For one, it was no longer storming. The sky was perfectly clear, the air was dry and slightly chilly, and the wind that had nearly knocked him over moments earlier had calmed to a gentle autumn breeze.
For another, it was no longer night. The sun was almost directly overhead, in fact.
Leo pinched his left forearm. He didn’t know if it would provide a definitive answer as to whether he was sleeping or not, but it was what people always seemed to do in books in these situations.
“Ow!” he said. Nope, likely not sleeping.
Perhaps dead, then? It seemed possible. The last thing he remembered was being struck by lightning, after all.
Although he wasn’t struck directly. It was the watch that had been struck. It was there on the ground in front of him, its glass casing cracked and blackened, with branches of burnt grass stretching out beneath it in all directions.
All of the objects were there, in fact, exactly where he’d left them, and the magimeter and his journal as well. At least there was that. Whatever was going on, he’d be able to write it down.
Leo reached in his breast pocket for his fountain pen, but it wasn’t there.
Perhaps he truly was dead then, and this was hell. What could be worse than experiencing some kind of magical event with no way to properly record his observations?
Leo gathered the objects together and returned them to his satchel for safekeeping. The first order of business was finding a pen. If he could write down what was happening, perhaps he could make some sense of it.
Leo crossed the courtyard towards the library entrance. He glanced back at the Norminster Yew—that was strange. The iron fence Groundskeeper Tomasar had erected around the base was missing. Not knocked over in the storm, missing entirely.
An observation worth noting, definitely, once he had his pen.
The library was empty, which wasn’t entirely unexpected. The entirety of the student body had been within the dining hall and was likely still there, although it was strange that no one was out cleaning up after the storm.
Not that there was anything to clean up. The only evidence the storm had come at all had been the lightning burns on the grass.
In fact, the ground hadn’t even been wet, had it? The objects were, but the journal was dry.
Oh, all the observations and nothing to write them with! Torment. Genuine torment.
Leo braced himself for the library’s customary greeting—a smack to the head from one of its many tomes—but it didn’t come.
“In a good mood today, are you?” he asked.
The library did not reply.
All the better. Perhaps he could use this space unbruised, for once.
He spotted a pen lying on an empty table. It was one of the college’s standard issue models, nothing that would be missed.
Finally.
He took a seat at one of the tables meant for studying, placing the bag on its surface where the objects within it rattled and clanged.
He flipped open his notebook and—
The lights went out.
“That’s more like it,” said Leo to the library. “Nice to see you too.”
It was no matter. Although it was too dark within this particular part of the library to write, he could just move to one of the tables near the windows. It was a bright and sunny day, after all.
But when he gathered his things again and stood, his stomach growled. He’d skipped dinner that night during his preparations. He had a notion of going to the dining hall instead. Now that the library had noticed him once more, he’d be better off elsewhere.
And there was something a bit too quiet about this place that was unnerving, if he was being honest.
Of course, the greatest risk was running into Professor Idris. If Idris had already checked his supply closet, he’d be furious with Leo. But that would be true regardless of when Leo ran into him, so he might as well get it over with.
