Magic and leather
Deep in the lower reaches of the museum archives, a lowly grad student was searching the stacks. Row by row, Ana browsed through the dusty old tomes, some of them thousands of years old. Ana’s thesis was on Eastern European paganism during the 9th century. Her supervisor, the renowned Professor Elizabeth Connelly, had told her that she needed a book from the archives to complete her thesis, though Ana suspected that it was really because the Professor wanted the book for her own upcoming publication. It seemed the real work of a grad student was to do the scut work of the professors. Supposedly, the book was akin to a pagan bible, containing a collection of Slovenian pagan beliefs and rules. Ana found the book near the bottom row of the stacks, almost hidden away in a corner. The book was quite heavy, bound in black leather. She lifted it up and placed it on a table. The front cover was completely blank, just black leather. She opened the book to find the parchment inside surpr