Janette Lennox

Chapter 3

It was official; Janette Lennox was going to leave the only home that she had known her whole life and attend a magical boarding school in a town that was far from the village.

The news regarding her departure swept across Gillamoor like wildfire, and every fishwife and butcher were anxious to know about Janette’s next adventure. Where was the magical school? Who was the headmaster who ran the school? And more importantly, why was Janette Lennox being sent to a magical school to begin with?

For her part, Janette dodged every question that were thrown in her direction, preferring to stare at the train station. She had never been outside the village before; she was nervous about the world ahead.

Headmaster Baynard said to her, "Don't be so nervous, Janette. Nervousness never helped anyone, and it's not going to help you. You just need to swallow your fear and do the thing that you hate to do."

Janette nodded and glanced at the giant clock that was on the wall above the entrance to the train station; the clock said 4:00 PM. The train was quickly arriving.

"Ah, right on time," said the headmaster as he saw the train pulling into the station. "This is our train."

Janette frowned as she saw the passengers getting off the train and walking around the station. There were only three sets of tracks that linked Gillamoor to the rest of England, and Janette suspected that the people living in the cities must think the people living in Gillamoor were strange. She noticed a few of them talking about the business that they had to do in the village with disdain in their voices, as if they didn't even want to be in the village in the first place. "I have never noticed this before," she said to herself. "Nobody seems to like our village. I wonder why it has to be like that."

The train whistle blew, signaling that it was time to board the train. Janette quickly grabbed her bag and followed Headmaster Baynard onto the train, but not before she looked over her shoulder in case Tyson Boulden was there, ready to attack her once again. She had barely survived one beating; she wasn't sure if she could survive another.

After checking to make sure that she wasn't being followed, Janette walked onto the train and the train took off, rapidly pulling her away from the place of her birth and towards an uncertain future. She knew that even if she returned to Gillamoor, she would not be the same person who left Bethsaida Chapel to attend Gamaris Academy.

Now came the time to ask for more information regarding her parents. Janette knew that her father had been with a group of men who stole the Book of Magic from the Gray Witch ten years before and she wondered what happened to her parents to make them send her to the church. She said, "I wonder if my father or mother must have foreseen this happening."

"Foreseen what?" said Headmaster Baynard.

"I know that my father helped steal the Book of Magic and because of that theft, I was sent to Bethsaida Chapel for protection," said Janette. "Did you know him personally?"

"I didn't know him too well,” said Headmaster Baynard, “but what I did know about him was that he was young and impulsive. He did things without thinking of the consequences. I feared for his safety and that of his family, but I knew that had he not stolen the Book of Spells that night, the witches would be ruling over all of England and possibly taking over the rest of the world. So we should be grateful to him for coming up with that idea in the first place."

"What about my mother?" said Janette. "Did you know her?"

"I was the wandmaster during her tenure as a student in Gamaris," said Headmaster Baynard. "She wasn't too bright and never really paid attention to her lessons, but she happened to be the best alchemist that the school has produced in recent years. We won't be seeing the likes of her again, I fear."