We barely crossed the threshold of my new school before we were greeted by one of the most stunning people I think I’ve ever seen in my life. Long red hair fell down in the most spectacular spiral curls, perfectly winged eyeliner and red lips matched her skin tight red dress to perfection.
“Hi there, I’m Maggie Henderson the head office administrator here, it’s my duty to accompany all new students around campus when they first arrive.” If I didn’t find her attractive before, I definitely did now, her voice sounded like whiskey, smooth and sweet with a bite at the end. I snuck a peak over at mom and could tell she was just as awestruck as I was.
She cleared her throat and looked at me, “And you must be…” my cheeks burned with embarrassment, I realized I had been staring and had yet to utter a single word, luckily for me mom found her voice first.
“So sorry, we’ve had a long drive and the campus is just leaving us breathless… this is my Daughter Charlee, and I’m Cheryl, Charlee and Cheryl Jones that is.” Before my mother could even finish extending her hand for a shake Mrs Henderson eyes snapped away from hers and bore into mine, “So, you’re Charlee Jones, the new scholarship student.” In that moment I could have sworn I saw her eyes flash from brown to red. Impossible, I shook my head and extended my hand instead.
“Yes, that’s right, it’s very nice to meet you, and sorry this is all just a little bit overwhelming.”
“I would suppose it would be.” Her voice was clipped, no longer reminding me of a sweet whiskey, but a bitter tequila. She grabbed my hand then, and holy shit this woman was strong. Before this situation could be any more awkward I noticed an equally if not more attractive person coming down the hall to my left.
“I’m so sorry I wasn’t here to great you properly, my name is Mrs. Lafoex, Headmistress here.”
“Surely you don’t have time to meet everyone new here?” my mother asked
“We are a small school, we take great interest in our new students, especially our scholarship students. We do our best to make everyone feel at home the second they walked through those doors.” She waved her hands elegantly towards the threshold we just came from.
“Well, isn’t that…nice.” She nudged me in the side, and I realized that I once again had been staring. Is everyone here this attractive? Where Mrs. Henderson was a redhead, Mrs. Lafoex had hair black as night it almost looked blue, with ridiculously blue eyes, they almost looked violet if you stared long enough… which I realized I was doing.
“Nice to meet you, I’m Charlee Jones.” I muttered still a little awestruck
“Well of course you are, you are the only new freshmen this year." She adverted her eyes from me, "Mrs. Henderson maybe you should go check on some of our other students make sure they are finding their new room assignments for the year just fine.” With a look that could kill and a curt nod, Mrs. Henderson started off down the hall.
“I’m sorry, what?” “The only new freshman, how is that possible?” I squeaked
“We have a High School just down the ways, very rarely do we get students at the college who haven’t been enrolled at our High School, in fact, you are the first one Ms. Jones.”
“How is that possible?” My mother said thankfully because I’m not sure I could get a sentence out. Not only was I hundreds of miles away from the only life I’ve ever known but now everyone would have been at school together for years and I’d be the outsider. Great, Tay was right- I should have just gone to New York with her.
“We have a few very important students here whose parents would rather there location not be known to the general public. But we offer the absolute best education, Charlee would not have been invited to attend school here if there were any other place better suited for her to study. Alas there is not, shall we get a move on? I would suspect you would like to see your dorm and meet your roommate, perhaps if we go quickly enough there will be enough time for you to grab some dinner before the hall closes. Ms. Jones…”
“It’s Cheryl, Please.”
“Cheryl, we find it easier for students to engage with others if parents aren’t hovering over them…”
“Oh, right, of course. But I figured I would at least be helping Charlee bring her things to her room.”
“It’s already been taken care of.”
“What...how?” I stammered
“Some of the other students have already brought your things to your dorm while we were making introductions.”
“Oh okay…” My nerves were officially kicking in, I looked at my mother not wanting to say goodbye just yet.
“Well, kiddo, I guess that’s my que…”
“I’m going to miss you mom, more then you know.”
“I know sweetie, but I’m only a phone call or a text away. Or a 15 hour drive.” She winked at me. I pulled her into a hug before I could start crying.
“Drive safe, please let me know when you get home.”
“I will, try and have some fun, this is the next chapter of your life.” She whispered into my head.
I stood hugging her until I heard a throat clear behind me.
“Bye mom, I love you.”
“Love you too.” And with a last squeeze and wave, she turned around and headed back to the car. I was officially alone.
“Shall we? Please call me Olivia, it makes it easier.”
“Okay…Olivia…” I followed as she turned on her heel, and lead me up the stairwell to the left.
“Now, our campus is far bigger than it appears, we have the girls’ dorms to the left and the boys to the right. You are adults and will be treated as such, but we expect you to be safe in all areas since we give you a lot of freedom here.” My face burned with heat, I can’t believe the headmistress of the school was giving me a sex talk. She continued on despite my embarrassment. “Now, since you are here in June these next few months will be you getting to know your peers, your teachers, and getting used to our advanced curriculum. Once you seemed to have….- She stopped talking and looked at me as if searching for the right words..- developed an interest in a particular study we will help design your class schedule around it.” She looked back at me and raised her eyebrows as if asking me if I had any questions and when I didn’t say anything, “Right then, you will be rooming with Laura, she’s a freshmen as well but was enrolled in our high school for four years, and she should be the perfect roommate for you. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to reach out to me or any other member of the faculty as we are all here to help you. Ah, yes here we are.” We stopped abruptly outside a dark wood door, it looked out of place amongst all the stone. Mrs. Lafo… I mean, Olivia, walked in without knocking. I peered over her shoulder, and gasped, it was the room in my dreams. The huge stone foyer, the fire place, the pictures on the walls… just no blood.
“Are you okay Charlee?”
“Uh… yeah… I just had the strangest sense of De ja Vu.” She upturned her eyebrows at me but before she could say anything a girl with the greenest eyes I’d ever seen came out of the first bedroom.
“Ah there you are, Charlee, this is Laura. Laura this is Charlee.”
“Hey, you’re new…. We don’t get many new students here.”
“So I’ve heard…” Unease set in at the pit of my stomach.
“Well, welcome, I’m Laura this is our room… I would assume that since you have blue eyes your apart of…”
“LAURA.” Olivia all but shouted and interrupted her. “Charlee is new here and has an undeclared major, you are to help her figure it out.”
“Figure it out… what do you mean? Her eyes are blue.” She looked genuinely confused
“Yes, her eyes are blue, and yours are green and mine are blue. Please stop with the eyes, you’re surely making Charlee uncomfortable- you know the rules no hazing on campus. Perhaps if you would have showed to our meeting this afternoon you wouldn’t have been so unprepared for your new roommate. If you would please step outside into the hallway with me Laura so we can discuss something quickly.”
Olivia opened the door to usher her out, and Laura glared in my general direction as she passed. Great, piss off your roommate day one, way to go. I tried to press my ear up against the door but could only here harsh whispers and couldn’t make anything out. So I decided to look around the room, we had the “Living room” or as I would call it the blood room from my dreams it was furnished with a small flat screen TV, sofa, and a small kitchen table with a few chairs, off to the side we had a small kitchen with fridge, sink, and microwave. I made my way past the door Laura came out of not wanting to invade her privacy and opened the second door, the room was cozy and offered comfort- unlike the living room. The room was painted a navy blue with white accents on the walls that appeared to be waves, the comforter on the bed was a light blue, a book shelf which to my surprise already had some books on it, a desk with a laptop and what appeared to be something along the lines of an ipad, and all my stuff was neatly stacked off to the side. I heard the door to our dorm slam and debated hiding away in the comfort of this room forever, but ultimately decided against it.
I peered out of my door and saw Laura muttering to herself…”and somehow I’m a goddamn babysitter…”
“Oh sorry, I didn’t see that you came out.” She said
“It’s okay… look I’m really sorry about you being stuck with me. I’m sure I could find my way around, don’t worry about it.”
She sighed, “No you can’t. Let’s just say I got into a bit of trouble my last year in high school and this is a way to redeem myself in the eyes of the prestigious elders. So you’re stuck with me.”
“I’m sorry… did you just say elders? As in your grandparents?”
She snickered, “Yeah, we will go with that. Man, you really have no idea do you?”
“About this college or college in general? No, freshmen here… remember?” I sighed and slumped onto the sofa and put my face in my hands.
“Don’t worry Chika, i'll teach you everything there is to know about Blackbird academy”
“Really?”
“Yup. Rule number one, Survive it.”
I looked up hoping to any sign of her kidding, but she looked deadly serious, and her green eyes appeared to be glowing.
What is this place?
“Survive it?” I whispered“Yeah you know, being the new girl, college courses… college parties. That kind of thing.”“Oh, right…yeah.” For some reason I’m almost positive that isn’t what she meant.“So dinner? I just have to freshen up a bit.” She looked over at me, “You should too, and showers are down the hall to the right.”I grimaced and realized I must look like death warmed over and everyone here so far was drop dead gorgeous, “yeah, that sounds great, I’ll be ready in twenty.”She nodded her head and headed back towards her room. I decided to dig through my stuff and find things to shower, I desperately needed to wash this drive off of me. Finding the showers was easy enough, although I wasn’t thrilled at the aspect of having t
I slammed the door to our dorm shut trying to catch my breath.“You alright girl? You look…flushed.”“I’m fine, just hungry.”Laura looked at me like she didn’t believe me, but this day was weird enough already. How was I going to explain to my roommate that I was pretty sure I was seeing everyone’s eyes change colors and not to mention hearing things? And the first guy that I saw here I was seconds away from climbing him like a tree and begging him to take my virginity? Jesus, I needed to get a grip. I walked into my room and sat on the bed trying to talk myself into getting dressed and going downstairs. Although… hiding out here seems like the better option.“Knock knock, let’s go lady- everyone is just dying to meet you.” Laura shimmed into my room, “Unless you plan on going in a towel
“Okay very funny Laura, let’s all pull pranks on the new girl is that it? That’s what is going on isn’t it? I knew I kept seeing peoples’ eyes change colors! You totally got me.” I laughed.“No Charlee, you don’t understand. I was supposed to mentor you these next few weeks, find out what you know, and what you don’t. Monitor you to make sure that you were one of us, but you just can’t go around telling people you’re Terry Jones’ daughter. You can’t go around telling people your last name period.” She was sitting now, at our small kitchen table. “I’m going to tell you somethings that are going to make you think I’m crazy, and after I’m done talking you can run to Olivia and get a new roommate if you want, but that still won’t make it not true. Okay?”“Okay… but Laura, you’re real
I just stared at her, waiting for her to tell me this was all a joke. I mean, it all had to be a joke right? Magic? There is just no way, no how. Also, whoever ran this school had to know who I was- I mean they sent me my letter of acceptance.“It doesn’t make sense Laura, they would have to know who I was in order for me to come here, and wouldn’t they have just “killed” me then if they knew who I was?”She shook her head. “We’ve all basically known who we are and our history since birth. Once every few hundred years a warlock will step out on his wife and have an illegitimate child but as soon as they are able they come to school here and learn. It’s always the talk of the town for a few decades.”“Laura, you aren’t answering my question.” I was becoming impatient, every fiber of my being wanting to say she was l
I laid in bed awake, tossing and turning and trying to make sense of everything in my head. As much as I wish it weren’t true, everything seemed to add up. Why else would I have been accepted here on a full ride? Why had my father run off without so much as a “see you later, thanks for the great lay!” It’s exactly as my roommate said, he didn’t want to take responsibility. My heart ached for my mother, there was no way she knew the truth, her relationship or whatever it was with my father had been a lie. I pulled out my cell phone and glanced at the time, 2:45 am. I groaned and decided to go out to the living area, maybe I could watch some TV and fall asleep on the sofa. I closed my bedroom door as quietly as I could behind me, but before I could make it to the TV the bookshelf caught my eye. Maybe I should do some research? I glanced at the titles, Early History, Legends, Potion making, Af
“Charlee, CHARLEE.” I was shook awake and Laura had a panicked look on her face, “You were screaming, are you okay?”I looked around and realized that I was safe in my room, “hum, yeah, really bad dream…”“Jesus girl, talk about a wakeup call.”“Sorry about that, I’ve never really had bad dreams before.”“It’s this place, gives everyone the creeps.” She shuddered.“That or the fact that my whole life has been turned upside down in the last 24 hours.”“Oh yeah, that could be it. Breakfast? I’m starved.”“Sure, I just want to shower first.”Laura left the room and I flopped back down on the bed, what was with that dream? And why did it feel
Laura’s idea of fun was holding ourselves in our room while we watched reruns of “Gilmore Girls,” painted our nails and stuffed our faces full of junk food. I had to admit I was having a good time. However around midafternoon I was itching to go explore, and if that meant I ended up at the pool- I was okay with that.“Hey, I’m thinking about going to check out the pool. Want to come?”“Oh no chika, I just stuffed my face full of Doritos, I’m not swim suit ready.”I chuckled, typical. “Totally fine, but I’m going to go anyway.”She shrugged “Suit yourself, but I can’t promise to save you any munchies for later.”I went into my room to dig through my suitcases, for a brief second I thought about staying in to unpack, but the need to swim was overwhelming,
I basically ran the last half of the way back to my dorm room,“Laura, you’ll never guess what…”“CHARLEE, so glad your back, we have a visitor.”“Sebastian I swear…”“Sebastian?” “I would hope you aren’t talking about Sebastian Lane.” The voice cut like glass. I looked over and saw Mrs. Henderson sitting at our kitchen table.I looked over at Laura and she gave me a shut the fuck up if you want to live look.“Oh, uh, Hi Mrs. Henderson. Nice to see you again.”“I highly doubt that dear.”“Now, Laura here as told me that she accidently
With no other options left, I decided I needed to head back to my dorm room. I found myself pacing outside of my door, I had been asleep for two weeks, the last time I had seen Laura she was scared of me. Before I could stop pacing and figure out my next move, the door swung open, and I was met with a puffy faced Laura. I was immediately engulfed in her arms, while she sobbed.“I’m so so sorry Charlee, I over-reacted. Everyone’s magic comes to them in different ways, I’ve just never really seen it since we are taught at birth ways on how to control it when we turn 18. I tried to visit you in the infirmary but Sebastian was scaring everyone, I mean like really scaring everyone.”Laura was squeezing me so tightly that there was no way I was going to be able to get a sentence out let alone breathe.“Laura… I… Can’t…Breathe.”
I wasn’t sure how long I stayed on the bathroom floor, thoughts of my normal life before flickered through my mind. How easy it was only being concerned about boys and what to wear to school, now I was concerned about turning into a big huffy and puffy dragon, and the fact that everyone kept telling me I was in grave danger. I yearned for someone to talk too, someone who understood, but I had no one. I was alone. Eventually the nurse flew into the bathroom like a bat out of hell, cursing me up and down for almost giving her a heart attack thinking she lost me. She begged me to get back into the bed and stay, but I just wanted to be alone, and away from prying eyes. Finally she caved in, only after I promised her I would be back tomorrow morning for a checkup and telling her over 100 times that if anything felt even remotely off, I would come back. Leaving the infirmary left me feeling restless, I was unsure if I should go back to my dorm- Sebastian said I had
“Little bird? I’m going to need you to wake up now.”His voice was creeping into my barley awake brain, but it was spreading all throughout my body. Like my own personal antidote. I felt him run his fingers up and down my arms, it was exhilarating, and every part of my body felt like it was coming back alive from the brink of death just by his touch.“I see you responding to my touch, please open your eyes…” he whispered.I was helpless to refuse him, knowing what he was to me. My eyes fluttered open, the light was painful and I needed to blink multiple times to gain focus so I could begin taking in the room around me, it was white, it smelled sterile, of antiseptic- it made me want to gag.I looked over to my left and I saw Sebastian, elbows on the bed, face much too close and yet not close enough. “How long have I been out
I was aware enough to realize that Sebastian was handing me off to someone in white, he was very animated with his hands. He kept looking down at me, worry laced his handsome features. A bright light assaulted my eyes, I tried to knock it away, but the weight of my arms were too much to bare. I looked over at Sebastian, who was now sitting in a chair next to me. His head cradled in his hands, he looked broken. Once again, I tried to reach out, instead of failing this time I succeeded, I grabbed his hand just as a shooting pain overtook my entire body, and everything faded to black.“You must wake up, there isn’t much time. Please.” A voice reached my ears. I tried to rub away the inky black spots that clouded my vision but unfortunately I was not succeeding.“Charlee, can you understand me?” A cold hand touched my shoulder. It seemed to zap my brain into full consciousness, as I took in
The cracking of my bones finally subsided, and when I could think straight I realized I was at the shores edge, two legs instead of four.“Our rider?” I asked.Silence surrounded me, great. I guess I will just have to wait until next time.Shit, I really needed to get back to the room, even if Laura was scared of me. I started my trek back to the main campus, marveling at how even in the dark everything seemed unnaturally alive. The moon was a bit too bright, crickets chirping a little too loudly. The forest seemed restless, the fog had settled just below the tops of the trees, creating an unnatural looking barrier between the ground and the sky. I choked on the humidity, sweat pooling around the base of my neck as I made my way back. It took me a second to realize what I was feeling, and
I’m a fucking dragon.Yes, we are.There was the voice again.“uh, dragon?” I thoughtYesHoly shit. I was losing my mind, I’m talking to myself, in my head and apparently it’s a DRAGON, or I’m a dragon. My thoughts raced, what was I? Am I stuck like this forever? Why can I breathe under water? Oh my god, they really are going to kill me.Calm down, I will answer everything you want to know.“Uh… what are we?”We are a dragon shifter, the first in a very long time. I’ve been waiting for you.“Are w
Laura ran off to her room and I figured it was best not to bother her for the rest of the day. In hopes of being a good roommate and wanting to convince her I wasn’t going to hurt her, I decided I would go to the beach. For a brief second I considered going to the pool, but shuddered at the thought of going back there. Beach it was. I quickly changed out of my clothes and into my swimsuit, wanting to give Laura as much space as she deemed necessary.As I made my way I noticed a group of students playing some form of football but the ball never touched the ground, they all had silver eyes. That made sense. The campus was beautiful, the grass was almost an unnatural shade of green, with vines running up the sides of the buildings, it looked like a picture from a fantasy. I laughed to myself, of course it would. I shook my head, and made my way into the dense forest that would lead me to the ocean. I took my time, noticing the difference
I found myself entering Olivia’s office in just my towel, perfect. She motioned for me to take a seat, and I begrudgingly obliged.“Care to explain what exactly happened?”“Not really.” Where was this attitude coming from? I should be scared shouldn’t I? Instead, I felt mildly irritated, she attacked me.“Ms. Jones, you’d do well to remember that you are here on scholarship, fighting between anyone especially different affinities is STRICTLY prohibited.”I hated being chastised.Weak, we can take her. It was that voice again, it startled me and I jumped.“Ms. Jones? I’m losing my patience.”“I don’t know what happened, o
I felt Sebastian’s absence in my bones, it was a chill I couldn’t shake. It felt as though my heart was bleeding and pouring out into the water around me, I couldn’t stop the tears. I wasn’t sure how long I stayed in the pool, just that when I got out my lips were blue. I made my way back to my dorm in my sopping wet clothes, all I wanted was a hot shower and sleep. I barely made it through the door“WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?” Laura’s voice hit an octave I wasn’t sure was possible “You just left me there with Parker and his goons. It was unbearable, he kept asking where you went, what you’ve said about him…” Her voice trailed off as she looked at me, “Oh my god Charlee, are you okay?”“I don’t think so.” I leaned on her and let the tears flow, luckily for me Laura didn’t press the subject any further, just let me