Chapter 15: Babysitting and galdr 2 (Sophia)

(POV Sophia)

Algebra was boring, torturous, some might say. Yet the Department of Education, and thus the school system, insisted that it was important. She understood why, after all, being able to work with some basic equations was a useful skill. At least for most people. It might be for her too, though she wasn't sure how much math theurgy actually involved.

From what she had found online, and there wasn't much of it, from actual  theurgists, the most important attribute in their field was discipline. Not the physical kind, the mental, the ability to simply power through a ritual regardless of discomfort or circumstance. Though they had also said that the most important thing was not being a person inclined towards hubris. Supposedly that had consequences, bad ones.

She needed to power through algebra if only to demonstrate that she could, no matter how mind-numbingly boring it was. She could do that, or at least she hoped she could.

Jason's tone was careful. “Are you sure? Maybe it's a” he started making the sound of a D.

Sophia heard her brother's voice in the background, as he tried to help Sam read from some book he had found. It did have some really cool illustrations, but she was surprised that Jasmine had one of Vinter's books at all. Let alone what seemed to be leather-bound editions; only the Scandinavians published those. And given how much it cost to export… well, anything from over there, she suspected Jasmine was capital R Rich.

She did doubt Jason knew what he was reading; he sounded far too much like he was reading some fantasy book. Most people, of course, didn't know the details about magical creatures; she certainly didn't. Even Wikipedia was… a decade, maybe two, out of date on the topic. Too few digital resources to source or cite for the crowd-sourcing model to work all that well. Getting even information out of there was a slow and arduous process.

Sighing, she glanced back down at the half-solved equations in front of her. She needed a break, preferably a long one, with her doing something totally different from algebra. Maybe she could find out where Jason had found the book, not to touch anything, of course. Simply to see what Jasmine's library looked like; the woman obviously had strange tastes. In books and apparently in boys, she refused to call her brother a man. It just felt wrong; he was still in high school after all.

The old lodge had an odd aura to it; dark corners felt darker than they were, and yet the lit parts of the house felt warmer. It was a peculiar combination of vibes, both cozy and haunted house. It did make the place feel both bigger and smaller than it actually was. The building really became a maze of contradictions. Not that she minded it too much.  As she turned the corner, she took an extra step into the light to avoid the shadows.

Sophia had always been attuned to details, or so she liked to think. So when she was about to turn towards the staircase, she couldn't help but notice the door standing slightly ajar. It stood out mostly because no other door on the second floor had been left open; nothing had, in fact. No drawer or window, and no door.

As Sophia walked towards the door, she heard her grandmother's voice in the back of her head. “Curiosity killed the cat, honey.” The woman had said it so much that years later she had, motivated by pure irritation, looked up the full saying. People often forgot that most sayings used nowadays are far shorter than they were originally. Having lost most of their meaning. The best example of that, in Sophia's opinion, was great minds think alike; people never mentioned that the last half was but fools seldom differ.

As she pushed open the door, the first thing she truly noticed was the shelves upon shelves of books covering one of the walls. Some seemed new, others seemed ancient. She had to put in conscious effort to close her mouth as she walked towards the bookshelf. Had she not, she would have looked like a dumbstruck fool. After all, while most of the books had English text along their spine, others had Norwegian or Swedish, and a very few had Runemal. The language of magic.

“Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.” She muttered to herself.

As she read the names written on the backs, most were only mildly interesting. Historical texts, fiction, philosophy, political theory, and a few books like the one Jason was reading from downstairs. But one name stood out like a goth chick in a field of sunflowers. Spirits, rituals, and witchcraft: a basic manual for the theurgic craft. She had heard that name somewhere before.

She could feel her heart in her throat as the name clicked. She had seen it in one of the more legitimate forums discussing witchcraft, the proper real kind. It was an introductory text to theurgic ritual magic, to witchcraft. The same they used in the conservatory in West Virginia. It was also a very illegal text to own without the proper license. It was strictly regulated even with a proper license. After all, proper magic was legally considered a born secret. At least according to the fed.

Sophia's fingers trembled slightly as she pulled the book out of the shelf. A strange sense of reverence warmed her chest as she sat down on the couch and laid the book on the coffee table in front of her. It looked newish; it had none of the signs of wear and tear you would normally see in the leather binding that came with age. But the coloring had changed. Was this one also printed in Scandinavia?

As her fingers moved to open it to the first page, she stopped herself. She could still stop right here right now. And yet she felt a pull towards the book, as if it was begging her to read it. She had been looking into this for months, scouring the internet for any faint trace of information, and right now right at her fingertips were actual answers. It couldn't hurt, could it? It's not like the book was cursed or anything. Right?

Sophia shook her head and rubbed her face with the palm of her hands. Of course the thing couldn't be cursed; that would be stupid. And it wasn't like it was illegal for her to simply open the thing and read a little. Even if it was, who was gonna tell, Jasmine? She doubted the woman had obtained the book legally; she didn't seem like a theurgist or any other type of witch for that matter. She would be in far more trouble for that than Sophia would be for simply reading a little.

She drew a deep breath and held it for a few seconds before letting it go. Her hands were still shaking as she opened the book, studying the detailed ornamentation added to the margins of the first empty page. The ornamentation continued even as she reached the first pages with proper text.

She had been reading for close to half an hour and only gotten through ten pages of text. To say the book was dense was the understatement of the century. Until now it has just been a very basic introduction to Runemal; clearly whoever had written the thing expected the reader to already know the language well. However, the last two pages had been on the roles and functions of different materials in magic circles. A substantially more interesting topic, also one where the more complex aspects of it went about as far above her head as quantum mechanics.

Books like this might contain an actual ritual… right? Nothing dangerous, something basic. If she could just know how much she had gotten correct, it would make her whole year.

Going back to the index, she saw that there was something in the back of the book, just before the glossary. Sophia didn't notice the fact that she was holding her breath as she turned the pages quickly, trying to reach the page as quickly as possible. Her fingers rested on the page when she finally reached it. She had been right, at least about some things.

The magic circle shown on the page was stunning. Several concentric circles lined its outer edge, text written in Runemal in between. The lines and some of the runes had different colors, indicating that they were made of different materials. There were other structures there too, lines connecting nodes in the outer parts of the circles, not quite any structure she had seen suggested by speculators online. The text of the ritual started on the page next to it, and together with the description of proper ritual action took up the next seven pages of the book.

The ritual described was for some kind of earth manipulation spell. At least from what she could gather, she hadn't been able to keep her attention on any paragraph long enough to actually read it since she reached the page.

An earth manipulation spell sounded safe. She could try that, couldn't she? It would be illegal, sure, but plenty of hackers had gotten jobs in cybersecurity or university enrollments after being caught, hadn't they? What better way to demonstrate that she deserved the position could she have? She could also just give the book back after she tried it. Then she would only be borrowing it, it was temporary.

Sophia closed her eyes and drew a breath through her nose, before letting it out slowly through her mouth. She closed the book carefully and then shoved it under her t-shirt as she turned off the lights and left the room. The leather of the book stuck to her skin as she walked down the stairs and stopped outside the living room.

Sneaking a peek in through the open door, she didn't see anyone. She tried to keep her step as quiet as possible as she walked towards her backpack on the other side of the room. The book almost slipped out of her hands when she heard a loud breath coming from the couch. Turning around, she saw her brother and Sam sleeping next to each other on the couch.

Letting out the breath that had gotten caught in her throat, she continued moving towards her backpack. She did eventually manage to hide the book in her backpack. She couldn't stay quiet like this; she needed a distraction, and at least pretending to do algebra would do just fine. Though scrolling the internet might be better. Either way, she couldn't do it here.

Her backpack was heavier than it had been when she put it down, even more so than she expected it to be. As she snuck past her brother, her eyebrows furrowed slightly. She couldn't leave them like this. Sneaking back slightly, she picked up the blanket draped over the arm of the couch and draped it carefully over Sam and Jason.