Hidden Library: The Second Spell Book

“You look beautiful when you dance.”

My back straightened when I heard those words from the other side of the practice room. I hadn’t heard Antony enter. If I had, I would have stopped practicing. I glanced at the stereo system in the corner. My music had not been loud, yet the gentle melody had covered the sound of his arrival.

“I didn’t hear you come in,” I said, lowering my heels so they touched the mat under my feet.

“Your pirouette is really coming along. Four turns now?”

My skin burned. I had secretly mastered doing four turns, but I hadn’t done it that day. How long had he been watching me, and for how many days?

“You might announce yourself before coming in,” I said coldly.

“You would stop dancing if I did that,” Antony said, standing behind me, so we could see ourselves together in the practice mirror.

The sight was very nostalgic for me. Once, we had been children in the same dance class. He had stopped dancing in his late boyhood, declaring it hurt his masculinity to prance. As he stood behind me in the present, he regretted the decision because it meant he could not dance with me.

I, on the other hand, rejoiced. When he quit, Antony had not known how, one day, he would fumble and grasp for opportunities to interact with me. His regrets about quitting ballet were unfounded. No contact, no closeness would ever draw me to accept a romance with him.

His reflection in the mirror showed his features and his mood. The light in his eyes showed boiling lust, bubbling, and overflowing. For that moment, he could not conceal his feelings. That indescribable feeling of wanting what he could not have might have meant something wonderful to me on another’s man’s face. On Antony’s features, half of which mirrored mine, it was horrifying. He could have been my brother instead of my cousin.

His blue eyes settled on my brown ones in the mirror as he placed his forefinger on his temple and cradled his elbow in his other hand.

The sight of his hands on himself and not loose or poised to touch me helped me relax ever so slightly. “What are you doing here, Antony? I thought you only came to the school to play chess and that’s over until the fall.”

“You know the school feels like home to me,” he said.

I didn’t know that. The school was like an extension of home for me, but that had never been true for him. The truth was that he knew I would be practicing my ballet and he came deliberately to see me.

His hands remained where I could see them, but I could have sworn I felt something brush up against my thigh. He was standing apart from me. He couldn’t have brushed up against me accidentally. Nor could he have touched me with his hands where I could see them, but the contact continued like two fingers moving up the side of my thigh to my hip.

“Don’t touch me,” I hissed with a glare.

“I’m not touching you,” he insisted, holding his hands out where I could see them.

The feeling did not stop, and I felt a whole hand grasp my waist.

“I have to go,” I said, sweeping the air around me to brush off the invisible fingers. The feeling dispersed as I moved away from the mirror. I grabbed my bag, which was sitting just inside the door.

He rushed after me. “Wait. Why are you angry?”

“You know what you did. Trying your magic on me.”

He stopped and gazed innocently at me. “I didn’t do any magic.”

“You’re better at magic than you are at lying,” I said, moving past him.

He called after me, but the blood pounding in my ears prevented me from hearing him.

Thanks for reading this excerpt! The complete novel Hidden Library: The Second Spell Book by Stephanie Van Orman is available for purchase on Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes and Noble, DriveThru Fiction, GooglePlay, KOBO, and Smashwords. Enjoy!