Enchanted Academy Box Set

by L. C. Mortimer

  “Peanuts?”

  “Hey, the recipe calls for them.”

  “What kind of recipe is that?” Belle leaned over and sniffed at the cauldron. I couldn’t tell if she thought it smelled good or bad. She was a very polite person, from what I had gathered, and she kept her face really neutral.

  Wolf just shrugged.

  “It’s whatever the teacher wants it to be.”

  “Who do you have?”

  “Codsworth,” Wolf said.

  “Ew,” Belle said.

  It caught me off-guard because as far as I could remember, it was the only negative thing that had ever come out of her mouth.

  “Ew?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why ew?”

  “Codsworth is just really intense,” Wolf explained.

  “Yeah, he’s not really mean,” Belle said. “But his classes can be really stressful.”

  “He loves magic,” Wolf said.

  “And he wants other people to love it, too.”

  “The result,” Wolf stirred her cauldron a little bit faster. “Is that his classes are an emotional roller-coaster.”

  “No matter what kind of mood you’re in when you show up, you’ll be stressed and tired by the time you leave,” Belle explained.

  “You know Stacy over there?” Wolf jerked her head toward Stacy’s bedroom, where we could already hear snoring.

  “Yeah.”

  “He was her last class of the day,” Wolf explained. “And he’s harder on second year students because, in his words, we should know this stuff already.”

  “That doesn’t really seem fair. How are you supposed to know stuff you’ve never been taught?”

  “Ah, the age-old question, isn’t it?” Wolf asked.

  Then she shook her head, leaned back, and kept stirring using just her finger. I had a feeling that she’d use her mind to control the little stirrer-stick if she could.

  “What are you going to do tonight?” I asked Belle. She hadn’t mentioned homework yet, nor had she indicated that she had any other plans. It was close to dinner-time, and I planned to head to the cafeteria to grab something to eat in a little while. There was a huge cafeteria in the main castle where we were able to eat three meals a day. That was all included with our tuition; however, for students who wanted sweet treats, there was also a little on-campus shop where we could buy extra things we needed.

  “She has a date,” Wolf said without looking up.

  Belle nodded.

  “A date? Really?”

  “Yep.”

  “Do you have a boyfriend?”

  “Nope.”

  “Girlfriend?”

  “Nope.”

  “First time going out?”

  “Yep.”

  Belle smiled at me, and I had the feeling that this was something really special to her. Maybe it was even private. I couldn’t tell. I hadn’t ever really dated anyone, so I really didn’t know how to feel about it.

  “Don’t worry, kid,” Wolf said. “She’s private about her dating life.”

  “You’re one to talk,” Belle pointed out.

  “We all have our reasons,” Wolf said. “And nobody’s teasing you. Do you need help getting ready?”

  “I probably should get ready, huh?” She said. “Well, I’m pretty sure I can handle it, but I’ll let you know if I need help.”

  Belle headed into our shared bedroom and I heard her rustling around, presumably looking for the perfect first-date outfit.

  “Where are they going to go?” I asked. We weren’t supposed to leave the campus. In fact, as far as I could tell, no one could leave the campus, at least not without being detected. There were magical wards and boundary lines in place to keep the school hidden from evil powers and villains. When I’d first arrived, I’d been warned that some of the boundary lines had attached alarm systems. I didn’t know anything about them, and I didn’t know how they worked, but I knew that those weren’t things I wanted to mess with.

  “Uh,” Wolf said. She looked up at me and cocked her head. I knew exactly why she was looking at me like that. She was trying to decide if I was trustworthy. That was her, “Can I trust you with my secret?” kind of look.

  “It’s okay,” I said quickly. I hadn’t earned their trust yet. I was new, and I was an outsider, and if they were going to be breaking rules, they probably didn’t want too many people to know.

  “It’s nothing personal.”

  “I get it.”

  I didn’t want to go into the bedroom and bother Belle when she was getting ready, but staying in the living room seemed like it was going to be kind of awkward, so I stood up, stretched, and looked around for a second.

  “I’m going to go grab some dinner,” I said. Then I left the suite quickly before anyone could say anything, and I headed down the hallway. One side of the hall was doors and the other simply had a banister that overlooked the rest of the building. It wasn’t necessarily a hallway, per say, in the traditional sense of the word, but it felt like one.

  I walked along and trailed my hand on the wrought-iron railing. It really didn’t offer that much protection. If someone were to mess around and slip, they would fall down. Were there magical barriers in place to protect students? I wasn’t sure. I looked around. Then I walked around the floor, checking out the different artwork that hung on the walls.

  Everything looked like it was straight out of a fairytale. Some of the pictures had princesses and knights. Others had fairy godmothers and magical trees and dragons. I loved all of it. Maybe it was because I’d never grown up in a home where there were fairytales or storybooks, but to me, everything about this place felt magical.

  I walked around and noticed a door that didn’t have a number beside it. That meant it wasn’t a dorm room or a suite for one of the students. Hmm. Strange. I walked over and pulled on the door. Nothing happened. I tried again. Still nothing.

  A locked door shouldn’t bother me, but the staircase was on the opposite end of the building, and this door was unmarked. Maybe it was a sort of storage closet.

  Maybe it was a secret entrance to the upper floors.

  Tinkerbell had told me that I couldn’t go any higher than this floor because the top levels were forbidden. I didn’t like the sound of that. Did anyone, really? Nobody wanted to go to a creepy school where certain floors were just totally and completely off-limits.

  My curiosity was flaring up and I wanted, more than anything at that moment, to know what was behind secret door number one.

  I pulled again, but nothing happened. There was a charm pad lock beside the door, which meant there was definitely a way to open it, but I needed the right charm, and something told me that mine wouldn’t work.

  Oh well, I’d try anyway.

  Years in foster care had taught me that no lock was ever really unbreakable.

  All you needed was the right key.

  I held up my charm to the little metal disk beside the door, but as I suspected, nothing happened. I tried a few times and finally decided to give up before anyone came out and noticed me being weird. I didn’t really want to draw any more attention to myself. Not on my first day, anyway, so I kept walking around, looking at the artwork, and thinking about the different decorative choices people had implemented. My own room’s door was pretty plain and ordinary. Maybe I’d talk with the other girls about hanging up some pictures or something. We could put our mark on it.

  “Hey, new kid,” someone said. I looked over and saw a familiar face watching me. It was a girl who lived a few doors down from me. She had bright red hair that was long and flowed over her shoulders. Her dark green dress looked a little out of place from what I was wearing: a normal school uniform.

  “That’s me,” I said drily, holding up my hand awkwardly in a sort of weird wave. Her friends just watched me. I couldn’t remember her name and I knew she sure didn’t know mine. Her roommates were all very tall and lanky and also had long, flowing hair. Their dresses made them look like th
ey were going to some sort of ball or prom, but from what I had gathered, that was just how they dressed when they weren’t going to class.

  “Want to go get dinner?” She asked with a smile.

  “Really?”

  “Sure,” she shrugged. “Why not?”

  Her friends looked just as nonchalant about the entire thing, but I took a look down at my normal clothing. I was in my school uniform, which looked wildly plain and ordinary compared to their dresses.

  “I should probably change first.”

  “You’re fine,” one of the girls said.

  “Yeah,” another added. “Seriously.”

  “Let’s go,” said the third girl. “I’m starving.”

  With a nod, the redhead looped her arm through mine and we started walking toward the staircase.

  “I’m Ariel,” she said. “Remind me of your name.”

  “Jessica,” I said.

  “So, how was your first day, Jessica?”

  “It was...”

  How could I put it into words? I mean, so many different things had happened. I’d met a lot of different and interesting students. I’d taken lots of different classes. I’d explored the school grounds. I’d met a boy.

  A good-looking boy.

  A kind-of-totally-completely-a-jerk-sort-of-boy.

  “Fine,” I finally said, and Ariel just laughed.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “You’ll get used to things soon.”

  “You think so?”

  “I know so.”

  “Did you have a hard time getting used to Enchanted Academy when you started?”

  “Nope,” she said. “Well, maybe I did, but I’m a junior now, so I can’t really remember.”

  “What about you all?” I looked over at her roommates.

  One of the girls had dark skin and brown, curly hair. Her face lit up at my question, and she nodded.

  “Oh, yeah,” she said, laughing. “Ariel can say whatever she wants, but life wasn’t exactly easy for me when I first started.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, I’m not from around here,” she said.

  “No one is, are they?” I asked. Enchanted Academy was located dead center in the middle of this huge, ancient forest. As far as I could tell, there was nothing around for miles. I’d been driven here by a school driver who transported new scholarship kids. Other students had come by taxi, by scooter, and a few even came in a limousine. Either way, it was about an hour by car to the nearest big city and at least twenty minutes by car to the nearest little town.

  “Not so much,” she said. “But I’m not from a magical place at all.”

  “So, you grew up around normal humans.”

  “Precisely.”

  “Me too.”

  “I know,” the girl nodded.

  “What’s your name?” I asked her.

  “Jade,” she said. “And that’s Britney and Eleanor.”

  “Hello,” the girls said in unison.

  “Hey.”

  “I think what Jade is trying to say,” Ariel said. “Is that she knows what it’s like to be new and you don’t have anything to worry about.”

  “No?”

  “Nah,” said Britney. She pushed her dark brown hair back and smiled at me as we walked down the stairs to the first floor. “I mean, things can be a little overwhelming at first, but I promise that you’ll get used to them.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “There really is a lot to understand. I mean, I kept getting lost for classes today.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah,” I shook my head. “I felt really ridiculous, you know?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Jade said kindly. “Things are always hardest when you first start. By the end of the year, you’re going to be a superstar.”

  “Yeah,” Eleanor added. “You won’t have to worry about a single thing. You’ll be zipping around like it’s nothing.”

  “Thanks,” I said, and I meant it. Somehow, the girls had helped me realize that everything really would be okay. I might be the new kid, but that didn’t mean that I was destined to a life of loneliness or weirdness, right?

  We made it to the first floor, walked across the little lobby, and went to the main castle. When we reached the cafeteria, dinner was in full swing. The tables were packed and the buffet line, which was filled with all sorts of meats and fruits and vegetables, was totally full of people.

  “Guess we got down here a little late,” Ariel laughed. “Back of the line, ladies.”

  We headed over to the end of the line and stood patiently waiting our turn. As we did, I looked around the room. I saw a few familiar faces and people I’d met in different classes. Everyone had to eat, after all. We had an hour and a half for dinner, so it wasn’t like anyone had to rush to get here on time, but I was a little surprised to recognize so many faces at once.

  Maybe this was a good thing.

  Maybe it meant that I really was figuring my way around the school already.

  I’d done it, after all.

  I’d succeeded.

  I’d survived my first day at a new school and nothing terrible awful had happened. After all, a lot more could have gone wrong than actually did. I was looking across the room, seeing who else was there, when I caught someone’s eye.

  Beast was there.

  He was surrounded by friends who were all laughing and talking, but he was looking at me.

  Only, when I saw his face, I couldn’t tell if he was looking at me because he liked me or because he hated me.

  And that feeling made my stomach twist up in knots.

  “Hey,” Ariel said, tapping my shoulder. “Line’s moving, darling.”

  She followed my gaze to see where I was looking, and then she nodded and lowered her voice.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “But trust me: he’s bad news, Jessica.”

  Somehow, I thought she was right.

  Chapter 6

  When I got back to my room after dinner, Wolf was still working hard on her homework. The door to the room she shared with Stacy was shut, but my bedroom door was open, and Belle wasn’t there.

  “Have you seen Belle?” I asked.

  “Beauty? Oh, I think she’s still on her date,” Wolf shrugged. “You know how these things go. She probably won’t be back until later.”

  “Yeah, sure,” I said, but I really didn’t know. The truth was that I was kind of a late bloomer when it came to stuff like dating and relationships. I mean, I didn’t think that made me weird, per say, but it definitely made me a little unusual, especially compared to everyone else at Enchanted Academy. It seemed like a lot of students had partners or lovers and there I was, just trying to figure out where my next class was.

  It was a little ridiculous.

  Wolf seemed like she had a ton of studying to do, so I went into my bedroom, closed the door, and changed into my pajamas. I sat at the little table in my room for awhile and finished all of the reading I had to do for my classes. Then I went out and brushed my teeth. I looked at myself in the mirror for a few seconds. I wasn’t trying to be vain. Nope. I was just thinking about how even though the day had been really rough, it was still better than where I’d come from.

  I went back into my room, climbed into my hammock, and went to sleep, but my peace and solitude didn’t last very long.

  I woke up to screaming.

  “The building is on fire!”

  The yelling was enough to wake the dead, and I twisted, tumbled, and then fell out of my hammock in surprise. I landed on my bottom, managed to get up despite the pain, and shoved my feet into my slippers. Then I went out into the living room. Both Wolf and Stacy were there, but Belle wasn’t.

  “Where’s Belle?” I asked.

  “She didn’t come back,” Wolf said.

  I grabbed a pocket watch off the table and saw that it was nearly three in the morning. She wasn’t back yet. Why not? Beauty didn’t seem like the kind of girl who would stay out al
l night without letting anyone know. Then again, I didn’t really know her all that well. I guessed anything was possible.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “There’s a fire on the third floor,” Wolf said.

  “We’re going to have to take a fire exit,” I said. The normal stairs went right through the third floor. There wasn’t exactly a way to avoid any problems. I thought about all of the fire drills I’d had in my life and I thought about the entire “stop, drop, and roll” thing people had impressed upon me. Well, I didn’t think those skills were going to come in handy at Enchanted Academy, but maybe I was wrong.

  “There’s no fire exit,” Stacy looked at me like I was crazy.

  “What are you talking about? Of course, there’s a fire exit.”

  “It’s a magical school, Jess. There’s no fire exit. There are just ropes.”

  “Ropes?”

  “Ropes,” Stacy said.

  I looked toward the door that led to the hallway. I could hear yelling and running around outside. I wanted to open the door, but I also didn’t want to risk filling our room with smoke. I could hear the alarms in the building going off – they sounded like birds chirping – and when I looked at the bottom of our bedroom door, I saw that smoke was slowly starting to seep inside.

  Yeah, it was time to get the hell out of here.

  No matter how.

  “Okay,” I said. “What do we do?”

  Wolf and Stacy exchanged looks.

  “You tell her,” Stacy said.

  “I’m scared of heights,” Wolf said. “I’m going to be sick.”

  She actually did look sick, but I couldn’t tell if it was because she was scared or if it was because she was overtired from studying so much. I had the feeling, based on the dark circles under her eyes, that she simply hadn’t gone to bed at all last night, and I wished there was something I could do about that. It wasn’t fair that she had a teacher who was giving her a hard time. Wolf was a cool girl. She deserved to have some fun. She didn’t need to be treated like she didn’t matter.

  “Let’s do it, ladies,” I said. I looked anxiously toward the door. I wasn’t sure how fires worked in the world of magical people, but in my world, they weren’t something to mess with.