She woke up drowsy when she felt a shake on her shoulder. She did not realize when she fell asleep after Professor York went out but it felt like she slept for a long time. Her body was heavy and she wanted to continue her sleep.
"Miss, wake up, it's nearly evening," a voice that sounds so distant before turned clear and vivid.
She opened her eyes. Slowly she raised her body and sat by the bed.
In front of her, in her hazy vision, she saw a man.
"Gitto?"
She heard a chuckle. "Effan, miss."
Effan?
"Why are you here?" she asked while massaging her face so that she can sober up.
"Well miss, supposedly we have an appointment this afternoon if you remember but I was running late and Professor York took care of you, miss. So, I came to fetch you," he explained.
She looked at Effan face. Her eyelids still heavy with sleep yet she forced herself to properly looked at her instructor. He was sitting on the floor with a carefree smile.
"How long have you been here?"
"Not too long but not too short. You were sleeping like a babe, miss. I don't have the heart to wake you up. You need to get going, miss. It's nearly sunset."
"How about our appointment?"
He paused. His right-hand fingers fiddled with his chin seemingly a posture when he was deep in thinking. His eyes wandered around the room. Searching for something. Stella did the same though she did not know of what Effan was searching for. Not long she saw what he was searching for. A clock.
"Perhaps a brief introduction would be alright? Not here but in my office?" he suggested.It was five-thirty in the evening. Normally at this time, she would be getting ready to go home. Since it was for her future, she does not mind being a bit late though Gitto might get worried.
"I need to send a paper bird to my friend. He'll be waiting for me," she said.
Effan snapped his finger and a paper and a pen appeared before her. She took it, wrote a simple message asking him to wait for her for a bit, and she signed her name. Upon her last stroke of ink, the paper folded itself into a small canary bird and flew through an open door that was open magically.
"Let's go," Effan said. He stood up with the sound of his bone cracking. He grinned.
Stella did the same. The difference was that her bone does not crack as Effan did.
"Hand please, miss."
Stella remembered the last time she gave her hand to Effan, she was apparated? and missed an hour. "Is this like the one in the afternoon?"
Effan laughed out loud. "Silly, miss. This is going to be simple apparate magic. Hand please," he asked again.
She gave her hand to him and they apparated to his office. Or should she say, his room? Though she had to acknowledge for the first time apparate was for people with strong feet because she felt all wobbly if not for Effan support.
"Whoa, there."
"This is not simple at all," she commented as Effan led her to one of the chairs near them. He had to remove a few books and bags that piled on the seat. He put the pile on the desk beside the chair which also had its pile to worry about.
Once seated, Stella took the time to carefully examined the room that used to occupy by Mr. Spencer's belongings and that as her memory served, the room somehow had become exceptionally big than it used to be.
She knew it because she had come here a few times before the instructor decided to further his studies at the Surka Kingdom. He used to live in a tacky room with mold-covered its wall and smell of musty painting. Compared to what she was seeing, the room has been refurbished to new white paint and smell like a furniture shop at the bazaar a few blocks from her father's shop.
Although it was messy and unorganized, Effan managed to put a work desk, a big empty bookshelf, a wardrobe, a pantry, a two-seater sofa filled with a tower of boxes, a bed, a toilet, and a small tv. Also lots and lots of boxes hauled in each corner of the room.
He does not have a store like Professor York but he does have his personal view of overlooking a garden. It was supposedly an arc of a sliding window yet there was not a single glass in its frame. It was positioned in front of his bed.
Unconsciously, she walked towards the arc. She could faintly hear birds chirped, the smell of freshly cut grass, and a gentle wind dancing by her fringe hair. It was beautiful and serene. So mesmerizing that if she took a step towards that garden, she would be there.
"And stop."
A hand reached her wrist, stopping her from actually a hair breath fall into the garden.
"If you step into that garden, miss... you can never return. You understand?" he warned her.
She looked back at the garden in front of her. "Magic door," she breathed.
Effan shook his head. "A portal."
"Where is this garden?" she asked.
"Best that you don't know, miss. That place is hell. Pretty, but hell."
They both looked back to the garden that to Stella's honest opinion, looked more like heaven than hell.
"Right, back to our purpose of coming here." He pulled her away from the arc, snapping her awake and placed her back onto the seat.
"Tell me, miss, what is your motivation to be here?"
"Motivation?"
"Yes, miss."
It took her a while to comprehend what Effan was asking her. It was not that she does not know what motivation meant but for someone who had a handicap like her, to understand her motivation might take a while though the answers were always there.
"Because I want to make the magic of my own. To do magic is to have emotions and I have none. That's why I am here," she answered. "Mrs. Trimme said that you can help me with this problem and Professor York said you have that book too."
"That book?"
"The Dancing Cat Journal." There was nothing to hide. If she wants to help herself then she needs to tell him everything. "I've been searching that book for a long time and the copy that I had was... beyond recoverable."
Effan nodded in understanding. Then he looked at the messes of his room. "I can lend it to you. It's just that..."
"I can find it myself," she said voluntarily.
Effan was making a distorted face. "Meh... I can just zap it for you, miss."
"No, it's okay. If I want it, I'll find it."
"You sure miss?"
Stella wanted to show to Effan how much this means to her and since she does not show her face, she nodded a few times just like how Gitto would do when he was begging to her mother when he was exposed to doing bad things.
Effan laughed out loud. It has a nice ring to Stella's ears that she heard it for the second time.
"Okay, I won't stop you miss. But be careful not to fall especially there. Okay, miss?"
Stella nodded again.
"Good! Then after you finished searching, we might have to go somewhere. So be prepared," he advised while looking out of the windows beside him. The sky had turned orange-red and the temperature had dropped suddenly that she and Effan had to hug themselves to warm their bodies.
Not soon after she heard a distant bell tolling.
"I have to go," she said while standing up straight, remembering her promise to her precious friend.
Effan smiled. "Be careful on your way out miss."
"Yes, thank you. Good night," she bid farewell and off she goes. It had been a long day for her today and she learned new things despite the period of it. She wanted to tell Gitto everything that happened today and she surely knew that Gitto must have a lot of things to nag about today.