House of Many Ways Read Online Free PDF

quill pen ( easy, there’s both on this desk ), one egg ( kitchen? ), two flower petal—one pink and the other blue, six drops of water ( bathroom ), one red hair, one white hair, and two pearl buttons.”
    “No problem at all,” Charmain said. She took herglasses off and bustled about assembling ingredients. She hurried to the kitchen—she got to that by opening the bathroom door and turning left and was almost too excited to find that she had got this right—and asked the air, “Where do I find eggs?”
    Great-Uncle William’s gentle voice replied, “Eggs are in a crock in the pantry, my dear. I think it’s behind the laundry bags. I do apologize for leaving you with such disorder.”
    Charmain went into the pantry and leaned across the laundry bags, where sure enough she found an old pie dish with half a dozen brown eggs in it. She took one of them carefully back to the study. Since her glasses were dangling on their chain, she failed to notice that The Boke of Palimpsest was now open at “A Spell to Find Hidden Treasure.” She bustled over to the study window, where the flower petals were ready to hand on a hydrangea bush that was one half pink and the other blue. She laid those beside the egg and rushed to the bathroom, where she collected the six drops of water in a tooth mug. On the way back, she went across the passage towhere Waif was now curled up like a meringue on Great-Uncle William’s blankets. “Excuse me,” Charmain said to him, and raked her fingers along his ragged white back. She came away with quite a number of white hairs, one of which she put beside the flower petals and added to that a red hair from her own head. As for the pearl buttons, she simply ripped two of them off the front of her blouse.
    “Right,” she said, and put her glasses eagerly on again to look at the instructions. The Boke of Palimpsest was now open at “A Spell for Personal Protection,” but Charmain was too excited to notice. She looked only at the instructions, which were in five stages. Stage One said, “Place all ingredients except quill and paper in a suitable bowl.”
    Charmain, after taking her glasses off to stare searchingly around the room, and finding no bowl, suitable or not, was forced to go off to the kitchen again. While she was gone, lazily and slyly, The Boke of Palimpsest turned over another couple of pages. When Charmain came back with a slightly sugary bowl, having tipped all the sugar out onto a not-too-dirty plate, the Boke was open at “A Spell to Increase Magical Power.”
    Charmain did not notice. She put the bowl down on the desk and piled into it the egg, the two petals, the two hairs, and her two buttons, and dripped the water carefully in on top. Then she put her glasses on and leaned over the book to discover what she did next. By this time, The Boke of Palimpsest was displaying “A Spell to Become Invisible,” but Charmain only looked at the instructions and did not see this.
    Stage Two told her to “Mash all ingredients together, using only the pen.”
    It is not easy to mash up an egg with a feather, but Charmain managed it, stabbing with the sharpened end over and over until the shell fell to pieces, then stirring so hard that her hair fell down over her face in red strands, and finally, when nothing seemed to mix properly, whisking with the feather end. When she finally stood up, panting, and pushed her hair away with sticky fingers, the Boke had turned over yet another page. It now displayed“A Spell to Start a Fire,” but Charmain was too busy trying not to get egg on her glasses to see. She put them on and studied Stage Three. Stage Three of this spell said, “Recite three times ‘Hegemony Gauda.’”
    “Hegemony gauda,” Charmain intoned obediently over the bowl. She was not sure, but on the third repetition she thought the bits of eggshell seethed around the pearl buttons a little. I think it’s working! she thought. She pushed her glasses back on her nose and