Discipline Academy-The Mystery of Abbey College (#NaNoWriMo2016)

Abby

Abby

Scotland, September 1st, 1837

Discipline (n): to bring to a state of order and obedience by training and control.

The definition was hung on an embossed placard above the gates to Discipline Academy. Above it, the school's flag fluttered in the crisp, constant wind: two crossed keys, one a dark rust color, one black, on a blue-black background. On the gate latch–a round, worn metal plate–the school's motto circled the crest of the two keys. "In Omnia Paratus." Ready for anything.

Every time I passed through those gates, I paused to look up. Every time, I was struck by those words, by that image. Ready for anything. Discipline. Keys. They spoke to me, their message one I had been raised on.

I'd lived at Discipline all my life; I'd been born in the infirmary, raised in the staff apartments, educated in the ways of the school. When my mother had died, I'd been allowed to stay, living in her apartment, under the care of the whole faculty. I'd spent all of my fifteen years behind the school's walls; it was my home.

When I'd turned fifteen, the headmaster, Professor Carrington, had offered me a place among Discipline's first-year students. I had accepted, and the first of September saw me wearing the long plaid skirt whose colors exactly matched the colors of the flag, the white blouse, black tie, and the blue-black suit-coat with the school's crest on the breast. I had yet to be given my academic robe, the black garment all students wore instead of a coat. Neither did I yet wear the plaid, or tartan, of a college, as I had yet to test into one.

For all I had lived at Discipline all my life, the college entrance test was still a complete mystery. I had no idea what it entailed, only that each first year went, alone, into the testing room, and, whatever happened inside, emerged wearing their college's tartan.

There were five colleges: St. Madeline's, Morrigan, Carnegie, Highland, and Ravensbrook. There had been a sixth, years ago, long before I was born: Abbey College. I had never learned, to any satisfaction, what had become of it.

Each college had its own words, from Ravensbrook's ominous "Veni, vidi, vici," (I came, I saw, I conquered), to Morrigan's more comforting "Nolle timere," (Don't be afraid). The words all spoke to some aspect of the college's reputation.

Except St. Madeline's. St. Madeline's was different. St. Madeline's had two different mottos. According to legend, St. Madeline's had adapted one of its two sets of words after the fall of Abbey College. I had no idea if this was true or not, but either way, it gave St. Madeline's, in my opinion, a mystique that the other four lacked.

My mother had placed into St. Madeline's.

I wanted to, too.

And yet, I couldn't forget Abbey College. It and I shared a name, and that, to me, created some kind of a bond that drew me to wish it had not come to ruin, however that ruin had come. 


But, in the nonexistence of Abbey College, I would gladly settle for St. Madeline's, if only I could be guaranteed that was where I would end up. Perhaps Carnegie and Highland, or even Morrigan, wouldn't be so bad. But I wouldn't be able to bear Ravensbrook. Their words left me cold–"Veni, vidi, vici".

On September first, I'd found myself out front the gates, waiting, with the other first years, for permission to enter; it was tradition that any scholar of Discipline began his or her journey at the gates, and, according to Headmaster Carrington, not even I was to break that tradition.

It was just before sunset, and the wind blew cold across the highlands. The Old Castle, the heart of campus, cast a long, dark shadow down the cobbled length of the Promenade, the tree-lined road that cut straight through the heart of campus, to the Old Castle's gates.