TURNS OUT WARHINDER'S A WITCH
Posted on April 5, 2018
The third Irving Wishbutton book is a real pleasure to write. I'm so happy to be returning to this imaginative world. On my way to another 5,000 words today. Got about 800 to go and two hours to do it in. I love how every member of the cast is getting fleshed out in this volume. When I labelled Warhinder a witch, it felt completely right. The fact that she doesn't present as your typical witch really matches her personality. I am so pleased with this chapter as it sets in motion the question for the second half of the book. What is the Tomb of Tomes?
Professor Warhinder sat at her desk, grading essays. Her classroom door hung open, but I knocked just the same.
She looked up and smiled. "Irving, come on in. To what do I owe the pleasure?"
I entered and discreetly closed the door behind me. The click as it shut felt infinitely loud.
Warhinder tapped the end of her pen on the stack of papers, but not in an impatient or annoyed way.
"I had a question for you."
"One that couldn't wait until Friday? Oh, it must be a juicy one." She leaned forward and smiled.
"Characters die in our stories. I've had someone die, not even a character I've met. I guess he died in the past and really only gets mentioned in maybe a flashback sense." I felt a little jumbled in my thinking.
"Not really a question."
"Okay, well, I've never seen the character here on campus. Do folks who die in a story not go to class? Are they tucked away someplace else?"
"Someplace like Revision Ravine?" She raised an eyebrow.
My expedition to the ravine had been all the buzz for a while. Only recently had it died down.
"Yeah, I guess."
"No, they don't have a special place. They do attend classes until their demise. When that happens, they simply disappear. Now with your cast member, since his death was related to you as something that happened before your own story began, he wouldn't even make it here."
"Oh." It didn't sound like she was lying, and I had no reason to doubt here, except that I had seen her become a ghost and disappear down a pit to visit the rest of her trapped cast.
"I like that you think so out of the box, Irving. You really test the limits."
If those same statements had come from Harmstrike, they would've been lace with intimidation and judgment. From Warhinder, however, not a single ounce of malice. "But are there ghosts that live here?"
She leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs. "Certainly. They're pretty well represented in the heroes and supporting cast. Quite a few are villains and, of course, they'd be window dressing as well." She clicked her tongue. "But you already know that. You have to have come across a few."
I suddenly felt exposed. She suspected me of knowing more than I was letting on. Why had I asked the question? "Yeah, sure, of course. I mean, do they gather together somewhere?" Idiot, why not just come out and say you saw her drop down into a mysterious pit?
She traced gentle circles on her forehead, steering clear of the small horns along her brow. "Irving, did you witness something you weren't supposed to?"
"Um, no. Like what?" I should've told Roon about everything and had her confront Warhinder. With her detective sensibilities, she would've been in and out and gotten what she needed from the professor without tripping any alarms.
Warhinder smiled and looked at the clock. "It's okay if you saw something. It's also okay if you're not ready to talk about it. This place has many mysteries, and I know you like to try to figure out how everything ticks."
"So now is when you tell me to stop digging, right?"
She frowned. "Really? You think so little of me that you'd assume I'd want you to stop looking for answers?"
"Um, well, I don't ―"
She stood and grabbed her broom. Warhinder was a witch, but she rarely broadcast that aspect. Her appearance was one more of a hippie than anyone gothic or prone to throwing frogs into bubbling cauldrons. She also didn't own a pointy black hat.
She gestured with her right hand, and the windows behind her swung open. She straddled the broom and let it drift a few feet higher as she looked back at me. "Never stop probing. I know you held back with your questions because you feared me shutting you down, but that's not how I operate. Now, I hate to cut our time short, but I have a prior engagement, a little back and forth with the dean, to attend to." She winked. "Next time, Irving, be direct. I'll be an open book and share what you need to know about who and what are housed in the Tomb of Tomes."
She flew out of the room and rocketed toward the dean's building. Her windows closed a few seconds later.
I sat in her office for a full minute before finally leaving.
She knows I know about the pit. Did it lead to the tomb place she mentioned? Something told me it had to. I needed to really get with Roon and see about getting through that weird door, but first I had something else to take care of. And to accomplish it, I needed to employ a recent addition to my good wishes.
I raced back to Smudge Hall determined to make the most of what remained of the day. And the night.