Days passed, and Elijah catalogued hundreds of books, and scanned the title pages of dozens of foreign-language books to post online. He got feedback from the forums translating many of them – some the ones in languages he hadn’t recognized turned out to be in Finnish, Hungarian, Japanese and Hindi – but there was one language, not written in the Latin alphabet, that no one could identify. There were over a dozen books in that writing system, but after posting two of the title pages and getting baffled responses, he didn’t bother scanning the title pages of the others right away. He turned his attention to the books he could catalogue.
He got in the habit of going for a short walk most mornings before breakfast, either on the road or in the woods near the house. There were a couple of clear trails branching off from the yard at different points that meandered around and intersected a couple of hundred feet from the house.
Toward the end of the week, Casey told him he was going to Raleigh for a few days and would be back around Tuesday of the following week. He left right after breakfast on Saturday. Elijah was free for the weekend, and he spent most of it exploring the library more informally, picking out books that looked interesting, reading a few pages here and there, and figuring out what he wanted to read in full at some point during the summer. After lunch, he called Monica and talked with her for half an hour.
Saturday evening, as he was getting ready for bed, his eyes automatically scanned over the shelves in his bedroom, as they’d done before. But this time, he noticed a book that seemed to be in that language no one could identify. All the others in that language had been shelved together in the office. Elijah figured he might as well go put it with the others while he was thinking about it. He picked it off the shelf and walked down the hall to the office. Then, as he bent down to slide it into the shelf next to the others, he did a double-take. It wasn’t in a foreign language at all, but in English:
A Novice’s First Spell-Book
There was no author’s name or publisher’s name on the cover. He opened to the copyright and title pages. The copyright page simply said:
First edition, 1462.
Eight thousand four hundred and first edition printed for Elijah Patrick Hudnall, May 18, 2019.
The title page repeated the title on the cover, still giving no author’s name.
He flipped through the book. The introduction and first chapter were in English, but after that, it was still in that unknown language. Elijah’s heart beat fast.
“This can’t be real,” he murmured. “Casey had it printed as a joke…”
But how would he have known Elijah would notice it just now, before May 18 was over? And how would he have made it look like it was in that unknown language at first, then change to English? He closed it and tilted the cover back and forth, hoping it was like those holograms that changed their image based on what angle you viewed them at, but no. It was worse than that. Since he’d opened the book to look at the title page, the binding had changed. It had looked like an early twentieth century book when he’d first picked it up. Now it looked like a modern hardback, fresh off the press. The title had changed to A First Spellbook for Beginners, and it was in a different typeface – and the hyphen in “Spell-Book” was gone.
He sat down hard on the floor, stunned. It was real magic. But – in stories, magic might be okay. It worked all kinds of different ways in stories, most of which didn’t require you to make deals with demons or other evil spirits. But in the real world? He’d been taught there were divine miracles and diabolical miracles, both extremely rare, and he was pretty sure this wasn’t the former.
Against his better judgment, he turned to the introduction and began reading:
The editors hope that this new edition will suit you, Miss Hudnall, as well as its previous editions have suited other students since the individuation program began in 1846…
He shut the book again. No. This couldn’t be happening. And if it was, he shouldn’t read any further. He’d set it aside and if the book was still acting weird in the morning, he’d figure out what to do with it after getting back from church. He’d be better prepared then to resist whatever temptation it might entail.
But though he’d intended to stick it onto the shelf next to the other books in that language – other spellbooks? – he found, when he got back to his bedroom, that it was still in his hand. He put it on the shelf where he’d found it and went to bed, but didn’t fall asleep for a long time.
When he sat up in bed the next morning, his eyes shot to the book where he’d shelved it the night before. It still had the same binding and its title was still in the same typeface. He resolved not to touch it again until after church.
That resolve held until he got out of the shower. His eyes kept drifting to the book while he got dressed, and finally he picked it up and took it with him to the kitchen, setting it on the table while he poured himself a bowl of cereal. He knew he shouldn’t read a book that didn’t belong to him while eating; too much risk of spilling stuff on the pages and staining them… his parents had drilled that etiquette into him with library books as a child. But somehow he couldn’t put off reading it. Was it some sinister influence the book had over his mind? Or just the natural excitement and curiosity of finding what seemed to be real magic, like in the stories he’d read?
The editors hope that this new edition will suit you, Miss Hudnall, as well as its previous editions have suited other students since the individuation program began in 1846.
That was weird. If the “editors” that had created the book, or rewritten the contents of an existing book, knew his name and when he would find the book, why couldn’t they get his gender right? (And why did being called “Miss” feel kind of nice?)
You will find a series of spells ideally tailored to your experiences, talents, and needs, carefully sequenced to grow your skill and power to the point you will be able to identify and read more advanced spellbooks. In accordance with your preferences, we have not included any spells that require the assistance of entities of other realms. If you change your mind later, you can explore that branch of magic in more advanced texts.
Each chapter will teach you a few basic spells, beginning with the easiest and gradually introducing…
Well, that didn’t sound too bad. It sounded like they, whoever the editors were, knew he didn’t want any part of dealing with demons, and had included only spells that didn’t involve doing that? But that raised the question of who the editors were, and how they knew about him. And whether he could trust them.
He finished the introduction, which was only a couple of pages, and read a few pages of chapter one while he finished his breakfast. It was time to go. He went and put the book in his bedroom again, then got his shoes on and left for church.
Most of the people around his age were students at Appalachian State, and had left for the summer by now, but there were a couple of other grad students staying over the summer and he knew a few older people as well. He chatted with them after the service and told them about his internship, but stopped short when he was about to confide in them about the book. Could he expect them to believe him, when they hadn’t seen the thing change the way he had? He could have brought it to show them, but… it seemed wrong to take the book out of his employer’s house. It belonged to Casey. He’d have to tell him about it when he got back on Tuesday.
And maybe, by then, he’d have some proof besides an unusual book that might, he unconvincingly told himself, have been printed on demand as a hoax.
When he got back to the house, he changed into casual clothes, then retrieved the book and studied more of Chapter One while he ate lunch. It outlined the different branches of magic, and gave a beginner spell for three of the seven branches. Only one of the branches, apparently, involved making contact with what the book called creatures from other realms, and Elijah inferred were demons. It was creepy, but supposedly the only spells given at the end of the chapter involved no contact with demons. One was the standard beginner spell in the field of flesh magic, which involved enhancing or changing your own body or, at more advanced levels, other people’s or animals’. It let you grow your hair or nails a specified amount in under a minute. That didn’t sound particularly useful for a man, but Elijah would apparently have to master it to get the later chapters to decrypt and show him how to enhance his night vision, heal wounds or infections, build muscle faster with less exercise, and other useful things. He could try casting that, grow his hair out just enough to verify that the spell worked, then go into town and get it cut before Casey returned… unless he wanted to cast it in front of his employer and let him watch his hair grow? That sounded embarrassing, even though Casey had long hair himself.
The next sounded better for demonstration purposes; it was basically an omnidirectional flashlight, something that made any small object you cast it on glow with a soft light for hours (the exact time being inversely proportional to its surface area). It would open up further spells in the field of energy manipulation.
The third would allow you to find a particular passage in a book you had in mind. It had to be a book you’d read before, with a passage you could remember the gist of but couldn’t necessarily remember which page it was on or which chapter it was in. That would open up further spells related to knowledge and information. It wasn’t clear how it would work from the brief description; unless it made the pages turn by themselves and the text glow or something, if it just made you suddenly remember what page the passage you were looking for was on, it wouldn’t be much use for demonstrating magic to his boss.
Well, he had time to test all of them before Casey returned. Though who knew how long it might take to master them so he could cast them at will – the book made it sound like most beginners had to cast a spell several times before it started working for them, and then a number of times more before they could consistently make it work every time. He went and rummaged in the desk drawers until he found a measuring tape, then went to the bathroom, looked in the mirror, and measured his hair at the front and sides. Then he started casting the first spell, tracing the symbols in the book on his forehead and thinking, “I want my hair to grow two inches.”
Nothing happened.
He tried again and again, and still nothing happened. But the fourth time, he felt something – a sort of tingling along his left side. He looked in the mirror and measured his hair; no growth. But it was something. He felt like he was on the right track. He cast again and again, getting the tingling sensation again a little more strongly on the sixth try, and finally, on the seventh try, it was far stronger than before… and this time, concentrated on his scalp and face. A lock of hair fell into his eyes, and… had he suddenly grown a beard?
He felt his face, feeling a sudden revulsion. Yes, that was definitely a beard. He measured it: his beard was two inches long, and his hair was two inches longer everywhere he could reach to measure it.
He hastily dug into his toiletry bag and dug out a pair of scissors, then trimmed his beard as short as possible before shaving off the rest.
It wasn’t that late in the day; he’d only been practicing the spell for a little over an hour, but he suddenly realized how tired he felt. He ate supper and went to bed early.
Monday morning, he cast the hair growth spell again a few times, thinking, “I want my scalp hair to grow two inches, but not my beard.” After four tries, he got it to work again, and measured to make sure he’d gotten the growth he’d been aiming for. Looking in the mirror, he kind of liked what he saw, and wondered for a moment how he’d look with even longer hair before admonishing himself. Then he looked up barber shops in the area online, and drove to another town some distance from the university where he’d never had his hair cut before.
Returning to the house, he felt guilty about spending time on the magic when he should be working, and resolved to not start practicing the light spell or the search spell until he’d gotten eight hours of cataloguing done. Late in the evening, after supper, he got out the magic book and tried casting the light spell on a dime from his wallet, speaking aloud the words in the book. Somehow he just knew how to pronounce the strange words. Again, nothing happened the first few times he cast it; he started feeling that tingling sensation on the fifth try, and it came back stronger on the seventh and eighth, followed by a success on the tenth try. The dime glowed faintly. He closed the curtains and turned off the lamp, and found that it gave just enough light to read by. And it wasn’t glaring like the light from his phone flashlight.
He decided he’d better keep practicing magic in the evenings, after he got his internship work done, and not show the book or the spells to Casey until he could reliably cast at least one of them every time he tried it.
And why did being called “Miss” feel kind of nice?)
I wonder
why couldn’t they get his gender right? (And why did being called “Miss” feel kind of nice?)
you'll get there, don't worry 😜
This book isn't being subtle at all with the poor egg. Love it. Can't wait for more.
A lock of hair fell into his eyes, and… had he suddenly grown a beard?
He felt his face, feeling a sudden revulsion. Yes, that was definitely a beard. He measured it: his beard was two inches long, and his hair was two inches longer everywhere he could reach to measure it.
He hastily dug into his toiletry bag and dug out a pair of scissors, then trimmed his beard as short as possible before shaving off the rest.
It wasn’t that late in the day; he’d only been practicing the spell for a little over an hour, but he suddenly realized how tired he felt. He ate supper and went to bed early.
Oh, I am excited to see where this is going!
Thanks for the chapter!