The Book keeper

The boy sits on the curb of the shop, legs stretching as far as they can reach off the curb, his upper body leaning back while both arms support him from falling on his back. His clothes are full of holes all around them and soaked from last night's storm. Keys clatter in the distance, and the boy swings his head to check the corner for his boss. Nobody yet, crap he thought to himself. He picks himself up hastily and grabs his duffel bag, in there lies his fresh clean uniform. Without hesitation, he throws his duffel bag in the air and his clothes come falling out. Then with the clap of his hand, the fresh new uniform begins switching with his worn-out ragged clothes. Ms. Hallenheim, his boss, cuts the corner just in time. Today she’s not alone, with her is this young girl about the boy’s age.

“Merlin, you’re here on time again” Ms. Hallenheim rejoices.

“Always, first one here last one out” Merlin replies.

“Merlin, this is Bonnie and vice versa, I’m sure you guys will get along,” Ms. Hallenheim says.

“Hello, Merlin it’s nice to meet you,” Bonnie says, as she reaches over to shake his hand.

Merlin lost in her eyes, reaches out for the handshake but forgets to speak, or rather he can’t. after another second of hopelessly staring into her diamond-blue eyes, the boy snaps back to reality and gathers himself.

“Sorry, it’s also nice to meet you” He stutters.

She smiles back at him, as she brushes her dark brown hair behind her hair, “you don’t have to apologize” she says giggling.

“Okay love birds, it’s work time” Ms. Hallenheim asserts.

Bonnie shifts her glance away from Merlin, onto the building. the shop is three stories tall, with dark red bricks, two windows on each floor, and a dome roof with one round window, with a white window casing. each windowpane on the three floors holds a slight dark tint, and the window casing is painted dark gray. Ms. Hallenheim places both hands on the building's pastel-green double doors. With 

With each hand placed on one of the doors, she recites the phrase avatud three times. The door blasts open and Bonnie’s excitement can’t be contained as her eyes widen and her smile grows larger than anyone can imagine. One glance inside and her excitement transforms into disappointment, her wide eyes now riddled with disenchantment. It looks just like a regular bookshop.

“The magic is inside, come on I’ll show you,” Merlin says as though he’s a child who can’t wait to show you their art.

The shop’s air runs cool, and the organization and placement of each shelf and book were perfect. The shelves on the first floor are grouped into spells, enchantments, theories, and potion-making. If this was just a regular book shop it’d be amazing but it’s a magical bookshop she taught. Merlin glances at bonnie with a big smile on his face.

“What do you think,” Merlin says.

“It's really organized, and holds lots of cool books, I guess I was just expecting something more though” Bonnie replies.

“I thought you’d say something like that, you haven’t even noticed it yet have you,” Merlin says.

“Noticed what” Bonnie responds.

Merlin uses his index to point up, and Bonnie misinterprets his gesture as a one, then the boy tilts his head up, and she follows suit. Her jaw drops to the floor as she notices the building has no ground for the second and third floors. Panels of wood float in the air, going from one shelf to the other. Books on the upper floor float around, some of them even rearrange themselves.

“The upper floors books have artificial intelligence created by magic, some of the books constantly update their information, they also pick whom they see fit. All the books above us also move freely on the upper floors.” Merlin explains.

“Wow that’s amazing, how do people get there,” Bonnie asks.

“Well, that’s the hard part,” Merlin replies.

A grin grows on his face as the boy reaches from behind the counter to pull a giant plank of wood, bigger than his body. He squats down and slugs it over his head, his grin widens, as he lets go of the plank that’s above his head. Bonnie gasps immediately jumping to catch it before he’s hurt. But the plank doesn’t fall.

“See the magic is inside,” Merlin says cheerfully.

“This is more like it,” Bonnie says.

The boy smiles reach behind the counter for more planks of wood and pull out a stack of 12. This time they are much smaller, small enough for just a pair of feet to squeeze in one plank at a time. He hands her the planks and reaches for the floating plank groaning as he struggles to pull himself up. Finally, he gets himself on top of the plank and lets out a big exhale.

“It’s usually not that hard” He exclaims.

Bonnie giggles as she passes him the planks on her toes. After passing the plank Merlin’s grin widens and he reaches his hand out, but the girl is all out of planks.

“Come on up,” He says.

“Uhm I’m not sure if I’m ready for that yet,” Bonnie says.

A loud Bang came from the basement and worry immediately painted all over Bonnie’s face.

“Was yesterday a full moon,” Ms. Hallenheim asks

“No, it wasn’t, the full moon is supposed to happen tonight” Merlin replies

“Well, technically the full moon this month, happened at daybreak but because the sun was up no one saw it, but it’ll still look pretty full tonight” Bonnie chimes.

Another Bang, and the boy grimaces, Ms. Hallenheim comes rushing from the back with a wand in one hand and a book in the other, immediately she hands the book to Merlin. Bonnie doesn’t need to be told what to do, she was hired for her exceptional initiative. Without a second thought, she reaches for her bag and pulls out a wand. With her wand held to her face, she yells Skydda and raises her hands pointing the wand above all three of their heads. A ball of light forms around the wand and then explodes into smaller balls of light raining down, quoting them in light armament.

“Can someone explain what’s going on,” Bonnie asks.

“Well, we also have a basement, and in that basement are cursed and dangerous books,” Merlin says.

“One of the cursed books spawns a creature once every full moon,” Ms. Hallenheim chimes.

“Usually, we take care of them before opening on full moon nights, but today we really screwed up,” Merlin says.

He puts the book down on the floor and opens it to the third page, which holds a painting of a sword, stuck to a rock. The boy dips his hands into the book, and with his eyes closed he screams Excalibur, then immediately he pulls the sword out of the painting and into the real world.

“I’ve never seen magic like that before,” Bonnie mutters.

“The books here are special” Merlin replies.

“Clearly,” she says as she glances over to the basement door.

The three of them, stand guard in front of the door to the basement, as the bangs get louder and faster. Then finally, the basement door gets sent flying, it hits Ms. Hallenheim, but the light armament cast by Bonnie shreds the doors to pieces. From the basement came this creature, the body of a man, with the head and tail of a bull. Standing 7 feet tall, the monster slouches over to get through the doorway.

“Mi-min-Minotaur” she stutters.

In its hand, a double-battle axe slugging it over its shoulders, the creature lets out a roar sending fear through the spines of all of them but Merlin. The boy dashed at exponential speed toward the creature before it can react, he swings right above its knees on its thighs, deep but not deep enough. The creature takes its axe straight down to Merlin’s head attempting to split the boy in two. Merlin is faster, putting all his weight on his right foot the boy leaps to the left. He catches himself with both feet and tries thrusting his blade into the side abdomen of the minotaur. It connects but still not enough the creature lets out a sinister smile, as Merlin struggles to remove his blade from the creature. Minotaur swings its axe from below him straight for his head of Merlin, in an attempt to wipe his head, clean off. Spegelsköld, bonnie whispers, he hits a barrier right before contacting Merlin, which repels his force right back to him, sending his hand in the opposite direction. His axe smashes into the wall opposite Merlin and it struggles to remove it. Stötvåg Ms. Hallenheim yells, a shock wave expelling from her wand sends the minotaur flying down the stairs, but the beast manages to remove its axe before being struck.

“Merlin I’m going to use a retraining spell on it,” Ms. Hallenheim says.

“All right I’ll finish it off” merlin responds

“Well, I’ll distract it” Bonnie adds.

With Bonnie’s wand to her face again she mutters krossad värld. A full-size mirror appears in front of her, she taps the mirror with her wand, and it shatters into numerous pieces. Bonnie points her wand to the doorway and the mirror pieces fly over to it waiting patiently for the beast. Merlin reaches for the book on the ground again, this time he’s searching for a different page. Minotaur begins charging up the stairs, it roars as though the beast was psyching itself up to destroy whatever lies in front of him.

“Now or never, Merlin,” Bonnie says.

The beast makes it through the doorway, swiftly before the other two can react Bonnie screams lätt svärd. A short sword made of light projects itself toward the beast, it misses, but then it reflects off a floating shattered piece of the mirror, and it makes its way through the monster’s skin. Not deep enough but annoying enough to distract the creature as it keeps reflecting off pieces of mirror, inflicting wounds on the minotaur.

“Got it,” Merlin says.

Återhållsamhet Ms. Hallenheim screams as chains begin spawning from the floor of the minotaur restraining him and dragging him onto his knees. Gáe Bulg Merlin says as he pulls out a large spear from the book. The minotaur lets out on giant roar for the last time as Merlin, whipped the spear toward the chest of the minotaur. The best explodes into a cloud of black dust.

“I’ve never seen any magic like yours Merlin,” Bonnie says

“Well, I’m not from around here” the boy replies.