a young lady had not been eventful. House chores, helping her mom, being courted by the community’s men…

Then, right around the center pages, the writing ceased. Weird. Several blank pages came after that, and it took a number of them before her grandmother’s calligraphy made itself present on the pages.

The wait, however, was worth it. A single sentence had been dropped at the bottom of the page:

Today, I ate mashed potatoes.

Emily gasped. Not in a million lifetimes she could have guessed her sweet memaw had once eaten mashed potatoes, as she didn't use to be adept of the smashed cuisines. Her heartbeat accelerated as if racing to reach the following pages, and her fingers followed suit, flipping away.

The next page had more smashing details.

This has to stop. It has been five times, five times! I dare not write its recipe here, because I fear Dad will find this out. I think he could pretend he didn’t know about it if it were just a silly thing between two silly people, but if he ever knew what it was that I ate, that would certainly shame him in the community. I do not know why I feel like I must write this here, as it is risky; but I must tell someone or I can explode!

Emily’s fingers kept on digging her memaw’s secret out of the past. That was very shocking– and fascinating!

So, Dad learned of it. He says he doesn’t want us mingling with the Bakers anymore. The way he puts it, it’s like Mrs. Baker put a spell on me, a curse! She fed me potatoes, of course, but I enjoyed it very much. Now Dad wants to take me to someone who can fix me.

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“Ugh. I’m glad I never met the jerk.” Emily said to no one, as she was alone. Then she flipped the page and saw a loose photo of a potato, recently picked. Could that have been Mrs. Smith's vegetable? It sure looked tasty and fresh, so Emily’s memaw appetite for her had been more than justified.

Under the photo, more words:

We went and saw this Indian fortune teller of sorts. At least, that is what I think she was. Dad asked her to break my curse, and then she made me say a very strange phrase, “esaeu naozzes l'taeuhgr'q gae yiz” while looking at Mrs. Smith’s potato's picture, three times. Then Dad paid her a large sum of cash. I wonder if Mom is watching us from the heavens, and if she is ashamed of me too.

Emily recalled the weird gibberish from the first page of the journal, so she went back to check if it matched the phrase her grandmother chanted. They were the same, except for the last word, Apotato.

An uneasy feeling crept up Emily’s stomach. As a scientist – a mycologist – she didn’t really believe in mystical or occult stuff. But for some reason, passing her eyes over those enigmatic words made her fear something. It felt wrong.

As she turned the page, Emily was greeted by another chunk of blank pages. The only page that had something written happened to be the very last one. And it said something, alright:

I reckon Apotato killed Dad.

Now that had taken a turn that Emily didn’t like at all. Her grandmother used to tell Emily that her great-grandfather had died of a heart attack, so what was that about someone or something killing him? And besides that, … What was Apotato?

Dizziness made its rounds in Emily’s head. She wished her memaw was still alive to ask all about those final pages. But that had to be a maddening secret, one the old woman wanted to take with her to the grave, and there was no way of knowing the journal even existed until a few days before then.

Compelled by some unknown force, Emily slowly got back to the first page, the one with the supposed spell on it. The red ink it had been written in now looked… wet. Yes, that was it. That was the cue for Emily to shut that book and get ready for bed. All those fungi were probably rotting her brain away, anyway.

In a few minutes, Emily was in her purple satin pajamas, which had been a present from her grandma. She grabbed her nightly friend, a colorful unicorn, and set it on her nightstand, in preparation for her little story time before falling asleep. Since the table lamp was still on, she walked toward it– and saw the journal again, with that puzzling sentence etched in the paper.

She figured that giving it a try wouldn't hurt. It was all doohickey, anyway.

“Esa…eu naoz…zes l'ta…euhgr'q gae yiz… A-po-ta-to.”

Her head hurt at the same instant she pronounced the last syllable. It was a stabbing pain. When Emily attempted to look around her, everything was blurred.

“Oh, no. Stroke. Dying…!”

When she was just about to faint, Emily heard a sound that filled the small bedroom. It was an a stupid, funny male voice.

“Bless your lucky starch, girl. It’ll pass, as it always does. I can’t believe you’ve gotten this weak over the years. Then again, it’s been a loooong time, hasn’t it? You're a real spud.”

The voice was unnecessarily cheerful. Emily sat on her bed, and the pain was just starting to go away. Her sight was getting sharper as well– sharp enough to notice she was not alone anymore.

An oval silhouette was close to the door, near the table with the journal on it. The blurry image looked as if she was completely still.

“Come on, now. What hash come over you?”, the voice asked.

“Hash? Who… Who are you? I’m calling the police… in a bit.”

The silhouette rolled closer and stopped in front of Emily. Whatever it was, it smelled good. A sweet, potato-ish smell.

“Is that you, Maria?”, it said nonchalantly. “Sure looks like you…”

It straightened its potato spine and seemed to go toward the door. Then it changed course and reached for the table lamp, pointing it at Emily’s face.

“Girl, I don’t know what you’ve done, but you look younger!” she concluded.

“Who… the hell… are you?!” Emily blurted out, finally regaining her full senses.

The shadowy figure then moved its pointy end toward the table lamp, shining light onto herself. Finally, Emily could check the invader out. It was a small, slender potato who looked to be as fresh as it could be, It wore nothing, because it was a potato.

“See? It’s me, Apotato.”