Chapter 10: The Boxes

~~ April - Week 17 ~~

Lee had a strange feeling that someone was calling her.

It was a couple of days after the meeting. Lee was curled up in bed contemplating a mid-morning nap after her work out with the crew and then with Sean when she got the odd feeling. Sean had gone to a meeting with Philip and Kyle hadn’t come down yet, probably still busy with Deb and Tony.

Lee and Kyle had finished committing the primer book to memory and had been looking at some of the smaller books. She had recently been looking at one from the second chest they believed belonged to Wizard Rah.

Philip had said that the book was as old as the primers, but the other boxes didn’t have a copy. They had decided to scan Rah’s primer, as it had more notes and diagrams in it than the other primers.

Translation of the diary entries that Sparky had supplied indicated Rah loved learning about magic and making magical items. The second box had been packed with books that neither of the other boxes had some were in better condition than others.

He was obvious that he loved to collect every text he could get his hands on to improve his abilities and knowledge. He had also meticulously written down everything he learnt, and his other book box had four times and many diaries to any of the others.

Lee had been compelled to read the small book yesterday even though it was as indecipherable as the rest, to her and Kyle. She had never considered herself particularly gifted at languages. She kept getting a feeling she should be able to understand the texts, but she wasn’t sure why.

Never one to ignore her instincts or strange feelings, she got up, put her kimono on and went next door. She approached the boxes and looked at them lined up on a bench. The one with Jahnville marked on it called to her. She placed her hands precisely on the lid and told it to open.

She heard some clicking, and then the lid lifted up a short way and stopped. She bent and looked under the lid and could see the way the hinges lined up. She turned the box around one eighty degrees and lifted the lid up. Nestled inside the silk lining and padding in the top tray were four objects.

One was a 40cm long platinum cylinder about 25mm in diameter at one end and about 20cm at the other end. She lifted it out and told it to extend, and it did. Two lengths about 30cm long slid out of each end. Then two more about 20cm long slid out of the second extension. The third set at 15cm long completed the staff of 190cm (6” 2’) long.

She spun the shaft around. It was perfectly balanced and felt right in her hands. She knew it did a lot more, but for now, she put it away. Telling it to retract and it did. She put it back in the box in its socket.

She lifted out the second object. It was a ring. She placed in on her middle finger on her left hand. It went on loose but then seemed to resize to fit her perfectly. It had a large squarish stone cut in many facets about 10mm across, and it was surrounded by six different gems.

In the centre of the big gem, a rainbow coloured light swirled and changed colours as she looked. As she watched, the stone shimmered, and the ring changed. It now looked like a simple platinum band. She left it in place and pulled out the third item.

It was an oval platinum medallion about 40mm long and 35mm wide with a crystal the same size as on the ring in the centre. Six symbols were etched around the crystal, a fire and a book were at the top, an eye was the left and a tree on the right. A hill and a cloud were on the bottom.

The medallion was hung on a chain of finely wrought intricate links, which she thought was also platinum, like the ring and the wand. She placed it over her head, and it disappeared against her chest.

She leaned forward, but it didn’t dangle. It stayed on her chest between her breasts. She ran her hand over it but couldn’t feel it until she told it to appear. She told it to disappear and again, and it did.

The fourth item was a diadem, but it wasn’t particularly ornamental. It had a plain band about 2cm wide with a row of six large precious gems. They were embedded in it, so they would also touch her skin.

The diamond was in the centre with a ruby. On the left were a topaz and an emerald. On the right were an opal and an amethyst. She placed the diadem on her forehead and knew that it had disappeared.

At first, she felt a delighted sensation, and then a peaceful feeling came over her as if the bling was happy and content now it was being worn again, which she felt was a little strange but nice.

She lifted the tray and looked under it. The final item was a crystal ball approximately 21cm (8”) diameter. It was very odd as it seemed to be floating in the box. She pulled it out and looked at it more closely. She could see what appeared as four other smaller spheres.

When Lee touched the area over one, she felt a response from the box beside her to the left. The little sphere grew to take up the centre but went dark. She touched it again, and it retreated. She touched another sphere and felt a response from the other box.

She touched the third and was now viewing a large empty room. She quickly tapped it again, and it shrunk down into the ball. She wondered where the room the other crystal was in was. She had even felt a light touch on her mental shield after she had called it up, but it evaporated when she shut the sphere down.

When she touched the last sphere, it went dark and stayed dark when she touched it again. She felt the fifth crystal was damaged. It still existed, but it didn’t work. She put the crystal ball back in the box. She would investigate it more another day.

Lee put the tray back in the box and picked up the wand again. She realised it had a small clip on it. Shutting the box, she went and got dressed in a jumpsuit. She then pressed the wand to her suit, and it attached to the belt loop and disappeared.

‘Wand,’ she thought. It appeared, and she grabbed it and told it to ‘release’. By the time she had completed the manoeuvre, the end of the staff was exactly where she expected to be. She told it to ‘retract’ and clipped it back to her side, and it again disappeared.

“Now that was totally unreal,” she said to the empty room and a manic-like grin on her face.

Lee went back into her room and picked up the primer book. She found that it now looked like English on both sides of the page. She told the diadem to appear and took it off. The words reverted to what they had always seen.

‘Awesome,’ she thought. She thought about the book, and it was translated in her head even though she had the diadem off. She put it back on. It disappeared, and the words again appeared in English. She picked up the text she had read the night before and flipped it open. It too was now readable. She grinned.

‘Hey, Kyle?’ she thought.

‘What’s up, Lee?’ he thought answered.

‘You coming my way, anytime soon?’ she thought back.

‘Just coming through the bulkhead door,’ he answered. Lee went and let him in. He turned and looked at her funny.

“What?” Lee said.

“You have a glow,” he said perplexed. Lee grinned and told her magic items to appear. Kyle stepped back, blinked several times and gawked at her.

“Damn girl, you are so bright it hurts my eyes,” he complained.

Lee removed the items. She winced after she took the third item of jewellery off. “Better?” she asked.

“Yeah, but you still have a faint glow,” he told her. She put the bling back on, and it disappeared. She sighed in relief once it was back where it belonged. She had a feeling the longer she wore the items, the harder would become to remove them.

She went and got the little book she had read the night before. “Here, you need to read this,” she told him, and she handed him the book.

“Do I have to? This stuff is messing with my head,” he whined.

“Do you trust me?” she asked him.

“It will cost you, coffee,” he sighed and plopped himself on the sofa to read. He loved the way Lee made coffee, it always tasted better if she did it. Even though she used the same ingredients, everyone else did. Lee went and made the coffee.

Kyle did his memory trick. He didn’t so much read the text he simply scanned down the page and flipped to the next. He had learnt how to do this in high school and found he could recall any page he had read and the information on it.

He also found over a short period it simply integrated into his understanding of the subject. He remembered being accused of cheating at school. He had referenced his argument with page numbers from the text, and it was a closed book exam.

He was hauled to the headmaster’s office. He had asked Mr Bale to pick a thin book of his shelf and hand it to him. He had scanned the book in a couple of minutes then gave it back to Mr Bale and told him to ask him any question he liked about its contents.