Chapter 3 - Vanessa
“Maria… Sophia? Time for dinner!” I called. No response. I
hadn’t heard Maria throw a fit for half an hour so something was either very
good or very bad. “Maria?” I tried again. I headed up the stairs. “Please tell
me that you didn’t try to stuff your sister down the laundry chute again. I
thought you two grew out of that kind of-”
I expected something to be wrong, but not to this extent.
The ladder that unfolds and leads into the attic was down and I saw a faint
light coming from it. I climbed the ladder quickly and found a flashlight
shining onto an empty cardboard box… and no girls.
I picked up the flashlight and used it to search the attic
for any evidence as to where my nieces were hiding. But once the light found my
spell book open on the floor I knew the girls weren’t hiding at all.
It had been years since I had let myself look at the
yellowed pages of the spell book that Headmaster Ambrose had given me when I
was my nieces’ age. The spiral on the front still glowed with the magic that
enchanted the book. I flipped through the pages that still told me my school,
level, health, accuracy, etc. When I flipped to the page that contained a map
of Wizard City I saw that the commons button had been recently used as the
timer was still counting down from sixty.
Dread filled me. I closed my eyes and tried hard not to
panic. I should have never of kept my spell book. Especially since I had two
curious kids in my house. I waited for the timer to finish counting down to
zero and without a moment’s hesitation I touched the commons button and felt
myself plunge through the spiral.
I landed on my feet with no problem. Like riding a bike I
thought to myself. To say that something had changed would be an
understatement. Of course things were just as bright and happy as they had been
when I left but if you asked me there were at least twice as many kids and
adults running around the commons. Wizard City had become popular. It wasn’t
just that though. When I looked out across the pond I saw a new tunnel leading
to who knows where. Before I could try to make out the words that were written
above the tunnel I was almost run over by a lamb with a… was that a rickshaw?
“Sorry!” The wizard who was in the rickshaw yelled back at
me as he disappeared into the Ravenwood tunnel. What had happened around here
when I was gone?
Maria and Sofia were still my priority and thankfully
Headmaster Ambrose’s office hadn’t seemed to have moved since I’d left. I made
my way past shouting wizards and vendors who had spilled out from the Shopping
District looking for some poor wizard to sell their cheap goods to (everyone
knew that if they wanted to find anything good they went to the Bazaar). The
noise was familiar and yet completely strange. The sounds of pet dragons and
piggles reminded me of mid-day classes when our pets would get hungry and
didn’t want to listen to Professor Greyrose drone on about the different types
of snowflakes. But the increased noise threw me off. This wasn’t the home I had
lived in for a year when I was a kid. When I approached the door to Headmaster
Ambrose’s office I didn’t hesitate to open the door and much to my relief when
I opened the door I found not only Headmaster Ambrose and my old ice professor
but also Sofia and Maria.
“Uh oh,” Maria said.
“Vanessa?” Ambrose asked.
“Sophia,” I sighed. “Why are you all wet?”
Another short chapter, sorry! Have a fantastic day!
See ya in the game!
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