Rosemary sat down with the volume of Encyclopedia Avalonica that Madam Harvey had handed her, and turned to the entry on John Hendrix. She began reading, and found that she learned a lot from the article. She had learned a bit about Hendrix while attending Dogwood Elementary, but only what was known from the point-of-view of mundies. Furthermore, she had learned the day before from Mika that Hendrix was in fact a wizard. However, reading the article, she learned about the specific incidents involving him that risked exposure of the magical world.

  One interesting thing that was noted in the article was that Hendrix hadn’t shown any particular talent for prophecy during the time that he attended Misty Peaks. As a result, his feats of prophecy from later in life had baffled investigators and scholars alike ever since.

  Rosemary continued reading. Shortly before she left, Madam Harvey gave her a booklet titled ‘Using the Library Catalog Orb’. When Rosemary asked when she had to return it, Madam Harvey explained that it was a mass-produced booklet and was hers to keep.

  * * *

  The next day, early in Professor Pendleton’s potions class, the door at the back of the room opened, and in stepped a wizard with a brown robe and a matching brown mage’s hat. Rosemary was certain that this wizard seemed familiar.

  “Oh by the way,” said Professor Pendleton, gesturing at this wizard, “let’s all welcome Dr. Fletcher, one of our school metapsychologists. He’ll be staying here at Misty Peaks till the end of the week.”

  It was none other than Dr. Fletcher, who had delivered Rosemary her invitation to Misty Peaks a mere few months before, and had helped her get her school supplies. He had also helped her mother register her for school. Rosemary remembered him very well. She simply had been slow to recognize him, since his bowler hat and blazer were now replaced by a mage’s hat and robe of exactly the same color.

  Dr. Fletcher waved cordially. He then removed his hat, tapped it with his wand, and hung it on the wall as though there were a hook there for it. He then sat down on a seat that had been prepared for him near the door.

  After class, Rosemary approached him on her way out.

  “Hello, Dr. Fletcher,” she said.

  “Hi there, Simon,” said Dr. Fletcher. “How’ve you been adjusting at Misty Peaks?”

  “Very well,” said Rosemary. “I got a phoenix feather for my wand’s core. And I made friends.”

  “That’s good,” he said.

  She looked back and saw that Mika, Lilith, and Samantha had gathered behind her, and were also looking at Dr. Fletcher.

  “These are my friends,” she said, and introduced them.

  “Are you the one who gave R-, Simon, his invitation to Misty Peaks?” asked Samantha.

  “I sure am,” said Dr. Fletcher.

  “We learned Tuesday about enclosure alarms,” Rosemary noted.

  “You did?” asked Dr. Fletcher.

  “Yes,” she said, “and I remembered the one that went off when we were eating on the day you helped me get my school supplies.”

  “Oh that?” replied Dr. Fletcher. “Nothing to worry about. Just something that was entrusted to me by an old friend.”

  “What’s the Chamber of John Hendrix?” asked Lilith.

  “It’s something in Farragut that you don’t need to worry about,” said Dr. Fletcher.

  “Farragut?” asked Rosemary.

  “It’s not important,” he insisted.

  “Is that John Hendrix the same John Hendrix who predicted the City of Oak Ridge being built?” asked Mika. “And who nearly exposed magic?”

  “It could be,” he said, but then caught himself. “We don’t really know. We’re still investigating,” he said, as soon as he had regained his bearings. “It’s possible - since that type of enclosure alarm matches his time period.”

  “Was anything taken?” asked Lilith.

  “It’s hard to say,” explained Dr. Fletcher. “Until that alarm went off we didn’t even know there was such a thing as the Chamber of John Hendrix. So we don’t know what was supposed to be there, or if anything was taken. If you want, then when we know more I’ll tell you, assuming that it’s safe and okay for you to know. But until then, I strongly urge you to take your minds off of it. Focus on your studies so that some day, you’ll be able to do investigations like these.”

  “Okay,” said Lilith. The other three girls also voiced their assent.

  Lilith, Samantha, and Mika, headed out the door.

  “You coming?” Samantha asked Rosemary as she headed out.

  “I’ll catch up with you in the Common Room,” Rosemary replied, and turned to Dr. Fletcher.

  “Something else you wanted to talk about?” he asked.

  “Yes,” said Rosemary. “Can you tell me about — somamorphy?”

  “Somamorphy?” asked Dr. Fletcher. “That’s pretty advanced magic. And it’s only allowed in school for specific conditions.”

  “For specific conditions?” asked Rosemary.

  “Yes,” said Dr. Fletcher. “It used to be a strict rule that students can’t cast it or have it cast on them during school term, and if they did on break, they’d have to let it expire before school gets back in session. But we realized that there are some people, including kids, who really needed it — so about eight years ago, exceptions were added to accommodate that. But aside from that, it’s pretty much still not allowed during school term. But hey, didn’t you get a book on that when you did your school shopping?”

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

  “I did,” said Rosemary. There was no point denying it. Dr. Fletcher had been there at the table that summer when Rosemary asked her mother for permission to buy ‘The Body Transformed’ despite it not being listed as one of the books she needed for school.

  “So, what brought this up now?” asked Dr. Fletcher.

  “Just want to — know what teacher to ask about this,” said Rosemary.

  “I don’t think there are any classes at Misty Peaks on that,” said Dr. Fletcher. “Misty Peaks is the beginning of your magical education. Not the entirety of it.”

  “Thank you,” said Rosemary.

  * * *

  Come mid-October, Rosemary finally felt reluctantly safe reducing her renewal rituals to once a week. By this point, once every two weeks would have been more than enough to maintain her transformation, so once a week no longer felt like cutting it too close. Of course, doing it more frequently would have given her even more slack — but after Dr. Fletcher’s mention of how somamorphy was only allowed for very specific conditions, Rosemary didn’t want to do anything that would add to the risk of her being caught. The less frequently she needed to perform a renewal, the less of an issue it was finding the momentary privacy that she needed to do so.

  She still made a point of locking herself in the bathroom whenever she needed to change her clothes. Whenever one of her roommates brought up how odd this was, she simply explained that she didn’t feel comfortable changing in front of others.

  Autumn was well under way. Even in Drippidy Falls, which wasn’t even a real place but an oramasynthic painting on the wall of the Hemlock Tower Common Room, most of the foliage had changed from the verdant green of summer to the yellow-and-red mix of the season — and the leaves were starting to fall off.

  Rosemary’s classes were going well. In Ouranourgy, she was able to dial the skill level on her broom all the way to eight, meaning that her mental command over the broomstick was by now much more of a factor than her verbal commands. She even could get it to move exclusively by mental command, even if it was slightly sluggish in doing so due to the fact that there were two remaining levels to go. She also was getting good at controlling the broomstick’s concealment charm. Of course, people could see her even when the charm was active, because there wasn’t anyone at Misty Peaks without magical sight. Still, she knew when her concealment charm was active because of a red indicator band that appeared near the tip of the broomstick’s handle, just ahead of the dial, whenever that was the case. Likewise, Professor Feng could tell if the charm was active by looking at Rosemary on her broomstick through something she held which looked a lot like a magnifying glass. She had explained the class a number of weeks earlier that that device was a disenchantment lens, and that its function was to allow a witch or wizard to see the world as someone without magical sight sees it.

  On the last full week of the month, the Professor gave her permission to turn the dial on her broom all the way to nine — only one level shy of the top level where she would control the broom entirely by mental command.

  * * *

  About a week before Halloween, Rosemary began to hear some of her fellow students talking about the Halloween costumes they were going to wear.

  “Where are we supposed to get Halloween costumes from?” Rosemary asked Jesse.

  “Well, some of us brought stuff we can throw something together with,” Jesse answered. “Some of us just order something.”

  “Order something?” asked Rosemary.

  “Yeah,” said Jesse. “I had someone take my measurements. It’s a simple spell that some of the upper-classmen can do. I sent those to my folks and wrote to them that I want to go as a Vulcan Starfleet officer. Any place in the magical world that sells costumes should be able to take it from there.”

  Rosemary looked at Jesse, stunned.

  “Hey, you’ve got time,” he said. “It should only take a few days. And yeah, they let you start wearing your costume the weekend before — but I’ve been told most kids don’t wear them till the day of Halloween.”

  “What about costume shops in the mundie world?” asked Rosemary. “Can they use the measurements you talk about?”

  “Oh that’s right,” said Jesse. “Your parents are both mundies. I don’t know what to say. But hey, you hang out with Lacy Walker a lot. Maybe she has some ideas. You could talk to her.”

  Rosemary remembered that Lacy had cast a spell to take Rosemary’s measurements. As a matter of fact, she had done so twice — once just before Rosemary’s first somamorphic transformation, and once right after. She wondered if this spell was the one that Jesse was talking about.

  That afternoon, after returning to Hemlock Tower from Professor Pendleton’s potions lab, Rosemary found Lacy and asked her about what she could do.

  “I’ll talk to Amy about that,” Lacy promised. “I’ll get back to you tomorrow.”

  The following afternoon, Rosemary found Lacy and Amy sitting together with Ethan at a table in the common room with their study books open. Upon getting permission, she sat down at the table and waited.

  Finally, after a few minutes, Lacy turned to Ethan.

  “Ethan,” she said, “I think our young friend has something she wants to talk to us about.”

  “Oh, that’s okay,” said Ethan. “Do you need me to — give you space?”

  “If that’s okay,” Lacy said.

  “I just remembered,” said Ethan, “I have this — thing — I have to do. It’ll take me ten minutes. Watch my books?”

  “Sure will,” promised Lacy.

  Ethan got up and walked away.

  “So,” Lacy turned to Rosemary, “we’ve got a really good idea for you.”

  “What is it?” asked Rosemary.

  “Well,” said Amy, “there’s two kinds of costumes one can wear for Halloween. One is to dress as something you’re not.”

  “Isn’t that what all Halloween costumes are?” asked Rosemary. “And also what all Purim costumes are, too?”

  “No,” said Lacy. “There’s another kind. Sometimes people pick a costume to express something true about themselves but keep plausible deniability.”

  “Possible de-what?” asked Rosemary.

  “Plausible deniability,” explained Amy. “Means they show something about themselves they usually hide — but in a way that if they then get scared, they can say, ‘oh, it’s just a costume,’ and be safe.”

  “And,” added Lacy, “we thought that you might want to do that this Halloween.” She leaned in and lowered her voice a tad. “We’ve got the kind of clothes that — you know.”

  “And I can give you enough of the liquid hairdressing spells to last for Halloween,” added Amy in an equally discreet voice. “Sound like something you’d like?”

  “Yes!” exclaimed Rosemary.

  “Okay,” said Lacy. “Come to our room tomorrow morning about forty minutes before breakfast and we’ll get you set up.”

  Amy leaned in and said one more thing in a quiet voice. “If you don’t get a chance to cast the spell on yourself before you come, you can cast it at our place.”

  “I have another question to ask you about — you know — the spell,” said Rosemary.

  “You can ask me tomorrow when you see me,” promised Amy.

  Before Rosemary left, Amy gave her a slip of paper with the number of the room which Rosemary would have to go to the next morning. Rosemary placed the slip of paper in her potions textbook.

  * * *

  The next morning, Rosemary was up super-early. She went into the bathroom before any of her roommates were up and changed into weekend clothes — blue jeans and a striped T-shirt. After that, she made sure Luna had all the food and water she needed, and placed her pajamas in her cauldron. Doing the laundry, of course, could wait till later.

  “Where you going this early?” she heard Ricky ask, as she put her hand on the door handle to go out. “Breakfast ain’t ready yet.”

  “I’m going to go get my Halloween costume,” she said. “Isn’t today the first day we’re allowed to wear it?”

  “It is,” said Ricky, “but getting it before breakfast?”

  “That’s what I agreed on,” said Rosemary, and went out the door.

  It took two flights on the shortcut staircase and one flight on the regular one for Rosemary to reach the ninth floor. As she went looking for room 917, she noticed that the doors of the rooms on the ninth floor were somewhat closer to one another than those on the first floor.

  When she finally found the door she was looking for, she noticed that she was there three minutes early. Rather than knock, she decided to wait those three minutes. It wasn’t long, though, before the door opened. Lacy appeared in the doorway, and started to go out before stopping herself.

  “Oh there you are,” she said, looking down at Rosemary. “Come in!”