Granny Bell's Receipt Book

Summary

Clarity Bell, also known as Granny Bell, a Talented woman with a skill in medical potions and alchemy who worked as an apothecary in Talented Nashville, created wondrously successful medicines and potions during her life, as well as creating many complicated spells and making great advances in alchemy with her daughter, Helen McCallister. Only some of her medicines have since been duplicated, and only a few of her spells; only her alchemical research has been preserved through the work and books of her daughter.
It is said, however, that Clarity Bell kept a meticulous record of all her magical work, potions, spells, and alchemy in a receipt book (a recipe book). Not only does the receipt book contain detailed recipes and instructions for all her potions and spells, but it also functions as the key to her workshop, itself a wealth of knowledge. According to Helen McCallister, the workshop was concealed by the same powerful enchantment that Granny Bell used to hide her station on the Underground Railroad.

Historical Basis

Clarity Bell did indeed keep a journal of her research for over fifty years, as confirmed by her daughter, Helen McCallister, in several personal letters and in the preface to one of her books of alchemy. This journal was not recovered when Granny Bell was murdered by bounty hunters and Magio-Supremacists in 1852. Nor was Granny Bell's workshop ever found.

Spread

Some say that Magio-Supremacists seized the book when they murdered Granny Bell as she was helping enslaved people make their way to the next station on the Underground Railroad. Some say that one of those enslaved peoples took the book with her North to Boston. Another hypothesis states that an unknown person recovered the book, used it to open Granny Bell's workshop, but was not able to escape. Others theorize that Helen McCallister I inherited the book from her mother, and using an enchantment, made the receipt book into a palimpsest, hiding the text of Clarity Bell's work beneath the text of another author. Such a palimpsest has not been found among Helen McCallister's papers, however.

Variations & Mutation

Students at St. Augustine's School for the Talented believe that Granny Bell's book is hidden in a hollow tree in Percy Warner Park, on the grounds of the school. Students have been trying for years to find the book and, with its secret knowledge, get an edge on theoretical magic exams.