Amethyst Night - The Secrets of Nightingale Academy - Chapter 12

Library

The pain in my eyes finally convinced me to refocus my vision and pick up the fallen books. Among the pile was my potions book. I pulled it out of the pile and opened it to the page about the anger potion that I would have to remake. Fire of the soul, head my words and take hold. As I set them alight, let these flames burn bright and swallow all reason in their way. Even now, as I read the riddle again, it made no more sense than it had the first time. I couldn’t figure out how the ingredients should be prepared, or what order to add them in, or how to mix them up once they were added.

I put the book down face down on the side table and opened the top drawer, rummaging around inside it looking for the map of the school provided for every student. Naturally, it was right at the back of the drawer and it got caught on everything else in the drawer as I tried to pull it out. Once it was out of the drawer and spread out, fully unfolded, on my bed, and draping over the edges too, I was able to appreciate the incredible size of the campus yet again. I wondered if I would ever be able to explore every part of this massive school in the short amount of time that I would be here. My legs crumpling the paper where my knees were just touching it, I knelt next to the edge of the map and brushed my fingers across the top, following the lines of the walls. I quickly found what I was looking for, seeing as it was the largest room on the map, and made a quick note as to where it was in relation to the Ether dorms.

The library was made up of multiple rooms all over ten times the size of the largest classroom, which were each for the different types of books, from textbooks to fiction. It was a building in a different section of the school to the dorms, which were all in one building, probably, to make it easier for the teachers to keep an eye on all the students.

I grabbed a jacket off of the end of my bed and let my arms slip into the sleeves. Then I stopped, arm half way into its sleeve. There was another room that was as almost as big as the main hall that made up almost the entire basement of the school – it was simply called the archives. I let my jacket slip the rest of the way down my arm and picked up the sides of the map so that I could take a closer look at it. From what I could tell, there was no way of getting into the basement and none of the rooms in the basement were connected to each other. Brow furrowing, I scanned the basement section of the map one more time to be sure that I wasn’t missing something, but still found nothing. Suddenly curious, I made note of all the rooms that were situated above the archives room by circling them on my map. Then I folded it up and put it away. I took the small blue stone that Rune had given me out of my blazer pocket and dropped it into my jacket pocket before leaving the room; I had been carrying it around as a sort of good luck charm since she had given it to me and, though it hadn’t been much help, still felt it necessary to keep it near me.

When I entered the common room Fey stood up and froze in that position as if she was wondering if it was safe to walk over to me. I gave her a slight smile, more to acknowledge her presence than anything else, and carried on walking towards the door. That seemed to ease her worries a little and she sat down continued to talk to Gemini. I left the common room and made my way along the corridors, outside and along the many pathways until I reached a section of the school that was quite obviously separate from the rest of the school. This was the main section of the school and it was designed to impress new students and those who came to visit the school. Three buildings stood next to each other – the main hall was directly opposite the gates and the ballroom and library stood on either side. I opened the main doors and walked into the library’s building. Grand staircases with ornate designs carved into their handrails led from large reception rooms to large landings and arches and alcoves lined the walls, which had the most beautiful masterpieces hanging from them. The dark wood floor was broken up by rich red rugs with gold embroidery. This part of the school was built to impress and it certainly fit the purpose.

I stood outside the large oak doors that led into the main library, which was separate from the reading rooms and computer labs that were also located in the library’s building, wondering how on earth I was supposed to open them. There was a small sign above the handles on each door, like the plaques they sometimes put on normal doors that instruct you to either push or pull the door except that this one said knock on it.

“Knock,” I mumbled to myself.

“That’s how you open massive doors like that one,” someone said behind me.

I turned around to see the boy who had warned me against going into the West Woods.

“By knocking?” I said doubtfully.

He grinned happily at me. “Yup,” he said, jumping up and knocking on the door to demonstrate.

The doors slowly creaked open, revealing the large library on the other side. I walked through the doors, awestruck by the shear beauty and size of the room I had entered. Rows of book shelves lined the walls and created isles in the centre of the room. More ornate staircases led up to balconies of yet more bookcases and past partitions in the room were different sections of the library. The main section, which I had just entered, was dedicated completely to text books for the students.

“What are you looking for Miss Night?” he asked.

I smiled at him and decided to play along with the little act. “A book about potions,” I told him in the most posh accent I could manage.

He grinned at me, nodded and led me quickly to the section devoted to potions, which was bigger than I was expecting. “We have many wonderful books for you to chose from,” he said, switching to salesman mode. “What sort of potion book are you looking for?”

“One that covers the basics.” I walked up and down the isle we were in examining the books’ spines.

“The basics, huh?” He followed me. Then he stopped and crouched down to take a book off of the bottom shelf. “You play the role of an aristocrat quite well.”

“You found that quite quickly,” I said.

He grinned at me. “Locator spell,” he explained. “It’s cast on the library so that all you have to do is think of the sort of book you’re looking for and it sends the top options and their locations straight into your head.”

I couldn’t help but feel slightly disappointed by that. “You guys do everything with magic,” I said with slightly more spite than I had meant to say it with. “Isn’t there anything you do on your own anymore?”

He stood up and held the book out towards me. “I guess there isn’t,” he admitted. “But that’s just how our society works nowadays.”

I took the book from him and sighed. Being able to just click your fingers and have everything you need to just happen was a completely foreign concept to me and I was struggling to come to terms with it. It was obvious it would be hard for me to get used to this new world I was in.

“You’ll get used to it,” he assured me, turning to walk away. “Trust me.”

“Hey, wait,” I called after him. “I haven’t asked for your name yet.”

He turned and smiled at me. “I’m Marcus Jones,” he said. Then he left and I was left standing in the middle of the library, clutching a book that was supposed to help me learn the basics of potion making and feeling like I had made a massive mistake in coming to this school. And if it weren’t for the fact that I had these moments in which I would do something completely stupid and stubborn, then I would have done the sensible thing at that moment and gone back to my old life. But I didn’t – even though I had this horrible sense that what I’d discover in my past would turn out to be something terrible that I wouldn’t be able to turn back from, I didn’t run away. Instead I went back to the dorms having made the decision to carry on looking into my family and not turn back, no matter how horrible what I found was. Two words that Marcus had said to me remained in my head as I made that decision, trust me, but they were why I would have to keep searching on my own – I couldn’t really trust anyone.

When I entered the dorm common room it was empty. I checked the clock to confirm that it was only eight o’clock. Quickly, I scanned the room again, wondering if I’d missed somebody on the way in, but there was still nobody else in the room. I sat on the same chair I had the last time I’d been sat in here. A horrible sense of danger sent shivers down my spine and forced me to suddenly spin round and check the sofa behind me – no Parker, I was safe. I lay back in the chair, tucking my feet under my legs and flipping through the pages of the book until I found a chapter that explained how potion instructions worked.

“Potion instructions come in two parts,” I read out loud. “The first part is found in the secondary contents, which is at the beginning of the potion group’s chapter, and this is the incantation.” I paused suddenly feeling like a complete idiot as I realised what that meant. “I’ve been reading the wrong part.” My head dropped into my hands. Then I gathered myself and continued reading. “This comes with a page reference for the second part of the instructions. The second part is where the way in which the ingredients are prepared and added to the potion is outlined.” I sunk back into the chair, laughing at my own stupidity. Then I put the book down on a small coffee table in the middle of a cluster of chairs and made my way to my room.

When I opened the door, Fey wasn’t there; though there was evidence that she had been there before and had left already. I picked up the book that I had left face down on the side table and scanned the page for the anger potion page reference – the fact that it was right next to the incantation I had been reading over and over again only served to make me feel like even more of an idiot. I turned to the page and, sure enough, there were instructions spanning a double page, detailing every step that you had to take to make the potion. Sighing and chuckling at my own stupidity, I folded over the corner of the page and put the book in side the drawer in my bed side table. Then I picked up a book about channelling magical energy and went back to my chair in the common room.

I read chapter after chapter of old men’s ideas about how magic worked and what the best way to control it was. The problem I found was quite simple – each wizard’s idea contradicted the others. Some said that emotions strengthened magic; others said that emotions must be kept in check in order to control it. Some said that hand gestures made it harder; others said that they made it easier. Some said that spells only work when the incantation is spoken out loud; others said that that actually hindered the spell. By the time I gave up on the book, one page into chapter four, I was even more confused about how magic works than I had been when I’d started. I looked up at the clock and groaned as I realised just how long I had been sat in that chair reading – it was already past midnight. Suddenly, as if triggered by the fact that I now knew how late it was, I felt incredibly tired. My eyelids felt heavy and my whole body felt weak. I forced myself to stand up and supported myself by leaning on the chair I’d been sat in.

Suddenly there was a lot of noise in the corridor that lead to the bedrooms and a few seconds later the door opened and Parker and Gemini burst into the room. They were moving quickly and were obviously panicked, so it was hard to tell exactly what was going on, but there was one thing I recognised immediately – dark red stains seeped into the fabric of their clothes that were instantly recognisable as blood. Gemini helped Parker over to a chair and sat him down in it, barely even acknowledging my presence. There was some more noise coming from the corridor as people who had heard the original commotion came out of their rooms to see what was going on. Celia and Sophia came straight over to Parker.

“I’ll get the nurse,” Celia announced, rushing off in the direction of the school infirmary.

Gemini was examining a small, half full, blue potion bottle. “I guess we’ll need to make a new draft,” he said. He looked to Parker. “Show me the wound.”

“It’s nothing,” Parker said, rolling up his sleeve to uncover a considerably large and deep looking gash in his arm, though it was hard to tell how deep it was past all the blood.

Sophia almost fainted when she saw it.

“That’s not nothing, Phoenix,” Fey said sounding concerned. She walked past me, towards Parker. “Did this draft not work?”

“It’s been weakening for a while now,” Parker said, looking away from her.

“And you’re only telling us this now because?” Gemini probed.

“You’d only worry pointlessly,” Parker moaned.

I felt like I was out of place stood there listening to them talk as if I wasn’t there, as if I was watching through the television rather than standing right next to them whilst it happened.

Celia came back with a young woman whose light brown hair was tied back in bun. She walked straight over to Parker.

“Celia,” Gemini called out. “Can you go get Mr Keats? Tell him that Phoenix’s sleeping draft isn’t working anymore.”

She nodded and rushed off to get Mr Keats. The young woman crouched down in front of Parker and looked at his wound with a worried look on her face.

“I don’t know the spell to treat a wound like this,” she said apologetically.

“What do you mean?” Gemini shouted angrily. “Where’s the nurse then?”

“She’s busy seeing to a boy with a chest infection,” she explained, looking as if she was about to cry. “So I came in her place. I didn’t think the wound be this severe.”

I could see Gemini growing angrier and angrier by the second. Other people in the room seemed ready to pounce on her if someone didn’t do something to stop Parker’s pain.

“You’re the assistant of a school nurse and you don’t even know how to treat a wound like this?” Gemini said, straightening up to make himself seem taller than the woman cowering in front of him.

Celia came back into the room with Mr Keats at her side. He walked straight over to Parker and examined the wound.

“Hurry up and treat this,” he instructed the woman.

“She can’t,” Gemini said, jabbing her with the words and watching her squirm. “She doesn’t know how to.” He advanced on her.

“Doesn’t know how?” Mr Keats said in disgust.

I could see exactly where this was going; Gemini continued to advance on her and Mr Keats was already preparing his lecture for her. I decided I had to do something. I may not know the spell that would instantly seal the wound and speed up the healing process but I did know some basic first aid – something my fellow students had probably never seen the value of learning. Rushing off to my room, I retrieved my medical kit and hurried back to the common room. I crouched in front of Parker and opened up my kit, looking for the antiseptic wipes.

“What’re you doing?” Gemini hissed at me.

“Well, while you were busy having a go at this poor woman Parker was slowly bleeding to death, so I thought that I should do something about it.”

I removed some towels and a packet of antiseptic wipes from the bag and mopped up some of the blood so that I could actually see the wound. Parker winced and I realised that I had let my frustration get to me and, consequently, was being a little too rough whilst treating him.

“Sorry,” I mumbled.

His arm relaxed in my hand as I made my touch a little gentler. Now that there wasn’t as much blood I could see that the wound wasn’t quite as deep as I had first thought, though it might still need stitches, however, it did run all the way from his elbow to half way down his forearm.

“How did you do that?” I asked switching to the antiseptic wipes. I cleaned the wound as carefully as I could, but it was still painful enough to make Parker grimace.

“It’s a condition that’s common among powerful wizards like Phoenix,” Celia informed me in a patronizing tone. “It’s called Living Nightmare Syndrome. When they have an experience that stays with them, it can emerge in their dreams and cause them to lose control of their magic in their sleep.”

“And causes things like this,” I continued. I took a small tube of cream out of the medicine bag that was designed to assist the wound in the healing process. I squirted a small amount of the cream onto my fingers and rubbed it gently into the wound before placing a dressing over it and smoothing down the edges. “There,” I said admiring my handy work.

I looked up to find Parker watching me. “Thank you,” he mumbled, flexing his hand to test the dressing.

“It’s probably best if you visit the nurse when she gets back and get that looked at,” I told him.

He looked right into my eyes. “You make no sense,” he said accusingly. “Why would you help me?”

I shrugged and packed away the medical supplies. “Maybe I’m just that nice,” I said.

Standing up, I turned to the young woman sat next to me.

“Do me a favour,” I said, smiling reassuringly at her. “Drag him to the infirmary if you have to; just make sure that he goes.”

She smiled back at me and nodded eagerly. Then she stood up and signalled for Parker to follow her. Gemini stayed close to his side as they slowly made their way out of the room. I picked up my book and left in the direction of the bedrooms.

“Amethyst,” Celia called after me causing everyone in the room to stop and turn to look at us. I turned my head so that I could see her. “Thank you,” she said, surprising me slightly. “That was a nice thing you did.”

I shrugged. Then I left the room and went straight to bed because I had never felt as tired as I did at that moment.