Time's Tragedies- The Books Of Beginning [2]

52. Forbidden Research

"I have an idea," Abby announced. 

Her older brother sighed, putting down the rubik's-cube he had been attempting to solve for the last half an hour, with little results to show for it. Jake looked up to see her bouncing on the balls of her feet, the way she always did when she was impatient.

"Should I be worried about this idea getting us into trouble?"

"Who do you take me for?" Abby shot back, "Aunt Emma? It's just a new source of research that could help us find out more about curses and how to combat them so we can help heal mom."

"Okay," Jake said slowly, "so what's the catch? There always is one, with this family."

Abby snorted, "that's fair. And it's not really a catch but it might be a little uncomfortable."

"Will I have to contort myself to fit in an oddly shaped nook of some sort?" Jake questioned.

Abby rolled her eyes, "will you just shut up and let me explain? Anyways, we've been looking through everything we can get our hands on, but most of what we have in the house and what Uncle Michael has loaned us is stuff on healing magic, countercurses, and generally what would be considered light magic. And yeah, dad had some stuff on the darker powers, but the really really evil stuff, like what Robert did to mom, he doesn't keep because y'know, he doesn't want us coming across bloody murder spells by accident and using them without knowing what they are. But that's not the point! The point is, what if it's those books on the truly dark arts of magic that we need to be looking in?"

"What you're saying makes sense, but you said it yourself, we don't have those books. So where were you thinking of getting them, because I doubt the Westport public library carries them," Jake quipped.

Abby grinned, "I'm so glad you asked. Y'know how the attic in Dr. Pym's old home in Cambridge Falls is chock full of magical books and items that he stockpiled there and never sorted through?"

"Yeah," Jake answered, "mom and Uncle Michael and Aunt Emma have always said they wanted to go through it - well, mom and Uncle Michael did, and they planned to force Aunt Emma into helping them clean - but they've never got around to it."

"Well, I'm almost one hundred percent certain that all the magical books on the dark arts that old Pym collected and confiscated are stored there. And I'm talking the really dark stuff, stolen straight from the strongholds his enemies had abandoned," Abby explained.

Jake's eyes lit up, "so we're going to go get them and see what we can find?"

"As soon as you make us a portal, yep," Abby said, "I left a note for dad and Eternity and Lili, they've all gone to the grocery store together, letting them know what we're up to so they can join us later if they wanna."

"Great," Jake replied, "you sure they're all gonna be okay with it?"

Abby shrugged, "I don't see why not? Dad has never objected to us learning about the darker side of magic, so as long as we don't, y'know, start throwing evil curses around, he'll be fine. And Lili's not gonna mind at all. And Eternity will probably think it's cool."

"Knowing her, yeah," Jake chuckled. 

"The only thing that makes this research 'forbidden' is that a; Dr. Pym probably hoped those books would be forgotten so no one learned their evil secrets-"

"Which is ridiculous, because knowledge isn't inherently good or evil, it's what you do with it that matters," Jake interjected.

"-Mhm. And also, Uncle Michael probably wouldn't be happy about us going to search for books of dark and totally against the rules magic, but he's not the one who gets to tell us what to do."