Thursday afternoon~
The books were being devoured fast, and Dude had found a need to consume even more. This greed for knowledge had initially startled him, but after a number of days of living at the coven house, he had grown accustomed to it. This was probably just a side effect of being brought into this strange new world a little too quickly for his liking.
Seated on a couch that had seen better days in the living room, Dude groaned after closing the last book he had to study. "Why don't I ever have the motivation to study this much on schoolwork?" he wondered, though he knew exactly why. None of what school tried to teach him was nearly this interesting, nor did it have the cultural significance to his heritage.
Having nothing left to read, he swung up onto his feet and padded over to the back door, where he expected to see Allie working somewhere in the yard or the gigantic greenhouse she almost singlehandedly maintained. He saw her on her knees by a flowerbed, practically elbow-deep in dirt and weeds she was wrangling. "Hey, Allie!" Dude called out.
"Yeah?" she answered similarly without turning around or looking over her shoulder.
"Where are some more books I can read?" he asked. Though barefoot, he picked his way across the yard via the flat stones that made up a footpath that swung around pretty close to where Allie knelt.
She sat back on her haunches and finally looked at him. "Did no one show you where the library is?"
"Kordelle did, but he told me not to go in there without someone else," Dude explained.
Allie made a face at that and rose, dusting her dirt-caked hands off on her capris. "That's dumb. As long as you don't read the books in the red bookcases or practice magic in there, you don't need anyone to go with you."
"What's in the red book shelves?" Dude blurted out before he could stop himself.
"Stuff you're not allowed to know about until you become a coven leader," Allie explained easily. "Don't worry about it, Dude. There are lots of other books in the library."
"I know-- it's huge!" he gasped, starry-eyed at just the memory he held. Magic had definitely been involved in the process of storing those books because it was way too big of a room to feasibly fit inside the outwardly small house. "So you're sure it's okay if I just go in alone?"
"Yeah, go for it!" she said brightly. "Just don't get lost, okay?"
"If I'm not back in a few hours, you'll know where to look for me," he laughed, turning and leaving her with a wave over his shoulder. The library was on the first floor, though its entrance was obscured by an illusion of moving boxes stacked up in front of it. He stepped through the false image and turned the knob, entering a world of shelves stuffed to the brim with that old paper smell that was somehow both musty and enthralling.
Dude ran a hand through his green fohawk and ruffled the dyed strands. 'Time to get to work. But what to read...?' Just browsing the stacks could take days; Dude couldn't help but be reminded of Adam's library in Beauty and the Beast every time he looked around the impossible room. Each area was labeled with a broad topic and then split into smaller, more specific categories, some of which were made up entirely of personal field journals that were hundreds of years old and probably should have been interred in a museum. He clapped his hands together once, but immediately regretted how the sharp sound cut through the air too loudly for such a serene space.
As he wandered among the rows of shelves, his black opal eyes picked out the most intriguing books, but each time he saw something that might have held his interest, their titles etched in the spines only disappointed. A Comprehensive Index of Potion Ingredients, Humanity: The Myths We Hide Behind, Hexing the Unsuspecting: A How-To Guide, Anatomy of the Ghost...
"Wait," Dude murmured, pausing in his tracks and spinning back around to return to that specific book. With barely a second thought he snatched it off of the shelf and opened it to its contents page to scan the chapter titles. "What Is 'The Ghost?', Key Components, Their Broken Psyche And Purpose, Where Do They Come From?, Us vs. Them..." he read aloud, his brow furrowing seriously. "What?"
He found the right page number and flipped to the beginning of the second chapter, which started off with a hideous diagram of a humanoid monster with sharp claws, flaming hair, a tapering tail instead of a pair of legs, and soulless, hollow eyes. As he perused the diagram, he took note of how the artist had taken a very biased stance on what made a ghost what it is. As per the author's compiled observations, the first component of a ghost was ectoplasm, which was a biological anathema to all witches' magic. Even as the book tried to pass itself off as a scholarly text, it wandered off down a tangent on how a ghost's innate power was a foil to that of a witch.
'But... I've never had any problem being around Camry before...' he thought. On that note, he settled in on the floor with the book open on his lap and began to pore studiously over the pages. He just had to know what the deal between witches and ghosts was.
~
Fan Liu, the wizened witch leader, smiled as she took in the sight of the successfully captured and subdued ghost contained in the Mason jar resting on her work table. "Very good work, Endellion. It looks like your plan is starting to take shape already."
"I've got it all figured out," he boasted, puffing his chest out triumphantly and pulling a short length of one of his blood blossoms ropes taut for added effect. "As long as my control over them doesn't waver, and as long as no one interferes, this plan should work perfectly."
"I take it that you won't want my help with this, then," Fan Liu assumed with a smile. "This is a big step for you as a witch, Endellion. I'm proud of you."
He beamed at the praise and couldn't fight the growing smile on his face. "Thank you, Fan Liu. I won't let you down, either. I know I can take care of this ghost myself."
~
By the time he closed the book in his hands, it was because he felt too queasy to continue. The final chapter of Anatomy of the Ghost had left him with even more questions, which had prompted him to go searching for the section dedicated to all things ghostly. When he finally found it all, the ratio of professionally bound books to ratty field journals had surprised him; a vast majority of what the witches knew about ghosts had come from personal observations made centuries ago.
'I hope this doesn't mean it's all outdated' he'd thought, cracking open a tome titled Notable Ghosts of the Past. A few names jumped out at him in the index, though not out of any firsthand knowledge of who or what these 'notable ghosts' were. Mostly, he looked at the ones whose names sounded the coolest. Angel Staff, Pariah Dark, Thunderbird, and Prince Aragon were among the few that he glanced at. Their biographies were simple, cataloging their powers and weaknesses detailed through stories that had been tortured out of captive ghosts. That thought alone brought an unhappy frown to Dude's face.
After he had finished flipping through that book, he moved on to another known simply as Defense. This one was a cache of spells and remedies for "taking care" of ghosts, whether a witch was up against one or an entire legion. The very first page was a map that unfolded until it was at least four feet long. Its charts were of the stars in both hemispheres, and numerous constellation groups had been circled in graphite. Hydra, Auriga, Canis Major and Minor, Monoceros, Cygnus-- their significance had to be immense if someone had singled them out on the map of such an old book.
Out of that line up, Auriga was the first alphabetically, so Dude flipped to that constellation's page with barely a second thought. The first thing he noticed about the breakdown of the stars' alignment wasn't even the explanation itself, but, rather, the squiggly symbols etched into the paper all throughout the margins. If he blurred his vision, Dude could just barely see them shift and wave at him ever so slightly.
"Just like Kordelle's notes..." he whispered, blinking multiple times to clear the spots from his eyes. "If he needed to write these so he could focus, this must be important.
"Declination... celestial equator... Winter Hexagon asterism-- what the heck does any of this mean?" he griped, his hold on the book tightening out of frustration. Was there something back at the front that would explain what this all meant? In earnest, Dude flipped to it and searched rapidly for anything that could reveal the significance of all these astronomical terms. Before he knew it, he had returned to Auriga's first pages and was disappointed in himself as well as the author.
Even so, he knew he couldn't put this book back without finding out something. Why this was the case, he couldn't exactly be sure, but his energy levels were building deep inside as he stewed over this topic. All around him, dust motes drifted on the air and the overpowering musk of the old library filled his nose. When had it gotten so abrasive? He scratched at his nose angrily, trying to relieve some of the sensation that was starting to make his skin crawl.
A small paragraph next to a drawing of the constellation caught his eye, and even though the writing was in Ancient Greek, he had absolutely no trouble in discerning its meaning now that he knew the language perfectly.
"Auriga, the Charioteer, is one of the most effective powers to channel in order to force a ghost's passing into the aether," he read aloud under his breath. "Its neighbor, Gemini, a representation of the duality between man and ghost, lends auxiliary power when Auriga is invoked. If called upon during the Aurigids or Delta Aurigids meteor shower, not even the most high-ranking ghost on the ectoplasmic plane can fight it off."
On the next page, another diagram without the illustration of the Charioteer labeled all its stars and numbered the major ones in a list from one to six: Hassaleh, Alnath, Hoedus, Capella, Theta Auriga, Menkalinan. Motions accompanied the chant, as illustrated on the opposite page, which ended in a generic representation of a ghost being struck by what appeared to be a white light. The ghost was very clearly screaming, its hands clapped over its eyes even as its body was halfway through the process of complete disintegration.
As he stared at the drawing for a moment, a slightly different picture took shape, superimposed over the textbook. This ghost was shorter, much stockier than the wraithlike stereotype Dude had seen in countless tomes already, and wore a superhero outfit made of mostly monochromatic clothing. Dude's stomach lurched suddenly and he slammed the book shut, no longer caring how loud he was being in such an offensively quiet space.
He couldn't put the book back in its place on the shelf fast enough. "What the fuck...?" he muttered, eyes wide and his head bowed as he hung onto the bookcase for support. What the hell was going on with his head all of a sudden? Had he stared at the page too long? Were those concentration sigils giving him a headache?
And... why had he envisioned Camry in that ghost's place? Was he just getting homesick and this was his brain's way of telling him that he needed a break from magic?
He clapped a hand over his eyes and let it drag down his face to rest over his mouth, which was firmly set in a frown. 'I need to get some sleep. Maybe I should go home tonight, too.'
~~
"Wait, what's the matter?"
Allie had prepared a hearty dinner for everyone to enjoy, and for once Fan Liu had decided to join them rather than take a portion down to her basement study. Her motherly if hawkish presence was unusual at the dinner table, but it was obvious by how Kordelle and Allie were smiling that they enjoyed having everyone together at the table.
However, looking down at the Crock-Pot stew steaming in the bowl before him, Dude had yet to take a bite. Suffice to say that Allie noticed. "You're not feeling sick, are you?"
"A little bit, actually," Dude admitted, resting an elbow on the table and putting his cheek in his hand.
"You might have caught The Haze," Fan Liu suggested, her gravelly voice taking on a tone of seriousness. "I've seen how hard at work you've been for the past week, but you can overload your conduit that way."
"I dunno... I think my magic's fine," Dude said softly. "Maybe it's cabin fever..."
"Are you thinking of going back home a little early?" Kordelle guessed, hitting the nail on the head as per the usual.
"Maybe," Dude murmured, picking up his spoon and taking a bite. The food was good, as was all of Allie's cooking, but it didn't carry that taste of home that he had grown to miss. "I mean, I dunno. They probably are missing me at home."
"Won't your mom ask questions if you come back early?" Kordelle pointed out between casually blowing on a spoonful of stew.
"Hmm..." Dude hummed. The forefront of his brain was still so preoccupied by that vision from before that it didn't occur to him that his mother shouldn't have any reason to know exactly when he was planning on coming home. On that same note, how had she been so casual during their phone conversation the day before, anyway? He had literally disappeared in the middle of the night and only vaguely hinted at where he might be, giving no solid details whatsoever. "I guess she might... I can make up something though. A stomach bug?"
"If you are leaving, be sure to take some cleanser with you," Allie said, using one hand to hide the half-chewed food in her mouth. "Just in case."
"For sure," he agreed.
"I'll walk you home, then," Kordelle offered. "When you're ready to go. I know there are a few things I need to tell you about before you go back home."
There was no point in objecting, and the thought of not having to walk alone brightened Dude's spirits a bit. Knowing that it was going to be his last meal in the house for at least a while, he tucked in with a bit more gusto and polished off his bowl in no time. Roughly half an hour later, all packed up and ready to go, Dude waved goodbye to Fan Liu and Allie and thanked them for everything. "I'll come back soon. I promise."
"I can't wait!" Allie said, a hopeful smile on her young face. "I've gotta show you the greenhouse when the weather gets warmer-- there'll be a ton of new plants, which means there'll be new spells and potions I can show you!"
"Sweet!" Dude cheered. "Now I can't wait either! See you soon, okay?"
"Bye~!" Allie called out. The front door clicked shut, sealing off the inside of the house entirely.
A pleasantly cool breeze wafted by as the two teens started on their way down the path that led to the rarely-traveled street. By then, Dude knew not to talk about magic outside of the safe house, so their conversations were a bit on the sparse side. Whenever he tried to think of a safe topic, he turned up something that petered out quickly.
"... Is something the matter?" he eventually asked after they disembarked from the L-Tram at the station nearest to Dude's apartment complex. "You've been really quiet."
Kordelle shrugged minimally and didn't meet the other boy's eyes very eagerly. "It's nothing, mate. Just... I'm thinking. There's a meteor shower coming up tomorrow night, and it can mess with-- well, you know. The house already has plenty of protective seals all around it, but your apartment has nothing."
"You think something's going to happen if there aren't any seals on my house?" Dude queried.
"It's possible," Kordelle answered, a pensive frown on his lips. "Maybe I should put some up before I leave. Just in case, of course."
Dude readjusted his the lapels of his well-loved jacket and stuffed his hands into his pockets. "It's cool with me, man. And hey, you can show me and my sister how it's done! I bet she'd love that."
"Sure," he agreed. Kordelle followed along mutely as Dude led the way to the third floor and the right door, which was about a dozen doors away from the elevator. His impressively active brain made small mental notes as he scanned the scenes, judging where exactly would be the best places for the ancient runes he would soon be drawing.
Dude's key clicked open the door, and with an overly enthusiastic flourish he welcomed his new friend into his family's cluttered apartment. "Sorry about it being a little on the messy side," he apologized awkwardly. "I was supposed to do some cleaning, but, uh, you know. I was elsewhere."
"It's alright," Kordelle assured him. "Besides, a messier place means there are more hiding spots for runes. But where are your mom and sister?"
That was an excellent point; all the lights in the house were off, and save for the struggling hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen, all was silent throughout the apartment. "I dunno," Dude said. "Hang on, I'm gonna go take a look around. Go ahead and get started on the runes if you want, 'kay?" He slid his shoes off with a practiced fluidity and padded out of sight, presumably to check the bedrooms as well as the rest of the house. Meanwhile, Kordelle crouched down next to the front door's frame and pulled a white wax pencil out of his pocket. He got to work quickly, etching the jagged, near-invisible runes into the shadows around the main entrance.
Dude returned on less than silent feet and leaned over Kordelle's shoulder, resting his chin on the available space there. "Whatcha doin'?"
"Just the preliminary runes," he said without even a hitch in his scrawling. "The main door is the most important one to protect. Then, I'll put a rune in the corner of every room, which should do the trick. It's kind of a simpler version of what the coven's house has."
"Oh, neat," Dude commented breezily. "Can I help?"
"That's okay," Kordelle said. "Just watch. It'll take less time if I just show you how it's done."
The entire process only took about twenty minutes and involved a good bit more teamwork than Kordelle had expected as, even though he was roughly six-foot-even in height, the apartment's nooks and crannies were difficult to reach without at least a little of Dude's assistance. Still, twenty minutes and three pencil sharpenings later, the wax seals were in place and taking silent, undetected effect.
"Cool!" Dude cheered. "What exactly are these seals gonna protect against?"
"Ghosts trying to break in, mostly," Kordelle answered easily. "But they should also counteract different natural phenomena, too, like meteor showers and ley line fluctuations. I'll teach you about those another time, though."
"Oh, uh, okay," he said before disguising his discomfort with a cough. They would keep ghosts out, huh? Even a half-ghost like Camry? Neither she nor Saoirse had ever been to his house before, but they had been planning on some sort of eventual party together; that clearly wouldn't be possible if the house itself kept Camry from coming in. "Sounds good to me."
"Well, I'd better get going before it gets any darker," Kordelle noted. "Try to stay inside as much as possible until the meteor shower is over, okay? That should be this Saturday evening."
Dude clapped a hand on the taller boy's shoulder. "Thanks for everything, Kory. I'll see you in class, huh?"
"For sure," Kordelle agreed, then gasped ever so slightly when the minimal contact turned into a big bear hug. How in the world did Dude's skinny arms have so much deceptive strength in them? For the lack of physical contact that Kordelle was used to and comfortable with, this was... unexpected. Dude smelled like the evening air and eucalyptus soap.
"'Kay!" Dude said brightly as he pulled away. "See ya 'round, Kory."
"Bye," Kordelle answered, letting himself out and gently closing the door behind him.
However, before he started the journey back home, he pulled the wax pencil out of his pocket once more and scratched one more seal at the top of the door frame, then placed his right middle and ring fingers against it for all of three seconds. At his touch, it began to glow with a faint aqua blue light that faded the second he pulled away. He drew his hand back to his chest and let out a sigh. The pencil and both of his hands went into his pockets, and with his head bent forward slightly in determination, he began to hurry down the hall.
'Sorry for lying to you, Dude, but this is important. You can't know what I'm doing until it's already done. I know you'll thank me for this later, after she's not around to pull the wool over your eyes anymore.'
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I am SO SORRY for how late this is! At least it's summer now, and I've got my writing spark back!
Please leave me comments! They're very precious and always encourage me to write even more for you guys! Thanks!