“No, leave it.” Eudora summoned. “We can get past it.”
He let go of the stump and stood quietly, looking at the freeway, and taking into account his previous thoughts again. Maybe it’d be better to have a break. After all, the barrier of trees had consumed all their energies now.
But no, it seemed like Eudora had put herself in charge and, as far as he was concerned, she was a stubborn person who was practically impossible to agree with, and seemingly she was walking towards the forest, always checking the tracks on the book that she held in her hands.
“She’s rough at first, but she’ll come around,” Anwen had told him with a smile that suggested her indecision.
They’d been walking for hours and none of them was saying a word for most of the time, besides the cat that was lingering now and then around the legs of his owner, hissing for attention.
“Maybe we should consider taking five.” Anwen offered.
“We’re so close to getting there, I’m not gonna stop now. And by the way, we don’t even know what we’re gonna find in it, so we should be prepared.”
As they continued walking around the same area filled with trees, branches, leaves, and muddle, something seemed to have made Brayden stop.
“What now?” Eudora shouted.
“Look,” he pointed some spot to his left.
“It’s a coffee shop.” Anwen suspired in awe.
“In the middle of the woods, that’s crazy.” Eudora reasoned.
“Everything about this place is crazy. So I say we stop by and help our thirst.”
“I’m in.” Brayden made the first step forward, trying to level up with her.
"I should've taken this trip alone," Eudora said to herself and wandered towards them, lacking the desire to have a coffee at the moment.
Both of them had ceased at the front of the shop. It looked so rusty and aged, its exterior was made of wood which was lustered in mocha brown.
“What’s it?”
"Like, it's kinda creepy, you know, having a coffee shop in the middle of nowhere, where nobody could ever come, and kind of a terrible business strategy per se," Anwen commented.
“So you’re afraid to go in?” she raised an eyebrow.
“Well, if you insist.” She made the happiest smile and with both hands, she pointed at the door.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Eudora shook her head and took the first step towards the creepy building amidst the woods.
Anwen fixed looks with her and agreed to follow her. At least, if something scary and outlandish was on the way, Eudora was the first to go in, and by then, they'd have plenty of time to come with an escaping plan. Though she strongly hoped that everything would be normal and they’d drink some soda for maybe an hour or so and gather their energies and then pay the check happily and proceed to the horrific journey of theirs.
The cat jumped behind Anwen’s legs as they stepped foot inside the coffee shop. Anwen looked at Eudora who was so quiet while the most cringe-worthy witch they’d ever seen appeared in front of them. Her nose was more crooked than a broken tree branch and her face more wrinkled than an overused Kleenex. She was wearing a black and blue gown and looked at them lopsidedly from behind the counter.
“Welcome, witches, and necromancer.” A scary voice made Apricot hide behind his patron. “And cat.” She added, leaning on the counter to take a better look at Apricot.
The cat meowed, scared.
“Welcome to the Nefertem Café.” She said. “Now what brings you here?”
Now that was fast. They hadn't even gathered themselves properly and she was already asking them questions.
“I’d like a pear chocolate tea, please,” Eudora ignored her question, as always. “Preferably iced.”
“Take it easy gal. You’ll have plenty of time for that.” The crotchet witch added.
Eudora hushed.
“Hmm, I’d like the same,” Anwen said, shrugging and wrinkling at the same time.
“Now take a seat. Let me find a free table for you,” she hopped over the counter and approached them.
There was no one else but them inside.
“You can have this table in the corner for intimate conversations, the one in the middle for a more casual time, or you can take the table by the window with a lovely view from the forest…”
“Wait,” Eudora stopped her. “Did you just say forest?”
“Oh, of course, dear. The Osage Orange Forest.”
“We’re here?” Anwen asked.
“You’re in a coffee shop darling. Now I forgot to ask,” she looked away and frowned. “What brings you here?”
Clearly, that witch was demented.
“We’re looking for the OOF, but that’s strange because my book says we’re adjacent, but not inside yet.”
"But, sure, you're not inside. You're not witches just yet, if I'm not mistaken, and there's no way for you to go in.”
“There must be, otherwise my book wouldn’t bring us all the way down here.”
“Now what kind of book is that?” she wrinkled her brows and looked quirkily at the book, which Eudora hid away immediately.
The witch seemed to be a little shocked. She didn’t say anything else about the book.
“We’d take the seats near the counter, thanks,” Eudora smirked confidently, she must’ve noticed the way the bartender acted around the book.
“Whatever pleases you,” the witch responded.
“I’ll have the same thing as them," Brayden added when they made themselves comfortable on the chairs.
The bartender came back with three glasses of what seemed to be the weirdest juice they'd ever seen. There were no tea bags inside the glasses and the liquid smelled just like the puddles they had encountered all the way down there.
“Ew,” Eudora pushed the glass away.
“It doesn’t taste so bad,” Anwen reassured her after taking the first sip, with an amicable, contended smile on the face.
That was fucked up.
“No, you did not…” her mouth opened in shock.
Brayden was still indecisive about whether to drink the tea—or whatever that thing was—or push it aside. Now, if he went along with his thirstiness, he'd most certainly sip on it, though if he stood there observing the strange liquid then he’d probably pass.
“Oh my god, that was amazing. What was it?” Anwen put the glass on the table.
“That’s our specialty.”
“But we ordered pear chocolate tea.” Eudora criticized her.
“Well, we don’t have that here.”
“Then, you could’ve given us any other kind of tea out of all the range of tea drinks.”
“It happens that the only thing we offer at the coffee shop is this very drink you’re being served.”
“What kind of coffee shop is this?” she shouted.
The bartender seemed to ignore her this time.
“What are you looking for in the forest?” she asked Anwen who seemed to be more appreciative of the weird liquid, and obviously the witch appraised that.
“Well, what is everyone looking for in the forest?” Anwen asked. “We’re here for a solution.”
“Solution for what?” her inquisitiveness got at her this time.
“Well, it’s…personal.”
“I can keep a secret.” She opened her eyes.
"We petrified our friend." She groaned as though she was getting a huge weight off of her shoulders.
"Anwen," Eudora yelled.
“You turned a student to stone?” Brayden opened his eyes, shocked.
“Cool.” Eudora thought loudly.
“So, I see you’ve gotten yourselves into quite some serious trouble. That’s such a complicated case you’ve got there.”
“Well,” she shrugged.
“But I don’t see whether there’s a way out of it.”
“There’s not?”
“Of course, there is,” Eudora said angrily.
“Well, probably” the witch added, “but it’s quite dangerous.”
“Just tell us, we’ll do whatever it takes.” Anwen inquired.
Brayden stood there quietly. Maybe he should've taken this trip alone, after all.
“First, you’ll need to have your broomsticks with you.”
“We can transmigrate them. Not a problem.” Eudora intruded, now interested in whatever the witch had to say.
“Normally a witch in progress like yourselves, can’t really fly.”
"We haven't even taken that class yet," Anwen informed her.
“And that’s a problem.”
“No. We’ll figure it out. Just keep talking.”
“Normally, no one doubts a witch who can fly and when they ask for your identifications, you can probably give them fake ones. And if you act confidently on your broomsticks, there’s a chance you’ll make it past the gate and the guards.”
“Just a chance?” Anwen’s eyes opened.
“Just a slight, tiny, little chance." She whispered in a squeaky way.
“But we might get caught on our way in, at the best rate.”
“Well, from what I see…” the bartender shrugged.
“And what happens if we get caught?”
"That depends. You can be sent away, or locked in the forest cage, which is a legal procedure even though a strange one, until they decide what to do with you."
“Wait. That’s just the start of the punishment?”
“Obviously. When getting caught, they start investigating why you wanted to get inside the forest, and they have their ways to make you spill it out, so regarding the seriousness of your reasons, they proceed taking other legal actions, that most of the time are so cruel.”
Two witches, a necromancer and a cat remained speechless altogether.
“Now, anybody want a refill?” she smiled, but nothing changed on her clients’ faces.
* * *
“I cannot believe you told her.” Eudora looked at her critically, after they got out of the coffee shop.
“Well, she was asking so nicely.” Said Anwen so endearingly.
"Just at the moment I thought I've seen all your insanity, you show me there's more to it I haven't yet discovered."
“I say we turn back.” She changed the subject.
“And what, get caught in the college and wait for whatever legal actions they take towards us. I’d rather not.” Eudora yelled harshly.
She had summoned their broomsticks and surprisingly now it’d worked, but just because an incarnation turned out successfully didn’t mean this whole operation would. They still had time to draw back and take responsibility for what they did. If they really knew how insecure Eudora was about this plan, they’d probably go running, this time without as much as giving it a second thought. Though since Eudora pretended to be all confident about this plan, somehow it made Anwen and Brayden get along with it.
“I’ll find something in my book to make the broomsticks fly on autopilot and get us to the destination.”
“You’ll think they won’t notice they’re charmed?”
“Now that’s a total another burden to deal with. One problem at a time.”
She focused thoroughly on her precious book and summoned it to show them how to ride the broomstick. The book displayed some charm written in the same black letters, which Eudora read loudly.
“Apstinentia equitation.”
Each broomstick hoisted itself into the air.
Wow, Anwen quite underrated her roommate sometimes.
“You did it,” she said in awe.
“Yeah, whatever.” Eudora acted like she didn’t appreciate their amusement. A total pretense. “Now I’ll get the books to bring us some fake IDs."
Eudora worked her magic and created some required identifications, which looked enough realistic.
Anyway.
"Now we have to go through the upper gate.”
They all hopped over their broomsticks and when the broomsticks sensed their presence upon them, they started to take them right away on a crazy ride, which they were both excited and terrified about. While on the ride, Anwen thought about Harvey and him being petrified. Why did he have to be so rude; she thought. If he’d been gentler with her, then she wouldn’t have gone along with turning him into a statue. Now, he brought this to himself, didn’t he? What choice did she have, after he ditched her, other than casting a spell on him?
Eudora tried to hide her book in the backpack. Anwen was concerned about Apricot. Since it was his first flight, she took a look at him, but he was standing so classily behind her as though nothing was disturbing his calm. Well, actually nothing disturbed that cat, ever, as long as he had attention.
Chapter Nine
“I cannot believe we got away with this," Anwen mumbled with excitement as soon as they were past the gate.
“I thought we were gonna get caught when the security guy was looking steadily at your face after he checked the identification. And when you said you were prettier in person because of some ointment that you used and he said that the picture was actually better—that was hilarious. If you could just see the look on your face." Brayden guffawed so hard he nearly fell off the broomstick.
“He said that you looked older in person.” She said firmly and angrily. “How is this better?”
His guffaw ceased.
“And he barely looked at your picture,” Eudora turned to Anwen, “being too busy looking at your face. I thought he was going to ask for your number and then he said you reminded him of his aunt who’d passed away last year.”
Apricot gave her the once over.
“Anyway, the good news is we got ourselves in. Who’d have thought?” Brayden could hollo freely now that they were far away from the guards.
Wow, that was close. For a moment Anwen had thought it was over, well practically she’d thought that every time the guard had looked at them hesitantly, but as fate would have it, now they were inside the forest and all they had to do was find the solution that they needed. If only they knew what it was.
“Hey, did you ask your book what to do now?”
Eudora remembered to bring her book out of the backpack and it immediately opened itself to the page it had been closed before. Now that the map was shattered, another image had appeared.
“It’s a passage.”
“Of what?”
“Of what we do next.”
“What does it say?”
“I—I don’t understand it. It’s all in Latin.”
“Well, you’re supposed to know Latin, you’re a witch.”
“Do you?” Eudora raised a brow at her expectantly.
“That’s beside the point.” She said.
“Guys,” Brayden interfered. “I can understand, like, somehow.”
“Good,” she said and approached him while on the fly. “What is it?”
“I—I think it’s about us going into some palace and looking for the sacred room and scramble through the petrifying section.”
“That’s it? Are you sure you read that properly?”
He shrugged.
“Well, what other choice do we have?” Anwen offered.
They tried to get to the ground, but the end of their flight was kind of hurtful since they were not the ones who were controlling the broomsticks. After getting all the leaves off their clothes, and trying to collect themselves after a torturous flight, the three of them started to carry out the next plan that the book had suggested. Eudora even decided to store the broomsticks someplace safe, using the spells the book had equipped her with.
Now the book displayed the map once again.
“It seems like such an awfully long way.”
“We’re halfway there. Can’t back down now, can we?” Anwen said assuredly.
The cat purred at her legs.
“Can you bri
ng through his food? I think he’s hungry.”
“Are you asking me to do something for your cat? You know how I feel about him.” She said invasively, but in no time some pastrami appeared out of nowhere.
The cat hopped over the food and started chewing on the piece of meat, while the others kept walking towards the palace, following the tracks. It felt like it was past midnight, though none of them had checked the time since this journey had made them so exhausted.
“It is such a long way. I think we all could use some relaxing time.” Anwen offered.
“I’m in.”
"Why do I have to share this trip with such whiny babies who can't go a mile without complaining?" Eudora yelled, though this time she might’ve needed some rest herself, because she stopped under a tree, waiting for them to take a seat.
Apricot was taking his time, biting on the pastrami.
“Now why are you here, boy?” she asked him.
“I told you I won’t share it with you.”
"Come on, it's not fair." Anwen intruded. "You already know our story. Now, what's yours?"
He felt pushed in the corner without any choice other than giving the girls what they wanted to hear.
“It starts during the coronation day. I was told I wouldn’t be attending the academy after all. But somehow my parents managed to get me into college and here I am. They created some enrolling letter, exactly the same as the other’s and had me putting it into the dean’s office alongside the college documents so no one would suspect my being here. They also had to hack me into the academic system using some old witchy spell which created a perfect illusion, making the dean see me as a real attendant, even though I'm not."
“Wow, we’ve got some badass here.” Eudora augured him. “And I was underestimating you the whole time.”
“Why are you here really?”
"Well, when I was trying to sneak into the dean's office, I accidentally dropped one of her flasks and spilled it into the official enrolling reports. Only the Osage Orange Forest has the ability to recover these documents.”
“So that’s it?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“I don’t see why you had such a hard time telling us about it.”
An Academy for Witches (A Witch in Progress Book 1) Page 6
