The Little Blurbs of a Questionable Character

Story #2

Genre: Fantasy

"Elodie?" the old man peered around the faded purple curtain that separated the back room from the public. The girl shut the book she had been reading with a rather loud bang. She received a glare from another woman who was leafing through a giant book with gold along the edges of the pages. Elodie hopped up from the beanbag chair without a glance in the woman's direction and made her way over to the man, who was barely concealing the sigh that wanted to make its way to his lips. The girl was hopeless, he was sure of it. Her aura gave off that sense of innocent obliviousness and it made him slightly uneasy. This was not the type of person he wanted to give any magic book to, let alone the most precious of his collection. Unfortunately, the book technically belonged to her family and with Elodie being the last, it was meant to be hers.

Elodie was very excited. She had heard stories about this book all her life; how her great great grandfather had traveled the word in search of every kind of magic he could find. How he put everything in an old leather journal so that he could one day share all of the wonderful spells and incantations he had learned. The story was that only a person related to the man who had written the book could open it, and Elodie had no intention of sharing such power.

To the normal eye, the back room looked like a dusty old storage area, but as someone who had a bit of magic running through them, Elodie could see past the guise. There were two tall windows on the far wall with sunlight streaming through them. There were bookshelves to the golden ceiling, and every shelf was full. A girl of about twelve was draped across a large velvet chair, her black sneakers drumming against the headrest. A large book laying beside her was casually flipping its own pages until Elodie and the old man entered, when it shut quickly.

The old man smiled at the girl fondly, "Beth, put that away and get the journal. She's here for it." He turned to Elodie, "My granddaughter. I'm teaching her a few things. She is especially good at transformation spells."

Beth gracefully turned over, picked the book off the floor and disappeared between the shelves. She returned a few seconds later with the small journal that had been a source of great curiosity for her over the years. When she handed it to Elodie, Beth expected something magical to happen, but there was nothing. Elodie stared at the ratty old journal in her hand, thoroughly unimpressed. "Okay, I guess," she said, and turned to go.

"Wait," the old man stepped towards her, "Be careful. There is said to be some powerful magic in that little book, and you should be cautious."

"Yeah," Elodie muttered, "I'll be fine."

Worry clouded his thoughts at her carelessness. The old man knew that without the proper knowledge, something was bound to go wrong.

And it did, nearly a week later. A girl was in a coma in the hospital, according to the morning newspaper, and he had an idea who. The old man sent his granddaughter to collect the book from Elodies house the next day, and she returned with the little journal and placed it carefully in the box that would be it's home long after that.

He had warned her about the book. Now it was too late. The official cause of Elodie's condition was a stroke, but unofficially, Beth and the old man knew that carelessness mixed with magic was a dangerous thing.