Supernatural Taxes

39) My mom must have fought tooth and nail to get that appointment.

Atla glanced around her messy room, her eyes stopped on the second box, the one holding the research on her grimoires. The journal that she was looking for stood out like a sore thumb, it was, by far, the thickest of the bunch, thicker than it was wide, the title of the research journal was Fireworks.

"You really went overboard gran," She paged through the research, skimming an entry here or there. Just like with Fly, Ruth recorded problems as they occurred and began logging the tests and changes she made and what effect that had on the spell's properties. But around halfway through the monstrous tome the tone became a lot more hurried, the handwriting was a scrawl that was hard to make out, like Ruth's pen (or quill more likely) was shaking. Atla found the page when that started.

The spell failed, upon casting Fireworks at approximately 16:34:15 on the 1st of January the spell failed. Conditions were overcast with showers early, humidity was high, the spell was cast in a field terrain with a normal atmospheric pressure, and in the presence of one child. The intended effects were a complex arrangement of yellow and red sparkles to arrange in the form of a rooster, the failure turned the rooster into a flaming bird that skydived for the ground. Upon impacted it exploded in several heat waves and rings of fire. Exact temperature and intervals between ring bursts were unable to be recorded however second and third degree burns were contracted twelve meters away from the epicenter. The magical fire did not spread and extinguished itself within twenty seconds, the same duration as the fireworks spell was intended to last.

While reading that clinical account the scene replayed in Atla's mind perfectly, like when you were reading a great novel and just in the zone, you were no longer seeing words but instead like there was a movie playing in your head. She watched as Ruth, her gran said "Fireworks" and sparkles and lights danced around her, collecting in her palm, then with a snap of her fingers they shot upwards and made a beautiful, firey bird, Atla said, "Wow," with sparkly eyes but Ruth muttered, "That's not right... run Atla!' she dived on top of Atla who was still transfixed by the extremely lifelike bird as it nosedived for the ground. Then the crisp smell of burnt hay and clothing, her gran was next to her, smiling, "Are you okay?"

"Gran it hurts..."

"I know Atla, it's going to be fine though, everything will be fine." Water vapour was evaporating around them making everything hazy, Atla tried to move but her legs were too sore. "Come on Atla, show me a smile, when the odds are against you that's what you've got to do, a fearless smile." She remembered her gran's face a michievious smile like they were sharing a joke, even though the smell of burning clothing and meat was coming from Ruth. Atla also tried to smile, her tears made it hard to to see but she gave a weak grin.

"Yahahahaha," Ruth said, the laugh wasn't genuine , "Come on Atla, let's turn that frown upside down."

"Ya, ha, haaa," Atla tried feebly while hiccoughing, wincing and sniffling.

"No no, all wrong. How will you take over the world if you can't get your fearless laugh right, Yahahahaha!"

They did that until Atla heard shouts in the distance, people were coming for them, when she was lifted off the ground and saw her gran's blackened and bloody back she started screaming, she went under soon after.

***

Atla didn't know when she'd zoned out and stopped reading but she shook herself, she paged through the detailed analysis, a few days later and entry ended with the line, "two fundamental failures identified, more investigation needed."

She jumped about a hundred pages or so to one that was highlighted red and earmarked, it was full of page references and working notes, at the bottom of the page was, "total, 18 potentially fatal issues to be resolved in the next edition."