Magic IRL

The Journal of Rumitas

Violet was nothing special in middle school. She rode a skateboard that doubled as a personality. Her friends dressed in all black and resided comfortably in the social underclass of Nixbury Middle School. They weren't outcasts—they had each other—but they weren't the type of people that got asked to sign yearbooks or to go to the school dance. At the time, Violet didn't think she wanted to be such a commodity.

But then she found the Journal of Rumitas.

It was late in the day—during a free period—when Violet and her friends were smoking cigarettes in an old storage room.

"What the hell is this?" Juan called out, rummaging through an old bookcase. He sneezed, causing a cloud of dust to erupt from the bookcase's ancient surface. "Looks like Violet wouldn't have been able to vote when someone last went through this shit."

"I'm sure Mr. Andrews has a story or two about it, then," Violet said, referencing their octogenarian mathematics teacher.

Juan snorted, sending more dust airborne.

"Anything interesting?" Allen said with a cough, as he exhaled a puff of smoke.

"No, just some old ass books," Juan said.

"I think the answer you were looking for was 'yes, some interesting old ass books,'" Violet teased, wading through the cloud of dust and smoke to the old bookcase.

"Nerd," Juan muttered.

Ignoring him, Violet picked up a particularly large tome, wiping it clean. The cover was dark green with a thick black script: Native Sprouts of Rhode Island and Their Magical Properties.

"Jesus, these books really are old," Violet said. "And so cool," she added.

"Magical sprouts?" Juan laughed, sending himself into a fit of coughing.

"Oh, let me see that one," Allen said.

Violet obliged, already intrigued by other entries on the shelf. She grabbed another book—this one slim and flimsy—only to discover it wasn't a book at all.

"This one looks like a journal," Violet said, wiping the dust from its cover. The Journal of Rumitas: Scientia Potentia Est was scrawled across the front in rough handwriting. "Scientia potentia est? Is this Spanish?" she asked.

"Not any Spanish I've ever seen," Juan said. "Maybe Italian," he added.

Violet flipped through the journal, revealing tattered yellow pages bereft of content.

"Well, this one looks like a dud, Allen," Violet said.

The moment she finished speaking, the pages began to rustle. The sound of flapping parchment was deafening, roused by an unseen force. Amid the chaos, she could make out two words scribbled throughout the pages: Allen Roholt.

"Just tobacco in these ciggies, right?" Violet said, looking at Allen and then back at the journal.

Allen simply nodded, the color draining from his face.

At once, the rustling came to an end, and the journal settled. It was sprawled open, and a single line of text adorned the top of the page it displayed.

Allen Roholt has a secret TikTok account he uses to watch anime clips.

"What the fuck?" Juan said.

#

It had been two years since Violet discovered the Journal of Rumitas—and Allen's secret obsession with questionable Japanese cartoons. In that time, the Nixbury social landscape had undergone a dramatic transformation.