by c a king
The second step was a bit easier, but still warranted a pause after. If she wasn’t late before, she was going to be now. She inhaled deeply, noticing the cemetery beside her for the first time. Her eyes locked on a cloaked figure, holding a staff in one hand and something burning in the other. “What’s he doing?”
“Purifying a grave maybe?” Thomas said, shoulders shrugging.
Makayla fell on her butt this time, not realizing anyone had remained with her after the last tumble.
“You really need to stop doing that,” Thomas suggested, offering his hand once again. This time she accepted.
“I thought you went on ahead,” Makayla replied, standing.
“Whoa!” Thomas exclaimed. “Your necklace is filling with green smoke. Does that mean something?”
“I don’t know,” Makayla answered, pulling the small crystal ball further out for a better glimpse. “It was a gift. I don’t know what it does.”
“The green must mean something,” Thomas blurted out.
“Maybe,” Makayla agreed, shrugging her shoulders. “I guess I’ll have to figure it out as I go.” She glanced over at the cemetery; the man was gone. Still watering eyes insisted they caught a glimpse of a fast moving shadow. She shook the feeling off, concentrating on the walk ahead. As it turned out there wasn’t as far to go as she had thought.
There was no possible way to stop a giggle from escaping. Even with a hand covering her mouth, it managed to slip out. “How long have you been waiting?” Makayla snickered, glancing from one perplexed face to another.
Every single person who had rushed by her was stopped. Once she saw why, it was hard to blame them, but still funny. The road ended at an old rickety rope bridge. It continued on the opposite side of a deep chasm. Below, white-water rapids rushed off, presumably heading to a nearby waterfall.
“Laugh it up,” the boy who first passed her on the road snarled. “Let’s see you cross that death trap.”
There was far too much frowning since she left home for it to continue. If things didn’t turn around, she’d end up with a nasty set of crow’s feet in between her eyebrows right along with everyone else.
Makayla peered over the edge once more, lips twitching from side to side. Killing students before they reached their school made no sense. It was more likely this was a test of some sort. She inhaled deeply, placing one hand on each rope railing before moving a foot to the first foothold. Breath exhaled quickly. It held her weight. Her second foot slid forward.
The world flew by, leaving her hair waving behind her. Instead of having the whole length to cross she was taking the final step off the bridge. “It’s magic,” Makayla yelled back to the others. “You do believe in magic, don’t you?”
Chapter Six
The weather took a turn for the worse, the temperature falling drastically. A brisk breeze sent shivers racing over exposed skin, leaving goosebumps behind. That was Jack Frost’s calling card. He was in town and planned to stay for a while. A darkness, undeserving of the hour, crept over the path.
The road ended at a set of grey stone steps leading up. “There are exactly six hundred and sixty-six. I’m Tallen, by the way. You won’t want to stand there all day. The lot of you are already late.”
“Are you a student here?” Makayla asked, following the strange female. “Is this your first year, too?”
“Goodness, no,” Tallen replied. “I’m an instructor. The headmistress sent me to find you. It isn’t unusual for first-years to be found stuck at the bridge. You seem to be doing all right, though. Come along.”
Makayla froze. “What do we call you then? I’m not sure referring to a member of the faculty by their first name is appropriate.”
“Well I only have the one,” Tallen answered. “If it’s that much of a problem, you could put a Miss in front of it, I suppose. I don’t mind.” She chuckled. “Either, or, is perfectly fine.”
“Can you tell us what school this is?” Thomas asked, huffing and puffing a number of steps below.
Tallen froze, glancing back over one shoulder. A smile twitched its way over her lips. “You don’t know? I would have thought it to be obvious by this point. Keep moving.”
The top step left the group staring at yet another road—one lacking the cobblestone finish they’d become accustomed to. The dirt and gravel street wove in twists and turns through overgrown grasses and weeds, narrowing along the way. The farther they travelled, the darker the skies became, save for the occasional flash of lightning. Makayla’s head jolted sideways—the crack of a twig sounded as loud as a foghorn in her mind. A figure took shape from shadow, only to be swept away by the wind.
“Is that it?” Thomas complained, glaring at what lay before them.
From a distance, the castle they were heading to appeared as dismal as the weather and in the same state of repair as the road beneath their feet.
“Don’t judge a book by its cover,” Miss Tallen replied, moving at a much faster pace. “We need to hurry. This storm won’t hold off for long.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time I was soaked today,” Thomas grumbled, holding his side. “Why isn’t there magic to usher us inside?”
“Because you aren’t ready for it,” Miss Tallen yelled back, without turning around. “Besides, a little trek through nature is good for your soul.”
“I’m pretty sure my soul wants to sit down,” Thomas argued under his breath. “It’s as bushed as I am.”
“You’ll have plenty of time to relax once we are inside,” Miss Tallen replied. “We don’t want to be caught in a torrential downpour.”
“She heard that?” Thomas complained, exchanging glances with anyone who would look his way. “How is it she heard that?”
Makayla shrugged her shoulders. “Magic?” That seemed to be the answer for everything that couldn’t be explained.
A set of iron gates squeaked closed behind them, locking. Gone were the weeds and brush, replaced by plots of land readied for burials. Stone markers lay by the side of freshly dug ground, shovels still stuck in the displaced dirt.
Makayla gasped for air, her heart sinking. This was the last place anyone wanted to end up. If she made it through a year of Grave Digger Academy, her family was going to kill her when she went home.
At one point the school might have been the envy of the magical world. That wasn’t the case anymore. It loomed over the small group of students, boasting of hauntings and sleepless nights to come.
Climbing the front steps, Makayla glanced at a pillar to her right then the other on the opposite side of the stairs. Atop sat monsters so foul they were cursed to stone during daylight. Their rage and hate was silenced, but visible, scratched out in the lines on their faces. A new shiver ran down her spine. Everyone knew it was night when such demons roamed freely.
As if reading her mind, Miss Tallen called back, “Those ones aren’t real.” The words held little meaning in the minds of apprehensive youth.
Makayla inhaled deeply, taking the first stair. Her eyes moved from side to side, memorizing every detail and watching for changes. The yellow gems the pair called eyes glistened against their black bodies, burning a hole through to her soul as they followed her every move. Lifeless grins widened the further up she climbed, mocking her. The wind howled a message meant just for oversized ears, conspiring against the living. A cold sweat formed on her brow, the colour from her face having been sucked away by those bulging eyes that knew too much. She took the final steps in one giant leap, not willing to waste another moment in their presence.
“You shouldn’t be afraid of gargoyles,” Miss Tallen said, as the group reached the front doors where she stood waiting. “You’ll soon learn that things aren’t always as they are portrayed. Come along. The headmistress is waiting.”
The set of wooden double doors swung open, giving them their first glimpse into the world they would call home for the better part of a year. Makayla hung her head. It was every bit as dismal as the storm brewing outside
.
Chapter Seven
The Academy’s glory days were long over. Once, in its prime, it might have been the epitome of castles, with spiral staircases leading to grand towers, their oversized windows looming over a centralized courtyard below. It was hundreds of years in the making, but all that was crumbling, albeit, slower than a mortal eye could detect.
There were cracks in the walls. Large stones had transformed into nothing more than pebbles pieced together—the same small rocks as found littering the road leading up to the front gates. There was no need for art. The patterns were intriguing enough—reminiscent of two different jigsaw puzzles being forced to form one picture.
At one point or another the property became repurposed. Reduce. Recycle Reuse. That saying apparently applied to old buildings as well as garbage.
Makayla stood in the hallway, staring up at the grand ceiling. Somewhere, on a different level, a window was either left unlatched or perhaps broken. The wind whistled through the opening, its voice carried in the form of an echo. That was sure to be her room for the night. Luck had never been her friend. It certainly had never been there when she needed it most.
“This way,” Miss Tallen instructed. “First-year students have the premises to themselves this week. Orientation means figuring out where you are supposed to be and when. It’s better to have you trip and fall now, before there are older classes rushing about to trod on you.”
“Pleasant,” Makayla huffed under her breath, following the instructor into a large room filled with wooden tables and benches. Other than those arriving with her, there were only a dozen other students in the room and a handful of faculty.
Thomas tugged on her sleeve. “Sit,” he mumbled. “Everyone is staring.” His head motioned toward the open space on the opposite side of the table from himself.
How she ended up at the popular table was beyond her. Of course, if she didn’t count the staff places, there were only two rows taken. The one she was seated at and a sparsely populated section on the other side of the room. Bubblegum girl, sat at one end; the boy who passed her first outside on the other; and two scruffy teens almost directly in the middle of them.
“Are you going to say hello?” Thomas complained. “Everyone has already introduced themselves.”
“Sorry,” Makayla muttered, still staring at the other table. “I can’t help but wonder why they aren’t sitting with us.”
“That’s because they are different,” a brunette answered, leaning forward over the place settings. “They all applied to be here.”
“That’s Cali,” Thomas whispered in Makayla’s ear. “She’s been here for a few days already and has everything staked out.”
“A few days,” Makayla blurted out. “Why so early?” She eyed the girl from different angles.
Cali was the definition of cute as a button. Even sitting down it was obvious she was the shortest person in the room. Small things were always the most adorable. That wasn’t it, though. There were other features that added to the whole package. Things Makayla never could have gotten away with. The girl’s long brown curls were tied up in what would be a messy do for most—a few strands escaping to frame her face. On Cali it was perfection, especially when matched with big brown eyes, which held more curiosity in them than any cat.
“Did you miss that whole conversation? Don’t answer that. I’m Leo, since you probably didn’t hear the first time.” His head hung back down, eyes glued in a book. Long blond bangs covered all features from the tip of his nose up.
“We all have one thing in common,” Cali suggested. “None of us want to be in this academy. The only way out is to prove our worth to another institution. If a student’s marks are high enough, they can be transferred between schools to one of their other choices.”
“That’s why you are already studying,” Makayla said. It made sense. Unfortunately it also didn’t apply to her. Grades weren’t something she had a history of doing well with. It wasn’t a matter of being smart or dumb—when a test paper showed up, she froze.
“Give the girl a star,” Leo replied without looking up.
“What about them?” Makayla questioned, glancing over her shoulder at the other table. “Why did they want to come here?”
Cali shrugged her shoulders. “No one knows exactly. It isn’t normal. The girl with the black pigtails... her name is Frankie. She’s a transfer student.”
“You mean she was at a different academy and demoted?” Thomas blurted out. “I wonder what she needed to do to deserve that.”
“Don’t know,” Cali admitted. “It wasn’t in her file.”
“Wait!” Makayla shrieked. “You read the students’ files?”
“Don’t look at me like that,” Cali complained. “The headmistress didn’t want anyone to be bored, so she assigned us all jobs. I was stuck filing papers for five whole hours a day. It was torture... the sort that could break a person’s spirit.”
“So who are the other three?” Thomas asked.
“The two in the middle are brothers,” Cali replied, completely dismissing her sob story about the horrible ordeal she had just lived through. “Their file says they are twins, but I don’t see the resemblance.”
“Not all twins are identical,” Leo snickered, rolling his eyes. “They could be fraternal.”
Cali continued, ignoring the comment, “Iggie and Sven are two years older than anyone in first-year. Their grades are really bad. We are talking double repeat of first-year bad. I’m surprised they were allowed in here.”
“What about the guy at the end?” Makayla questioned.
“Don’t know,” Cali admitted. “There was no file for him. He must be a brand-new transfer. None of them will be a concern to us. They want to be here. Since only one student will be allowed to transfer out per semester, it’s going to be me.”
“We’ll see,” Leo snorted. “I’ve already completed most of the required reading for our classes. I think I have a good shot at it.”
“We could all run away,” Thomas suggested. “Then they’d have to do something with us. I bet if we band together we could all be placed somewhere else.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” Leo said, licking his fingers to turn a page. “The bridge is the only way off this rock and it has been taken down.”
“You mean we are stuck here?” Makayla shrieked. “There must be other ways to leave. Aren’t there excursions to town?”
“Sure, for the older students and faculty,” Cali scoffed. “First-years are lowlifes. We aren’t worth the parchment our lessons are written on.”
“How do the others leave?” Makayla asked.
Cali shrugged her shoulders. “Grave digger shovels, probably.”
“What are they?” Thomas asked, his face scrunching up.
“That’s how grave diggers get from one place to another,” Leo explained. “Their shovels can break ground in one burial site to send them around the world to any other place of rest for the deceased.”
“Why can’t we use one of those to escape, or at least have a bit of fun?” Makayla asked, a mischievous fire dancing in her eyes.
“Because,” Cali said, hanging on to the last syllable way too long. “We don’t know how to use them. They don’t teach that until second or third year. If we tried, we could end up in some forsaken crypt, or worse, buried alive.”
“Attention!”
Makayla swivelled in her seat to face a slender woman whose hair was tied back in a bun so tightly; it almost stretched out the wrinkles on her forehead.
“I am Headmistress Mary Meet,” the woman announced. “I have a few announcements to make. The south tower is closed for repairs. The stairs on that side of the building are off-limits and quite dangerous. Luckily, there is no need to use that area as we have a small student body this year. In each of your rooms you will find a list of school rules. Please make sure you read and understand each of them. Your personal belongings have already been delivered. I suggest you spend the rest of
the evening unpacking.” She turned to retake her seat.
“Aren’t we going to eat?” Thomas complained.
The headmistress bounced back up. “Oh, yes. As you can tell, we are on skeleton staff until the official start of the year. The kitchen is open for you to help yourselves. Make use of it.”
“We have to make our own food?” Thomas blurted out. “Isn’t that a little strange? I don’t even do that at home.”
Headmistress Meet sighed. “We all have to work together sometimes. Help each other out and I know we’ll have the best classes ever.” The smile on her face froze as if chiselled from the same stone as the gargoyles out front. “Off you go.”
“Off we go where?” Thomas muttered. “I don’t even know where the kitchen is. Do you?” He shook his head.
“This way,” Cali replied, rolling her eyes. “I’ll show you. Have you ever used a kitchen before?”
“Not bloody likely,” Thomas replied. “My mom makes my meals. Do you think they have anything premade?”
“Not that I’ve seen,” Cali replied, tugging him by the arm behind her.
“Great,” Thomas cried. “I’m going to starve, aren’t I? That’s why I got stuck here, isn’t it? They want me to lose weight. It’s a conspiracy against chubby people. The battle of the bulge. Ugh!”
“They who?” Makayla asked.
“They,” Thomas replied, arms flailing about. “The ones running the magical world, of course.”
“I think they have more to worry about than one person’s weight,” Leo scoffed. “If this were an eating intervention, she wouldn’t be here.” He nodded toward Makayla.
“True that,” Thomas chuckled.
Makayla glanced down. “I’m not that skinny,” she complained.
“Yeah, you are,” the other three said in unison.
Chapter Eight
The bedroom door slammed with a thunderous boom. Visions of friends sitting up to all hours with flashlights telling ghost stories vanished the moment she saw the single bed. They each had their own quarters, joined only by a hallway and three sets of bathrooms. One for females, one for males and one gender neutral—a castle hundreds of years old was more considerate of people’s needs than most newly built buildings. Imagine that!