Empty Pages

Perhaps it was her love of paper that helped April spot the little black notebook, half-hidden beneath a drift of crisp yellow leaves on a bench she always passed on her way home from work. She liked collecting little notebooks, just to have them as much as to actually write in them. She had three shoeboxes full of blank ones. Such lovely, pristine empty pages, just full of potential.

She paused to look at the lost little notebook on the bench, wondering who could have left it behind. She brushed the leaves from it, curious to see that it had been bound with finely-braided black cord, with a fancy knot to keep it closed. Even more curious was the inscription there in sharp gilt lettering on the smooth black cover. Above where the cord crossed the cover was a polite request to return the notebook if found to a particular address, on a street she knew the location of there in the city. Below the cord, in larger letters, it said Do Not Open!

Maybe it was the exclamation point that captured her curiosity the most. Or simply the fact that it was a closed, bound notebook that did not belong to her that someone had gone to the lengths of printing a warning on. Or she was just nosy. Whichever way, it was not, then, entirely under her control that, as she was taking the tram to return the lost notebook to the requested address, she carefully teased open the knot.

The low autumn sun glinted past the gray clouds and in through the tram window just as she eased the cover open, flashing white on the edges of the pages, making her blink. When her vision cleared, she looked down in puzzlement at the pages of the notebook.

They were empty.

She flipped through the whole thing, from front to back, and then back to front, but didn’t see a single notation on any page. Well, that was disappointing. She closed the cover and carefully re-knotted the cord exactly how she had found it.

April got off the tram at the stop closest to the address and walked three blocks up and one block over to find a rather grand old house, three stories tall, with a slightly faded gray paint job. There was an old-fashioned wrought-iron fence surrounding the front garden, which looked lush and more than slightly overgrown with bushes that might once have been trimmed neatly. She opened the gate and followed the flagstone walkway to the steps that led up to the wide front porch, which creaked under her steps, and she stared for a moment at the fancy doorknocker, shaped like some sort of elaborate bird, before taking a big breath and knocking.

And when the door was opened and she found herself looking at a man with impressively straight posture, who gazed back at her with a notable amount of imperiousness, April realized she should have just left the notebook on the porch and walked away. Because this man was a sorcerer.

She held out the notebook to him, hoping she could just quickly give it to him and leave. “I found this.”

His gaze on her was not just imperious, it was speculative, and it slowly, too slowly, shifted from her face to the notebook. She had to consciously make her hand not shake under the weight of his scrutiny. Eventually he moved his own hand and took the notebook from her. She started to turn, ready to bolt, forcing herself to move at a dignified speed. She made it two steps.

“Wait.”

She stopped. She turned. His hand with the notebook hadn’t moved. His gaze was back on her, his eyes narrowed. She held her breath as he took two slow steps forward, coming to stand directly in front of her, peering down into her eyes. At last, just before April was sure she would pass out from lack of oxygen, he said, “You opened it, didn’t you?”

“Um,” she gulped, took a much-needed breath, and shook her head, “no, of course not. The cover says not to.” Her eyes dropped to the notebook in his hand. The cord looked exactly how it had when she’d found it. How could he possibly know if she’d looked in it?

His expression turned decidedly annoyed, even disgusted. “You’re a terrible liar. Follow me.”

He turned and swept back into the house, and she found herself following, but whether it was because he was compelling her to with his sorcery or because her curiosity was once again getting the better of her, she decided not to try to figure out.

The first thing that struck her was how normal the house looked. Like any large old house in the city, populated with wingback chairs and portraits hanging along the staircase and richly-colored rugs and wallpaper.

It was the second look, when she visually sifted past the obvious, that showed her exactly who this person was, particularly the items occupying all available shelves, of which there were many. Books. So many, and so many notebooks not dissimilar to the one she had recently held. Symbols on the books that no normal family collection would have. And on the shelves in front of and on top of the books, so many objects. Orbs and feathers and figurines and vials of all sizes, containing substances of all colors.

She followed the sorcerer past the staircase in the towering foyer, past the doorways on either side that led to rooms full of bookcases and furniture, through an open doorway that led them into a much less carefully decorated room, with tables and desks covered in what looked like partially completed recipes. Potions, she corrected herself. Magic spells. It was a long room, stretching to her left and right, lit brightly with lamps hanging from the ceiling. She stopped in her tracks when she saw an absolute giant of a man by the wall to her right, stirring something in an enormous pot hung over the crackling flames in an enormous fireplace. He stopped in his movements, looking at her with as much surprise as she was looking at him.

“The reason,” said the sorcerer, drawing her attention back to him, “that I know you are lying,” he paused again, and she got the distinct impression that it was for dramatic emphasis, “is because I am a sorcerer, as you have no doubt guessed. Also,” he turned to look at her, the little black notebook held up in the air as he pinned a glare on her, “I can see its contents in your eyes.”

April’s mouth fell open a little. “What? What does that mean?”

“When you opened this book, what did you see?”

“Nothing,” she said, giving up the charade that she hadn’t snooped. “I mean, the pages were blank.” She glanced distractedly at the man who was just as distractedly stirring whatever was cooking over the fire as he watched what was going on.

“And do you know why that could possibly be?” the sorcerer asked, his tone leading, as well as decidedly patronizing.

“Because…you never wrote in it?”

“Hardly.” He brandished the notebook in her direction. “This was filled with writing before it came under your snooping little nose.”

That annoyed her. “Well, then, maybe you should keep better track of your possessions and not leave them scattered around the city.”

“By which you prove to me that you have no idea what is now logged inside your precious little head,” he said. “Tell me, what is the correct amount of parsnip oil to add to an aquatic location spell when the base used is mineral water?”

“How would I,” she blinked, realization hitting her. “Seven drops.” She blinked again. “What?” She stared at him. “How did I know that?”

The sorcerer looked smugly satisfied as he explained that spell books sometimes went wandering, and that if someone not trained to shield themselves from magic happened to open one, it would imprint directly into their thoughts, leaving behind useless empty pages that couldn’t even be employed as a spell book anymore. He punctuated this by tossing the notebook he held onto a shelf of similar-looking little black books. She gaped at the pile.

“How many people have you done this to?” she demanded, which earned her another patronizing look.

“I think you mean how many people have done this to themselves,” he corrected, and then said, “The answer would be several. Including him.” He gestured to the man who was still absently tending to his stirring, who cringed a little as their focus shifted to him, then lifted a hand in an awkward gesture of greeting. “He came to me in much the same way you have, nearly ten years ago,” the sorcerer said. “And as is my professional duty, I immediately apprenticed him. As I will now with you.”

She blinked at him. “What?”

“Now,” the sorcerer went on, ignoring her question as he searched the contents of a cluttered worktop for something, “let us start with the basics and then we will see about getting those spells out of your head. Ah.” He came up from the clutter with an elegant black ink pen and took from a shelf next to him another small black notebook. He opened it, poised the pen over the first line on the first page and looked at her expectantly. “What is your name?”

“April Avrille.”

He frowned. “Your name is April April?” He gave his head a shake and looked down at the paper, beginning to write in quick, precise letters as he muttered, “What unimaginative parents you have.”

April swallowed, her annoyance helping her to get past her awe at what was apparently happening to her. “I don’t have parents,” she said. “I’m an orphan.”

“Hm,” the sorcerer said without looking up. “Interesting.”

Her brow furrowed as she watched him continue writing. She couldn’t tell what he was putting down on the paper from where she stood, but it seemed to be quite a lot. “Why is that interesting?” she asked.

He nodded in the direction of the fireplace without stopping his activity. “He is also an orphan.” She glanced again at the man there, who nodded and lifted his hand again in silent acknowledgment, and perhaps also silent solidarity for a fellow orphan.

“Oh,” she said.

“As were the last three before him,” the sorcerer added, which made her eyebrows go up. She glanced back at the pile of discarded spell books.

“Again,” she said, “how many people have you done this to?”

The sorcerer sighed and deigned to stop his writing and look up at her. “If you’re going to insist on being obtuse, this is going to be a very long apprenticeship indeed.”

They looked at each other for a long moment. Finally she said, “Maybe I don’t want to be your apprentice. What then?”

He gave another little sigh, his expression leaning toward patronizing again. “I assure you that it will be much more interesting than whatever mindless, soulless, pencil-pushing position you currently have,” he said, sounding almost bored as he turned back to his writing. "And I can guarantee you it pays better.”

Her eyebrows went up again. She did not consider herself to be over-interested in money in general, but the way he had said it…

“How much does it pay?” she asked quietly.

“Let me put it this way,” he said, “you will, in short order, and with only a touch of frugality on your part, find yourself in want for nothing. More specifically, twenty thousand. For a start.”

He looked up at her again, at her wide eyes as she considered his words. And something in her expression must have shown him her decision before she spoke it. That, or he used his sorcerous ways to read her mind, which she didn’t completely discount. He smiled smugly once more.

“Let’s get started, then, shall we, Miss Avrille?”