“Nobody said we’ll do such a thing.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’ve got a plan. Follow me.” She said as confidently as she could.
Anwen chased her moves. Eudora approached the statue of Harvey and took a good look at him, wrapping her arms around him and dragging him along.
“Help me here. He’s not gonna move himself obviously.” She said firmly.
Looking around, Anwen noticed people crowding the lawn, and somebody could spot them at any moment. It was a good thing this bench was separated from the other spots.
“Look, we’re surrounded. Somebody might notice.”
“Aughhh…” Eudora groaned and grabbed her backpack, pulling out the spell’s book and shuffling through the pages, anxiously. “Come on, come on…” she mumbled through her teeth, in stress and freight. “Ah, that’s crazy.” She let go of her book and grabbed her phone instead.
Anwen had no idea whatever it was she was doing but it better be fast, since her anxiety level wasn’t helping anymore.
In the middle of her fear, an outer sound came from the speakers installed to the corners of the building.
"All students are required to gather in the main fifth-floor auditorium immediately."
The message kept repeating and it took Anwen a second to figure out who was really behind it, just after Eudora finished moving her fingers over the screen.
“Come on,” she said. “We gotta hurry before the hallways become crowded again.”
Chapter Seven
“I can’t believe we poisoned him.”
“He’s not poisoned. He’s petrified.” Eudora corrected her firmly.
“Yeah, like that’s any better.” Anwen kept wandering around the room, distressed.
“Just…” she tried to concentrate. “Try to gather yourself. And stop rumbling. It isn’t helping.”
The statue of Harvey stood quietly on the couch, Apricot kept touching it periodically with his leg, he didn’t trust that stone thingy. Eudora held her book in both hands and ruffled through the pages, while Anwen decided to take her advice and stop wandering around the room. But she couldn’t stop the mess in her head.
How did she get herself into this? There were so many things about this that could get her in trouble. If any member of the college board found out—even if it was just a student really—she could get in all sorts of trouble, like being punished for her unlawful acts or getting expelled, which was a real possibility, considering the seriousness of the situation. Using forbidden elements to create a spell, creating a forbidden ointment and using it on a student could put her in a lot of trouble. After all, she hadn’t read the code containing the lists of forbidden things on campus. But who did that anyway?
And that was beside the point because she had a petrified guy in her room and she didn’t know what to do with him. Just thinking about it made her stressed out.
And then there was her top-notch family who would freak out if they found out she'd managed to turn one of the students into stone just on her first week. Boy, she'd gotten herself into a lot of trouble, so she had to find a way to get away from this mess.
“Look, here,” Eudora sighed and Anwen went near her.
This mess made Anwen go along with any crazy idea her roommate came up with, because after all, they were in this together, and she knew that she couldn’t fix this mess alone.
“All this time I’ve been going through the pages of this crooked book, while I could’ve done things differently and saved myself a lot of time.”
“What is it?” her explanation made Anwen more stressed out.
“There’s this spell that can make the patron command the book. So basically, when I need something, I can just order the book to find it for me.”
“That’s awesome,” Anwen congratulated her. “Now find us a way to get out of this mess.”
“I’m working on it,” Eudora said mildly.
All Anwen could do was wait for Eudora to find a way to summon her book into finding them a way to resolve this problem. Meanwhile, she looked at the glassware filled with the orange ointment. She recalled that the real flask had already been broken when it fell off of Harvey’s hands after he became a statue, so she really couldn’t tell how this new flask got over there.
“Hey, what’s this?”
Eudora raised her head, looking at the little container. “A laboratory glass with the ointment.” She shook her head, and she found it totally unnecessary to answer. That little flask had caused all this trouble for them.
“I know what it is. What I mean is, how did it end up here? Didn’t you only save one sample?”
“Now how do you expect me to only save one sample of my very first magical ointment?” she said as if it was crazy to even ask. “I wanted to have a keepsake of my first successful-ish experiment.”
Anwen sighed. And let it go. Her roommate had a whole lot of various excuses no one could ever come up with, except for her. She was doing all sorts of things that seemed crazy. And she was dragging Anwen into it. Anwen should probably consider asking for a switch of roommates. By the end of the year, she couldn’t imagine how many other troubles Eudora would involve her into—that is, of course, if she made it by the end of the year, which was questionable.
But, surely, she had to make it to the end of the year. There were so many exciting things ahead of them, but first, she had to fix this and bring Harvey back. Now, eyes on the solution. They had to find a way to solve this otherwise their witch lives together with their lives in the academy would come to an end.
She tried to recall everything in detail. But going through the day, she couldn’t really find something valuable that could help them with bringing Harvey back. But then a couple of words echoed in her head.
“Hey, didn’t you look at the antidote on the other page? We can find a way to destruct it.”
“We didn’t exactly apply a certain formula. Our ointment got messed up, which means that it’s nearly impossible for us to find a solution in that book. I mean there might be a way here because my book is very knowledgeable," she smirked proudly, "but it would take us an eternity to try each spell on him and see which is the right one."
“So what are we gonna do?” the confusion drenched her up entirely.
“I don’t know. Okay?” she shouted. Seemingly Eudora was just as stressed out as Anwen, though she had a strange way to channelize it. “Now you being all stressed out doesn’t help at all. So try to stay calm and let me find a way to get through my book.”
Oh, her book was messed up, just like its owner, Anwen thought. But she didn't have a choice other than waiting for another crazy idea to come to the fore.
“Admonitus domesticus," she said and the book seemed to ruffle in a self-activating manner and then it went back to its previous condition.
"Whoa, you did it," Anwen mumbled in amusement.
“How can we fix up a petrifying spell gone wrong?” she asked.
The book opened again by itself, page after page like a hurricane, and stopped at a certain page, though this time, there were not just figures on it; there were moving pictures in it just like a movie. Now the little sequence they were about to see involved images and words which described the situation more appropriately.
The book started showing a majestic tree with a lot of branches, localized into some area that they didn’t recognize.
“What is it?” asked Anwen.
“I don’t know,” she replied, waiting for the book to show further instructions.
Osage Orange Forest was written in black letters on the pages of the book.
“What? That’s like, classified.” Anwen commented. “You’ll need identification to get through it.”
Obviously, this book was cuckoo, just like its owner. No wonder Eudora was so attached to it. Like, it wouldn’t surprise her if Eudora decided to follow the book’s instructions and get into the forest.
&nb
sp; “That’s it?” she yelled at the book, who seemed to ruffle its pages and close itself.
“That was good for nothing,” Anwen said before Eudora came up with another deranged idea.
"We'll find a way to get into that forest."
And what Anwen feared the most, materialized itself right in front of her.
“How can you even consider that? Getting into that forest is like a fool's errand. No good could ever come of it and we’ll never be able to find a way to get in. It requires advanced witchy skills and we apparently are not there yet.”
“Would you rather we stay here and do nothing until the dean comes and finds the statue and expels us both from the academy and we become social pariahs no one wants to hang out with? Thanks, but I’d better go with this crazy idea, rather than do nothing, which would get us punished in ways we can’t even imagine.”
When Eudora put it like that, it really seemed like even her deranged ideas were actually acceptable.
“Come on, it can’t be that bad.”
“However, I wouldn’t want to find out.”
Anwen considered the idea for a moment, drenched in concern and hesitation, and decided that it was better doing something rather than nothing at all. However, they had to find a solution, and they wouldn’t be able to do so by staying in the academy.
“How will we go there?”
"Find us a way to go to the forest," Eudora asked the book, delighted by the choice her friend made, even though she wouldn’t say a word about it.
The book went again into its mechanic process and showed a map, there was a blue line showing all the way from their current location to the forest. They just had to follow the line. For the first time now, this book started to look so cool, Anwen thought, just like her computer, but better, since it was more than a machine. Magical books, differently from computers, cooperate with your feelings, they recognize what you really need rather than just what you let out, but however, they don’t work perfectly all the time.
“What about the statue?” before they could leave, they needed to find a way to take care of it before anyone came upon that stone thingy and freaked out.
Eudora asked the book the same question and it showed a room inside the building. A room that couldn't actually be found physically in any form or way, but you could go through it, using the right spell and password, which to their surprise the book was aware of.
Chasing the map that the book showed them, they made their way to the secret room. It required the secret password for the door to appear. The interior was dark, spider-infested, and it was stinking and you couldn’t spend a second in there. Well, Harvey wouldn’t mind, would he?
After that, they were ready to go on that horrifying, unknown journey to the restricted forest. How would they get themselves into the forest; she had no idea. Though given the circumstances, with the statue of Harvey and his friends possibly noticing his absence by any minute now, she couldn’t take that risk and have it any other way.
“They’re crowding the hallways again,” Anwen whined. “How are we supposed to leave without being noticed?”
“You worry way too much.” She criticized her and walked onwards, leaving Anwen behind.
Anwen needed two minutes to realize that she was supposed to follow.
Eudora kept walking forward, concentrated on the book, and now and then she was checking the path. Anwen tried to level up, trying to ignore the stir of discomfort inside of her.
* * *
The book had shown them a secret way to get out of the school without getting too much attention, or none for that manner, and it basically needed them to linger around the backyard on the part of the school in which no one bothered to hang out. That part of the school was pretty much abandoned and basically consisted of a bunch of branches and trees among the puddle.
“This is not how I imagined my college life to be like,” Anwen blew off.
“Yeah, right. ‘Cause if we had a chance to design our lives on campus, this," she pointed with her hand right in front of the nearest muddle, "would stand a chance.” She mocked.
“I didn’t imply that.”
“Yeah, well, we’re living the dream,” she continued.
And that was enough to make Anwen realize that she had to end this conversation since her friend was a mocking person, but what Anwen hadn’t come to realize until then was that it could get worse than that. And to think that she’d thought Eudora’s previous behavior was obnoxious.
Well, you never know. Life’s full of surprises.
“What is that?” asked Eudora when they made it out of the intertwined branches.
“What?”
“Do you hear it?” she snooped her neck as something was tuning afar.
“I don’t hear anything,” Anwen reassured her and gave her a harsh look.
“This place is so scary.”
“Really? I didn’t notice.” She mocked.
“No, I mean for real. I’m sure there’s something there.”
“Come on, we don’t have time for it.”
Now that the crackle became louder, they both fringed altogether and the cat hopped in her arms meowing. Footsteps could be heard, they were drawing closer and closer past the series of trees. And now, at the moment the monster was about to make an appearance, they were almost embracing one another, drenched in fear and horrification.
A skinny guy, about their age, wearing a hat that suggested that he was part of the academy, revealed himself and he looked as horror-struck as them both.
“Hey, you scared us,” Eudora talked to him harshly.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.” He apologized and his good-looks was nothing like what Anwen visualized in her mind. Well, that was way better than what she pictured, but in fact, anything would be better than the image she created in her head.
“Who are you?” Anwen asked, filled with questions. Was he there looking for them? Had the entire academy found out? Was he gonna tell them off?
Anyway.
She better stopped making ideas and waited for his explanation instead.
“My name is Brayden. I’m from the academy.” He talked mildly, though there was still edginess in his voice.
“And what are you doing here?” Eudora sounded harsh…as always.
"Well, it's kinda a long, complicated story to explain. But long story short, I'm looking for the Osage Orange Forest. It's the only place where I can find a solution for what…" and then he realized they were almost total strangers, so he didn't have to explain his whole story, which by the way didn't seem so funny and cozy.
“Boy, what did you do?” Eudora smirked, so contended they weren’t the only ones in serious trouble.
“Can’t say.”
“That bad?” she grimaced.
“What about you?” Brayden asked.
“Well, we’re looking for the exact, same forest, and let’s say that we’re in trouble. Our future depends on it. So that’s enough for now.” Anwen tried to sound amicable to him.
"Or ever," Eudora whispered harshly in her ear.
And she made her point. Like, really, their problem was so serious, and it was better if people didn’t know about it.
“So you guys know which way to go?” he tried to break the silence that was created, like, two seconds ago.
“Yeah, we think so.”
“But you are not to companion us. We’re good alone.” Eudora confirmed.
“Hey, don’t talk to him like that,” Anwen mumbled.
“What,” she looked at her with goofy eyes, “we can’t risk having someone know what we did. Even if we find a solution, it’s bad enough that we petrified a student in the first week, we don’t have to go around and share the story with everyone.”
"Yeah, well, he doesn't have to know." She didn't realize she could be so high-and-mighty with her. "You can come with us," Anwen told him.
“Really?” he asked.
“Yes, I mean, we’re heading in the same direction. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
The guy joined them and he looked happy about that decision.
"So which way do we go?" he turned to Eudora, who didn't respond but started walking among the series of trees. Anwen and the new guy followed her into that forest.
Chapter Eight
“What’s his name?”
“Apricot.” She smiled cozily.
“Apricot?”
“Yeah.” She stuffed her nose on his fur.
“Hmm…”
“What? You think it’s an inappropriate name for a crotchet cat?”
“No,” he furrowed his brows. “Not at all. I think he’s cute.” He smiled.
“Oh,” she scoffed in surprise.
“I think I’ve heard enough flattery for today. Stop kissing one another’s asses and help me with this.” Eudora yelled.
Running towards her, Anwen let go of the cat and approached her friend. Her roommate was struggling to cross a barrier that was created by a bunch of tree stumps.
“We’re stuck, and that’s the path we should follow.”
“Maybe we should get some rest. We’ve been wandering in the woods for quite a while. Maybe we could get some sleep and proceed in the morning.”
“Now I knew taking you with us was not the best idea.”
“Hey, he was trying to be reasonable.” Anwen came to his defense.
“If you want to be reasonable then help me with this clutter,” she pointed at the barrier.
Brayden immediately got into it and grabbed hold of the stump in the front and he managed to raise it and throw it on the other side.
“Oh,” Eudora sighed, stupefied.
He, then, proceeded to move the other stumps one at a time. Anwen intruded, giving him a hand, while her roommate was trying to clutch her own stumps, stubbornly.
Meanwhile Apricot observed quietly, with his legs tagged against his body, holding himself in such an untroubled way.
Brayden wiped the sweat from his forehead and continued grabbing the last stump.
An Academy for Witches (A Witch in Progress Book 1) Page 5
