Study

John picked up the clothes and walked to a table in the food court. As he examined them, he found a hidden pocket in the folds of the cape. Inside was Lance's wand and small, leather bound book that looked very old. He opened the book, and read: The Magic and Legacy of Lance Hawthorne. It was dated 1689.

"Now way!" he said. He read on. According to the book, magic is real. John thought of the Salem witch trials and wondered if there was more to those stories than what was in the history books. He read that Lance's power came from both the cape and and the wand, but there was a sketch of a wand in the book that looks nothing like the black wand with the white tip, John found in the cape. He picked it up and noticed the bottom could be unscrewed. He removed the bottom and another wand slid out. This one resembled the one sketched in the book: it looked like someone took a stick of some sort of reddish brown wood and twisted it then added a silver tip and a silver base. John examined it and laid it down on the table. He kept reading.

The cape was imbued with black silk from the orient, cotton from Egypt, wool from a black sheep from Romania, and had magical symbols that could only been seen under the light of a full moon.

John kept reading. The magic granted to the person who owned these items was three things: 1) very long life, 2) the ability to make objects appear and reappear, and 3) The ability to make people believe anything and see what the magician wanted them to see.

John stood up and tied the cape around his neck. He felt a tingle like a small electric shock went through his neck and back. He sat back down. The cape felt oddly cool and very comfortable. He flipped through the book and came to a spell to make an object disappear. John had to mentally recite a spell then point the wand at the item and thrust the wand towards it. Looking at the napkin dispenser on the table, John memorized the spell. He flourished the wand and mentally said the spell and thrust the wand.

Unfortunately, by flourishing the wand, he missed the napkin dispenser, and instead a woman in her early thirties, who was walking by was the recipient of the spell. Her khaki pants disappeared.

John's eyes went wide and he swallowed hard. "Oh fuck!" he muttered. He looked for the spell to make the object reappear as the lady was still unaware that her pants were gone, and the bottoms of her plane white panties were on display under the shirt tail of her pink t-shirt.

John found the spell just as the woman realized she was sans pants. She let loose a weird sounding squeal and pulled her shirt down and crouched a bit. Suddenly, her pants materialized in front of her on the the floor. She picked them up and hurriedly put them on, but they were still zipped and buttoned, and she comically fumbled with them until she got them on.

"Well, I'll be fucked," whispered John. "This is unreal."