Sam Pfitter Spells

Sam Pfitter held his cell phone up, letting the sun hit the screen just right.

No service.

He reached into his satchel and found the v’ork rock. He held it next to his phone and the signal boosted. Sam hated using it because it also tended to boost the volume but he needed to talk to Professor Ghinch.

He held the phone close to his head with one hand and the rock in the other after dialing. Sam imagined that he probably looked like an idiot but didn’t care. No one is around to see, anyway.

The ringing blared and Sam waited while the v’ork started to emit a smell, another side effect of its usage. It stank of feet. A pair of corpse’s feet.

Finally, Professor Ghinch answered. “Sam? Where are you?”

“A desert. The spell sent me here. Was this intentional, sir?”

There was a pause. “Not exactly, Sam.” Sam grimaced as the stench worsened and the professor’s voice boomed. “I can bring you back in a minute. I think.”

The professor didn’t sound hopeful but Sam had no choice but to believe him. He said goodbye and waited for the spell to be reversed.

It happened thirty minutes later.



Sam found himself in Professor Ghinch’s office.

He then vomited on the rug. The transportation spell was the main reason but the smell the v’ork rock left on his hand was also a contributor.

Professor Ghinch stood to the side, covering his mouth. I guess he’ll have a wastebasket for me next time. As soon as he thought it, Sam saw the wastebasket sitting on this side of the professor’s desk and he felt foolish for having missed it.

“No worries, lad. I’ll clean that up later. Come, now. You need be on your way home. I’ve kept you long enough.”

“My parents don’t worry about me when I’m with you.”

“Why? Don’t you tell them what we do?”

Sam grinned. If his parents had known that Professor Ghinch practiced spells on a meager teacher’s assistant like him, they’d ascend into new heights of madness.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, professor.”



After he got home, Sam threw up once more and his mother made him some soup and sent him to bed. He tried sleeping but couldn’t, not with Professor Ghinch’s spell on his mind. He had been perfecting it so it could be presented to the Board of Sanctioned Spells. It was the professor’s last chance at making a name for himself.

Or so he said.

Sam didn’t think the professor was that old but he did understand about leaving a legacy behind. It’s what sparked Sam himself to not only work with the professor but develop his own advanced spell.

Unable to lie in bed any longer, Sam got up and rummaged around under his bed until he pulled out his box. In it were tattered manuscripts and prints, the likes of which were stained with age and finger oils. There were also new notes that Sam had made in hopes of creating a reversal spell.

It had started as an anti-aging spell but Sam had stumbled upon the notion that he could reverse more than the effects of time on the human body: he found he might be able to reverse time itself. The prospect had elated Sam and he wondered about the many possibilities that surrounded the notion of turning back time.

But he’d hit a wall and imagined that letting the materials sit by the side would eventually allow the answer to reveal itself.

It never did.

He looked at his notes and went over the recitation once more.

“Let time be slowed and evenly turned

While this phial shakes, its contents churned.

When liquid settles, the turn will halt

With time revisited to undo my fault.”

Sam knew that the potion and phial that accompanied the spell were detrimental to the overall experience, but he’d never been able to make it work. He’d repeatedly analyzed the ingredients from older time-reversal spells and his own modern day supplements, but the spell needed a dragon’s scale too.

Sam knew that dragons were extinct and he had assumed that a snapping turtle’s scale would be the proper equivalent. “Seeing as how the spell hasn’t worked, I guess you’ve always been the improper ingredient,” Sam muttered to himself as he looked at the scale floating in the phial.

Sighing, he put the box away and tried going back to bed.



The next day, Sam arrived on campus early so he could see Professor Ghinch. Being a chemistry professor at Union Height’s College was the man’s job but Sam remembered when Professor Ghinch had revealed his private practices to the college freshman.

On the first day of class, Professor Ghinch had called everyone’s name and pronounced Sam’s name incorrectly. “Sam P-fitter.” The class chuckled and Sam corrected him. But the man adamantly refused to say anything else but “P-fitter.” It was a class joke that eventually made Sam approach the professor in private.

“Why do you say my name like that?”

“Because that’s the way your ancestors pronounced it.”

“How would you know?”

“Because I’ve studied them, Mr. P-fitter, and I applaud all they’ve done for the magical arts.”

Since then, Professor Ghinch had proven eager to show Sam the ropes in magic; a science that had been lost on his own family for generations. Knowing this was what prompted Sam to keep his practices hidden.

Smiling on that memory, Sam entered Professor Ghinch’s office and was greeted by a torrid scene: books were scattered everywhere, papers torn and strewn about, even the desk was scratched with unfamiliar carvings.

In the middle was the professor.

He was staring at the mess. Sam almost felt ashamed for stumbling upon the moment and made to leave when Professor Ghinch noticed him. “Sam, uh, welcome,” he said, forcing a smile.

But Sam couldn’t keep his eyes from roaming the room.

“Don’t worry ‘bout all this, Sam. Just a joke from one of the students I’m failing. Future fast food worker, I suppose.” He still kept his smile on and Sam felt the urge to complete his reversal spell rise up even more than ever. If I had it, I could go back and stop this.

So, without preamble, he blurted out, “Are dragons really extinct?”

He immediately felt embarrassed for asking the question. Sam also felt ashamed for not showing more care about the professor’s office.

But Professor Ghinch accepted it without pause. “They are not extinct, Sam, but they are not readily accessible either. Too many of the older spells call for dragon scales. This led to the poor creatures being hunted extensively and forced into hiding.”

Professor Ghinch walked around his desk and reached into a cupboard to pull out a half-full jar. “But their scales have been stockpiled by a few smart practitioners. And chemistry professors.” His smile widened, as did Sam’s eyes.

Reaching into the jar, Professor Ghinch pulled out two purple scales and handed them to Sam. One was as large as a bottle cap and the other was just a hair smaller than his pinkie fingernail. “Consider those a token, Mr. P-fitter. Now get on to class.”



Sam couldn’t let the prospect pass him by. I have the final ingredient! I can make the spell work! He raced back home and breezed through the front door, an act that alerted his mother. “What’s wrong?” she sent up the stairs after Sam shut his door.

She’ll just think I’m still sick he told himself while remembering the sour vomit from the previous day.

Eagerly, he pulled his locked box out. He opened it and immediately grabbed up the phial that held the spell’s potion. Sam fished out the turtle’s scale with a pair of tweezers. Some of the liquid sloshed onto his hand and he was reminded of the v’ork rock and its terrible side effect once more.

Flinging it across the room, Sam added the smaller dragon scale to the potion and, when it hit the liquid, the scale dissolved in a flash. Smoke started pouring out of the phial and Sam stopped it up, hoping that the pressure didn’t become so great as to explode the glass.

Thinking about the scale, Sam couldn’t help but wonder if Professor Ghinch had known that the junior classman had been working on a spell that called for the ingredient.

Interrupting his thoughts was his mother banging on the door. “Sam, why aren’t you in class? Something happen at the college?”

Sam frowned and stood to give his mother an explanation that wouldn’t cause her to be alarmed. He put the phial in his satchel, slid the open box back under his bed, and headed for the door. His mother stood on the other side with her face almost white with either fear or a lack of understanding. “Just forgot a book, ma. I’ll be back after lunch.”

His mother nodded, accepting his excuse at face value. Sam knew he wanted to show Professor Ghinch the spell anyway.

Arriving back at the college, Sam was confused. Policemen had cordoned off parts of the campus and rumors started the reach his ears about a teacher being shot. All in the short time he was gone.

Sam immediately thought of Professor Ghinch and his disrupted office.

Surely, nobody shot him over a grade!

But one of the professor’s current students, Kassy, walked by, sobbing. She made eye contact with Sam and recognized him as the professor’s assistant: Sam could tell because it made her sobs turn to gasps.

Sam’s stomach dropped and he felt like vomiting once again. He also felt dizzy, like he might fall and he wondered if he was dreaming. He tried going towards Morgana Hall, where the professor’s office was, but was blocked.

Sitting on a bench, Sam thought about the last three years with Professor Ghinch.

Like a snap, the reversal spell came to mind and Sam almost started crying for joy. I can go back and stop this from happening!

He pulled out the phial and, having memorized the recitation, said it without care: he reasoned that if he reset time, he wouldn’t have to worry about anyone seeing him use magic.

Shaking the phial, Sam drew the attention of many passers-by.

But nothing happened.

Sam’s face heated up with embarrassment and rage at the spell not working. He thought again at all the time they’d spent and was almost struck dumb when he realized that Professor Ghinch had been giving him the answer during their tenure together.

With his voice raised even more, Sam stood and shouted the spell again. But this time, he said “p-hial” instead of “phial” while shaking the container.

Dizzyingly, the world swirled around Sam and he felt like he might fall out of existence. But it settled as soon as the potion did and, though he couldn’t recognize the day, he knew he’d gone back in time: there were no policemen and everyone was inside, in class.

Racing into Morgana Hall, he stopped at the professor’s ravaged office. It’s today!

The professor was standing and next to him was Kassy. She was facing away from Sam but, still, he recognized her. She was pointing a gun and shouting about grades, testament to why she hadn’t heard Sam’s hastened approach.

His mind buzzing, Sam recalled the professor’s transportation spell. He muttered it under his breath until the final line. He shouted “Kassy Borgatta!” and it drew her attention. She was then swallowed up by a twisted, black cloud without even a scream.

Professor Ghinch looked stunned but appreciative.

“Sam! I’d figure you to be away with your scale’s spell!”

“I am. Or was.” Sam realized that he didn’t know if he’d been doubled or if he just replaced his other self in this time. But he also found that he didn’t care. The professor was safe. That’s all that matters. “But, please, and always, call me Mr. P’fitter.”

Word Count: 1,999