Once Upon a Time
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ong, long ago, there lived a little wizard named Halvor. Halvor lived in a small village on the outskirts of a large kingdom, named for a great king.
One day, little Halvor went out playing in the woods with several other young witches and wizards, when they stumbled upon a strange tower in a clearing. Of course, being children, they all ran up to investigate the mysterious tower and, upon discovering a door marked with magical symbols, they decided there must be another wizard living there. Halvor, the leader of the band of children, knocked once on the door, but there was no reply. He moved his hand to knock again, but before his knuckles hit the wood, the door swung open all by itself. At this point, the children were practically bustling with excitement, and so, with Halvor’s command, they all ran in and up the stairs, racing to see who was at the top.
When the band of children finally reached the top, they found an old man shuffling around with a teapot of steaming hot tea. The old man smiled at the young and magical children, offering each of them a cup. The children accepted, spending the rest of the day listening to the old man tell stories of witchcraft and wizardry, much to the children’s enjoyment. But before the old man told them any of the stories, he said he would only do so on one condition: that the children do not touch a single thing in his cabinet, a simple, wooden drawer against a wall.
The children happily abided to this rule, returning once a week to hear more of the old man’s stories. Though, over time, fewer and fewer returned, for some grew older and some grew uninterested, but Halvor always returned. Eventually, Halvor became a caretaker for the old man and the old man a mentor for Halvor, teaching him ancient magic long forgotten. Halvor would grow strong with the old man's teachings, fueled by his curiosity.
But his curiosity would soon get the better of him. Before his weekly visit one day, now no longer a boy, he made up his mind that he would finally ask what was truly in the old man’s cabinet, but when he did, the old man only smiled and shook his head, saying that Halvor wasn’t ready, and he went to go prepare a pot of tea.
Halvor, in a moment of frustration and impulsiveness, rushed towards the cabinet, throwing the doors open. Dread and shame washed over Halvor, for all that the cabinet contained was a photo of the old man, though in the photo young and jovial, embracing another young man who looked quite like Halvor himself and a small urn that glowed purple. Halvor sank to his knees, his head in his hands, as the old man returned with the tea. The old man was outraged, slamming the cabinet’s door and dragging Halvor to his feet, shoving him towards the door as Halvor begged and pleaded. He had failed the old man and because of that, the old man told, he and his village would suffer. For the next magical child born in his village would suffer from a curse, sentenced to an eternal cycle of reincarnation, never to be freed from the magical chains the old man cast on the unborn child that tethered their soul to the Earth.
When Halvor returned to his village, the villagers found him with a dark air blanketing him. Shamefully, he told them his story and urged all the magical folk to leave the village. Those who did not listen he forcefully removed, bent on protecting the unborn child as long as he could.
The village, from that day forth, remained void of magic, eventually known as Halvor’s Sin because of his unfortunate bout of curiosity fueled by impulsiveness. Well, magic-free except for Halvor, who lived there until the day he died.
But only moments after he did, a little baby in one of the cottages towards the outskirts of the town was born. The baby was quickly named, though only seconds after her parents uttered her name, three snakes all slithered into the room, each slightly different from the next, for one was a cobra, the next a python, and the last nothing but a garden snake. The three reptiles then congregated in the center of the room, before they seemed to look to each other and then bow towards the child before disappearing out the front door.
Years later, when the child was no longer a babe, she was playing in the same woods Halvor once had when she stumbled upon the same old man’s tower. Fueled by an identical curiosity as Halvor's, she snuck inside, climbing up the stairs to the top. The old man, somehow just as young, so to say, as before, heard the young girl’s footsteps and laughed, thinking it was Halvor who returned, for he sensed the same spirit in her. But upon turning around to greet his former student, his face fell, seeing only the little child, his curse already in work.
The old man then sat the child down, taking a deep breath before recounting the tale of him and Halvor, explaining to her that she too was magical. And when he was done, he gave her a knife made from bone, a mirror of bronze, a book of spells, and a cup of tea before sending her on her way back to her village.
The old man knew all too well how the girl would suffer, but at least she would be granted the release of death from one lifetime. The one thing the old man would never know.
And so our tale ends here, the girl with a curse on her way to be a great adventurer, a spirit of a sinful boy bound to the mortal world, and an old man cursed to live forever, watching the two as they embark on their own eternal quest.
