‘We were asked not to tell anyone he was here,’ I told Aunt Leanne, guessing from Angela’s openness that that rule had been lifted. My aunt visibly relaxed, and I felt it, too, as she decided that this made it okay.
‘Of course, they’re being very careful these days,’ she agreed, buttering another pancake. ‘Didn’t you want to invite him in to join us for breakfast?’
‘He had lots of other people to visit,’ Angela answered, her blue-green eyes skimming the letter she’d opened. I finished reading my first letter and waved it at her excitedly.
‘They want me at their school!’ I said, because this handwritten letter made it feel more official. ‘I can start on the first of March!’ I looked around for the calendar and spotted it on the wall. I silently counted the days. ‘That’s less than two weeks away!’
‘You’ll be boarding there – you’ll have to quit your job,’ Angela commented. I felt a twinge of regret for that, because I liked my little job at the crystal and occult store. I liked being surrounded by the pretty things, the books and the positive energy of my eccentric customers. It would be a worthwhile trade-off, I reminded myself, when I learnt to scry.
‘I’ll tell them tomorrow,’ I said, because I always worked Mondays.
‘I’m very confused,’ my aunt said pointedly. ‘Which school is this that you’re talking about?’
‘The White Elm has started a school for gifted sorcerers, and they’ve offered Aristea a place,’ Angela said before I could answer. ‘It could lead to a position on the council one day.’
‘Oh,’ Aunt Leanne said, clearly too surprised to think of anything else to say. In the silence that followed, I reread my letter.
Dear Aristea Byrne,
Congratulations on your acceptance into the White Elm’s Academy of Sorcery. We hope that you will enjoy the classes being prepared for you and your classmates. Along with this letter, you will also have received a letter addressed to your sister and guardian, a list of items you are required to bring, a list of classes you will be studying, a key to your dormitory at the Academy, and a contract you and your guardian will be expected to sign before your enrolment in the Academy is finalised.
Upon arriving at the Academy on March first, the date of term commencement, you will find your shared dormitory, which is home to three other students besides yourself. Each student will be supplied with a bed, a closet for clothing and a second cupboard for excess belongings.
Please advise the White Elm of your travel needs as soon as possible. We are happy to provide displacement services to families requiring this.
Please be advised that pets are not permitted at the Academy. We apologise for any inconvenience but this is for the comfort of all students.
Please do not bring electronic equipment, such as mobile phones, CD players, MP3 players, laptop computers, hair dryers or electric toothbrushes onto the Academy grounds. These will not function due to interference from the many layers of magic encasing the estate.
Please be advised that consumption of alcohol and the use of illicit drugs are strictly prohibited at the Academy. Smoking will be allowed in a designated outdoor area only. It is suggested that students begin planning for these lifestyle restrictions now.
Students will not need money during their stay at the Academy. All food and other necessities will be provided to students at no cost. Due to restrictions on movement in and out of the school grounds, it is unlikely that opportunities to spend money will arise.
Meals will be provided and prepared by Academy staff. Students with special dietary requirements should detail these in immediate return correspondence. Students from all cultural backgrounds are encouraged to supply the Academy with recipes for favoured dishes and will have opportunities to share culinary knowledge and skills with house staff through the preparation of meals.
Please keep your key with you at all times throughout the school year. It is only with this key that you will enter your room, your closet, your cupboard, many of your classrooms, and other various places around the school.
Thank you for taking the time to read this letter, for accepting this opportunity to take up your offered place at the White Elm’s Academy of Sorcery and for your support in our creation of this facility. Without enough numbers, the school would not have gone ahead.
We anticipate your reply.
Sincerely yours,
Glen
Blessed be.
I was in! I was in a magic school!
‘It’s right here in Northern Ireland,’ Angela said, finishing her letter. ‘It’s inland a bit, but it’s really close to Coleraine City.’
‘The school?’
‘Yes. It’s only about an hour’s drive south from here.’
When our parents and Aidan were alive, we lived north of the city of Coleraine, near the ocean. After the storm, Angela and I moved south to the city, where freak storms rolling in from the sea couldn’t hurt us.
‘Well…Well done, sweetie,’ my uncle said finally, forcing a smile at me. ‘It’s very impressive. I’ll be very proud one day to say I have a niece on the White Elm.’
I smiled back. Uncle Patrick was so nice.
‘Do you think I’ll get a place in the school?’ Kelly asked her parents. I loved my cousin, my only cousin, but she totally lacked the maturity of Angela.
‘We’re too old,’ Angela said, letting Aunt Leanne take the letter from her hands and begin to read. ‘It’s for younger people; they’re looking for apprentices.’
I opened the other envelopes and tipped their contents onto the tabletop. My booklist was for a few exercise books, some pens, a set of runes and a wand if I had one. I did. I’d inherited my Greek grandmother Anthea’s old one on my thirteenth birthday. I was also advised to bring as many clothes as I wanted/could fit into one small wardrobe and four drawers, and that there was a laundry service organised by the house staff.
A small silver key tinkled as it fell to the tabletop amongst the paperwork. This was the key to my future, I knew it. It was so pretty and delicate, very complex-looking.
‘This will be interesting – you’ll be sharing rooms,’ Angela said, amused.
‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘It’ll be just your luck to be put in a room with the nastiest girl in the school. I know I always was on school camps.’
Unlike Angela and Aidan, I’d never been enrolled in high school, so I’d not really had the same experiences, like camps and schoolyard bitchiness. I’d been home schooled until I’d completed all the requirements of compulsory schooling. This White Elm school was going to be so new for me.
‘I’m sure there’ll be cool people there,’ I said simply. I read over my list of subjects. My eyes skimmed right through to scrying. I’d learn how to scry! Only a very small fraction of the magical community knew how to scry. In fact, apparently some of the White Elm couldn’t even do it outside of the actual council! That made sense, I supposed, because not all sorcerers were specifically scriers. Once they entered the council, however, they were granted group powers, such as the ability to scry each other.
‘We have to sign a contract,’ Angela mentioned, and I handed the final sheet to her, still reading my subject list. She read through the contract carefully. ‘It looks pretty straightforward. It basically says that we can’t tell anyone else where this school is, because it’s a secret.’ She looked up at the rest of our family. ‘That includes you guys. It also says that you have to adhere to the code of conduct on the back of your letter.’
I checked it. It wasn’t a very strict one – I’d have no trouble behaving myself.
‘I have to keep my key to myself, act lawfully, respect my teachers and fellow students, stick to the curfew and stay within the school grounds,’ I said. ‘How hard can that be?’
Angela took the code of conduct and gave it a once-over.
‘I notice it doesn’t have a no-boys-in-girls’-rooms rule,’ she said, surprised.
‘Then again, you’ll all be more or less adults…And rules wouldn’t really prevent anything.’
‘I’m not going to do anything,’ I told her, teasing. I read through the contract. ‘So, can I go?’
‘Aristea, honey, you don’t really want to do this,’ Aunt Leanne said, finally speaking up after sitting in silence for several minutes. ‘It’s going to be very hard work and you might be away for a long time. It’s not really your thing.’
I sat back in my chair, momentarily deflated. I wasn’t much accustomed to hard work. I’d not been away from my sister since we’d lost everyone else. Did I really want to do this?
Yes.
A part of me wouldn’t hear logical arguments against my newest life plan. A part of me was absolutely certain that this was right, beyond any reason.
‘I want to go.’
‘Sweetie, the White Elm are politicians but they’re also peacekeepers. They began as a band of warriors. Sometimes their work is dangerous. It’s not work for little girls.’
‘She’s not a little girl,’ Angela defended me. Her tone gave strength to my determined side.
‘I really want to go,’ I told my aunt. I took the contract from Angela and grabbed a pen from the jar in the centre of the table. ‘Something tells me that this will be really good for me.’
Maybe it was intuition, but I couldn’t shake that feeling that March first would be the first day of my new life. Something important was happening, some huge, special change in my life. I signed the contract and pushed it away, waiting for the response my rashness would bring from my older family members.
‘Darling, I really don’t think this is right for you,’ Aunt Leanne said again, glancing at her husband for support. He stayed silent, unwilling to get involved.
‘You’re always saying how important it is to show the world what side you’re on,’ I reminded my aunt. ‘Consider this my ultimate demonstration of loyalty to the White Elm.’
‘When I say that, I mean when you’re grown up,’ Aunt Leanne insisted. ‘I mean you should sign up to receive the newsletter, not enrol in their training program. I don’t think it’s a place for girls.’
‘You said that new councillor, the woman, she’s brave,’ I said, starting to feel annoyed. ‘You said it’s good for girls to be brought onto the council. Maybe one day I will.’
My aunt sighed.
‘Honey, I’m sorry, but I’m not signing that,’ she said finally. For a second, I felt my hopes sinking, but then my sister reached over and took the contract back.
‘I am,’ she said, keeping her hand extended, waiting for me to hand her the pen. I felt a huge smile grow across my face. Angela was my legal guardian. Aunt Leanne may be the head of the family, but legally, only Angela could make decisions like this for me. I pretty much had the best sister in the whole world.
‘Angela, you can’t be serious,’ our aunt demanded, apparently shocked that her niece would overstep her authority like this. ‘It could be dangerous-’
‘Aristea knows that,’ Angela said easily, signing her name. ‘She’s a big girl; she can take care of herself. I’ve got the address and I can go and get her whenever I want, and she can take herself off the enrolment register whenever she wants to. This is a huge opportunity for her, and since nobody present is her mother, nobody present gets to tell her what she can and can’t do. If she wants to go,’ she dropped the pen, ‘she can go.’
In a flash of pale purple, the contract disappeared from the tabletop. We all jumped a little, startled by the unexpected disappearance.
‘Well,’ my aunt said, visibly deflated, and then said nothing more on the matter. The remainder of breakfast was quite awkward, my aunt acting as if none of the preceding conversation had occurred, and I was quite glad when they left.
‘Whoa,’ Angela muttered as she locked the door behind Kelly. ‘I hate it when she does that.’
‘Tries to control us?’ I guessed, clearing the table.
‘Acts like parenting you is a competition,’ Angela corrected, coming back to help me. ‘I’m sure she thinks I’m an epic failure.’
‘Well, I think you’re pretty awesome,’ I said, carrying the plates to the sink. ‘Maybe the very best sister anybody ever had, ever.’
Angela smiled and wrapped an arm around my shoulders in an affectionate sort of snuggle. She kissed my cheek.
‘Don’t you forget that when you’re the rich, famous star of the White Elm.’
On Sunday March first, at noon, the first students arrived. From the fourth-storey window of Renatus’s huge study, Lord Gawain watched the gate with mild interest. Three White Elm members, Glen, Susannah and Emmanuelle, were standing guard, interviewing each person that came to the gate, checking their keys to ensure they still had them, probing their minds for signs of treachery, and separating them from their guardians. Lord Gawain watched as the gates were closed, locking out a pair of parents and locking in their teenage son now that they’d said their goodbyes. Emmanuelle led the boy to the manor, where, Lord Gawain knew, he would be left in the library with Aubrey and Anouk to await the coming of the other thirty-seven students who had signed the contract.
‘Was the map clear enough?’ Lady Miranda asked concernedly. She’d been pacing around the study for the past hour, unable to sit still. Most of the students had elected to be picked up by a White Elm councillor and displaced here, but some had decided to make their own way.
‘I’m sure it will be fine,’ Lord Gawain answered calmly. ‘If anyone is still missing by this evening, we can have Qasim find out where they are, and send Elijah or Renatus to collect them and bring them here.’
Leaning relaxedly against his beautiful, antique, oak desk, Renatus nodded. Elijah was the White Elm’s most reliable and most established Displacer – he could teleport an object, himself or anyone else with very little effort, and had been doing it since he was eleven. Renatus was also very good at displacing, although not as reliable and spot-on as Elijah because displacement was not his first skill. Of course, Renatus was very multitalented. The secretive position in the White Elm he’d inherited from Lisandro required him to be.
Another family had arrived on their own. This one had a pair of identical twin girls – Lord Gawain knew that these girls must be Kendra and Sophia Prescott. They had strong names (both meant wisdom) but were half mortal, on their father’s side.
Magic was a complex and sometimes uncertain science. Hereditary power was more of a likely theory than a fact, because though the children of witches almost invariably showed the same promise as their parents, anomalies would appear and throw things into the air. Half-mortals, for example, tended to have powers at one extreme or the other – most were almost devoid of magical energy, while others, like these twins, were so powerful that they well and truly outshone even their witch parent.
Lady Miranda sighed as she stopped beside Lord Gawain and stared out the window with him.
‘Twins,’ she commented, as Glen touched one girl’s temple to telepathically search her mind while Susannah questioned her sister. ‘Qasim thought he’d made a mistake when he scried them – thought he was seeing a double image.’
Lord Gawain smiled at the thought, but Renatus remained expressionless, his violet eyes surveying the grounds of his inherited estate. Morrissey House was named for the family whose surname he had abandoned, and had been in the family for centuries, passed from eldest to eldest along with the family fortune, and, apparently, Renatus’s hereditary power. As far as Lord Gawain was aware – and he’d met a lot of people in his sixty-seven years – no person alive had power like he did.
Four storeys below, Emmanuelle and Tian walked together from the manor towards the gates. The twin girls said their lengthy goodbyes to their mother and father, and then followed the French witch back to the building. Tian stayed with Glen and Susannah, awaiting the next group.
‘Have the classes been decided yet?’ Lady Miranda asked suddenly. Lord Gawa
in turned to Renatus for his response. Lord Gawain and Lady Miranda had many responsibilities, as well as mortal jobs and, in Lord Gawain’s case, a family, so neither of them could be at the school on a permanent basis. Since it was his house, he was the highest authority in the council after the Lord and Lady, he didn’t have a public face and was incredibly powerful, the White Elm had reluctantly but unanimously voted Renatus as the school’s headmaster.
‘Glen and Susannah will be organising the classes tonight,’ Renatus answered, nodding past them at the distant gates. ‘While they’re poking about in the students’ heads, they’re also examining their strengths and weaknesses so that we can categorise them easier.’
Lord Gawain nodded and turned back to the window, watching as two families arrived at the same time.
‘Would either of you like something to drink?’ Renatus asked, surprising both of his guests. He wasn’t usually the type to play host.
‘Seeing as we have time,’ Lord Gawain agreed, looking to Lady Miranda. She hesitated, and then nodded quickly.
‘Tea?’
The two White Elm leaders nodded. Perhaps Lady Miranda expected Renatus to leave to make the drinks, but instead he blinked and turned back to the window. An Asian father and daughter had just displaced together outside the gate.
‘This one will be Elijah’s favourite student,’ Lord Gawain commented.
‘Her father probably displaced her,’ Lady Miranda answered, but Renatus seemed interested.
‘Do you suppose that any of the students would be able to displace or scry yet?’ he asked.
‘It’s possible,’ Lord Gawain offered. He smiled. ‘I know Qasim was hoping to find an apprentice from this cohort, but only one is a natural-born scrier.’
Chosen (9781742844657) Page 5