I wasn’t quite finished with the story I was telling by the time 2025 ended and so decided to continue it until it reached an ending point. Then I will start a new one. Besides, I kind of want to see where Penelope ends up. And so we have…
Day 176: “Control is something I could definitely use,” she decided.
“Control is something I could definitely use,” she decided. Penelope turned the pages slowly. Jerome’s book was arranged in short lessons and Penelope was darkly amused to find that at the beginning the author recommended the practitioner visit a greenhouse or garden center to secure both seeds and plants prior to beginning practice.
She looked to her broken arm. “I did try,” she said. She turned back to the book. Since the lessons were more practical as she learned control they all required some sort of plant to work with. “Michaelson said he’d be by with seed packets at least.”
Penelope shut the book and set it to the side. She hadn’t gotten a time frame from Michaelson and suspected that when he managed to bring seeds and potential plants would depend on sorting through the other things going on. With the bombing, attack in the green house and dealing with Peter Sinclar, she suspected he had his hands full.
“I wonder if he thought that was what being an agent for the Emperor would be like,” Penelope wondered as she reached for the second book. Had Michaelson though he would have glamorous spy adventures instead of dealing with exploding greenery?
‘Even if he planned to deal with magic I am betting the greenhouse came as a surprise.’ Penelope knew she was partially to blame because she did make the plants grow rapidly in her own defense. “But I was attacked,” she said. “That makes a lot of it Peter’s fault.”
Penelope opened the second book. It was, as Mrs. Merriweather claimed, a book showing how to create sigils. They started off basic, the first requiring only the object, something to physically etch the symbol on the object and a spell.
‘And even then you aren’t the one etching the symbol all the time.’ Penelope stopped to read a hand written note in the margin. It was a list of three shows where jewelers or engravers would add the symbol to metal for you. “You just pay the cost of the engraving,” Penelope nodded. She knew nothing of working with any form of metal or engraving tools and was happy to leave such things to the professionals.
“Especially when it comes to acid etching,” she said, spotting the term lower down on the page. She shook her head. Penelope wasn’t certain what that was or why it was different from regular engraving but a look at the paragraph let her know that it was sometimes more useful than other forms of engraving.
“And anything to do with acids seems like someone else’s department,’ she decided.
She continued flipping through the pages and found that as the charms grew more complex, the process of creating them also grew more involved. Instead of simple words and her own innate magic creating the symbol, there were oils, tinctures, distillation and added processes.
“I’d have to work my way up to those.”
Setting the book aside, Penelope turned her attention to the box. It was wooden and the lid slid off as it was fitted into grooves rather than hinged. She slid it to the side but it didn’t come all the way out, still remaining attached on the left edge. The weight of the opened lid kept tilting the box and with only one working arm at the moment, Penelope was finding it hard to look into the box.
She sighed and then got an idea.
Ten til Midnight 