Happy Halloween.
Anyway, this chapter is where everything begins.
As always, the Worst Witch and Jumanji do not belong to me.
The Curse of Jumanji.
As she added another ingredient to the cauldron boiling in front of her, Mildred was once more thankful of the book Enid had smuggled out of her family library to send to her. Enid had found it by chance last year when she had been in her house trying to find something meaningful to do when her family came back from their holiday, but by then it was almost too late for the dark-skinned girl to pass it onto Mildred because term was about to begin, but she had given it to Mildred during their first week.
The book was basically a guide to potion brewing. It had been written for magical orphans who had no family of their own and who wished to pass the Entrance Examinations of various schools or for other magical educational tests they might have to face in order to become fully fledged apprentices in case a school opening was unavailable. But overall the guide had been written so the orphans could enter magical education and gain a well-paying job as they grew older and provide for magical society in the end. Mildred had learnt fairly quickly all of her peers from Maud to Esmerelda Hallow learnt about potion brewing early in their lives to prepare themselves for the entrance tests and to get through the lessons HB taught, and she had learnt from Maud that although their fathers may have a bit of a hand in teaching their daughters a trick or two about what they'd learnt potions, it was the mother who was basically responsible for teaching their daughters the basics of potions brewing, how to recognise ingredients and what to do and what not to do during the initial stages before they gradually progressed onto some more complex potions. According to both Maud and Enid, no magical parent who had a gram of common sense in their brains would teach their children some of the more complex potions they learnt while under Hardbroom's steely-eyed tutelage.
That made sense. Mildred had messed up a few of the complex potions thanks to her lack of experience with potions and with the ingredients she worked with while the girls were able to pass because they had the knowledge of how to avoid the hurdles that constantly tripped her up, and the effects were never good when something went wrong for her.
According to Maud who'd told her when Enid had passed the book onto her, her own grandmother had taught her a few first-year potions to help Maud with what was going to be expected of her when she attended Cackles. That explained a great deal, like why Maud was close to Ethel Hallows' level in the class. It might be considered cheating by some people, but Mildred was not one of them because her friend was not a cheater. She wasn't the type. Maud had gotten where she was today through hard work and practice. Okay, so she wasn't as good as Ethel, but that didn't matter.
It had surprised Mildred a little bit when she'd learnt there was such a thing as magical orphans, she had always assumed because she had heard just how close-knit the magical families were there was no such thing. But she was wrong. Maud and Enid both told her that although they were rare and seen as a burden, orphans did exist, and unlike families like the Hallows and the Nightshades, the places they lived in were much like a cross between a strict boarding school, orphanage and Victorian workhouse rolled into one.
According to her friends, the orphans were given a chance by the Magic Council to gain a place at a magical school, or at the very least attract the attention of a magician who could offer them an apprenticeship. How the system worked, Mildred had no idea. When she'd processed that particular piece of news about the magical community, Mildred had wondered just how fair that chance was; she had seen how Mrs Hallow had used her position to manipulate the Magic Council to force Miss Cackle out with a fake petition, but while she wasn't personally fond of the Great Wizard at times considering their rather rocky relationship, Mildred had never gotten a bad vibe from him. He was flawed like everyone else, a bit obstinate, set in his ways, traditional like Miss Hardbroom and sometimes reluctant to look at things in shades of grey instead of black and white but as long as there was proof he'd listen, but basically a good man. It made sense that he would want orphans to have the chance to become fully fledged witches and wizards like everyone else even if they didn't have a family to back them or their ambitions up.
The potion brewing guide had been issued by the Council to various magical orphanages to be used by the orphans to help them practice potions without the help of a family member who'd have learnt the lessons as a child from their parents, who'd been taught by their parents before them, though what the manual was doing in the Nightshades' home, Mildred had no idea. She wasn't going to ask either, the last thing she wanted to do was to insult or upset Enid. She was just thankful that she had the book to help her now. She kept it in her bedroom and she regularly consulted it to see where she was going wrong with her lessons so then she could gain a better experience with potions.
The book was outdated - it had been published in the 1900s so it was quite old, but Maud and Enid had both told her it didn't matter since the method of how to brew a potion never changed. Mildred eventually realised it didn't really matter since they were right. At first, she had been a bit upset.
Enid had told her the book was hers, and for that Mildred was forever thankful though, she was a little upset Miss Cackle and Miss Hardbroom had not bothered to get her a copy. But ever since she had been confronted by Miss Gullet and Agatha, and the twisted twin of her own headmistress had told her that witches didn't beg for help and helped themselves, Mildred had worked out why her teachers had not provided her with this help. They were expecting her to go looking for something like the precious manual, but what they didn't realise was she had been trying to look for a potions book that would give her some hints and tips on how to brew while keeping HB happy for as long as she'd been at Cackles, though none of the books detailed the process. They'd been written by people who had assumed the readers of their works already knew how to brew potions. They hadn't been written for someone like her.
She hadn't found any other books that could help and her friends knew it. She was just relieved that they knew she had put some effort into actually seeking out a guide to brewing potions.
As Mildred worked on her potions, she kept an eye out in case Ethel tried anything stupid, but fortunately Miss Hardbroom had made sure the girl had been placed on the lower tier this year because she was tired of the 'feud' as she and Miss Cackle called whatever it was Mildred had with the blonde witch, and she didn't want any further conflicts. Mildred was okay with that, though truthfully she had no intention of causing Ethel any problems so long as she herself could concentrate on her work.
Slowly adding one ingredient after another, Mildred really hoped this potion would be a good one for Hardbroom. She had gone out of her way not to be the cause or near the centre of trouble this year though the term was still fresh. It just wasn't worth it, but after the chaos of Agatha and the Founding Stone during her prior two years, she knew better than to tempt fate by now, especially after that mess in Hollows Wood.
She was hoping to pass her classes and get good grades and really shove that fact down HB's throat. But part of her wondered why she was bothering; HB and Cackle were bound to take whatever mess she happened to be involved in as an excuse to drag her mother back into the school. Mildred and her mother had both lost track of the number of times it had happened. The two witches would drag her mother into the school and they would basically tell her that she wasn't doing well at school, but nowadays Julie didn't care. All her suggestions of what could be done had been shot down one by one, but because of their non-magical background even when the revelation of Mirabelle Hubble and the truth of their family's history came out, Cackle and Hardbroom had ignored her.
Julie had basically suggested they take the time to take a few minutes or even half an hour to tutor Mildred, show her where they were going wrong, but they had told her it wasn't practical since if they did that then it would badly affect the girls in Mildred's year. How they had reached that logic was beyond the two Hubbles' since there were many moments during the school day and during the school week, not to mention the weekends, the teachers could fit a few minutes of their precious time.
When she received a curt refusal from Hardbroom and an apology from Cackle saying, again, it was detrimental, Julie had suggested a tutor.
Same thing. A denial, only harsher, from HB.
Eventually, Julie had given up.
It was especially hard on her mother. Didn't the stupid teachers actually pay attention to her mother when she said, repeatedly, she works in a hospital-?
Mildred cursed under her breath when the potion in the cauldron let out a gurgle, and she looked around hoping HB did not see; she had just been thinking about her mother, and the last thing she wanted was for her mum to be called in so early into the term. She closed her eyes and summoned her concentration, she needed to get this one right.
She turned her back on the cauldron to check on the recipe, and she mentally scrolled through the list of things she needed to do now. Unfortunately, she was paying too much attention to the recipe that she didn't notice that the potion in the cauldron was bubbling out of control. Too bad for her Miss Hardbroom did.
Mildred sensed the familiar shadow of the potions mistress towering over her long before she heard that familiar voice that always made the brunette haired girl feel like a lump of polar ice sharpened by a whetstone in a blizzard had slipped down her back. "Mildred Hubble."
Over the top of the workstation, Mildred could see Ethel turn her head, the blonde haired girl was not even bothering to hide her expression of sadistic glee of anticipation. She loved seeing Mildred being punished.
Mildred tuned her out and she craned her neck back to give herself some personal space. Miss Hardbroom was always best observed from a safe distance. "Yes, Miss Hardbroom?" she asked, wondering what the problem was this time and she let her eyes dart towards the cauldron. The potion was no longer bubbling.
"Do you always have your attention on your potion notes, do you never bother to look at what you're doing?"
Mildred wondered what she should say. She knew from experience Miss Hardbroom didn't like backtalk and she certainly didn't like students not bothering to reply to her questions. No matter what she chose to get out of this latest mess, she knew it was a no-win situation.
Fortunately, Miss Hardbroom seemed to be in a mood to answer her own questions. "You left your cauldron unattended to, you silly useless girl!"
Maud and Enid looked at each other when they saw the flash of anger cross their friend's features, but they knew better than to get involved.
To hell with this, Mildred thought to herself and she realised that it didn't matter what she did or didn't say to defend herself, she was going to get her point across whether HB liked it or not. "I was checking my notes to make sure the recipe was being followed closely," she answered. "I wanted to get this potion right."
Miss Hardbroom looked at her silently with that same cold, aloof, closed off expression Mildred really hated. Silently the potions mistress waved her fingers over the cauldron, and whatever was unstable in the potion was suddenly removed. Mildred watched the action unmoved and unbothered. She had seen Miss Hardbroom perform this act many times before.
"Keep a better watch on your potion, Miss Hubble," Miss Hardbroom instructed, and Mildred felt her heart sink. HB never called someone by their surname unless she was gravely displeased.
But Hardbroom was not finished. "See me after class," she said, and with that she turned away and continued to inspect the rest of the lesson, leaving Mildred behind to see what she could scavenge from her potion, though she asked herself what she could do now. She had deliberately kept her notes as far from the potion as she could so then the mixture did not destroy the notes. But now, seeing as she had no alternative, she pulled the notes close to the cauldron so she could study them.
As she worked, she lifted her head up and accidentally met the smug face of Ethel Hallow. The blonde witch was delighted by the dressing down, but Mildred sighed and looked at her own work, not really caring about what was going through Ethel's mind. Truthfully Mildred was not surprised the blonde haired girl had gone back on her word last year to become a nicer person after being embarrassed by what she had learnt about her ancestors, that they were a bunch of cheating, self-serving scum.
She had been dubious that Ethel would just change. It didn't work like that. It would have taken Ethel far too long to become a bit nicer, and that would have given her enough time to lapse back into the persona she was more familiar with.
To be honest, Mildred didn't really care. She would have thought it would be like living in the twilight zone if Ethel were nice.
When the class was over, Mildred packed up slowly and waited for the rest of the girls to leave so she could speak to Miss Hardbroom without anyone really paying her much attention. She doubted HB would be long since Mildred had another class after this one, and the teacher in that lesson was extremely difficult to please like HB was herself.
Fortunately, the potions teacher was waiting for Mildred to walk towards her. As she watched the shorter girl walk towards her, Miss Hardbroom thought back about their little chat last year, when the revelation Mildred and her mother did have magical ancestry had come out, and her pledge to go harder on the girl than before. Hecate had been looking forward to it, she enjoyed pushing the girls to their limits.
"This will not take long, Mildred," she said to the girl slowly, "do you know why I asked you to remain behind?"
Because you probably think I'm a useless girl, and you get off on calling me that just so you can feel good about yourself? Mildred thought to herself but she was not stupid nor suicidal enough to actually say it out aloud. "No, Miss Hardbroom," she replied, and she was telling the truth.
There were just too many possibilities why HB wanted her here right now, but Mildred was not going to try and play games.
Hecate frowned. She had hoped for the girl to show a bit of initiative, but she could see it clearly the girl was in a cautious mood. "I called you here because of your carelessness, Mildred," she decided to just get down to business and get it all out of the way so they could perform their next lessons quickly, "I could tell you were trying to complete that potion, but your lack of attention could have caused an accident. Keep that in mind the next time you use your notes to help you. You can go now."
Surprised and not really believing her luck the teacher wasn't going to punish her with something really nasty like she had in the past, Mildred left as quickly as she could so the woman wouldn't change her mind.
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The game was pleased. Its plans were going as it had foreseen. It had released the drumbeat the night before, and it had caught the attention of only two of the children in the school. The game was only momentarily disappointed about that, but it had adapted since there was nothing else it could do to attract more players.
But the game had attracted the attention of two students at the school in this magical place. It had syphoned off some of the ambient magic to feed it and give it the chance to taste the magic released by the students at the school. If the game had been a particularly greedy human with a taste for fine food, it would have felt hungry, comparing the magic to high-class meals washed down with an extremely rare collection of wines, followed by a pudding with a high sugar content for good measure.
The presence of so many children in the school, releasing magic every second whether they wanted it to or not, had made the game hope for a number of students to begin the feeding cycle it needed in order to survive, but it had masked it's disappointment for a moment before it realised there was nothing it could really do at this point.
The best it could hope for would be if it waited for the two students it had felt react to its call to come to it when it released the drumbeat once more, and it would have them, but as time passed it would release the drumbeat to attract more players. In a school like this, there were bound to be others though the game didn't really care one way or another if the next players were attending at this point in time. It could wait for decades if it needed to, and the witches inside it would be fine.
As the hours passed, the game decided it was time to really begin. It had been patient for decades, it could wait for another day, but it wanted to get started. It released the drumbeat once more, only this time it increased its volume and intensity.
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The drumbeat started up again the next day when Mildred and her class were in potions. Only the sound didn't just affect Mildred, but Ethel as well, and it started at perhaps the worst moment you could imagine. The class was working on a truly complex potion, one that Mildred desperately wanted to get right. She had spent weeks and weeks practicing her brewing skills whenever she had the time, but she had to put her anxiety she was just going to mess up once more to one side so she could succeed.
Mildred was currently carefully and slowly dicing some form of plant she didn't recognise, remembering that for some plants it was a good idea to slice them lengthwise in order for the plants' properties to truly make a difference. When she was finished, she took a good look at the recipe written in Miss Hardbroom's usual concise script on the blackboard. The diced plant she'd just made needed to be mixed into the potion after she had poured in a small amount of hydra eye juice, just three droplets. It had to be three since the warning next to that part of the recipe made it very clear if more than one droplet was applied, the potion's power would be amplified and it would turn into a completely different colour from the one HB wanted, and it would be completely useless. That made that part of the recipe the critical stage and she had no desire to mess up, not now.
Not when she was so close to succeeding.
Mildred took a deep breath while she looked over her ingredients. She had the bottle nice and ready, and she moved her hand slowly towards it like it was an imaginary hand grenade.
Unknown to her at the time, Ethel was also reaching for the little bottle of hydra eye juice Miss Hardbroom had placed at each workstation, only the blonde girl's moves were more practiced, more confident than Mildred's.
Unscrewing the top of the bottle gingerly, Mildred slowly squeezed the top of the eyedropper to suck up some of the liquid. She knew she didn't need too much so she stopped when the liquid was only what she estimated was a quarter of the way up. When she was finished, Mildred slowly moved the dropper over to the cauldron, and she cautiously squeezed the rubber top.
One droplet.
So far so good.
Mildred took a deep breath. Squeezed the top again.
Two droplets.
Nothing wrong seemed to be happening, and nothing was distracting her this time. She hesitated and looked around to make sure there was nothing that she could see about to make a total shambles of her work today and she was relieved when there wasn't anything. Feeling more confident and without Miss Hardbroom to bother her, and with Ethel too busy to get up her nose, Mildred felt better. She took another deep breath and she slowly increased the pressure of her fingers wrapped around the rubber top of her dropper…..
And then she heard it again, the sound of drums, louder this time. Mildred was so taken by surprise by the sound of the drums as their beat sent a chill of fear down her spine she lost the concentration she'd collected to make this potion properly and successfully. She was surprised when she heard the angry cry of surprise from Ethel Hallow of all people, who was looking at her own cauldron aghast with shock.
The sound attracted Miss Hardbroom, who went over to her at once, her face drawn taut with concern. "What is it, Ethel?"
The blonde witch's usually self-assured voice was shaking. "I-I don't know, Miss," the girl replied, her voice shaking with surprise. "I just…. don't know…. I lost my concentration on the dropper, and now my potion is ruined."
Mildred gasped, remembering how the sound of the drums had disturbed her own concentration and she looked down into her cauldron. What she saw made her eyes shoot open with horror. According to the potion's recipe, the hydra eye juice should have mixed with the potion in the early stages to make a liquid that was somewhere between green and turquoise.
Her potion was now black, making it look as though an octopus had shot a stream of black ink into the cauldron.
Mildred closed her eyes. Another potion class, another failure. Marvellous. She held up her hand, awaiting the inevitable.
Miss Hardbroom saw the hand and sighed under her breath before she transported from her current position and materialised right next to Mildred.
The potion mistress looked seriously at the steaming black liquid mess in the cauldron for a second before she looked at Mildred with an expression the third year girl knew too well.
Disappointment, only this time Mildred could not blame the woman; yesterday Mildred had been lucky to get off the hook, but she wasn't sure what was going to happen now.
"Well Mildred, are you going to explain what happened?"
"I was gently squeezing the eye-dropper to pour in the three drops, Miss Hardbroom," Mildred replied, thankful the teacher was at least giving her the chance to explain rather than just condemn her without at least giving her that right. "I'd already squeezed two drops into the potion, and when it came to the third I looked around to make sure there wasn't anything that may….distract me."
For a second Mildred wondered if she'd made the right decision throwing in that little tidbit into her tale since it may inspire Miss Hardbroom to ask her something in one of her scathing sarcastic comments. "You looked around to make sure you weren't distracted, did you? And what could there be to distract you, Mildred Hubble? A goblin, perhaps, or a gremlin?"
But fortunately, Miss Hardbroom nodded. "A prudent step," she commented. "Go on."
Mildred hesitated for a second, wondering if she should say she'd heard things. She was still learning about the magical world and she was not sure how the teacher would take her hearing things. In the end, she decided to just say it. "I thought I heard something, Miss Hardbroom," she said.
Out of the corner of her eyes, she could see Maud facepalm and Enid close her eyes. Yep, I should not have said it, she thought, but it was too late now.
Miss Hardbroom looked surprised. "Really, and what was that?" she asked in that sarcastic tone Mildred really did not like.
Mildred licked her lips. "It sounded like a drumbeat," she answered.
"A drumbeat?" Miss Hardbroom said sceptically. "Are you sure you're not saying this to cover up your own incompetence?"
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Mildred lay on her bed later on, absolutely fed up with the day and she wished the ground would swallow her up, or better still swallow her up and spit her out again in another part of the world so she wouldn't have to deal with anything else.
After the mess in potions, word of what happened had spread like wildfire and now everyone thought she was insane because she had heard something others hadn't heard. Even Maud and Enid had been funny with her afterwards like they weren't sure what to say to her without her going over the rails, but they hadn't said or done anything either.
That didn't surprise her. While she liked both of them, no question or doubts about that, Mildred knew Maud and Enid were both bound by the same code as everyone else, so she knew better than to expect miracles by now. She was used to it so she didn't care. Getting that potions book did not really count in her mind; Enid knew she had been searching for something similar in the Cackles library for ages just like she'd been searching for any clue to how she was a witch whereas everyone in her family was not, so it didn't matter.
She sighed and closed her eyes, hoping for sleep to take her, but before it could there was a loud knocking on the door. Mildred groaned. She didn't want to speak to anybody tonight. She rolled over, almost squashing Tabby, to bury the sounds but they refused to go away.
"Damn it," she cursed at last in frustration before she got off of her bed. "Okay, I'm coming!"
Getting up off of the bed, Mildred sighed and walked to the door. She hoped it wasn't Maud or Enid, she wasn't in the mood for anyone tonight after the day she'd had.
She opened the door and she closed her eyes when she realised Ethel Hallow was standing on the other side. If she hadn't wanted to really deal with her friends, then she truly did not want to speak to Ethel.
Ethel read the exasperation on Mildred's face just as the brunette began to unceremoniously shut the door without a word. "Wait, Mildred. I want to talk to you."
Mildred stopped closing the door and closed her eyes. She had had enough of people telling her she was mad and speaking about her behind her back, the last thing she needed was for Ethel to stir the pot and make things worse. "About what?"
"The drumbeat."
Mildred had had enough. She began to close the door again. "Wait a moment, I know you don't trust me-," Ethel said, and Mildred only just managed to hide her surprise at the blonde's blunt statement, "but I heard it too."
Eying the blonde witch cautiously, Mildred studied Ethel for a second before she stepped back, clearly motioning for the other witch to enter her bedroom. As Ethel stepped past her, Mildred wondered if she was making a mistake letting Ethel in, but she decided to see how this turned out.
When Ethel sat down on the bed, Mildred had to fight the urge to yell at her. She didn't want Ethel sitting down because it hinted this was going to take some time, but she swallowed the urge down.
"Okay, you said you heard what I'd heard, why didn't you say anything at potions?" Mildred asked bluntly.
She was certain the girl was lying. It would be her style, but Mildred was not interested in playing Ethel's games this year. She'd had enough of it last year and the year before that. Mildred would never forgive Ethel for the way she'd organised that mess with Mr Rowan-Webb as if she thought it was a great big joke when she was trying to find out more about her family.
Who the hell did Ethel think she was playing a game like that? Mildred knew the other girl had been missing Esmerelda, but she just could not understand why Ethel felt lashing out was going to help because it wasn't.
Ethel looked at her seriously. "Why do you think? Unlike you, I know what would have happened if I blurted out that I was hearing things."
Mildred swallowed the sudden fury she was feeling at the barely hidden insult. This was one of the reasons she had problems with Ethel, she never hesitated to rub it into her face that despite finding out she had magical ancestry, she was more or less still an outcast despite having magic herself.
Sometimes Mildred wondered if she would ever get rid of that stigma.
"Okay, pushing my mistakes aside," she said while hiding her growing frustration that no-one was going to let her forget the fact she was still an outsider, "you heard the drumming as well? Do you really expect me to believe you?"
"It's the truth-," Ethel replied, but Mildred interrupted her. "You've lied to me before, Ethel. I'm in no mood for more games. What do you really want?"
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The intelligence behind Jumanji was frustrated.
It had called out for its new players to come to it earlier, but they had been trapped in lessons all day, so they hadn't managed to get away. Jumanji was too old to really care about what the newer generations learnt over the years, and it was truly hungry for more energy. The two older magicians who'd played the game before the start of the new term had both been powerful, but the moment they'd begun to play, the game had refused to draw them into its fold since it preferred the youth.
It had formed a basic telepathic connection to its new players much like it always did with those who had played it, and through that connection, the game's intelligence had worked out that between the pair of them it would have enough energy to live off on for years.
The only problem was it could feel frustration coming from them both. The game's intelligence had little trouble making its way into both of their minds to determine what was happening, and when it did it's frustration grew. The pair of them were wasting time arguing with one another over the trivial matter of its drumbeat distracting them both in a lesson at a critical moment.
Apparently one of the girls had made the foolish move of revealing the existence of the drumbeat to her sceptical friends and teachers. The game was not surprised no-one believed her, but it didn't care about the tedious attitudes of human beings. The other girl arguing with the first one was trying to tell her classmate she had heard the game's drumbeat as well, but apparently, the two girls were rivals.
The intelligence decided that enough was enough, and so it started the drumbeat off again….
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Ethel had stiffened with anger when Mildred had interrupted her, but before she could release a retort to make this upstart be pushed back into her place, both girls stilled when they heard a familiar sound, only it was much louder, faster.
Mildred Hubble and Ethel Hallow were both completely different people, and that didn't even count when you looked at the two girls, but they both felt the same chill as the sound washed over them.
"Now do you believe me?" Ethel asked Mildred when she saw Mildred's wide eyes. A part of the blonde was delighted Mildred was becoming more cynical about the magical world, but this was not the time to get into that subject.
Mildred didn't bother responding to Ethel. This was not the time for the blonde to be too smug for her own good. "Where's it coming from?" she asked.
"Let's find out," Ethel replied.
"Are we sure it's coming from somewhere?" Mildred asked, not sure if she even wanted to know what the sound was.
"I don't know," Ethel snapped. "But I want to try and get a good night's sleep."
With that, the two girls left the bedroom. The drumming stopped, but the two girls carried on. The pair of them walked around the school. Occasionally the drumming would start up again, and they both realised that whatever was making the sound wanted them to come to it, though neither of them knew why.
Finally, after hearing a quick blast of drumming, the two girls found themselves outside of one of the old storerooms in the castle. Mildred rested her hand on the jamb, looked at Ethel, and she sighed and opened the door and the pair of them walked inside.
Cackles had several old storerooms which were actually used by the teachers and the students to dump stuff for later use, but the students sometimes took advantage of the carefree, indifferent attitude the teachers had for junk to hide any item they wanted to hide. The students who did this knew the teachers would only investigate if whatever was in here was dangerous, but otherwise, they turned a blind eye since kids always had secrets.
As the two girls walked into the room, blinking in the darkness to pick up on the meagre lighting before Ethel flicked her fingers and a nearby candlestick draped with cobwebs covered with dust mixed with melted wax that was hanging down from the rim, lit up when the spell restored the candle.
Mildred jumped a little when the light suddenly came on, but she nodded in gratitude. It was hard to see in this dim light, so the candle was a welcome edition. The two witches walked deeper and deeper into the room, looking around for any clue to what the source of the drumming was, but all they could see was junk.
There were old desks that looked like they'd been blasted to bits, some old chairs all piled up on top of one another before the drumming suddenly rang out almost impatiently and the two girls tracked it down and they both stopped in astonishment. There on the floor ahead of them was a wooden box with the word "JUMANJI" stencilled in faded white lettering on the top.
Mildred bent down and picked it up. "A game?"
"A magical game, but I've never heard of it," Ethel said.
"Maybe it's something so old and obscure, no-one's heard of it," Mildred commented. She opened the game. It looked like any other board game. There were four tracks leading away from the corners that looped around the game in white marble squares surrounded by ornately carved wood depicting African and Asian animals like tigers, lions, bears and crocodiles being hunted down by wild warlike tribes, and big game hunters.
She took the game over to one of the few tables that was still standing and she opened it up."Hold that candle up, there's something written here," Mildred said.
Ethel lifted the candlestick and both girls read what was written there. There was nothing really strange about the instructions, they seemed like anything a really common board game had. "Looks like when one of us wins, the winner shouts out "Jumanji" and it's over," Mildred commented.
Ethel had opened up a little flap in the boardgame, and she pulled out two pieces made of wood, both carved into the shape of an elephant and a rhino. "You're not seriously planning on playing, right?" the blonde asked mockingly.
But before Mildred could say anything, some retort, the two pieces glowed green and shot immediately to two corners of the game, shocking both girls.
"I've never seen a game do that before," Ethel said, but before the two girls could do anything the game started to glow green, and the same aura began to shine around Mildred and Ethel.
"Ethel, what's going on?"
"I-I don't know," Ethel replied, scared, too frightened to lash out or give some smart answer.
Mildred suddenly felt dizzy, and she began to squirm as she felt as though something was wrong in her hands. She looked down at her hands and she could see they were beginning to to dissolve. Mildred gaped and almost screamed with surprise, and she turned to Ethel and her eyes widened when she saw that the blonde was going through the same thing she was.
Mildred opened her mouth to scream for help, but before she or Ethel could do anything, scream, shout, or something, everything went black as she felt as though she were spinning down a drain…
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Jumanji was elated. The two girls were currently inside it's being, and soon they would begin to play the game. The intelligence felt like a man who was just starting a fresh, luscious meal after having nothing for hours, and already the game could feel the amount of raw energy it was receiving from the two girls.
The game didn't really care about how long it would need to wait for the next players as the timeline began to diverge, it could effortlessly restore the timeline to it's original course when it was concluded, like it had done so many times over the years. There was no way the two girls within could finish the current cycle, it would need to await others. The fact this was a school only made it better, with so many magical children in the classes, coming and going as the terms finished and ended, there were bound to be more than a few children who could play it. The game considered altering itself to support more than one players - it could do so, and it would increase it's energy many times over, so then it wouldn't need to feed for decades to come before it would need to feast once more.
It was not a guarantee; Jumanji remembered the last cycle. It had tried to attract the attention of boys from that wizard school years ago, and nothing had happened for years until it had attracted the attention of those two extra boys.
Still, it decided to try it's luck.
It had all the time in the world.
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