Bella Atropa leans back in her chair, letting her exhausted and tingling fingers fall limp on the pages in front of her. Finally finished copying the notes her bullies destroyed, Bella sits and stares at a clock on the wall waiting for her friend Hailey to arrive.
Were Bella more accustomed to having friends she would doubtless be checking her phone by now, but alas she is not and so she does not see the text from Hailey informing Bella she will be late. To Bella, this is proof her tormenters from the afternoon were correct and a slap in the face of all the work she did rewriting her notes for the meeting.
Putting her head down on the desk, she begins to cry silently. The library is her only refuge, one of the few places most students avoid religiously so she has long since perfected the art of sobbing silently to avoid disturbing Mr. Whittaker, the librarian. Shuddering, she continues to muffle the sounds of her tears in her arms for a few minutes before standing and wiping her eyes clear with her hands.
"Well," she says to the air with a clear wobble in her voice, "if Hailey's bailing on me then I shouldn't stick around like some loser freak right?"
Then she stands and begins piling the notes into her backpack. Suddenly she stops as if remembering something, "Oh my god! The book for Mr. Memely!" Bella begins laughing to herself quietly. Then she finishes gathering her notes and walks off towards the back section of the library.
Far back in the stacks is the religious section, a holdover from when St. Cecilia's put a much greater stock in the religious portion of student's education. Now such classes remain a forgotten component of yesteryear but the texts used to support that education remain. As a result, around a corner in the far section of the library a narrow hallway leads to a location formerly used as a prayer room for the nuns who started the school. Now filled with books no longer important to the school it suffers from a casual neglect, although Mr. Whittaker is diligent in his duties he hardly has time to reshelf and catalogue the unnoticed and unneeded books back here.
Of course, this section does share space occasionally. It does so now with an equally unappealing group, spare and out of date textbooks. It is back here that Bella Atropa finds herself after a few minutes navigating the twists of the library. She drops her backpack down onto an unused desk, grimacing at the collected dust she disturbs in the process. Then she begins rooting through the stacks, searching for the Mediator's Guide.
But her search is in vain! Even as she peruses the stacks, searching for the test, it continues to elude her. The careful ordering system of Mr. Whittaker is not present so far into the depths of the library and as such, she finds herself manually checking each shelf for the book she seeks. Running her fingers over the spines Bella quickly becomes lost in the world of words and pages. Here and there, she stops to pull out an old favorite or a new friend, setting them aside on the table for later. While she might delight in each new discovery, she hardly plans to deviate from her studies.
Deep within the stacks, she discovers the old reliquary of the prayer room. A simple cross sits on an altar tucked into the corner covered in so much dust it seems likely nobody's touched it since moving it here. Navigating around the altar Bella reaches for the stacks in the far corner, looking for her book. Of course, had she stopped to apply her prodigious intellect she would have realized that this far back in the room there is little chance of finding the textbook.
Yet Bella finds herself drawn to these old tomes. Some compulsion seems to rest on her fingers as she leans over the altar reaching out for the last few texts in the furthest corner of the room. Hoisting her small frame up over the altar, she stretches out reaching for the shelf. Then, just as her fingertips brush the books, she tumbles down over the altar. Grasping wildly for anything to save her she reaches out and clutches at the cross.
Her body splays over the altar as she falls down hard. A thud and crack resound throughout the room. Bella twists herself up from where she lays on the ground and gapes up at the altar she has just inadvertently desecrated. The broken cross sits half in her hand half laying on the altar. The simple wood of the altar itself is broken where the cross tore it.
Bella stares uncomprehendingly at the damage she caused. Then, in mounting panic, she stands and races over. "Oh no, oh no, no oh, no!" She stammers frantically as she realizes she cannot simply put the cross back together again. "Oh dear, oh dammit, oh my God!" she wails as she holds up the broken pieces and stares down at the smashed wood.
Then, suddenly, she stops. Looking down at the break in the altar she can see a glint coming from inside. Something shining under the altar mesmerizes her for a few moments. Discarding the broken cross absentmindedly, Bella tries to angle herself for a better view inside.
Unable to see even from her new vantage she frets, glancing about for a few moments before taking the remnants of the broken cross and bringing them down hard on altar. After all, the damage is done. She may as well see what potential treasure rests inside!
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
Enlarging the hole is more work than she anticipated! It takes her several hits before enough of the splintering boards clear away for her to see inside. Now able to get a full view, Bella stares at the object resting on the base of the altar. A faded wooden box lined in gold sits caked in nearly enough dust to obscure the luster of its lining. A small lock sits on the box, signaling that whatever is inside must be important.
So, Bella reaches in and maneuvers the box out, taking only a few cuts from the splintered board. Returning to her desk, she brushes off the dust and examines the container. It seems largely unremarkable except for the lock and golden lining, which upon closer inspection turns out to be nothing more than polished brass. How it remains so bright seems a mystery to Bella, but then the existence of the box itself is a mystery to Bella.
Fortunately, she notes, the lock is not similarly immune to dust and time. It has rusted over so with a few smashes of her cross, she removes the seal. Opening the box reveals a large book with an ornate cover resting inside a velvet lining. For a moment, the cover remains blank. Then as she brushes her cut fingers over the face to clear the dust, words begin to appear. The cover reads, "A Witch's Guide to Poison: Spells, Brews, and Ingredients." Gasping in surprise, Bella pulls the book out and sets it on the desk with a thud.
Then she peels back the cover and begins to read a random page. Inside are incantations and mixes that produce deadly results. Flipping through she notices information on finding plants and animal parts to supply her with toxins that range in potency from insidiously lethal to mildly irritating. For a moment, Bella allows herself to daydream of using the recipes to enact revenge on her tormentors. With a gut-wrenching twist, Bella closes the book in guilt.
Nevertheless, a moment later she finds herself opening it up again as though drawn mysteriously to the contents of the book. However, this time she cannot find the same lethal recipes! This time she sits in front of a blank page and no matter how she twists and turns the pages, she cannot find anything else. Confused, Bella flips through the text quickly trying to find the contents again.
After paging through the book in frustration for a short time, she discovers one page with a spidery drawling cursive script. With difficulty, she reads the text. It informs her that she holds a magical cookbook, a relic of witchery from ages past. Afraid of discovery, the authors placed a curse on the book. It demands a price from those would view its dark spells, blood! When Bella grazed herself on the splinters of the altar, she got enough blood on her hands to activate the book for a few minutes.
Now the magic is worn and fading, only the instruction page remains. It too begins to disappear before Bella's wondering eyes. Amazed she watches the text sink into the book before reaching over to her splintered cross and finding a stray point to widen one of her shallow cuts. Blood now dripping down her arm and hand she reaches out to grasp the book once again and watches in amazement as the blood disappears from her cut and sinks into the tome!
Slowly the words reappear, the script winding down the page informing her of the terrible price once again. In wonder, Bella slumps back in her chair. Slightly overwhelmed and woozy at the sight of all that blood she closes her eyes for an instant and tries to remain calm. Then he eyes snap open! She has just remembered the time limit on the textbook! Frantically racing to her backpack, she grabs a notebook and seizes a pen. Then racing back over Bella flips to the spells section and begins to copy with the practiced haste of a good student.
Racing against an unknown clock might appear stressful, but to Bella this is nothing more than her typical study session. After all, though she has her bullies timed now Bella has not always been so fortunate or prepared. Racing to finish her homework before Ally and her cohorts can find her is a familiar game, one that pays off dividends in her efforts to speed through copying notes from the book.
A short time later the text begins to disappear again as the words start to fade. Leaning back and wringing her cramping hand Bella stares down at the pages of her notes. The title of her note is “The Poisoner’s Revenge” and below is instructions for a series of spells that allow a witch to harness the power of her toxic emotions. Rage, shame, hate, fear, all these can turn into potent weapons when indulged under the proper circumstances.
First, the witch must gather ingredients to empower each of these emotions. Her own tears shed in fear, a symbol of her shame, the blood of her tormentor, and a leaf of deadly nightshade. Bella closes her notes shaking. She looks over at her backpack where some pieces of the notes Maggie shredded this afternoon remain caught in the netting of her water bottle pouch.
Trembling her fingers crush the paper and throw it on the center of the desk. Then she looks down at the sleeve of her sweatshirt. She's wiped away tears countless times with this sleeve, perhaps it would fill that requirement she wonders. She quickly takes it off and leaves it with the shreds of paper. Shivering in her undershirt, she stares at the pile.
Time seems to slip away as Bella thinks about the other two items. Acquiring nightshade is as simple as going downtown to Liberty City University. The plant is dangerous, but grown as a research subject for the biology students. Both her parents both teach at Lib U so Bella would hardly attract attention securing the plant. But the blood of her tormentor, now that is a much more difficult thing to acquire.
Bella begins to think how she might do such a thing, plotting a means of stealing blood unnoticed. Then she hears shouting from outside the room!
"Heeeeeyyyyyyy! Beeeeeelllllllllllllaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Where'd you go?!" Shouts a voice that causes Bella to freeze, until she hears the shouting resume.
"Beeeeeeeeeeellllllllllllllllllllllllaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" Hailey yells in a singsong voice throughout the library.
Bella looks about the room frantically, shoving the grimoire into her backpack, covering it with her notes, and racing out of the room. Behind her, on the table, lie her sweater and the discarded sheets of paper. Out through the narrow hallway she rushes and then past the winding stacks until she nearly runs face first into Hailey!
"Oh!" She exclaims in surprise.
"Hey!" Hailey says with a grin, "Finally, I've been looking for you for like ten minutes now. You wouldn't believe how annoyed Mr. Whittaker is right now."
Bella blinks, "He's still here? It's really late!"
Hailey smiles, "Well if he was here." Then she hooks her arm on Bella's and starts walking towards the nearest study table. "But none of that matters, what matters is how desperately I need your help with my grades! Now come over here and save my GPA."
Smiling, Bella walks over to the table with her, internally admonishing herself for ever doubting Hailey would show up. Nevertheless, back in the forgotten room, a shattered altar sits. Indeed, dear reader, this is far from the end of Bella's story. Although we might wish it otherwise, she will find herself returning to the far-flung recesses of the library time and time again!
For now that she knows of the place, and more importantly, others do not, she feels a strange affinity that pulls her there. She lacks the courage or desperation to continue feeding the book so it sits in her pack. But neither can she bring herself to hide it away or bring it to the attentions of her parents. For the first time, Bella knows she has something that can give her power. Power that is a dangerous lure to a girl facing the predations of bullies!
Although this day in the life has ended, take heart dear reader. For our story continues next week as the class visits the university in... "Visitation Day!"