Learning new things

The idea was simple enough. Harold had always struggled to talk to the girls in his class — he was shy, reserved, and constantly felt out of place. He came from a long line of women who, according to family whispers, had secretly practiced witchcraft. For years, Harold dismissed it all as eccentric theater — cheap tricks and harmless illusions, maybe just a way to spice up family lore.

One lazy afternoon, while chatting with his friend Alan in a room overflowing with books and relics inherited from his mother, Harold remembered an old, dusty grimoire she had once given him with a cryptic wink. He had never taken it seriously, but caught up in the carefree mood of their conversation, he pulled the hefty tome off a shelf and flipped through it.

“There’s a spell in here,” Harold said, skimming through the brittle pages. “I remember glancing at it once. Something about turning one person into another.”

Alan laughed. “Magic? Come on. If that stuff actually works, then you’ve already got your answer — turn me into the girl of your dreams and practice talking to me.”

It was a joke, tossed out between chuckles. But Harold, driven by curiosity — and perhaps a buried wish to finally overcome his fear — accepted the challenge.

“Alright then. Let’s see where this nonsense goes.”

They sat cross-legged on the floor, sunlight slanting through the blinds, and Harold began to read aloud. The spell stretched across seven full pages, filled with strange symbols, poetic invocations, and meticulous instructions. He read it all, word for word, though he found it odd how the tone seemed to shift after the fourth page — from playful to solemn, even ominous.

What Harold hadn’t noticed was that two of the pages were stuck together. The first four made up a harmless illusion spell, meant to create a temporary transformation. But the next two, fused by time and dust, contained a warning: that continuing the incantation unaware would not only make the illusion real — it would make it permanent.

And so it happened. As Harold reached the final verse, a soft light enveloped Alan, whose body began to shift and transform before his eyes — not just into any girl, but into Harold’s ideal vision of beauty. Long hair, luminous eyes, an aura both gentle and arresting.

Laughter stopped. The air thickened.

The girl sitting before him, still with Alan’s bewildered mind, looked down at herself in disbelief.

“You… did you read the whole thing?”

“Yeah. Every word. Why?”

It was then that Harold noticed the stuck pages, and the bold words between them:

“Should this spell be read in its entirety without separation, the illusion shall become truth — and irrevocable.”

They stared at one another. The room was quiet, and the weight of what had just happened began to settle in.

What had begun as a joke had sealed Alan’s fate — or perhaps, opened a new path neither of them could have predicted.

In the days that followed, Alan — now in a new, unfamiliar form — wavered between shock, denial, and a strange, growing acceptance. The body was different, but the soul remained. And with each passing day, the bond between them deepened. What had once been awkward attempts at conversation turned into effortless connection. Laughter came easily. Comfort, even easier.

Harold, too, began to see beyond the enchantment. It wasn’t just the outward transformation that moved him — it was the person within, the friend who had always been there.

Months passed.

And when the dust of the past had fully settled, Alan — now going by a new name, in a body she had come to accept and even cherish — gave Harold an answer neither of them had expected when it all began.

She said yes.

After all, now they had all the time in the world to practice — and not just conversations.