Ensorcell

7 League Shoes

Now with all the chaos out of the way, the only thing for the girls to do is homework. In creatures' studies they had moved onto shifters, mainly silkies, the students wrote an essay about their shifting abilities. Simply put, the silkies put on or take off their seal skin to change. This has become Ella's favorite subject.

Melony's is history. They wrote an essay about the destruction of the non-magical world. The four witches caused droughts, fires, floods, earthquakes, etc.... to thin the herd. Then wiped everything out, setting the world back nearly twenty years for those who survived. The survivors, of course, eventually rebuilt and thrived. Those survivors who thought they were non-magical gained powers and became a part of the community.

It was getting close to winter break, and the previously green grass has turned brown, then died a few weeks ago. The outside is more than chilly, and everyone is bundled up in hats and scarves.

The junior Aromatics are jumping with excitement. With the cold weather, Ms. Puffin predicts that there could be snow during the competition. That is good news because snow makes the game more exciting.

In potions, they are learning about light sleeping concoctions. It mainly consisted of milk, honey, and mint. It was a tough week because the smell from the potion was making the class drowsy. Poppy once got so sleepy that she accidentally dropped her glasses into the cauldron. Melony isn't sure how she did it, since she was asleep herself.

At supper Ella had grabbed Melony to bring her down to Mr. Greengrass's room because he has a new object to add to his collection. They took the elevator down and ran to the door to see what it is. They were laughing and swung the creatures study door open, but they weren't the first ones to get there. Inside is Mr. Greengrass's son, George, one of his friends, and Ben. All three of them were dressed in their forest green uniforms that had flecks of dirt and is wrinkled. Their tan faces looked back at Melony's pink and Ella's ever yellow growing complexion.

Mr. Greengrass sat behind his desk eyeing a wooden box. It looks like if he kept looking at it, he could open the box with his mind.

"Oh," George said "I forgot you two were coming." Ben gave him a quick elbow to the side while his friend, who for the life of Melony couldn't remember his name, gave a small giggle. This seemed to catch the occupied teacher's attention.

"Oh, so sorry girls," he said "I was waiting for you but got a little distracted. Anyway, do you kids want to see what's inside the box?"

The five students gathered around his desk and nodded. With his wand, he produced a self-sufficient crow bar that pulled the lid from the rest of the box. Inside the box was a red satin sack, with hay stuffing inside for even more protection. He removed the sack and opened it to reveal shoes.

More specifically an old, dirty, beaten up pair of brown boots. Even the shoelaces are grimy and moth bitten. But Mr. Greengrass and George looked at them like they are the most beautiful things in the world, oohing and awing the whole time. Ella removed a small, square piece of paper from the sack and read it out loud.

"7 League Boots. Modeled after the ones the elves used to perform the first magical mailing system in 1890. Through up till that point 7 league shoes had been invented; these were the first pair to be perfected. (These boots are in real working condition)"

Now the kids understood, and awed along with the Greengrass's. 7 League Boots are antiques, Melony had only ever seen them at her grandmothers, and it wasn't a pair, just one boot.

Mr. Greengrass took a ring of keys from his desk. He poked the key into the wall behind him and the wall gave away, but only enough to match the key exactly, and turned. A section of the wall opened up like a small door, embedded into the wall is a secret space with a glass case. There are a few objects, all labeled similarly to the card that came with the boots.

There is a rusty golden compass whose label explained that it is meant to show its owner to the closest town. A black stick with handles that's supposed to show the owner the closest clean water supply. Lastly, a windup cricket that did nothing but sing a song and jump around. He delicately placed the boots on a shelf with the cricket and patted them lovingly.

"Dad?" George began to ask quietly, like it would stop the two girls from hearing "during the summer can we try them out?"

"Sure." He said as he patted his sons' shoulder. They all sat together talking for a while. It was mainly the Brown's and Greengrass's doing the talking while Melony and George's friend, Tom, did the listening. The boys talked about their winter plans and when their friends would be coming over. Throughout the whole conversation the girls stayed quiet, since they hadn't made any plans for the break.

"So," George said "Ella, do you have anything planned for Christmas?"

"Not really," She said while thinking "mom and dad got me a pool pass so I can practice. Oh, and of course I'm going to write Melony." She said while poking her friend. George had a sour look on his face and didn't look like he wanted to talk anymore.

"What about you Melony, what do you guys do for Christmas, up there?" Mr. Greengrass asked.

"Well," Melony thought for a minute "the day before Christmas at about 5:00, we gather near the courthouse and a plane flies over and droppes paper planes with candies attached."

"Oh really!" Mr. Greengrass said with more enthusiasm than he actually felt.

"During Christmas we have this thing called mud pie." He explained "it's crumbled chocolate cake mixed with frosting and molded by a bunt cake pan. Then we add chocolate ice cream."

They talked a lot about Christmas stories and plans. Melony learned that Ella likes to make her mud pie into a soup with chocolate cookies crumbled on top. Or how one-time Mr. and Mrs. Brown tricked their kids into thinking that all they got them for Christmas was coal. Of course, after the tears started running, they quickly gave up the prank.