Page 1 of The Holy Academy of Witches

Prologue

When you’re born a witch in a human world, aware of all the magic and secrets the universe has to hold, what’s left? What can you dream of when the world is made of nightmares?

* * *

I ran through the lavender field till it was just a purple blur around me. Panic and fear pushed me further, my limbs burned under the strain. My dark hair flowed behind me like a river, stark against the white dress I wore. The sun shone brightly as it broke free of the horizon, filling the sky with a brilliant watercolour of golds, pinks and reds. I could almost feel the warmth on my skin. ‘Almost’ because this wasn’t real. This was a nightmare, it just didn’t feel like one yet.

Squeezing my eyes closed, I continued running. On and on I ran, cutting a path through the lavender, my dress snagged and tore the quicker I pushed through. Finally, as I reached the edge of the field as it met the forest, the sky began to darken. Even with my eyes closed, I could feel the sun’s touch leaving my skin, the chill creeping up my spine.

As I opened my eyes I was met with darkness, the kind of blackness that was unnerving. I was in the forest, though I couldn’t remember running this far. Wasn’t that always the way in dreams? You always find yourself right in the middle of the story.

I lifted my eyes to the sky, a storm churned overhead. The air became electric, humming with apprehension. I spun in a circle, lost… So lost. Every direction was the same: trees, trees and more trees. They were large, knotted and twisted. Ivy and moss growing up their length, the scent of damp earth ingrained in the bark.

A sensation tickled the back of my neck and I stilled. The forest held its breath.

Silence.

Even the rain, which had begun to fall, was without sound as it soaked my skin. I knew what I’d find if I turned around. A rasping breathing started somewhere behind me, my eyes screwed shut tightly. Tighter, tighter.Please wake up.

The laboured breathing grew closer. Closer. Closer until… It stopped. The moment dragged on. No sound other than the pounding of my heart against my rib cage. The forest waited. My nightmare waited. It wanted me to turn around. The compulsion to do so was strong, ‘just look,’ the dream whispered. I didn’t want to look, I wanted to wake up.Please let me wake up.

‘Just look’.

Resolve crumbling, I turned shakily, my eyes on the leaf-strewn ground. Still only silence. I lifted my eyes, slowly.

There was nothing. Nothing to see, nothing to hear. My shoulders sagged with relief as my eyes fluttered closed against the falling rain. A hand grasped around my wrist and my eyes snapped open.

Frozen, I screamed.

One

Adeline

Ibolted upright in bed, my heart beating out of my chest.Just a dream… just a dream,I repeated to myself as I flopped back against the pillows. Rubbing my hands over my face, I rolled over, reaching for my phone.

03:00am

Great.

I climbed out of bed and stretched before padding barefoot into the kitchen area of my dormitory, which was really more of a four-bed apartment. I flicked the light switch and made myself a hot chocolate. It was so quiet that I could hear the wind through the trees outside, the leaves whispering.

My mother and I had arrived at the Academy earlier in the evening, a full day before everyone else. A necessity when your mother happened to be the headmistress of your school. Not just any school, the “most prestigious Academy of magic in all of Europe.” I could almost hear my mother’s well-spoken voice in my head. She was never one for reading me a bedtime story, or kissing my tears away when I’d fallen. She was there… but not. Her thoughts never far from work, always preoccupied, always too busy and I was always a nuisance, always too much. Never enough.

After settling into the window seat, I sipped at my cocoa and looked out into the darkness. It was the same sky everyone saw when they looked out of their windows at night, yet there was just something in the air here, like the magic needed to make itself known; the stars shone a little brighter, the darkness more consuming. I wouldn’t be able to fall back to sleep now, but at least no one was around to lecture me about not getting enough sleep and how it would affect my concentration on a day of learning. I pottered over to the bookcase, which I’d already filled with my textbooks for the year. A necessary strategy to prevent my room mates from using it for their Fantasy and Reverse-harem collections. I grabbed a textbook from the shelf, and settled back into my seat. May as well put the remaining hours before people arrived to good use.

* * *

It was only six am when a sheet of black paper, folded neatly into an aeroplane, flew confidently through the closed window, as if glass ever stood a chance at stopping word from my mother. I plucked the paper out of the air and smoothed it out. Ah wonderful, she wanted me to show around a new girl. I incinerated the letter, blowing the ashes into the bin.

After a cool shower, I sat at my dressing table. Swathed in a black silk robe, I applied my makeup, ignoring the weight of my long black hair up in rollers. My three room mates soon entered the dorm with such noise I slammed my door closed with a flick of my fingers.

“Hey bitch!” Dorcas yelled, as she stepped over the threshold. Rolling my eyes, I continued sweeping blush across each cheek as I looked at the options for which lipstick to use.

Dorcas opened my door without knocking and hovered in the doorway, her flawless brown skin very much on show in a tight red mini-dress, highly inappropriate for an academic setting but that was Dorcas all over. She didn’t really care much about people’s opinions of her. She had been involved in a freak accident as a small child, which had left her orphaned and after spending the following decade bouncing around group homes, she was eventually taken in by an older couple who were devoted to her. It was lovely really, but she had never managed to get rid of the side of her which had had to grow up too soon.

“Yes?” I asked, applying a deep plum lipstick to my lips.

“Hi Dorcas, how was your summer? Good thanks, Adeline. How was yours? Pshhh.”

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