She had learned her lesson about playing with magic.


    She had thought that by mimicking Moose she would be able to learn something of the magic it had used. Something of the spell to make the disks. Well, she had learned that the spell was dangerous.


    She had managed to get the magic to do something. She had seen the haze above the surface as the magic took effect. It looked almost like she had gotten water in her eyes but only when she looked at the space directly above the surface. She didn’t know the significance of the way her hands had moved, or why they needed to move where they did, but she had accomplished her second spell!


    As she had moved to brush at the wobbly haze atop the surface, she had also learned her first great lesson.


    Magic was dangerous.


    Luckily, she had felt it before it got worse. The build up of heat, the start of pain. The overload of her sense caused her hand to jerk back. This magic had been potent. Or simply used incorrectly. Possibly both. She would have to be extra careful anytime she was experimenting with magic on her own. It was clear that Moose had a grasp on things she couldn’t replicate and her lack of knowledge was holding back her abilities.


    She could clearly use the magic that Moose did. She had just proven it to herself. Not knowing or understanding the significance of what she had done meant she couldn’t use it the way Moose did, or perhaps even the way it was intended.


    She had no idea if even Moose was using the spells correctly.


    Moose did seem to know she accomplished something though.


    Even when she had done her best to return the area to exactly how she remembered it, it was clear that Moose could see changes she couldn’t or didn’t understand. As if it knew exactly what had happened. Moose rumbled at her a bit and turned her towards the door. She caught it doing something out of the corner of her vision as she was turned, but didn’t get a clear view of what.


    She would need to be careful not to leave mistakes for Moose to correct. She may be deemed as too much trouble and abandoned otherwise.


    She didn’t want to try and survive without the magic she was coming to rely on anytime soon.


    You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


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    She looked at the wall where the opening to her home was.


    Or at least had been.


    ‘Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to close it now.’


    When Moose had come towards her home she had started to worry. If it found the Pages and could somehow block her from entering before it, she would lose all ability to trade. As she had closed the wall to block off the opening she had run into an unexpected problem though.


    How did she open the wall from this side?


    All the times she had pulled the wall in to hide her home there had been a small gap where her hands had been. That gap had always worried her, if a monster found it there was nothing she could do to stop the wall from being pulled back to reveal the opening.


    She didn’t have that problem now. She had snuck away from Moose as it did whatever it was doing nearby. She was afraid that her home had been found or that Moose had sensed the magic inside her coming this way. When Moose had gone towards another area nearby, she had taken the chance to sneak back to her home and tried to hide it.


    She had worried Moose would see the gap, but as she had pushed the wall into the opening that led into her home to close it, the wall had completely melded with the walls around the opening. It now looked as if there was no opening, that it was just a stretch of wall the same as all the rest.


    To get out of her home after she had closed the wall was easy enough, she just pushed it open. But this? She was looking at just a wall. There was nothing to grab and no way for her to pull the wall from this side. She supposed that meant her home was safe from pretty much everything, but it also meant she didn’t know how to get back in. Not until she learned the magic to move walls from Moose.


    If she was going to follow Moose to learn everything she could, then the only real loss was her stash of treats. She didn’t know enough about anything to say which books from the Pages to trade and the People in the box didn’t seem interested in being all that helpful anyways.


    It did mean she couldn’t use her home to hide from monsters until the situation was resolved.


    Was she happy about that? She didn’t want to lead monsters to her home to begin with and couldn’t close it completely from the inside. It wasn’t a great place to hide if something was actively searching for her. It was safe if nothing knew to try looking, but there was nothing preventing her from being hunted like the wall around the garden.


    She pondered this new situation as she padded back to Moose. It didn’t look like anything had changed while she was gone. It was clear that Moose was creating new words and taking words from the many things scattered around the area. She had always thought this area was strange but had never had any context to know why. It seemed that Moose had that context and was gathering a great many words.


    Could Moose be making a new spell?


    She didn’t know, but there was certainly a great deal to learn from what was happening. Moose had sat on the floor with the debris spread out in front of it. Making more and more words in the small book it carried.


    She wanted to watch, but she had been standing a lot and didn’t know how long they would be here, so she couldn’t stand behind and watch over Moose’s shoulder.


    ‘The floor is cold and Moose is warm. I…I don’t like sitting on the cold.’