Come October, Rosemary was down to casting a renewal on her transformation only twice a week. By this time, of course, her transformation had been continually in effect for long enough that even one renewal a week would have been more than enough to maintain it. Still, she didn’t like cutting it too close, so twice a week it was.

  She didn’t need to use the correspondence mirror booths to cast the extension rituals anymore, though. When she was only doing that ritual twice a week, and only that often to give herself plenty of room, it was no problem finding times when she had enough privacy in her own dorm room to go into the bathroom, lock the door, and simply cast the renewal there. She anyway always made sure she was in the bathroom behind a locked door whenever she changed clothes — so that none of her roommates would find out that they were rooming with a girl.

  The first Saturday of the month, though, she did use a correspondence mirror booth — but not to cast the renewal on her transformation. This time she actually used it for the purpose it was intended for — to use the correspondence mirror. She had secured a promise from her parents that they’d be at home that day and in a place where they’d be able to answer the mirror. She had also arranged for the school to put tokens for her to use the mirror that day on her orbis card — which was the same card she had used to pay for her school supplies back in August in the Magical Levels beneath Lenox Square.

  Rosemary smiled when she took a look at the card right before making the call. Her face on the card hadn’t changed much — but where it had once said “Simon Corbin,” she could now see her true name, “Rosemary Corbin.” For a moment, she worried that this might mean that her parents would know about her change — and that meant them knowing before she was ready to tell them. But when she spoke with them, she realized she had nothing to worry about. If they knew, they definitely didn’t let on, and the conversation went great. As much as she enjoyed being at Misty Peaks, she missed her family — and every moment of the first conversation she had had with her parents in over a month was a moment of pure joy.

  The conversation went on for several minutes — and when it was over, Rosemary was very happy to have spoken to her parents again. She hoped it wouldn’t be too long till she could speak to them again.

  * * *

  The following Tuesday when she got to Professor Thorn’s classroom for Warding Basics, she noticed that there was a film projector mounted on a high table in the back of the room — and a movie screen open in front of the chalkboard.

  “Are we watching a movie?” she asked.

  “We sure are,” said Professor Thorn with a smile.

  “What movie?” she asked.

  “You just wait and find out,” he said, his smile unwavering.

  However, as soon as everyone had arrived and it was time for class to begin, Professor Thorn stood in front of the class and addressed everyone with a more serious countenance.

  “As you might have figured,” he said, “today we’re going to be watching a film. It’s a film that was made just a few years ago. It’s about how what would have been some of the worst robberies in the history of the magical world were stopped.”

  Rosemary was expecting a boring film in which someone dryly explained things that she might have to know some day. However, to her pleasant surprise, the film was nothing like that. It was an interesting documentary that quickly captured her interest.

  It began with a clip of a witch identified as Dr. Carpathia Crimsonspell talking to the camera while sitting in an office full of books and strange artifacts. “We all heard about famous robberies of magical items in history,” she explained, “But as infamous as those heists were, there were other attempts that would have been just as infamous if they hadn’t been stopped, thanks to some innovative protection techniques developed over the centuries.”

  The scene cut to a wizard identified as Dr. Timothy Crowley standing outside what looked like the doorway of one of those old European church buildings. “Merlin’s Staff? The Ring of Solomon?” Dr. Crowley said. “These priceless artifacts and more would have been hopelessly lost to the underworld had it not been for the amazing ways people stopped that from happening.”

  As the documentary went on, it discussed the attempted theft of both of those items as well as a few others. The last attempted theft discussed in the documentary was that of the Horseshoe of Angus McNee. In the early years of the Nineteenth Century, a wizard named Angus McNee made a large, enchanted horseshoe to protect the Delaware Valley from attacks by the Jersey Devil. The Horseshoe of Angus McNee did its job very effectively ever since — but in 1903 its continued protection was threatened. That was the year that a local cabal hatched a plan to steal it and hold it for ransom.

  “What the perpetrators weren’t counting on,” explained Dr. Crimsonspell, “was that the underground suite where it was stored was monitored by an enclosure alarm. An enclosure alarm is an enchantment that monitors a set space, and triggers an alert on a remote monitor if anything went in or out of that space unauthorized.”

  The film cut to her laboratory where Dr. Crimsonspell stood, explaining that she was about to demonstrate the kind of enclosure alarm that was used at the time. “Back in the 1950s, these old-timey enclosure alarms were replaced by more modern ones,” she said. “Today’s enclosure alarms are more discreet, and often allow multiple people to monitor an alarm from different places. But these babies were top-of-the-line for well over half a century.”

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  She pointed out a small red stone on a table on one side of the room and explained that that was the monitor, and that the alarm was monitoring an empty reptile tank on the other side of the room. From that point, the film went into split-screen mode, focusing on the monitor stone on the left, and Dr. Crimsonspell next to the reptile tank on the right. Dr. Crimsonspell held up a piece of wood. “This is just an ordinary piece of maple wood,” she explained. “No enchantments on it at all. Let’s see what happens when I drop it into the tank.”

  She dropped it in, and immediately a slow whining siren sound could be heard as a green glow emanated from the stone on the left side of the screen. Immediately, Rosemary perked up. The whole documentary was interesting — but this? This was familiar. But what happened next made it even more familiar. A disembodied voice began repeating: “Your reptile tank has been breached.”

  What really clinched it for Rosemary, though, was when Dr. Crimsonspell walked from the reptile tank over to the monitor stone, aimed her wand at the stone, and chanted “Horologium suspendere”, thereby extinguishing the green glow and silencing the alarm.

  The documentarian then went on to explain the rapid response that the enclosure alarm enabled — and how it resulted in the Horseshoe of Angus McNee remaining undisturbed, and the perpetrators being arrested. Rosemary, however, just sat there with her jaw dropped. She knew that she had seen an enclosure alarm just like that go off before.

  * * *

  Upon returning to the Hemlock Tower Common Room after class, Rosemary found Lilith, Samantha, and Mika at a table. She was happy to see them getting along again — now that Mika knew the reason why her roommates had never mentioned to her the decaying trees in the forest. But she had an important matter to discuss with them.

  She went to the table and sat down. “I’ve seen it before,” she said.

  “Seen what before?” asked Lilith.

  “The enclosure alarm,” said Rosemary, “from the film we saw today. Well, one just like it.”

  “How?” asked Lilith. “Didn’t it say they switched those out for different ones back in the 1950s?”

  “I’m telling you, I saw it,” insisted Rosemary. “The day I went shopping for my school supplies.”

  “While doing your school shopping?” asked Lilith, incredulously.

  “Yes,” maintained Rosemary. “We were having lunch with Dr. Fletcher.”

  “Dr. who?” asked Samantha.

  “Dr. Fletcher,” answered Rosemary. “He’s the person from the school board who brought me my invitation to Misty Peaks — and he helped us with my school shopping and registration.”

  “Oh,” said Samantha. “I got all that from Dr. Beauregard.”

  “Anyway,” said Rosemary, “all of a sudden, that exact same green glow and moaning sound came from a ring he was wearing — and that same voice said ‘The Chamber of John Hendrix has been breached.’ And he used the same spell as the witch in the film to stop it.”

  “One moment,” said Mika. “John Hendrix — you mean the John Hendrix?”

  “Maybe,” said Rosemary. “I thought then that it had to be someone from today with the same name — but if people stopped using these alarms in the 1950s, then who knows.”

  “My mom and dad say he was a wizard,” noted Mika, “and that he almost exposed magic to the mundie world.”

  “Anyway,” said Rosemary, “some John Hendrix, maybe that John Hendrix, must have set up some chamber back in the days — and someone broke into it this summer.”

  “So why would he set up a chamber,” asked Lilith, “and hook it up to an enclosure alarm?”

  “I don’t know,” said Rosemary. “The one they talked about in the movie was set up to protect the Horseshoe of Angus McBee.”

  “McNee,” corrected Lilith.

  “The Horseshoe of Angus McNee,” Rosemary stood corrected. “Maybe there’s something that John Hendrix had to protect?”

  “Maybe it’s where he’s buried?” suggested Samantha.

  “No,” said Mika. “Everyone knows where that is. It’s a really simple grave in an Oak Ridge subdivision.”

  “I didn’t,” said Lilith.

  “Me neither,” added Rosemary.

  “Well, you’re not from Oak Ridge,” Mika said to Lilith. She then turned to Rosemary and continued. “And you’re new to the magic world. But — you know what I mean. People from Oak Ridge who, like, know about magic. And also some of those there who don’t know about magic, but not all of them. Anyway, my point is — I’d know if someone had broken into his grave this past summer. That can’t be it.”

  “I wonder if they have anything about it in the library,” commented Rosemary.

  “Who knows,” said Lilith.

  * * *

  The next day, after Study Hall, Rosemary went to the library.

  “Do you have anything here about the Chamber of John Hendrix?” she asked Madam Harvey.

  “Let me see,” said the librarian. She raised a platform behind her desk, and on it was a translucent, grey crystal ball with a kind of uneven cloudiness within — and it sat on a silver stand. She waved her hand over it a few times. Each time, it momentarily emitted a green glow. Finally, it emitted a red glow instead.

  “I don’t seem to find anything about a chamber of John Hendrix per se,” she explained, “but I’m able to find a few things about John Hendrix himself. But hey, there’s a few catalog orbs for student use in this library — so if you want to try yourself, you’re welcome to it.”

  “Catalog orbs?” asked Rosemary.

  “Yes,” answered Madam Harvey. “Those crystal balls used for cataloging stuff. The ones here catalog material in the library.”

  “I don’t know how to use crystal balls,” explained Rosemary.

  “Oh yeah, that’s right,” answered Madam Harvey. “You’re from the mundie world. But hey, you’re a bright boy. I’m sure you’ll be a pro at this in no time.”

  Rosemary bristled at Madam Harvey referring to her as a boy. Furthermore, though she appreciated the compliment to her intellect, she was intimidated at having to figure out how to use a crystal ball on her own.

  “I think if you want to know about John Hendrix,” explained the librarian, “you’d better start out in the reference section. There’s stuff on him in the encyclopedia.”

  “Okay,” Rosemary nodded.

  Madam Harvey led Rosemary to a place near the back of the library, yet on its entrance floor. Here, there was a shelf full of very similar books with glistening purple-gold covers, with the words “Encyclopedia Avalonia” written in large silver letters on the spine of each book.

  “Here’s the encyclopedia,” said Madam Harvey. She eyed the volumes, and then picked one out. “And this is the one that has the entry you’re looking for. Hendrix, comma, John.” She handed Rosemary the volume.

  “Now you can just have a seat and start reading,” she said, “and I’ll be back in a few minutes with a guide you can take home on how to use library catalog orbs.”

  Madam Harvey headed back toward her desk, leaving Rosemary to begin her reading.