Shadow Academy

by Jamie Campbell

  Shadow Academy

  Shadow Academy

  JAMIE CAMPBELL

  Chapter 1

  I had dreaded the moment for the past year.

  I always knew it was coming.

  I guessed I just never expected it to be like this. I’d envisioned something more exciting. Leaving home and attending Shadow Academy was supposed to be a good thing. My parents should have been proud of me. They both attended this college when they had come of age. They graduated with honors. I must have been such a disappoint to them.

  If it wasn’t so dire, I would have laughed.

  “We should get going,” my father said. His hands were in his pockets, his gaze everywhere else but on me. “It’s going to be dark soon. I’m sure you’ll want to find your room and get some dinner.”

  “Yeah,” I replied awkwardly. A tiny voice inside my head was screaming at them not to leave me here. How could they leave their only daughter when she was most likely going to get killed here?

  Mom stepped forward to give me a hug. “I’ll give you a call in a few days, see how it’s going.”

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  My father was next. He didn’t do hugs anymore so he held out his hand so I could shake it. “Good luck, Eden. I hope it works out.”

  “Yeah, I hope so too,” I replied.

  They couldn’t get in the car fast enough. I could practically see the skid marks on the road that they left behind.

  I guessed I wouldn’t be able to run away now. I couldn’t throw myself at my parents’ feet and beg them to take me away—as if they could. We all knew attending Shadow Academy for the Supernatural was compulsory for anyone blessed once they turned nineteen.

  Blessed. That word still made me cringe. I’d had nineteen years to get used to the idea and one year to absolutely dread it.

  I turned away from the driveway to look at the academy. It was massive. Three floors of classrooms in one building and two more just like it that housed the dormitories—one for boys and one for girls.

  It looked as imposing as it did grand. Marble statues lined the path all the way up to the oversized entrance. With walls made of thick stone, none of the academy’s four hundred years had an impact on the appearance. Whatever charm or spell they used to keep it in such pristine condition would make a million dollars if sold to regular humans.

  My favorite part of the building were the gargoyles. They were so immaculate that they could easily unperch themselves and come swooping down. It wouldn’t have surprised me in the least if they did. Maybe that was how they dealt with people like me. A slow death by gargoyles.

  I shrugged. I couldn’t stand there all day. I picked up my single suitcase and forced myself to move. It was no use delaying the inevitable. If I didn’t show up today there would be a whole army of supernaturals hunting me down tomorrow. And there was no way of hiding from those with the abilities of finding you with one simple spell.

  My boots crunched on the white pebbled path all the way to the front door. It opened automatically—not from electronics but a spell that made the door come alive. It could have easily refused me entry. I couldn’t have been that lucky.

  With every step I took, I expected someone to point and yell at me. But the few people milling around the garishly oversized hallways didn’t even look my way. Perhaps I would last more than a few hours here.

  I checked in with the receptionist who gave me a map and circled my dorm room with red felt pen. She didn’t smile, her cheeks pulled too tightly from her last anti-aging spell. I wondered if she would ever admit her real age to anyone.

  The thought of those kinds of spells used to excite me about magic. I would stare in the mirror and plan out what I would change about my appearance. My nose could be smaller, my hazel eyes a little bigger. My boobs ended up quite a good size naturally but then my hips grew to complete the hourglass. I was going to tweak everything. Was being the operative word.

  There were plenty of students in the corridor of the girls’ boarding building when I finally got there. I was starting to wonder if it was just a mirage and I would never get there.

  My new home was on the third and top floor. Number 396. I prayed for a single room. I was an only child, sharing wasn’t in my nature. Plus, with what I had to hide, having someone watch my every move wasn’t ideal. I couldn’t hide things like the other students could.

  I took one more deep breath for luck and opened the door.

  Two beds. I was screwed.

  One was neatly made and a girl was lying on the other one. At least the room was bigger than I expected it to be. It held little more than two beds, two desks, a bookcase, and a kitchenette. Two doors on either side of the room probably led to closets.

  The girl looked to be my age. Her long black hair was swept back in a ponytail. She wore the neat uniform of the academy—blue and red check skirt with a navy blazer. The collar of her white shirt peeked out over the collar. She could have been the academy’s posterchild.

  She was also wearing headphones plugged into her cell phone. Her gaze flickered over to my direction where she assessed me from head to foot. Her ruby lips pursed with something like disgust.

  “I guess I’m your new roommate,” I said with a small wave.

  “I told them I don’t do roommates,” she replied. “Are you sure you got the number right?”

  I was older than a toddler so of course I read the damn number correctly. I held up the slip of paper the receptionist had given me as proof. “396. Sorry, they must have misplaced your memo.”

  She slid off her headphones and sat up straight. “Don’t get too cozy. I’ll be lodging my complaint after dinner. Until then, there are rules. Number one, don’t touch any of my stuff. Number two, don’t make any noise. Number three—”

  “Pretend I’m invisible?” I cut in. I really wasn’t in the mood to listen to anything that psycho said. The look I earned in return was worth every word.

  “Like I said, don’t get too cozy.”

  There was something about her sarcastic smile that put me on edge and reminded me how much I had at stake there. One wrong move and this girl would definitely notice. She would have run to the principal as fast as her skinny legs would take her.

  I dumped my bag on my bed and bit my tongue so I couldn’t retort. I had to play it safe here or there would be the harshest of consequences. It was literally a matter of life or death and I really didn’t want to die.

  If anyone found out about my powers, or lack thereof, I would be reported to the authorities. Every single supernatural had a duty to the community to notify the bigwigs. Just one little telephone call and I would be hauled away.

  They said those reported got taken away for some kind of reeducation program. That if they were caught early enough, there was enough time to intervene and ensure the rest of the community remained safe.

  I knew better.

  I knew they killed them. Each and every one of them. Which meant that I was most certainly going to die before the year was out.

  Unless I kept my secret.

  Which was seeming more unlikely by the minute.

  Chapter 2

  Curling up in my new dorm room wasn’t going to be an option for me. Especially when I was hungry and hadn’t thought to pack any snacks in my bag.

  So it was off to the cafeteria for me.

  I stalked out of my new home without saying goodbye to my new roommate. According to the birthday card on the kitchenette counter, her name was Rosa. It was a pity such a pretty name was wasted on someone so vapid.

  The map the receptionist had given me was full of handwritten scrawl for the names of the rooms. I turned it upside down and all around while trying to work out where the elusive cafeteria actually was.

&
nbsp; It had to be in the main building. There wasn’t any of the delicious food smells in the girls’ dormitory. Everything communal was located in the central building. It had made sense when the receptionist explained. Unfortunately, understanding the cursive letters that seemed to run into themselves was far more difficult.

  It was while I squinted at the map that I collided with someone.

  My gaze snapped up as the map fell to the floor. I had turned a corner and run straight into the bluest eyes I think I’d ever seen. They were almost covered by his shaggy brown hair.

  A second later I regained my composure. “Sorry,” I muttered.

  He bent down and picked up the map, spent a whole two seconds looking at it before returning it. “You new here?”

  “Yeah. Just arrived today.” How was it possible his eyes were the exact same color as the sky on a summer day?

  “You should be more careful where you walk,” he said with a scowl creasing his brow. “There are people here you don’t want to run into. What are you looking for?”

  “The cafeteria.”

  He pointed down the long hallway. “Third door on your right.”

  “Thank you,” I said, but he was already on his way.

  Now I could only see his back, I could get a better look at him. Those eyes were mesmerizing, I couldn’t see anything else when he pinned me with his gaze.

  Dark brown hair with a golden twinge when the artificial lights hit it. Taller than me but not lanky. Well built, solid—my mother would say ‘dependable’. Whatever that meant.

  I had no idea who he was but so far the people of Shadow Academy weren’t trying to make any friends with me. Was everyone going to be like that? Surely out of the hundreds of students there, one would have to be nice? Law of averages would surely say so.

  At least food would comfort me. No matter what else was going on, a hearty meal would help to warm me from the inside out. Let’s face it, it was pretty much all I had at that moment.

  The smell hit my nose as soon as I was through the cafeteria doors. If Mr. Grumpy hadn’t pointed it out, I would have eventually found it by my sense of smell alone.

  I didn’t need him.

  The entire academy must have been hungry as there were hundreds of people in the vast expanse of the cafeteria. It was so large, I couldn’t see the end of it.

  The term ‘cafeteria’ wasn’t really appropriate here. There were no stainless steel chairs that froze legs in the wintertime. No checkered tiles with grease stains on the floor. No, there was nothing middle school about this cafeteria.

  Large mahogany tables were scattered everywhere, all facing different directions so there were no straight rows. The floor was carpeted with a pattern that reminded me of Persian rugs. The chairs were all high-backed and in the same mahogany finish as the tables. Stained glass windows lined two walls.

  It was bright inside, despite nightfall outside. The light was coming from bewitched lanterns hovering just below the ceiling. They weren’t attached to anything but shone just like little suns.

  Magic.

  I guessed I should have expected things like that at a supernatural academy. Still, it took me by surprise. If my human friends could have seen it, their minds would have been blown.

  Remembering what I’d left behind brought me crashing back down to earth. I couldn’t get too comfortable here, and not just because of Rosa’s warning.

  I followed my nose over to the food line and joined the queue. Vast arrays of every kind of meal possible were laid out before me. If I could think of it, it would be there. No wonder everyone chose to eat on campus instead of ordering in. I never wanted to leave the place.

  Would they notice if I camped out there instead of my dorm room?

  A tray landed on the counter next to mine. “Hi there, looks like you found the place all right.”

  I looked around to see a girl with blond hair and freckles smiling back at me. The friendliest face I’d seen in a long time.

  “Yeah,” I replied. “This place is amazing.”

  She held out her hand for me to shake. “I’m Cress. I’ve only been here for a week. You could call me a newbie too.”

  We shook hands and a genuine smile graced my lips. “My name’s Eden. Does it get easier to find things around here?”

  She shrugged. “Not really. But we can hope, can’t we?”

  “I guess so.”

  We moved along the line. I added some kind of vegetable dish to my tray. My mother would be pleased, at least. Cress picked up a plate of fish and French fries, and I knew then that she was a thousand times better than everybody else I’d met there.

  After getting through the line, we found a table together. I was supremely grateful for meeting her. There was no need to sit by myself and pretend to be interested in my cell phone while I ate.

  “What kind of supernatural are you?” Cress asked after taking a bite of her fish. I regretted my vegetable choice after seeing how good her meal looked.

  It was a question I was dreading because I would have to lie. And I didn’t really want to lie to this nice person. “Witch,” I finally said. And then to deflect attention, “How about you?”

  “Werewolf.” She made claws out of her hands. “Grr.”

  “I’ve never met a werewolf before. Is there anything I should know?”

  Her smile turned serious. “We don’t like to be pet on the head. Under any circumstances.”

  “Okay. No petting. Got it.”

  She broke out in laughter. “Sorry, just had to do that. You should have seen the look on your face!”

  Maybe it was because of my deceit or the fact that I really didn’t have much experience with other supernaturals, but my face burned hot with embarrassment.

  Her laughter died down. “My neighbor when I was in middle school was a witch. Her house always smelled like rosemary. Being able to do spells, that has to be pretty cool, right?”

  At least this was one thing I didn’t have to lie about. I’d come from a long line of witches and warlocks, including both my parents, so I knew exactly what they were like. I just couldn’t speak for my own abilities.

  “My grandmother’s house on my dad’s side always reeked of oregano. My mother loves basil. I think all witches have to have a signature herb.”

  “How will you ever choose one?”

  I shrugged with a flourish of drama. “I have no idea. It’s a huge decision. I think there might be a class on it here—You and Your Signature Herb: How to Choose and Grow.”

  We ate in silence for a few blissful moments. If I didn’t think too hard, I could almost forget what I was actually doing there. I could almost feel…normal. Which was saying something at an academy for people with supernatural abilities.

  It was Cress that broke the silence. “I saw you met Liam Dunlop earlier.”

  “Who?”

  “The guy who ran into you.”

  I flashed back to the incident in the hallway. It wasn’t my proudest moment. At least Mr. Grumpy with the sky blue eyes had a name now. “Technically, I think I ran into him.”

  “Doesn’t matter either way. He’s a piece of work, that guy.”

  “You don’t like him?” I wasn’t exactly in his fan club either but I only had that one fleeting moment to go by. The more I knew about everyone here at Shadow, the better I could hide myself.

  Cress took a few more bites before she answered. “It’s not so much that I don’t like him, it’s that he doesn’t like anybody. I see him around a lot. He always just watches, rarely joins in with anything.”

  I wasn’t entirely sure how much she could have observed him watching others in the week that she’d been there but I wasn’t going to question it. This was my one shot at a friend there and nothing would make me screw it up.

  “I guess you can get away with a lot when your father is the principal,” Cress said.

  “His dad is really the principal?”

  She nodded. “The one and only.”

 
I tucked away that information for later. If Liam had a direct line to the academy’s principal, then he was someone I needed to avoid at all costs. If he even had an inkling that I was faking being a witch, I would be a dead girl walking.

  Cress went back for a second helping. I guessed werewolves were hungry creatures. I made a mental note to do some research on them in the academy’s library sometime—if I could find it. Maybe I should also make a mental note to find a better map.

  When Cress had moved onto her second dessert, the table next to us erupted into laughter. We both turned to see what could be so funny. Three boys and one girl were making their dishes levitate and then clean themselves.

  Levitation was an easy spell. My mother used to do it all the time when she couldn’t reach the remote control for the television. Or when Dad spilled coffee all over the floor. She would make the liquid levitate and pour itself down the sink.

  It may have been really easy for my parents, and every other witch, but not me. Even if I did know all the words of the spell by heart, I didn’t have any essence of magic to actually make it work.

  All the tables surrounding us copied the group until there were dozens of plates and glasses in the air. All sparkled with cleanliness.

  “Aren’t you going to do our dishes?” Cress asked with her voice full of excitement. She probably wasn’t used to seeing magic used so casually.

  Panic choked me and made a lump form in my throat. I knew I would be in situations like this, I just didn’t realize it would happen so quickly. I hadn’t been able to formulate any type of plan to cope.

  I shrugged and hoped it looked nonchalant. There was no way I could attempt a spell.

  “I think I’ll leave it up to them. They look like they’re having fun.”

  She smiled but didn’t say anything. I stole a few glances her way to see if I could tell what she was thinking. Was she suspicious? Did she have some doubts about my abilities?

  If the other students didn’t get me, my paranoia would. It was going to be harder to stay there than I first realized.