Deephaven by Ethan M. Aldridge

Author:Ethan M. Aldridge
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2023-06-14T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Nev leaned away from their small dormitory desk and rubbed their eyes with the heel of their hands, a dull ache pulsing through their skull. Scattered on the desk in front of them were their attempts at translating the small notebook they’d found in the under-basement: scraps of scribbled paper and fragments of sentences. They had the book Professor Bellairs had given them, the pages open to the Enochian translation key.

At the edge of their desk was the small bag Nev had “collected” from Patience’s room, its grisly contents presenting another puzzle that Nev wasn’t sure they wanted to solve.

For now, they were focused on translating the journal. It was slow and frustrating work, but Nev was determined to mine the little notebook for all its secrets. The more they thought about what little they had glimpsed of Patience’s scrapbook, the more sure they were that they had seen the notebook’s missing pages pasted inside, and the more sure they were that it could provide at least some of the answers they were looking for.

So far, Nev hadn’t learned much. The notebook seemed to be part personal journal, part classroom notebook, part spell book. It had belonged to some long-ago student; the early entries talked about getting used to Deephaven’s strange structural mumbling, their difficulty finding friends, the challenge of the classes. As the entries went on, the unknown student had begun to notice things at Deephaven: strange noises in the night, students going missing without explanation, unsettling artifacts of unknown purpose being left in front of their dormitory door, in their book bag, on their bed. The student had begun the journal to record what they were seeing, and to try to unravel the root of it. Nev sensed a kindred, investigative spirit. The fact that the student had decided to write their journal in an occult code was unsettling, but it was clear to Nev that they had done so to keep prying eyes from reading the entries. But who had they thought would try to read it, and why did they go to such lengths to prevent them?

The biggest thing Nev had learned so far was that the dark strangeness at Deephaven had existed for much longer than any of the current students had been there.

They skipped ahead in the journal to the part just before the gap where the missing pages had torn out. They picked their way through the unfamiliar characters, comparing them to the translation key from Professor Bellairs, writing out the results as they went:

The possibilities seem endless, but I suspect that is a trap. I will admit that it is a tempting one; to be able to change your shape at will, to mold it to whatever purpose you desire. That is true freedom. But that is why I mistrust it.

How easy it would be to lose yourself so completely that you could never find your way back to your own body and mind.

I believe I have a solution, though. If I use a ritual to only change into one specific shape, I will be able to better control it.

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