ONE (Book 1 in the Amnesia Archives)

Chapter 8

"Your book?" Sarphi repeated. "How can you have read it in your book? A spell book?" Aknon was an avid reader, but he didn't carry many books with him, because that would simply be too much of a pain to carry without some advanced enchantments on our luggage.

"No, I mean the baby book." Aknon's teeth were gritted, and his eyes were slowly becoming irritated and angry. "What other book did I just get? I went to the apothecary; I doubt there's even a sorcerer here."

"Hey, you can't blame us for not jumping to that conclusion," I defended Sarphi and I. "Your baby book is blank; how can it possibly tell you where we're going next?"

Aknon grunted in frustration. "The book isn't blank; I don't know why you two keep saying that. It's never been blank."

"But it is," Sarphi insisted with a disbelieving laugh. It did feel quite unbelievable for Aknon to be so adamant that his book isn't blank, when it clearly was. "Aknon, all Acer and I see are blank pages when we look at it. The book is full of black paper."

"It's not black," Aknon said with a frown as he let go of us, turning to face us again. "The pages have always been light brown, like parchment. But I don't remember reading anything like this in it." He pulled out the book again and showed us it.

"Aknon, it's blank." My voice sounded more insistent this time. "It's just black pages."

Aknon narrowed his eyes at us, as though trying to figure out a reason why we would lie about this. "It's not." He was starting to get a little insulted. "Unless magic is being used on you." I couldn't believe what he was suggesting to be honest. He was looking at us suspiciously, like we'd been enchanted during the time he was away. It wouldn't have been the first time, but I was pretty sure that our minds were sound.

"Or unless the book is magic," Sarphi suggested, which sounded like a lot better reason as to why we couldn't read it. "It was meant for your eyes only, Aknon. We can't read it."

"Does that mean our other stuff is magical?" I asked, an excited grin on my face.

"Yes," said a small voice from inside my bag. "Everything that was given to you by-, no I can't say." There was a childish giggle after those words. "Can you let me out now please? I'm claustrophobic."

Sarphi let out a shrill shriek as my bag began to move, like something was punching the inside of it.

"Hello?" the voice spoke again. "Did I come on too strong? I'm sorry, I'm just excited to see you again." The voice let out another giggle.

I looked at my beg with wide eyes before I slowly began to open it, only for Aknon to slap my hand away. "Are you crazy?" he asked. "You have something living in your bag, and you want to get them out?"

"Who said I'm living?" the voice asked in a rather unamused voice. "Well, I suppose that I'm living, but I'm not alive. That's complicated." The voice then began to hum.

"I'm not stupid," I snapped at Aknon before opening my bag and pulling out Sanka gently. "You get your magic book; I get my magic doll."

Senka was wriggling in my hand before she suddenly stood up, standing on my palm. My siblings and I stared at her as she gave a little wave. "Hello, hi. It's so good to see you again!" It was like she burst with emotion as she lay down on her stomach and hugged my hand tightly.

"Did you pick something else up from the apothecary?" I asked Aknon in a slow mumble as I watched my doll hug my hand and seemingly begin to cry, but nothing came out of her eyes, because she's a doll and they can't do that. Well, most dolls couldn't move either, but that's beside the point. None of this was logical.