Avis Blackthorn: Is Not an Evil Wizard!

by Jack Simmonds

  “Aha! Found it! She’s in the Hubris form. Ergh, they wear pink.”

  “Don’t matter about that. Where’s their dorm room?”

  “Erm… let me see…” said Robin, who was on tip toes, running his finger down the sheet. “Girls… dorm room number… is… 314c!”

  “At last!” I said. Then, I stopped before the stairs. “Where is room 314c?” Robin shrugged.

  We must have searched for hours, we even missed dinner. Starting on the first floor, there were lots of 300s, but no 314’s. The room numbers were not obviously placed, something I’ve noticed before, but it made it tremendously tricky to try and find a room using logic. Eventually, down a light and bright corridor lined with pictures of famous witches, we found it. Doors on one side read 698, 635 and 612e and the doors on the other side were 313, 377a and 314c!

  “At flipping last!” I said.

  “Hey,” said Robin. “They are all at dinner arn’t they? If not, we should come back another time.”

  “No, we go now. If there is anyone in there we make excuses.” I didn’t know what excuses these will be - “sorry I was just looking for Tina’s dead brother’s notes on how to end Malakai” - but I was sure we could come up with something. What mattered now was being as quick as possible. Like Robin had said, April was barely a week away.

  I took the handle slowly and went inside. The room was just like ours, same layout, same fireplace, but different curtains, different bedspreads and different carpet.

  “Now which one is Tina’s?” We scanned around, and hunted for clues. There was no guessing what we would find here.

  “This girl has more books out than you’re allowed,” said Robin standing over a nearby bed. I walked around the room, which was a lot tidier than the Condor girls room.

  “And the bed is really messy! She’s got all her homework sticking out of her sheets.”

  I smiled. “Let me have a look at that,” this bed was closest to the window, the sheets were the same as all the other girl’s, if not a little less cared for. And, looked like they hadn’t been slept in for a while. Robin was right, there were sheets of parchment sticking from beneath bedsheets. More stuck out from the edges of a locked desk.

  “This must be hers…” I scanned the books that lay in piles next to her bed. There were too many to list, but read things like: ‘Characteristics of Black Magic’ and ‘Things You Didn’t Know About Magic’, amongst others. I pulled the parchment out of her bed and collected them into a pile. Robin whispered a Spell, unlocking the desk and pulled the other sheets out collecting them into a large pile. They were most definitely Tina’s, I recognised her handwriting. Some of the notes listed Counter Spells and possible hidden places in the school. As I quickly flicked through the papers, I noticed some of them were older than the others, and the handwriting different.

  “These must be Ernie’s notes,” I muttered. I also spotted a list of people written by Tina, with the pros and cons to each person and whether they can be trusted or not.

  There was a big question mark next to my name. A little stone dropped in my stomach.

  “I think someone’s coming,” said Robin.

  That night, after me and Robin had our fill of some kind of meat hotpot, we sat under an improved fire created by Robin that supplied enough light to sort through the papers and put them in order. I put all Ernie’s notes into a relatively organised pile. Then we did the same with Tina’s. Afterwards we sat and read them through together.

  Ernie’s notes went into detail about Malakai and his past. It said that he was bullied at school and that initially, after school, he set out to avenge those bullies. The power he felt from quashing those people led him to finding a taste for it. He wasn’t particularly clever or special in school, he kept to himself and got by as best an average Outsider would. When he left school he became a loner, hiring a shack from an old woman in a remote part of snowy Slackerdown, the fifth and most forgetful Magical Kingdom. It was here, where he descended into some kind of Magical madness, working all hours of the night and day, developing new Magic and plotting his revenge against those who had crossed him in the past. Ten years later he was very well-known to the Magical community. He built strong networks with evil people, with a string of rich old women leaving him money in their wills.

  There was a page of Ernie’s notes dedicated to acquiring a key. He noted down several shape-shifting Spells, and what to tell the caretaker, noted as “Parker” that would make him hand over the key. Ernie also talked in long passages about possible ways to conquer Malakai - “read all the books Malakai read, so as to learn counters to his Spells” But when he came to list those books, there was a big angry question mark.

  “Ah!” said Robin. “This is what Tina was talking about the other night!” He showed me the piece of parchment, which had a complicated drawing on it of the AstroMagical Star Chart.

  “Look,” I said. “She’s mapped out when the Book of Names must have arrived, and when it leaves.”

  Robin gulped. “She was right. End of April…”

  Me and Robin read until the chickens began clucking and dew settled on the school grounds. During lessons the next day I tried to do all the ghost Magisteer asked but couldn’t help falling asleep on my desk by midday. Some of the others did too; Hunter, Dennis and Dawn were all sound asleep, less due to tiredness and more down boredom. Robin was a machine when it came to work and took the time during these boring lessons to pour over notes which he kept hidden under the table. I was too tired to think and dozed in and out of consciousness until dinner.

  That night, we took the notes tucked inside Robin’s bag to the Healer’s room and read over every note by Tina’s bed. Robin was amazed at the wonderful feeling of clarity he got from the room and wondered why the sun was not in the middle of the school for everyone to benefit. Tina looked a lot better now, still pale, but I could see improvement. I was hoping Ernie would pass by, he was the one we needed to see. Even looking over the notes now, with the helpful green light, none of the connections were making much sense. For instance, a lot of what Ernie wrote only he would understand. This included random Spells, strange cryptic phrases and question marks over everything.

  A few weeks later, nothing had changed, Tina was still in the Healer’s room unconscious. But I grew accustomed to having Robin around. He was bloody clever and made connections I never would have on my own. Although we had all these notes, I had a plan that had been festering in my head for some time now, and I couldn’t seem to get rid of it, no matter how hard I tried - something that increased every time Robin would remind me how long we had left.

  “Only three weeks left until the end of April mate…”

  “I know.”

  The thing was, I knew that in stopping Malakai, I could save Tina. So, to fail in stopping Malakai was to fail saving Tina. My mind jumped around all over the place for days at a time. The revelation that Tina was a Partington was still hard to digest. Why hadn’t she told me that her Dad was my form tutor?

  Each night, me and Robin would sneak off to the Library and see if we could find a new book. Robin would suggest revisions to Spells, changing them into Spells that were harder to counter. Obviously it would be more dangerous, but it was worth the risk. For an Outsider, Robin sure was clever.

  But I still didn’t tell him what my plan was, or anyone in fact, because I knew what he would say. All I knew was I had to do something. I could plan and plan and plan, but it would never feel like the right moment to challenge Malakai. I was twelve years old, knew barely enough Magic to pass the first year and the majority of the school hated me, so I wouldn’t exactly be held up as a hero. But sometimes, I thought, you have to do things for others that might not benefit yourself.

  Half term came out of nowhere and Robin, rather apologetically, went home for a week. Just before everyone went home, the ghost that was taking our lessons told us that Partington would be back to teach us again when we all got back, everyone cheered, much to the ann
oyance of the ghost. It would be good to get back to learning interesting things again.

  I missed Robin the first couple of days, we’d spent so much time together - deciphering all those notes - that now, I felt very alone again.

  In the mean time, I was collecting my own very nice stash of notes. I had worked on changing three Spells, which we were told from day one, to never ever do. If you change the content of a Spell, without knowing what you’re doing, you could blow yourself up. I had to take a risk though and find something that Malakai would not be expecting. To counter a Spell, you need to know the name of the Counter Spell, which is pretty easy. But if you’ve invented your own Spell, then its a whole lot harder to counter, or block. Now, I’m not so arrogant as to assume Malakai would not know how to block my Spells, but it could buy me some time.

  In the proceeding days of half term, I kept to myself. I took my notes with me to the Chamber and ate while reading. I still received scorning glances from around the room, but I’d learnt to ignore it quite well now. Anyway, I had bigger things to think about.

  Hunter decided against going home this half term as he had too much work to do. Strangely, he seemed a lot happier now, after his accident. He liked Straker’s lessons, as he was now trusting them to perform practical Magic. I sighed and wondered when Straker would let me back in his class, he knew I was innocent.

  “Yeah, he’s a stubborn, strange man…” said Hunter leaning in. “And a bit weird,” he laughed biting into a large belgian bun. “So what you doing Avis? I see you walking around and going to places but I have no idea what you’re doing. It’s not anything… evil is it?” He raised his eyebrow as icing dripped down his chin.

  “No, ha, very funny.” I was only really used to speaking to Robin and Tina, so now my social skills were pretty terrible. I found it awkward and clumsy holding even a normal conversation.

  I saw Ross walking around looking stressed as he revised hard for his exams. Sometimes I would catch his eye and he would look away smiling. Perhaps he left me alone now because he thought I was evil? I had a sneaking suspicion that David Starlight and the rest of the Eagles form were avoiding me too. I’d seen David, on his own looking glum, walking towards me in the corridor the day before, when he saw me he turned down an opposite corridor and hurried away. Maybe my evil plan had the desired effect after all.

  After a long boring week of sitting on my own in the Chamber, deciphering old notes and brainstorming my plan — Robin finally returned. I heard his voice in the main hall and ran out to greet him. He had his suitcase floating behind him and I noticed that he looked a little more fattened up, rosy cheeked and cheerful. I needed to have whatever he’d eaten. My belt hardly fitted and I kept having to make new holes.

  “God I’d missed that place,” he said. “I love Yorkshire.”

  The next day we were back in lessons with Partington. He was cheery, but I could tell it was forced. Deep worry lines covered his face and his clothes looked unwashed. To start, he was quite dreamy and asked vaguely what we’d learnt with the ghost.

  “Not a lot!” called Dennis and the class laughed.

  “Why were you away Sir?” said Dawn, the big blabber mouth.

  Partington swallowed. “Oh just… family stuff. Never mind that.” I wondered if they knew that his daughter was Tina?

  After a few minutes Partington returned, in some part, to his old self. He cracked a few jokes about the ghost and launched into an interesting lessons about Hexes. I think it was doing him good, teaching us, it took his mind off Tina. Now I looked at him, I saw the resemblance.

  Wednesday morning I woke up early, wrapped tight in a hundred blankets. The wooden floor hard and cold beneath me. The sun had just poked over the horizon and through the rays that trickled in through the clock face I saw a small rat scurrying through a crack in the wall. I sighed and sat up.

  Today was my Birthday. I was thirteen. This year, I wouldn’t be chased around the castle by my siblings and forced to open booby-trapped presents. This year I wouldn’t have to cut an exploding cake. This year, I wouldn’t have to hide in the dungeon all day because Rory thought it would be a good idea to give me a baby Wolf-Raptor.

  Invariably, I ended up at some point on my birthday, crying. This year, would be different. I wondered if my parents were going to send me some presents? Or a present? Or maybe even a card? Anything would be nice.

  If Tina was here, she would have got me a card.

  I had noticed around the school that on someones Birthday their friends got them a big badge to parade around with, letting everyone know it was their friends Birthday. Then in the Chamber, a big cake would come out and everyone would sing Happy Birthday. But only for the popular ones, or people with friends, or people who weren’t suspected of attempted murder. So my hopes weren’t high.

  In fact the day was pleasant. Partington taught us all about enchanted furniture, which I found fascinating. I contributed to the class in fact, because my Great Uncle Farrybold, who lived with us until a year ago when he passed over, was an eccentric antique dealer and was always bringing home huge bits of furniture, like sofa’s that sprouted unlimited seats, wardrobes that chose your outfit for the day and even a hairbrush that grew back hair on bald men (it didn’t work on him).

  He was killed by an antique billiards table in the end, which collapsed on him when he said a trigger word. It was a shame, he was always nice to me, when he remembered who I was.

  Partington stopped me just as I went to leave that lesson and asked if he could have word. He sat down on his desk and shut the door by flicking his hand. He looked at me and suddenly the thing we both shared came to the front of our minds. Tina.

  “I know that you are up to something,” said Partington pointedly. “I don’t know what, but I know that you need to be careful. I’ve seen you walking around the school with that look on your face. And I know that you’re good friends with Tina.” I shifted uncomfortably, unable to look at him directly. “You know something, and I don’t expect you to tell me. I had warned her many times that actions have consequences. It was no one’s fault except hers. Also, I’ve been reading some of your notes…” Partington held up my Main Book, which allowed him to see my writing. I shuddered. I think I had accidentally wrote on the parchment that Partington could check. I swallowed, not wanting to know what he had read.

  “Don’t worry, wasn’t anything bad. Just some Spells that I don’t think you should be doing.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “You do know,” said Partington. “That you can come to me with anything, don’t you?”

  I nodded politely. “I do, Sir.” I wanted to tell him about Malakai, the Book Of Name’s and my plan. But, I just couldn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him the truth, that I knew his dead son Ernest and planned to follow through and complete his quest.

  “She’s under a curse…” said Partington looking up at the ceiling. “He put her under. To make sure she won’t wake.”

  I was sure that he was talking about Malakai, but I frowned, unsure. “A curse, Sir?”

  “Yes. He’s a nasty individual is Malakai,” he looked at me now. His red, blotchy face gazing at mine, trying to spot any giveaways. I matched his red and bloodshot eyes with my blankest expression. “And your not to get involved with him either. Not as revenge or anything, you hear me?”

  I had to look at my feet, I didn’t want to lie to him. I shrugged. “What do you mean - a curse? Like, she won’t wake up?”

  He looked away from me, sighing. “No, not unless it’s broken.”

  “How? What I mean is, why did he curse her?”

  Partington stood and began shuffling papers. “Don’t know.”

  Before I knew what I was doing, words began tumbling out of my mouth. “She was doing what Ernie told her to…”

  His eyes moved slowly down to me. “Impossible…”

  I felt a trickle of sweat down my back. “No Sir. Ernest sent her the plans, she told me.”

  H
e didn’t move still. “Plans?”

  “Yes, plans of… ending Malakai.”

  Suddenly, I saw the whole mess dawn across his face. “Of course…” I think I had just put one of the last puzzle piece together for him. He sat down again slowly. “That explains a great deal,” he said gravely.

  I stood there for ages, feeling awkward. I didn’t know what else to say. I had already given away far more than I should have, what would Tina say if she were here?

  Partington began muttering. “Can’t believe the Lily stood for this. No choice, I suppose. Silly, silly T… and Erns, that’s what he was up to, all that time…” Partington stopped muttering to himself and looked up. “I never knew how he died. But now, it’s obvious. He didn’t jump off the top tower. He was killed. I knew it. I always knew it. Just never realised in all that time what he was doing. I knew something was up with him, caught him sneaking around at night in the school, but he would never tell me why… he went after Malakai… and got himself KILLED!” Partington slammed a fist on his desk.

  Something was working it’s way into a conclusion in my mind, a question I had been wondering this whole time: why was Ernie going after Malakai? What possible reason did he have? But then I saw - Partington was rubbing his ring finger. And a memory of Ernie going straight for the Book of Names.

  Partington talked through his hands. “Must have been eating him up inside, the whole time.”

  “What was, Sir?”

  He pursed his lips. “The death of their Mother. My wife… she was killed by Malakai.”

  I couldn’t say anything, my mouth dried up. I suddenly felt so sorry for him. This lovely man who had nearly lost everyone he cared about to one person. Malakai had killed his wife, that’s why Ernie went after Malakai… but also, more importantly… he went after the Book of Names. Tina had said she wanted the Book of Names to bring her Brother back, maybe Ernie wanted the book to do the same for his Mother.