Chereads / The Hellions / Chapter 4 - Cybil

Chapter 4 - Cybil

She turned the page looking over the diagram of the plant. It looked similar to the one Gwyndolyn had been talking about. But in the book it said it was a medicinal herb and the amount Gwyndolyn had given the child had been well within the recommended dosage ofr the tonic. She thought it over in her head. There was a possibility that the plant was a slight variation on the one depicted in this book. She flipped to the front looking at the date of writing and the location. It had been written by a Sir Renalt Vonnegar about four hundred years ago in a country that was almost halfway around the world. It was likely a variation, and definitely an invasive species. When she woke up she would inform Gwyndolyn not to use it but to bring some to her the next time she found it. If she got the chance she would study it and catalog it. She looked up from her reading, the book closed and it floated up from where it lay on the table in front of her andslid neatly back into its place on the infinite shelves. She gave a motion and the seemingly infinite library shifted a new book sliding from a shelf and onto her table. The library wasn't real. Or it was, it just wasn't physical. It was in a space beyond space, likely the heart of the goddess herself. The library wasn't infinite though, it was made up of all the books she had collected. Or all the books she had burned. It wasn't really burning though. Well it was in that it involved fire. But the purpose was different: it was a ritual, a sacrifice of the book's physical form in exchange for its new form and place in the library at the heart of the goddess. Cybil was its unofficial librarian, though the library had no order, beyond magic. Or that is to say you couldn't truely or properly navigate the labyrinth library without a solid understanding of its magic. But getting lost wasn't a problem. She looked over the book now before her, "Weeds Trees and Leaves" but she sensed something near her.

She opened her eyes and the library disappeared making way for the forest she was sitting in. She looked across the clearing and let out a breath.

"Nerissa, I was in the middle of-" but after one quick grin Nerissa had flashed her the with was gone again. It was the one thing she could never figure out, how they seemed to disappear, Nerissa and Neve both. She knew it wasn't written in any book and though she would forever wonder about it she had long since given up trying to actually figure it out.

She swung her legs around and stood holding out a hand into which her staff flew like a magnet. She gripped the carved handle giving the staff a flicking motion and the end of the staff formed into a broom of metal bristles. She looked around, a pointless but habitual check to see if Nerissa was still there. Of course she saw nothing and with a sigh she threw her broom up in the air, the broom coming to rest parallel to the ground at about the height of her hip. She hoped on gripping the staff and then she was in the wind.