BLOODSTONE ACADEMY

4: A White-Haired Nemesis.

     The school was better in person than it had looked in the pictures. Not significantly, but it looked slightly less haunted. Or maybe that was just because it was daytime.

Anyways...

It was a grand gigantic gothic castle-style baroque building that loomed eerily against the early September sun.

The ancient building seemed to be leaning forward, as though it were about to collapse unto the grounds.

Numerous towers jutted out of various sides of it, atop which stone angels and grotesque looking gargoyles were mounted.

The windows in the towers were dark and opaque, as though they'd been coloured and blurred by the hands of time, and misty white fog hung all over the school grounds.

The driveway leading up to the gates seemed like a driveway to the gates of Hell, flanked on both sides by more gargoyles.

I might be a bit dramatic with my descriptions, but yeah, you get the gist. I didn't want to be there.

"We're thrilled to have you joining us for the fall session, Miss Eadwald! I can already tell you'll fit just right in! A lovely addition of beauty and brains to our school of esteemed noblesse prestige!"

A robust, dark-skinned woman who had introduced herself to Mom and I as the principal, babbled on in a thick Irish accent beside me as we walked through the school hallways, headed towards her office.

But I had zoned her out from the moment she came out to receive us at the entrance with shrieking, exaggerated greetings.

Not listening to a word the principal was saying, I let my gaze run along the stone walls of the school halls, and over the paintings lined along them.

Students dressed in pristine, black suit jackets, worn over white shirts with red stripped neck ties, combined with crimson skirts for the girls, and trousers for the boys, milled about.

Some of them eyed me weirdly, but I couldn't care less about them. None of them were half as interesting as the paintings decorating the halls.

Most of the paintings were of unfamiliar people who seemed as ancient as the school itself, and their eyes strangely seemed to follow me as we walked down the hallways. Or maybe I was just imagining it because I was still jet lagged and needed more sleep.

"Jade?" Mom pulled on my sleeve after seconds stretched into awkward minutes, and I still hadn't responded to the principal's babbling.

But my gaze remained transfixed on one of the paintings of a woman with beautiful bronzed dark-brown skin and silver-white hair. Her eyes were such an enthralling shade of midnight blue, that they held me captive. Even as my legs continued to move forward, my gaze remained locked with hers, until I bumped into something...or rather someone.

I turned around in a bid to apologize, but they beat me to speaking.

"Eyes forward, young lady!"

A voice, as chilly as a winter's midnight breeze chided, and I looked up with a brow raised as I took a few steps back.

"I could say the same for you, young man." I retorted, my brow raising further at the demeaning scowl I met with on downturned lips.

A small pit of annoyance bubbled to life in my stomach. To think I had just been about to apologize...

The person I'd bumped into had velvety dark-brown skin that was as smooth and rich as the cool baritone of his voice, with eyes a glacial midnight blue that strangely resembled that of the woman's in the painting.