[Excerpt from the journal of Lini]
I stayed up most of the night reading the book, but I feel more energized rather than tired. Normally I wouldn’t steal forbidden objects, but to be honest I don’t see why it was locked away. It’s amazing. Dad’ll kill me if he finds out though. He’s not a particularly strict guy when it comes to rules, but I saw him angry once—Andy “accidentally” lit the town hall on fire—it was not pretty. But this book holds so much! In Halloween, magic is scarce. Despite popular belief, this is not a magical fairyland of the dead. We are a more scientific people; nearly everything here can be explained with science. But this book is real magic—not Christmas land magic, the kind supported by happy thoughts, but an all-purpose black magic. All you need to perform magic is [removed by author] and to draw one of these circles with these symbols going around them. The book also says you can do it without drawing the circle if you “visualize the ring and say the name of the rune(s) in the order they appear starting from the top and going counter clockwise”. It sounds like a lot of complicated instruction, but most of the circles I’ve seen don’t use more than three runes. I have levitation down perfectly. Anyway it’s almost mourning now. I’ve already hidden the book, but since I can’t sleep, I’ve just been making things float to the ceiling. Sooo bored….
(Sometime afterward)
When mourning came, I got ready quickly so mom was still making breakfast. “Good morning mom.” She looked up just for a glance then her focus was back to the food. “Good morning dear. Set the table for me.” As soon as I finished setting the table dad walked in carrying Butterfly. “Mourning Dad.” “Good morning” he replied; Butter just waved. Soon everyone else came down. “Lini, you seem cheerier this morning” said Junior quietly so only I’d hear, “I was afraid you’d still be…” “Nope,” I interrupted, “it’s not like it’s the first time anyone’s made fun of me, I’m a big girl, I can get over it.” As soon as we finished eating, we got our stuff, said buy to mom and left. Dad and Andy followed us out—Andy’s not allowed to walk to school by himself ever since they found out he’d been skipping school. We’d walk him there ourselves, but graveyard middle school isn’t on the way. When we got closer to the school we met up with Lock, Shock, and Barrel. We arrived at the school and I pulled lock aside and apologized for flipping out on him. “It’s okay,” he responded, “I forgot you hate being called little.” Then the bell rang and we had to get to class. Today was proving much better than yesterday, I’d even forgotten about Robert—the guy who made fun of me, a vampire by the way—that is until I saw him in the hallway. His eye was swollen and black from where Lock had punched him (very becoming really). I couldn’t resist saying, “nice eye Robbie.” But apparently he was still mad about it. “You little (censored). My dad thought I was fighting again and I got grounded for a week.” “Well, you were fighting.” “You bet I am now, bitch.” He then tried to hit me, so without thinking I wispered the levitation spell but quickly stopped it hoping no one would notice. The end result looked like he had tripped over his own feet. People who had been watching started to laugh which made him even angrier. He looked like he was about to try it again but this time he was stopped by a teacher. At the same time Junior reached me and said, “Are you alright?! I was talking to Trista and didn’t see what happened.” “I’m fine, the jerk tripped over his own feet.” “Serves him right.” I looked over to see Shock standing with Lock. Barrel was at the water fountain, unfazed by events. “I mean really, trying to hit a girl. How rude. He should have hit Lock.” “Hey!” “Well you did give him a black eye,” “Yeah, because he tried to hit Lini.” “Which comes back to him being a jerk.” “Hey guys,” we all looked over at Barrel. “You might want to get to class, the bell’s about to ring.” “Bye!” we all said at once as we all rushed in separate directions to our classes. Sitting in class, my mind floated back to what happened. When I used that spell it had felt so natural. Unlike yesterday, I wasn’t a damsel in distress. I vowed to learn every spell and to become the best sorceress in the world. In secret of course.
