Enchanted Book 1

Chapter Nine

Claira and Elena stand up, gather their things and head to their next class: Potions. They walk out of the classroom, and turn right, then go left, and arrive at the classroom. The door is shut, Elena looks at Claira, a weird expression on her face.

"Why is the door closed?" Claira asks, eyeing the door and Elena at the same time. Students start to stand at the door, not even one bothers to go in. "Why are we waiting here?" No one wants to answer, everyone is silent. "That's it. I'm going in." Claira steps up to the door and tries to open it.

"It's locked." Elena says, staring blankly at Claira. "The door is locked, that is why we can't go in." 

"Why is it locked?" -BOOM!- The door flies open, a student walks out. The students' clothes are disheveled, he looks miserable. His wand is in his hand, it looks broken. The sound of people whispering was evident. After the student passed Elena, he smiled. 

"Come in," A harsh voice said. Students started to file in, one by one. Claira and Elena, as always, sat near the front. "Take out your books." The professor, a male, looked like a mix of happy and sad. When everyone's book was opened, the pages flipped by themselves.

"We will be discussing potions that cause grief and fear. At the end of term, I will have a glass of water and either a Potion of Fear or a Potion of Grief set out on your desks. Your task is to pick out which glass is poisoned, and avoid drinking it." The class looked horrified.

"Don't worry, if you pay attention, Markus! You should not have a hard time distinguishing which glass is tampered with or not." The professor glanced at a kid named Markus. "We'll start with the Potion of Fear. First take your cauldrons, and add a dash of rose petal."

Claira picked up a rose that was on her desk and plucked a petal, dropping it into the cauldron. When the petal made contact with the bottom of the cauldron, it turned into a red liquid. Claira smiled, Elena did the same. When the class was done marveling at the flower, the professor continued.

"Next, pour your vial of dragon's blood." Claira poured, what looked like, blue gravy into the cauldron. On contact, the blood started to steam and sizzle. Puffs of blue smoke rose from everyone's cauldron. 

"Put the whole daisy into your cauldrons." Claira grabbed a daisy and dropped it into the pot. The blue smoke that had been steaming, turned white. In seconds, the classroom was shrouded in white mist.

"And lastly, pick up your piece of bark, shave it with your knife, and drop it in." Claira picked up the bark, and used her wand. "Sectis!" The bark was immediately shredded. Claira dropped it in, the smoke turned black and popping sounds could be heard from the cauldron.

"Excellent! Now, fill your vial with the potion and put it on my desk. When you have done that, you can leave." Claira picked up her vial and dipped it in to the cauldron, instead of the liquid being black, it was clear. Except for some bubbles on the top.

Elena and Claira turned their potions in and left the classroom. "What's our next class?" Claira asked as the pair turned right down a hall.

"Divination. It's one of my favorite classes, I don't know why though. Maybe something will help me decode the vision I had." Elena smiled and looked at Claira. "What's wrong?"

"I'm worried, Elena. What if someone is trying to kill you. That's not exactly a pleasant thought. And why did that boy smile at you when we were entering Potions?" Claira was dodging oncoming students as she was talking.

"For one, if someone is trying to kill me, why have they been waiting? Why can't they just kill me now?" Elena took a deep breath. "And secondly, that boy was my brother, I don't know why he was smiling, but he's weird, so that wasn't much of a surprise."

Suddenly, a blonde haired girl ran up to Elena. "Elena! My sister just told me that you and Svetlana fought! That's so cool!" Elena frowned.

"That's not exactly 'new news', Eva. Everyone already knows already." Eva frowned and slumped away. As Claira and Elena made it closer to Divination, their stomachs started growling.

"Oh my gosh, I'm so hungry! I'm so excited for dinner!" Claira found the classroom first, inside it was decorated with stars on the ceiling and everything was draped in blue and black blankets. The professor was in the middle of the floor meditating, a crystal ball was placed in front of her. There were no desks.

Elena and Claira sat directly in front of the professor. "Hello, young girls, I am Ms. Otrovesk." The teachers' eyes were still closed. As soon as all of the students settled down and got situated, class began.

"Welcome, welcome! Today, we will be discussing signs from the above. Any questions?" Elena glanced at Claira and raised her hand. "Yes, Elena?"

"I had a vision." Ms. Otrovesk smiled. "It was very weird, it's very hard to describe. But I was ho-" Before Elena could finish her sentence, Ms. Otrovesk grabbed her hand and placed it on the crystal. Violet smoke swirled around the ball, and suddenly the vision that Elena had described to Claira was playing. Like a movie.

Shrill laughter could be heard from the ball, several people winced. When the vision was over, Elena looked exhausted. Ms. Otrovesk had been taking notes. "I was hoping you could decode the vision." Elena said, taking her hand off the crystal. Ms. Otrovesk nodded.

"The coffin. It symbolizes passing, but not just regular death. This coffin was red. The death was violent and unexpected." Elena nodded. 

"The flowers. There is a bouquet of flowers, the first flower is an ivy, which stands for friendship. Next to the ivy is a rose. The rose means, remembrance, almost like something or someone new has entered your life." Elena looked at Claira.

"But, right next to the rose is a marigold. Marigold's stand for cruelty. But there is one more thing, everyone in the crowd is wearing orange. Orange symbolizes pleasure." Elena gulped.

"This is not a vision I would expect a student to have, but to sum it up. Your vision meant this: Someone new is going to be your friend, but suddenly you die in a cruel, violent and unexpected death. Everyone, including your killer, will take pleasure in this." The classroom was quiet. No one moved.

The vision was blunt, it said what it had to say. But Elena didn't want to believe it.

She couldn't.