Rise of the Night Witch

Chapter 3.1 - Scary Lessons

fRecap: Last time, Marissa just finished her enrollment in the Cunning Folk Academy while her Dad faced a creepy monster.

A specter swept through my basement. Professor Manaba's light-brown skin, her purple sorcerer cloak, and her thin chin looked so real that even I occasionally forgot she was merely an astral body of light.

I sat on the cold basement ground. My knees touched my chest while my long, flowing black robe kept me warm. Even though they weren't in the same room, Mark, Christa, Nick, and the others saw me just as I saw their ghosts floating next to me. Students had to activate Magia Phones apps that scanned our souls and sent ectoplasmic holograms to each participant. They saw every nervous glance and hiccup I produced.

At least they couldn't see the cramped food storage room I sat in. Besides me, a tiny, gnome-like creature knocked over rotten sacks of onions and potatoes. This wizened, bat-eared, wrinkly-skinned, three-foot-tall goblin looked like Dobby's younger brother, only that he went by Bill the Brownie. He belonged to my mother and watched the house in our absence. In exchange for milk, he produced glamour that made Dad overhear my nightly astral courses.

"Apprentice Carter," Professor Manaba said softly.

I gulped.

"Explain the two principles borrowed from sympathetic magic that are important to transfiguration."

Mark's hand shot up like an arrow. Aw. He tried to save me from that question. He was the nice and intelligent type; a bit like Simon, only straw-blonde, better-looking (like a younger version of Chris Evans...), and so out of my league due to the whole "double school" thing. As much as I liked his help, I needed to do this alone. I was smart, I knew the answers.

"Well, transfiguration is often done through potions. It's even in the name of our course." I hoped to lighten up the mood through a joke, but it didn't have the intended effect. "And for potions, you either need components related to what you wanna shapeshift into or symbolic stuff."

Sorcerer Manaba nodded, even if I didn't use the technical terms ("spiritual essence", "sympathetic bond") she liked to hear. "I would like more elaboration on what you call 'symbolic stuff'."

The nature of our astral classes made exams difficult. Most apprentices couldn't do an astral projection, so every student had a crystal storing specifically trained spirits for that. The spirits, however, only transmitted our spiritual essences, like our looks and voices, to the others, not written sheets of paper. So, instead of writing exams, Manaba gave us verbal examinations. Which were a trillion times more nerve-wracking than writing stuff.

Since I waited too long, she gave Mark the word.

"She means amplification components," Mark said. "For a healing potion, you for example take herbs that are associated with good health. It psychosomatically boosts our body's natural regenerative capacities and it strengthens the positive effects its herbal components would naturally have anyway."

"Very good," she said and turned back to me. "And why is it easier and safer to shapeshift into an animal than into an Otherworlder?"

"Well, the more similar your target is to you, the lower the power or shaping you need," I said. "Otherworlders look more like us than animals, but animals are made of proteins while Otherworlders have plenty of weird ectoplasm stuff in their bodies."

"That, and, despite their lower sapience, animals are more similar to us in their wants and desires than Otherworlders are," she added. "Although I presume you did read the book chapter you were supposed to read  for this lesson."