A Little Learning is a Dangerous Thing

Holly

~“Thought you’d defeated me, didn’t you?”~

My body froze as a menacing voice rang through my darkened dorm.

~“Thought you’d finally cast me out of your life?”~

It was a voice I knew all too well; one that had haunted many a nightmare.

~“That you’d won?”~

But this was no nightmare. Devina was here! She’d tracked me down! It was time for her to exact her revenge.

I tried to cry for help. But it was no use. She already had me under some sort of spell that bound me to the bed.

My eyes feverishly scanned the room for her. She was nowhere to be seen. But I could feel her presence oozing through the cracks in the ancient stone walls.

A deafening cackle rose to maddening volumes.

Her presence bore down closer and closer until I could feel it on top of me.

Then, a burst of smoke revealed her grimacing face right in front of mine.

My blood ran cold.

~“Looks like you thought wrong, Holly!”~

All of a sudden, the world was pulled out from under me.

And I felt myself falling.

Her cackles faded as I plummeted further and further down into the abyss...

SMACK!

A jolting pain sent my eyes shooting open.

I looked around.

I was on the floor of my dorm.

The light of the morning sun was just beginning to peek through the blinds.

My body lay tense as my eyes cautiously scanned the room for any signs of Devina.

But it looked like it had all been a dream.

“Holly?” a tired voice whispered.

It belonged to my perpetually cranky roommate, Serena. Her two hazel eyes peered down from the lower bunk of our bed.

“What the hell are you doing?” she asked.

“I think I feel…” I groaned as I rose to my feet, “I… I guess I’m still getting used to the top bunk.”

“Could you keep it down,” she yawned petulantly, “Some of us don’t have class until the afternoon.”

“Well, sorry!” I whispered as I popped my aching back.

Her sour disposition provided little solace after the dream I had just had.

Nightmares involving Devina had become all too common over the past few months.

And since I had arrived at school, away from the protection of my family and friends, they had become a nightly occurrence.

But these weren’t normal nightmares. Witches don’t have normal nightmares.

You never knew when a bad dream might actually be the result of an evil spell.

Not even the realm of sleep is safe when dark magic is involved.

~Maybe I should tell Professor Zillana about these dreams.~

My relationship with the wise mistress of magic had grown even stronger in my first week.

There was something about me that really seemed to interest her.

At a new school, on a new continent, her personal attention had really been a godsend in my acclimation.

Maybe if I did tell her, she’d have some sort of spell or charm to help ward off wicked imaginings at night.

It was worth a shot. And somehow, I didn’t feel afraid to tell her anything. After all, she already knew about my previous dealings with Devina.

When I met the professor after class to set up some private tutoring sessions, she promised to help me overcome the fear of dark magic that the evil old witch had instilled in me.

She told me that the sooner I learned not to fear it, the more powerful a witch I would become.

Her kind reinforcement of my abilities played on an endless loop in my head as I got dressed for my morning classes.

I hoped the day would fly by fast.

Tonight held something far more exciting in store than just lectures.

It would be my first one-on-one session with Professor Zillana.

I was excited to learn and anxious to impress.

She quite obviously had a lot of faith in me.

I only hoped I would prove worthy.

***

After a day of dry lectures, my brain felt lulled into a stupor.

If I had to look at one more syllabus or hear one more prattling docent, my mind would have turned to mush.

But thankfully, the school day was over.

It was time for my lesson.

Nerves rattled my joints as I made my way down the narrow hallways of the College for the Conjuring Arts to the professor’s office.

I was desperate to make a good impression.

As I approached the door to her office, I was curious to find the lights off and the door locked.

There was no vestige of my instructor, except for a short note scribbled on a small scrap of paper taped to her office window.

“MAG SCI 66.6,” it read.

An identification number for a book. Apparently one related to the Magical Sciences.

I didn’t know what to make of it.

~Maybe it was the number of a book she wanted me to check out.~

Whatever it was, it seemed like my best chance of finding Professor Zillana.

After I made my way across campus to the Salem Memorial Library, I scoured the dense rows of shelves searching for the book labeled “MAG SCI 66.6.”

Finally, I came upon the Magical Sciences section.

I followed the numbers all the way up to 66.5, but after that, it stopped. It jumped straight to 66.7.

I was at a loss for what to do.

Somebody must have already checked it out.

As I walked perplexedly down the aisle, wondering what had become of my professor and about the elusive title in her note, I noticed an ancient-looking podium in a dusty, reading nook.

It held an inconspicuous black tome covered in a heavy layer of dust and cobwebs.

There was something eerie about this dilapidated alcove amidst an otherwise immaculate library.

But something about it called to me. It invited me.

I walked over to the podium and wiped away the dust from the black leather cover.

It bore no inscription.

I looked at the book’s spine.

It, too, bore no markings except at the very bottom.

A faded engraving read 66.6.

This was the book!

But when I opened the book, I found that all of its frayed, yellowed pages were blank. No writing, no illustrations, nothing.

Why the hell would she want me to check out an empty book?

Maybe I had figured wrong.

Maybe the note was for somebody else.

Either way, something about this alcove didn’t seem right.

On the other hand, maybe Professor Zillana hadn’t left it there.

Maybe somebody else had.

And maybe they’d taken Professor Zillana!

What if it was Devina?!

What if she had found out where I was?

What if she found out that the professor wanted to train me to become even more powerful?

And what if they’d left the note to…

~Oh shit!~

I turned around.

The library had disappeared behind me.

I was alone in the dimly lit nook.

My heart raced.

It was Devina. My nightmare come true.

The silence was broken by a demonic creaking sound beneath my feet, shaking the floor.

Something… or someone… was underneath me!

WHOOSH!

The floor plunged into a dark abyss.

I tried to scream, but I was too petrified!

This truly was my nightmare realized.

I fell for what seemed like an eternity, clinging to the podium.

Then, all of a sudden, the fall into nothingness ended with a jarring, mechanical halt.

I was alive!

Or was I?

Had I fallen into another dimension? To the center of the Earth? To hell?

Suddenly, the dark room was flooded with a lurid green light as the back wall that had once led to the library slid open.

The sound of footsteps drew nearer.

I held up my hands, ready to cast the first spell that came to mind.

I feared the worst.

“Holly?” a familiar voice rang out. But it wasn’t Devina.

Through the gaudy, green light emerged the delicate silhouette of Professor Zillana, smiling!

“Holly! I’m glad to see you got my note!”

My mind raced with a million questions, but all I could manage to summon was, “Where am I?”

“An old magic lab, darling. Dates all the way back to the school’s founding. I tried to book us one of the more modern facilities, but they were all full.”

She stepped toward me and offered a friendly hand to help me up from the floor.

“Sorry about the drop. This old elevator hasn’t been used in a while. But it’s still the only way to get down here.”

As she assisted me to my feet, I started to catch my breath.

“B… But the book! It was empty!”

My professor chuckled insouciantly as she led me out of the “elevator” into a long, narrow hallway.

“You can’t say the witches that have passed through this place didn’t have a sense of humor. Supposedly, one of the old sororities used to use this old lab as a secret party spot. They created the legend of a cursed spell-book, conceived in devilry, to keep prying poindexters from spoiling their fun…”

As Professor Zillana continued her story, we made our way into the musty old lab. The mossy stone walls and faintly sulfurous air made it clear this witching room had sat in disuse for a long while.

It had a very dark and mysterious quality about it, though not threateningly so. In fact, it felt kind of nostalgic.

The black, cast-iron kettles hanging from the ceiling, the hand-fashioned broomsticks strewn about the floor, and the shelves of grotesquely shaped vials with arcane labels were all reminders of those antiquated stereotypes that the human world still accredited to us.

It was like something out of Macbeth!

Professor Zillana walked over to an old workbench and tossed me a stick from the top drawer.

“What’s this?” I asked, catching the knobby twig.

“A magic wand, of course!” she exclaimed enthusiastically.

I thought about the wand, confused as to why she thought I needed it. Wands were for novice witches just beginning to use their powers. It gave them a physical object through which to channel their energies. But I’d defeated Devina with my bare hands.

Apparently, Professor Zillana saw my bemusement.

“I know what you’re thinking. It’s a little juvenile. But if you’re going to learn how to control the powers that you have, we have to start at square one. Besides, the wand used to belong to my best pupil. Maybe some of her ability will rub off on you.”

I was intrigued, “Who was this student?”

Her mouth curled in a cryptic expression, “She was an amazing talent. Reminds me a lot of you, actually.” She smiled at me encouragingly.

“Her name was Tyler.”