Like Teacher, Like Student /// A Doctor Strange Fanfiction

Chapter 6

The statue was looking at her. No, really. It was staring at her with stone eyes, and every time she made a move, those eyes followed her. She could hear them grating against the granite eye sockets as they turned.

Ew.

It had been two days since she had moved into the Sanctum, and this was the first day she had decided to explore. So far, she had only been to her second floor room, her bathroom, and the kitchen. The essentials. But today, she actually felt like roaming around the house instead of staying in her room watching Netflix.

Stephen had a few guidelines when she had moved in, like how she shouldn't touch anything and if a door was locked, do not go into that room. Also she should keep to the first two floors since she was less likely to get lost.

So of course she had gone to the third floor.

Officially, she wasn't lost right now. She was in the Sanctum, so that narrowed down where she was. It was simply that she wouldn't be able to explain to anyone, including herself, how to get back to her room at this point. She kept finding new rooms and places to explore. The Sanctum seemed endless and labyrinthine, and she might never reach the end of it. Should've brought thread. Maybe she had entered a different dimension. Whatever, she would find her way back eventually. Or not.

Hey, if she never made it back, she wouldn't have to go to school tomorrow. Stephen had said at breakfast that morning that she had to go on Monday because otherwise the school would probably call social services or something and if they dug too hard and too long, the spell the made him her fake uncle might not hold up. She didn't really see the point of doing calculus and writing papers about Shakespearean sonnets right now, but the school system thought differently. It was going to take her a good while to make it to school, seeing how she hadn't lived that close to the Sanctum, but she didn't want to switch schools.

So far, she had been up on the third floor for about three hours, or that's what she thought. Maybe she was running on Rip Van Winkle time and centuries were passing by.

Casey wandered away from the stone statue creeper, moving from one room into another. This one had mauve walls and a few enormous pillows scattered around. There was a complicated symbol on the ceiling, seemingly etched there in silver. She flopped down on one of the massive pillows and laid back to look at the design. It seemed to suck her in and invite her to contemplate the mysteries of life, as if that was something she did on a regular basis.

"I hope you know that ceiling is cursed."

Casey turned her head to the side, not bothering to get up. Stephen was in the doorway, looking peeved. "You're lying."

"Yes, but it does have a spell of concentration on it," he said as he stepped into the room, "So you could be up here for hours and not realize it."

Casey rolled her eyes and turned her attention to the ceiling again. "I thought the whole floor was like that."

"Like what?"

"A time warp," Casey offered.

"Time magic is very complicated and difficult, and it wouldn't be infused into a Sanctum. Sit up. Please," Stephen said, though it sounded more like a command than a request. Casey huffed and pushed herself up onto her elbows and then forced herself to sit upright.

"What?"

"I told you not to go past the second floor," Stephen said, "What wasn't clear about that?"

"I was bored," she said with a shrug.

"Look, I'm glad that you're finally emerging from your room and moving around, but this isn't a normal house."

"Whoa, I totally couldn't tell that," Casey teased sarcastically, motioning toward the supposedly bespelled ceiling, the massive pillows, and Stephen's own get-up. Maybe he just found tunics and trousers comfortable, but whatever the case was, he liked wandering around in his wizard outfit. Or thought it was important. He looked like he had stepped out of a some kind of fairy tale.

"I'm serious," he said, "There're things in this house that could kill you. Or transport you somewhere that would take me days to find you, if I could find you at all." He looked down at her sternly. "You don't want to get turned inside out in a different dimension just because you're curious, do you?"

"There's something here that can do that?" Casey tilted her head to the side. "Do you enjoy living in a death trap?"

"Most of that is locked away."

"Then what's the big deal?"

"Casey." She could tell by his annoyed tone that she had pushed him a little too far. "I'm going to train you. Then you'll be able to handle everything in this house or most of it. There's so much you don't know yet, and I don't feel like you should be given the tour I was when I first started magic. Until you know more, I need you to trust me and not become a sarcastic teenager about everything."

But that's exactly what she was. She decided not to point that out verbally but instead she gave him a look that screamed it out for her silently.

Stephen sighed and sat down on a pillow across from her. "Can you at least agree not to go roaming this floor or any others above it until I say it's okay?"

She shrugged. "Fine. But I get free rein of the first and second floors, so if you've got anything worse than a Chinese finger trap down there, you might want to move it."

Stephen closed and rubbed his temples, and she had a feeling she was really trying his patience. "Fine."

Silence dropped between them. Casey glanced over at the wizard, who looked like he was trying to conjure up some extra endurance to be able to deal with her. She hadn't asked him to look after her. It was her grandpa's last request, but he didn't even know this guy. She barely knew him, actually.

She had been too wrapped up in her grief, which was still pressing at the back of her mind. Each time she thought of Gramps, she wanted to curl up in a ball and cry. But she knew she couldn't give into that urge every time, otherwise she would never move forward and her grandpa wouldn't have forgiven her for that.

"What's your favorite movie?"

"What?" Stephen looked up, eyes cautious.

"Mine's Legally Blonde," she offered.

"Uh...The Godfather," he answered.

"What, it's not Lord of the Rings? The Sword in the Stone? Wizard of OZ?"

"If that was the case, you'd have to switch your favorite movie to The Sorcerer's Apprentice," Stephen said, his tone droll.

Casey snorted. "Touché."