Spells

Chapter 11: The Book

Arul

The two equally tall and skinny boys, chirpy Arul and a bored Satya, stood on the first floor of the library. It had taken a few chocolate bribes for Arul to convince his new friend to come along with him... Satya hardly did his own homework, let alone help others with theirs. But Arul had no other choice. He didn't want to disturb Abhimanyu, who was overwhelmed with homework. And going alone to the dark creepy library was out of the question.

Arul hadn't lied to Satya... He did need to look into some resources at the library for his assignment. But the major reason, the real reason that he hadn't shared with his friend, was to check out that book again. The one that kinda called him... The one that kinda glowed... The one which seemed a mystery as well as a clue. The first time he had laid hands on it, he had gotten an itch of curiosity. No matter how much he scratched it with logical thinking, the itch didn't subside. In fact, it grew. He wanted to read the book again for the last couple of days, and find out whether it was hiding a secret. He needed to satisfy his curiosity, and now he finally had the opportunity.

Satya started to walk ahead, his gaze wandering around, but his eyes unfocused. Arul followed.

"Can't believe you dragged me here," Satya muttered.

"Yeah, it must have been hard for you to make time for this... You must have been busy preparing for all the D's you are getting in school." Arul joked.

"I have a life, you know." Satya rolled his eyes.

Arul's response was silence. He never understood why people didn't like to study. How could they go on with their life without knowing how everything worked? The world was a never-ending puzzle to him, and he loved the accomplishment when another piece fell in its place. And, of course, the right to show off that came with being the smartest in school was a lovely perk. He thought the girls admired and liked him for that. Well, he hoped. They never talked to him much.

The first floor looked untouched since he last came here; Dark, stale and dusty. He could see small bugs creeping around on the floor and big cobwebs covering stacks of books.

"How will you find the book you need in this horrid mess?" Satya asked monotonously.

"I know where it is " Arul replied, retracting his steps.

He found it resting in the place he had shoved it. The book seemed to fit in with the environment this time. It looked old, wasn't making any sound, and certainly wasn't glowing. But nonetheless, Arul was sure. He felt like in a trance. His eyes locked on it, his hand reached out, his vision registered shadows moving around him in the darkness, the back of his neck felt cold, his stomach felt hollow, his skin felt the dry rotting leather and his muscles ached with its weight.

"This is the book you want?" Satya asked, looking over Arul's shoulder.

Arul slowly nodded."Yes, it is."

The old librarian wasn’t present at the spot. They hadn’t seen or heard her since arriving at the library. After waiting for a few more minutes, they returned home. Arul left a note for her, feeling a bit thankful. He honestly didn't want to deal with the explanation of why he needed this old heavy book in case she asked.

He was home fifteen minutes later, sitting alone in his room while the book rested on the study-table. Satya had said his goodbye along the way. Arul had tried to persuade him to stay, though very weakly. He simultaneously wanted to be alone and not alone with this book. It had a scary aura, even without the eerie atmosphere of the library. Whenever he was touching it, his heart beat faster and his stomach felt empty. Taking a few quick breaths, he opened it, recognizing the words that he had previously laid eyes upon. His index finger flowed on the discontinuous translations on the long wide page:-

Curse your mind and I will give you freedom

Curse your body and I will give you power

Curse your soul and I will give you immortality

Core eye root, Rabbit's blood, squirrel's hair(night) ->Bleed, Take in Smoke

First spell

Arul stared at them for sometime with random thoughts floating around for their meaning. He flipped the page and was met with the same structure: The book followed a pattern of having blank pages on one side. The other side was cramped with the symbols and their translations. A few didn't have the latter. One page from the middle of the book was torn out smoothly. He shuffled the book to find it unsuccessfully.

The sun has already retired for the day  when Arul closed the book and hid it under his bed. His curiosity had been replaced with disappointment. Just lines and lines of translations, more than half went over his head, lay in the book. He didn't know what he expected, but he had hoped it would have been exciting.

He went down, won a game of chess against his father (a long but easy victory for him), talked about school with Kavya, watched an episode of 'Dragon Ball Z' with Abhimanyu, ate the dinner of paneer curry Prithvi had made for them, and thought about which subject's homework to tackle first. All the while though, a thought kept running in a loop deep in his mind... What the hell is a core eye root and how to get it?