Winston Academy Middle School: Year 1

Chapter Seven: I (Kind Of) Figure The Riddle Out

Ever since I showed them that locket, my 5 friends were willing to help me research in their free time. Most of the time it would be Michel, since he didn't have problems with lessons.

October came around, which meant my birthday was getting close. We still haven't found anything worthwhile, so I hoped that one of my 13th birthday presents would be a bit of info about the 'accident'.

The Tuesday of my birthday week, 7th graders were getting into wolf transformation. Michel had blurted out about my accidental transformation to Mr. Goodwill, but that was fine since Mr. Goodwill actually took it as a good thing.

He said potentially powerful werewolves can have those accidents. Good when used against creatures of the dark side, not so much accidentally on your friends.

"To turn into a wolf, you must focus on your strengths, the good things about yourself. The reason why our wolf form is immensely powerful is because it is basically a condensed, physical form of your strengths." Mr Goodwill explained.

"And to turn back into a human, you have to realize your humanly weaknesses. Before you ask, you want to turn back human because in wolf form, you cannot access your skills as a human. You can only speak in howls, though you can still understand human speech."

Then he demonstrated the change in front of us: human, wolf, back human.

"Now each of you try." Mr. Goodwill encouraged.

I tried thinking about all the things I'm good at, which was easy since there were quite a bit of that. As I did, I could feel power running through me.

At one point I had so much power in me. I felt a burst and -plop- I fell about 50 cm to the ground. I landed on all fours.

I smiled a wolfy grin. Then to let Mr. Goodwill know, I shouted.

"Yeah! I did it!" But I knew most of the others heard it as a howl.

"Good job, Skyler!" Mr. Goodwill pat my furry back.

I turned around and saw that Michel was about to transform. When he did, I pounced playfully on him.

"Hey! Skyler!" He whined.

I laughed. According to some random classmate of mine, it sounded like a bark.

Then I tried transforming back, which took longer. Michel did the same. He had a proud smile on his face.

"Can't believe I can turn into a wolf now..." he muttered.

About five others managed to turn into wolves by the end of class. One of them, a girl with strawberry-blonde hair and two different eye colours, did get stuck in wolf form for a bit longer than she would've liked.

Right after Werewolf Training was lunch break, so I pulled Michel aside to discuss about the mysterious locket.

"Hey, have you got any ideas about what that locket is?" I sat down.

"No. Do you?" Michel also sat down, right next to me. His shoulder was literally brushing against mine.

"Not about the locket, but I did figure out a little something about the poetic instruction," I recalled what happened, "I was rereading a book and I just remembered that 'legacy' can mean descendant. So werewolf's legacy probably means a werewolf Hybrid!"

"You're right! Then maybe the 'sound' is a howl?" Michel added.

"Could be, but doesn't everything we say in wolf form sound like a howl?"

"Well, maybe we actually need to howl in wolf form?"

I tried it, and according to wolf-Michel it sounds no different than usual. Hm, maybe there's a specific howl?

"Maybe Kaiden knows something, since as an elf Hybrid he is a natural with magic items..." Michel suggested.

"Give it a try then. Let's meet up with him." I opened my phone and texted Kaiden.

Around five minutes later we found Kaiden in the open-air lounge area thing, fiddling with his staff. We greeted him and sat down on the other side of the table he was using.

"We have something we need you to inspect. We don't know what it exactly is, but we reckon you do." I pulled out the locket again.

"Ooh, what do you have there?... I think this is a sealing locket, if I'm not mistaken. Can I hold it?" Kaiden reached for the locket.

"Sure."

"Hmm... yes. Uh-huh, interesting," Kaiden tried opening it, and like before it wouldn't budge. Kaiden also tried some tools, his magic staff, even spells, but the locket stubbornly stayed shut.

"Most sealing lockets should open very easily either by simply opening the clasp or with a spell, but this one is odd."

"What is a sealing locket exactly?" I asked.

"It's an item to lock away and destroy evil 'spirits', I guess you can call them that, which possess Hybrids and make them evil against their will." Kaiden thoroughly explained.

"Once a sealing locket is used, it will break. So it's one use only."

"Do I need to mention the poem on the back?" Michel showed Kaiden.

"Wow, that's different."

"Wait, since this is a sealing locket, then the first and second lines have to mean it has to be used against a great evil spirit thing!" I felt my brain putting together this huge, intricate puzzle. It's starting to make sense!

"And the third line means that a werewolf Hybrid is the one to use it!" Michel beamed.

"Now, the fourth line says something about 'academy crumbling down'. What does that even mean?" Kaiden scrunched his eyebrows.

"That's one part missing. The other two missing parts are who is the werewolf Hybrid in question, and what evil spirit is in need of banishing?"

"Well, the locket did mention a 'she'..."

"Still pretty general."

"At least we figured out something, right?" Kaiden tried cheering us up.

"I guess."