| Caution: Material contained on this and subsequent pages may be unacceptable to some viewers. Please CLICK HERE or use your back button if you are under the legal age in your location or IF explicit content offends you, violates your beliefs, does not suit your tastes, or fails to win your approval. Continue only if you find such material interesting and educational. |
Harvey picked the little volume up from the bookshelf and checked the sticker—it said $4.95 but he was certain its price should have been higher. He flipped the cover and glanced at the first few pages with their peculiar lettering, recognizing at once from its antique printing the book was old.
It wouldn't have been on the sale shelves at all, he thought, had the bookstore's management known; the slim volume seemed indisputably valuable. "Well," Harvey shrugged. "Their loss, my gain."
"Wha'dja find?" snapped Susan, swinging around the corner with a massive armload of half-priced, well-worn, hard-back romances. "Gimme a hand here," she ordered, as the pile tumbled toward him.
"Oh, just an old book," said Harvey as he caught half of her books and rested them on the ladder. "This all you're getting?"
"Don't want to buy them out," she countered, looking around at the floor-to-dome-ceiling racks and the piles of books crammed into every corner of the store. "I'll come back for the rest."
"Fun-ny," Harvey snorted. Retrieving the rest of Susan's burden, he slipped his choice onto the top of the stack.
She picked it up for a look. "Harvey, this is junk. Look, the cover's worn out. The pages are all brown—probably so old they'll crumble the first time you open it," she said, tossing it casually away on a shelf. "I don't want this around my house."
"I checked it," defended Harvey, picking the book up. "Good paper, no dust. Not cheaply produced …" He held back as he surveyed her pile of literature. "Besides, it's my money."
The clerk made comment, too: "That'sa real old book. Don't get many like that anymore, y'know. Probably from one'o them estate sales. Sure wish we could get more like this." He held the little book up and glanced along the spine. "Odds and ends, y'know. Make a lotta people happy—yuppie-ish-types, y'know. Fill their bookshelves with stuff they ain't gonna read. Not stimulatin' stuff like this, y'know," he said, smiling at Susan as he rang her drift of books.
"I intend to read it," answered Harvey, putting away his wallet and picking up the plastic sack containing his little treasure. "Might be something interesting in here."
"Sure, sure, yeah. Well, ya get what ya pay for, y'know," said the clerk, thumbing at a sign behind him. "Just remember, it says: 'All sales final'."
At home, Harvey scounced himself in the rocking chair and browsed the book. Ignoring him, Susan sorted through her bagload and finally chose a novel she liked, a particularly-thick gothic with once-bright red binding. She parked on the couch with her feet tucked under her and opened it.
Harvey turned his book over and looked at its binding. It was faded to dull brown and, if it had ever been patterned, the surface was only just mottled now. The indent of foil embossing was barely legible, the metal long since worn away. With its heavy pasteboard covers, it was slightly less than a half-inch thick. The back cover was curled, as if the book had been twisted long ago, and the corners were frayed so graying cardboard showed through.
The text pages had dulled to cream, as he'd expect from a book with Roman numerals in the copyright. The front page had been half-torn from the book so long ago that its ripped edge was no longer scalloped. Further on, the printing had faded to brown. The type was pinched and angular but readable once he acclimated to the letter shapes.
A few words were foreign to Harvey but most could be determined phonetically. Despite Susan's frown, Harvey whispered to himself as he followed the thread of the manuscript. It was a book of household magic: making smoke appear or disappear, turning cheap wine into vintage, stretching the portions of meals for unexpected guests. Some spells called for ingredients Harvey failed to recognize; others needed items he couldn't have duplicated.
As Harvey read the various spells, he started to be disappointed. None really seemed the sort Susan might find impressive. He didn't begrudge the $4.95—the book had certainly looked interesting but each turning page made him wish he'd saved his time.
Then halfway into the book, he grunted and re-read a passage in earnest. There were no lengthy preparations, no complex list of unattainable materials required. The spell seemed fairly elementary; at three words, its command was short and seemed simply a tutorial for learning it. Nothing he'd yet read was quite like this.
Harvey looked at Susan and began to smile. She scowled and took off her reading glasses as he went into the kitchen. Laying the book on the counter, he dug out a book of paper matches. The text actually asked for a wooden kitchen match, but Harvey guessed his modern substitution would work. He tore out a single match and laid it on the counter. Then he took a disposable wooden fondue skewer out of its package; the book had asked for a shaving of kindling and he figured this would do.
He invoked the command and waited. With a mumble of annoyance, Harvey studied the words again and tried them with a slightly different pronunciation. The match shimmered, blinked once, and vanished. Just as suddenly, the wooden fondue stick grew the match's chemical bulb at one end. Harvey picked up the stick and scratched the tip against the matchbook's striker. It flared and burst into flame with the normal acrid stink. He blew it out and laid the stick down. Tearing another paper match, he tried the spell again. It worked again. Harvey smiled as he looked around the kitchen.
Susan put her book down and slid her feet to the carpet as he returned to the living room with a steak knife and a fork from of the silver set.
"Watch this," he said, speaking the command. Susan waited, making no effort to mask her impatience.
There was an awkward silence. "Well, nothing ever works the first time," Harvey apologized. He scanned the page again, and repeated the three words.
The knife shimmered, blinked, and disappeared, as the fork instantly grew a wooden handle and sharp serrations along its outer edge. Harvey picked the implement up and studied it. "There," he announced. "Neat, huh?"
Susan gave an exasperated sigh, staring at the fork/knife utensil. "What good is it?"
"Well, it could be a handy spell for when you want things combined," said Harvey. "I can think of lots of things that would be more useful if we stuck them together …"
"No," she interrupted, glaring at the object in his hand. "That … thing. How safe do you think it's going to be to eat with? That edge looks sharp."
"It's just an experiment, Susan," he shrugged. "How do I know what good the spell might be unless I practice it?"
"Fine! Now practice undoing it. That was my best fork, you know, part of my mother's heirloom set.
"Hey, no problem. All the counterspells are in the back." He held the book out to her. "Here, try it. It's really easy."
"I don't want the book, Harvey," she snapped, pushing it away. "My head aches. Get me a glass of water—and a couple aspirin."
"Okay." He laid the book on the coffee table and walked away. Susan heard water flow and stop, as Harvey said something she couldn't clearly distinguish. Then she heard the spray attachment whoosh and Harvey came back with her glass full. "It works," he smirked, handing her the pain relievers.
"What did you…" her teeth clenched "… what did you do in my kitchen?"
"Oh, you know how you always complain the sprayer's too feeble and the faucet sprays wrong. Well, I fixed it."
"You used … that SPELL … on my faucet?" she huffed.
"I thought I was doing you a favor," Harvey answered. "You liked the one Mark and Lois installed. You said it's the kind of fixture you'd buy if you ever redid the kitchen."
Her face clouded with more than anger. "You … you combined the spigot and sprayer?" Susan snapped. "Harvey James Edmonds, you'd better use that reversing spell, pronto. This is my house and I want … I demand you put my kitchen back to normal." She threw the aspirin into her mouth and gulped water.
"Hey, Susan, okay …" Harvey answered hastily. "I told you the book says it's here. No problem …" but his voice trailed off as he flipped forward through the little volume. He started over from the back, studying each page with concern.
"Don't tell me," said Susan sarcastically, "let me guess. Somebody's torn the counteracting spells out of your stupid book. There's no antidote."
Harvey turned and looked at her, eyes filled with tears. "I didn't know."
"You didn't know …" she snorted. "You didn't look first. You never look first, Harvey. Honestly …"
"Susan, I'm really sorry. I thought this would have some slick tricks to show at parties and things." He clutched the book to his shirt. "I … you know … really thought the spell was good for something. Combining th…" he gulped, but the look on her face and the lump in his throat silenced him.
"Well, I'm going to bed," she said. "And you'd better find a better copy of that book tomorrow and buy it, because I want everything turned jolly-well back to normal." She stomped across the living room, stopping at the door to let her cat in, then headed down the hall and out of Harvey's sight. "Tomorrow—understand!" The bathroom door closed with a dramatic thump.
The cat rubbed his ankle. Harvey picked it up and sat down in the rocking chair. It nested in his lap and after a minute of being petted, began to purr. Harvey took up the book again, trying to glean the secret of undoing his spell-casting efforts.
There was nothing there. The counterspell references mentioned in the text were conspicuously absent. The book showed no obvious signs of outright tampering, but the antidote chapter was missing.
Harvey turned the book over and studied the cover. In his lap, the cat contentedly scrubbed its face, leaning against his stomach. It warmed the chill he felt coming over him as he carefully traced the well-rubbed embossed letters.
"This isn't the right cover," he muttered. "This is from another book. Someone tried to combine these books … I don't think they knew what they wanted."
He remembered the very clear mental picture he had of the long wooden match. The spell's instructions gave him a solid image on which to focus. The result had been perfect.
On the other hand, Harvey hadn't started with any idea of what would happen to the fork and the knife. The result had startled him as much as it had Susan.
For the faucet and sprayer, he'd simply concentrated on his mental image of the unit their friends had purchased and that's exactly what he created.
He studied the book with renewed intensity as Susan clicked off the bathroom light. The cat purred loudly and kneaded his thighs as it attempted to get him to pet it again. Harvey mulled the magic phrase in his mind, repeating it over and over under his breath, hoping for some flash of illumination which would remedy the changes, the damage, he'd done.
The bedroom light went on and the bedroom door closed—and opened again. "Make sure everything is back to normal when I get home from work tomorrow," she yelled down the hall. "Five p.m, Harvey, no later."
He knew Susan was furious. He knew she'd be standing—in her nightgown—both hands defiantly clenched on her hips, mouth set in a determined line. "Understand," she repeated and the bedroom door slammed, startling the contented cat. It rose in his lap and stretched.
"Yes, dear," Harvey started to answer.
But that's not what his lips said—he couldn't shake his concentration on the book of spells.
The cat was gone. He looked around the living room, knowing he wouldn't find it. There'd been no visualization in his mind.
Harvey set the spell book aside. Wondering WHAT might be wearing the nightgown now, he shuddered, dreading his walk to the bedroom. He wondered if Susan would recognize what he'd just done, if so, she'd be even more furious.
He knew the cat loved him. Harvey hoped that part still existed.