Gargoyle Saga: In The Beginning

Chapter Twenty-three

It was the first proper night of Gargoyle Academy. I was dressed in my rather unique uniform and had a brown leather bag slung over my shoulder. And as I saw the diminishing sun setting behind the forest and the five of us were looking over our class schedules feeling rather anxious.

Over the past two days, the first years were buzzing with what they learnt at the T.A.T. Tara and Saskia's names were thrown around now and again, but my name also came up. Perri thought it was cool that I was a celebrity, but she didn't see the other side to this fame. The glaring, the whispers the paper-aeroplanes sent flying towards my head and the wild rumours about my being a Watcher was in fact a mistake. Oh yes. It was amazing fun. And just when I needed him the most, when I needed his guidance and support, Von was off gallivanting with his new girlfriend, Amalie, Grace's big sister and Grace was the only one who understood how annoying it was that they were together.

"I tried to speak to her the other day," Grace told me as the five of us headed down to breakfast at 7:30 pm. "She told me to wait outside her dorm while she and two of her friends were just standing there in front of the mirrors talking about Von," Grace said begrudgingly in spite of herself. "I was there for so long, Amalie didn't even know I was there. She'd forgotten."

Grace sounded extremely upset about being ignored by her big sister, so I tried to perk her up. "Don't worry about it. We can be each other's big sister." I told her confidently. "Today is my first proper day at the academy. We have architecture, magic and lunaology to look forward to."

"Ooh, lunaology!" Fraya squealed, turning around to look at us. "It's so amazing! But seriously, the class starts at mid-night? That's just so weird, I still can't get used to that."

Sitting down to a table, we ate our breakfast of eggs, bacon and sausages with a drink of golden apple juice. I picked up my cup and sniffed its contents. "This is going to sound weird, but I think I can actually smell the magic."

Fraya giggled and took a sip. "Wow, it's like... it's like... You know I can't actually describe it."

We each tasted the drink and neither of us could understand the taste. In fact, I'd go as far as it not tasting but more feeling a strange magical power as it hit my stomach. Needless to say, we all left feeling extremely proud of ourselves and if not, a little bit magical. Although it was particularly irksome that I couldn't produce a single piece of magic at the T.A.T and yet earlier I had cast that spell to dry my hair. I wanted to ask Von about it, but currently, he was occupied and I hadn't seen Dean or Rowan to ask them either.

Being at the academy for just only a couple of days, I now started to tell the difference between first years, second years and third years. I was careful to not tread on tails, be impaled by horns or slapped in the face by wings and couldn't help but smile at the wonder of this magical place hidden within a secluded forest in England.

I counted twenty of us, huddled outside the architecture room but found that our teacher was late. "Who do we have?" Perri asked around.

"Mistress Adams," Lauri piped up. I didn't clock that he was in the same class as us and quickly recognised his two friends Finn and Oren that I'd saw at the T.A.T.

"Sorry I'm late!" The class turned to see a frayed blond frizzy-haired woman, trailing her wings behind her, running towards us. "Right, first things first. I'm Mistress Adams, I'm not usually late, stuff happens." She shrugged. "So, in you go." She snapped her fingers and the door unlocked.

"Cool," Perri smiled and was the first inside the room.

The straight-backed dark rosewood seats and matching desks were placed in a perfect circle around the room, facing towards the centre. Mistress Adams sidled into the centre throwing a heavy bag on the floor and took a few moments to catch her breath as we sorted out our books.