Emille

Chapter 6

"Don't ask what I had to do to get it, but I found a bird skull."

Emille looked up at Isa, eyes dragged reluctantly from the journal they'd been glued to. Her eyebrows shot up suspiciously. "Where did you find the bird skull?"

Isa sighed dramatically, throwing the skull onto Emille's lap. Emille picked it up gingerly, examining it with mild distaste.

"Mateo stole it from his avian biology class," Isa said cheekily. Emille gasped and grabbed her arm.

"Did you tell him why you needed it?"

Isa rolled her eyes. "Chill, I told him it was for my photography class. And he was too...distracted to ask any more questions anyways."

Emille gagged. "Gross."

"I got the bone, didn't I?" Isa shrugged. "And now we know where we stand."

"Where do you stand?"

"We're having fun," she said.

Emille held Isa's gaze for a moment longer. She didn't want her to get her hopes up. But Isa wasn't a fool. Even if her feelings were more fragile than she let on. She knew Mateo wasn't one for commitment. Emille dropped her searching gaze, satisfied with what she saw there, and began inspecting the skull again.

"What's the skull for anyways?"

Emille picked up the book and flipped to the ingredients section. Isa sat next to her on the ancient couch they'd claimed in the back of the library. They'd visited so often in the past few weeks that its weary fabric conformed to their bodies even when they weren't there. Isa rested her legs on Emille's lap, and Emille tossed the skull back to her.

"According to Arthur, it's a strong tie to the natural world. It exists on this plane, but it's no longer here in spirit. So it's a bridge between the living and the dead. It's like a fast pass for the spell caster. It helps them pass between worlds. And because it exists in this world, it keeps them rooted here. It also helps that it's from a bird."

Isa looked at her questioningly.

"Weightlessness."

Isa chuckled. "That's a little on the nose."

"A lot of this journal is very literal," Emille agreed.

"You said planes of existence. How many planes of existence are there?"

Although the pair had been studying the journal for weeks, Isa had been less involved in the spellcasting aspect. Isa had said the "magic stuff" was too complicated, and that it hurt her head. Emille had thought she'd looked a little afraid of the journal, as if knowing its secrets would change something in her. But Isa had wanted to help, so Emille had allowed her friend to help in other ways. As Emille poured over the journal's contents, Isa searched for traces of the apprentices in old Florida articles pulled from the library archives. Her search had not yet revealed any results. It seemed that she'd grown weary, and much more willing to learn about the "magic stuff".

Emille pulled out a paper and pencil, balancing the paper on the journal and deftly avoiding Isa's impatiently shaking legs that still rested on her lap. She began sketching as she spoke. "That's what I've been trying to figure out. I've read through the journal three times, and I still feel like I'm missing a lot, but it's starting to make sense."

"This is the Unveiled World," Emille said, drawing two lines across the paper. "The veiled world is Arthur's fancy way of saying everything we can see. Within the veiled world, there are two...layers, I suppose." She separated the rectangle she'd drawn into two layers. "The topmost layer is the living world. The bottom layer is the world of the dead. The dead are part of the Unveiled World, I assume, because a lot of people can see ghosts. And because they're tethered to this plane."