My First Coven

And Then He Kissed Me

We were back to Monday again. I had spent a lot of time at Arne's mansion this weekend with my Aunt, having some weird experiences and getting grossed out by her frankness. I felt a bit prudish but then; I realised I had a pretty sheltered life up till now and my Aunt was opening my eyes up to what went on in the world that I had no idea about, or had the inkling to find out about. I felt a little ignorant actually.

On the plus side, I had agreed to go out on another date with Duncan this coming Friday, which was perfect as we had the day off at school for some staff training day thing that was happening. We were undecided on where to go, so I asked Duncan to choose. He said he had figured out somewhere to go that wasn't that far away and would be interesting. I was looking forward to it. So much so, I was actually day dreaming about it whilst I was sat in the school library during a free period in the afternoon. I figured I may as well do a bit of studying and catch up on some work I had to do, especially now as I was going out on Friday.

'Hey Maddie.'

It was Liam. I was so in to my day dream I didn't even hear or see him approach me. He pulled out a chair from the table I was sat at and laid his bag down on the seat next to him.

'Aw hey Liam, sorry I was in my own world there.' I replied. 'What you up to?'

'Nothing much, I have a free period so I thought it might be a good idea to get some studying in.'

'Same.'

A moment of silence happened, then Liam pulled a few books out of his bag; Maths and French.

'What you working on there?' He asked me, looking over at the books I was reading.

'Oh, just doing some research for your Uncles history class. I'm doing an essay about how social class and religion through the times changed how funerals and burials happened.'

Liam whistled slightly.

'Wow that sounds like a pretty niche topic.'

'It is I suppose, but your Uncle wanted us to think outside of the box when it came to picking an essay subject. And this is as far out as I could think.'

'Yeah he'd probably like that actually. Uncle Dan visits a lot of cemeteries for fun, he likes researching all the gravestones.'

It reminded me of a little trip I took to a nearby cemetery with my Aunt recently. We walked around endlessly and every so often she would stop by a grave, speak to whoever was inhabiting the grave then walk off muttering about how "they must be out," seemingly not getting any reply before she moved on to another grave to do the same. It happened a few times before she found someone who"was in," then asked permission to take some of the dirt off their grave, cramming it in to a small glass jar. She told me graveyard dirt was a staple in many spells and that it was just respectful to ask to take some from somebody's grave. It was weird, but it totally made sense.

A short amount of time had passed as Liam and I sat occasionally chatting about schoolwork and where we were up to in our magic training. I glanced over to the space in the middle of the library where we first encountered that weird skull thing that we somehow managed to launch in to space via a portal. I don't know why I didn't think of it before, but I got up out of my seat and walked over to the main counter where the schools resident librarian Delia was sorting through some books.

'Hi Delia. Can you tell me if we have any books on the history of the school at all?' I asked her quietly.

'Yes we do Madelyn. We don't have many good ones I'm afraid. They're in the corner over there, top shelf.'

'Thank you.'

I glanced at Liam who was watching me wander over to she shelf where Delia told me where the books were. I scanned the top shelf, most of the books were mainly abut the local area and there were a bunch of school yearbooks but nothing really stood out. Until I saw a small, hardback book with a weird leather bound cover. It looked like it could be old and sort of home-made, but it looked to be in really good condition which made me doubt it's age. I opened the book to the title page which read "Saint Augustines, an informal abridged History. Written by Wendy McLintock." Abridged sounded about right as upon further inspection, the book wasn't that thick; maybe being around a centimetre in thickness.