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| Sunset at the Bolete residence. |
Dear Dana Bolete,
My heart stopped. It stopped as
though a sledgehammer had smashed into my chest, destroying my life in an
instant. But when the agony of it kept going, I realized my heartbeat was still
chugging along, if somewhat erratically. I shook my head in an effort to
refocus my blurred vision and looked at the letter again.
Sincerely,
Antonia Rivers
Dean of
Admissions
…we
are unable to offer you acceptance…
Impossible. My mother was friends
with Antonia Rivers; they’d gone to the Institute together! How could they
reject me? My grades were perfect. I know I aced their entrance exam. I studied
harder than any other witch I knew, and while that wasn’t a lot of girls, it
was certainly enough for me to feel like I had an upper hand against any of
them. And I knew for a fact Opal had already been accepted.
“What’s that?”
Oh no! Kara! I grabbed the letter and
stuffed it in my desk drawer as quick as thought. I stood up and turned around
with my back to the desk.
“Nothing. Just a charm I’ve been
trying to memorize,” I made up, trying not to let the pain of the rejection
show on my face.
Kara might have been younger than
me, but she wasn’t stupid. She arched a brow at me.
“Uh huh. Well, it’s time for dinner.
And this came for you.” She held up a large white envelope. “At least some
school finally got back to you,” she said as I took it from her.
I got a paper cut trying to open the
damn thing because my hands were still shaking. Kara bounced up and down with
impatience while she watched me struggle to remove the packet of papers it
held. When the first page fluttered to the ground, I cursed, but Kara bent to
snatch it.
“Dear Dana Bolete,” she read aloud
in a too-perky voice. “Congratulations, it is with great pleasure that I write
to offer you admission to the Witches College of Holyoak… blah blah blah,
Imogene Ivy, Dean of Admissions. Hey, I guess it’s nice your safety school
wants you, right?”
“Yeah,” I said. The rest of the
papers in my hand were all pamphlets on housing and classes and how to get
matched up with a roommate. I dropped them on my desk. “Really nice,” I
repeated.
Kara rolled her eyes and tossed the
admission letter at me. “Not to worry, Brainiac. I’m sure the Institute is just
putting the finishing touches on your welcome basket.”
I nodded, too numb to speak, and
followed her out to the dining room. My father was just setting the last of the
salad plates out as we sat down, but my mother was nowhere to be seen. For a
moment, the weight on my heart lessened. If I could just have one evening free
of my mom, I was sure I could figure out some way to contact Antonia and ask
her what had happened. There was no way I wasn’t going to Salem. No way. My
mother never had to know they’d sent me that letter.
But after my dad brought out a huge
tureen of gazpacho, he sat down and said, “Let’s just wait. Your mom should be
home any minute now.”
I thought it was impossible to feel
more panic than I’d felt the moment my eyes saw the word “unable” on my letter
from the Institute. But when the sound of my mother’s boots hitting her landing
platform on the roof echoed through the house, I realized I was wrong. The urge
to run away as fast as I could seemed a bit silly considering my mother had the
power of flight, so instead I slumped down in my seat and prayed very hard for
the gods to open a rift in the earth below me and swallow me whole.
Please,
please… I prayed. I’ll do anything if
you just make it so she doesn’t have know.
The front door opened. I watched my
dad serve the gazpacho and my sister chatter at him about her day as though the
events were transpiring in slow motion. Every one of my mother’s footsteps
sounded like a gong knelling my execution. When she finally entered the dining
room, I couldn’t even look at her. I started eating my salad as fast as humanly
possible.
“Dana, please.” My mother’s voice
broke through my panicked haze. “You’re a girl, not an animal.”
I slowed down, but still couldn’t
look at her. She settled herself in the chair at the head of the table, and
joined in the conversation the others were having. I concentrated on eating my
gazpacho without slurping.
“And Dana, how was your day?”
When I glanced up, I could see that
my dad had asked because he was genuinely concerned about me. Acting the way I
was, I guess I couldn’t be surprised. Usually it was all I could do not to
recount every single thing I had learned that day at dinner time. It wasn’t
like my dad knew my life was about to be over. I cursed inwardly. Leave it to
his sincerity and caring to wreck my chances to escape unscathed for the night.
“Uh, it was okay,” I said. I dragged
my spoon through the remains of my soup and tried not to look at my mom.
“Just okay?” he pried.
“Stop being so modest, big sis,”
Kara piped up. She turned to our mother with a grin. “She got accepted to
Holyoak.”
“That’s wonderful!” my dad said, and
he sounded like he meant it. I stifled a groan. He was only making things
worse.
“Indeed,” my mom said. I heard her
set her spoon down and immediately started telling myself not to
hyperventilate. “Did you hear from any other schools today, Dana?”
“Um,” I said, and took a drink of
water to cover up from saying any more.
“Antonia said the Admissions Office
at Salem mailed out all their letters three days ago,” my mom said. “Did you
double check the mailbox this afternoon?”
I choked on the water I was
drinking. Kara slapped me on the back.
“I checked it when I got home, Mom,”
she said, and for a moment I thanked her silently for saving me. Until she
added, “But maybe you should check her desk cause she got home before me.”
I shot a glare at her but all she
did was smirk at me. For this morning,
she mouthed at me. Ugh. It wasn’t my fault she had stayed out half the night. I
wasn’t going to cover for her every
time.
“Oh? Did you hear from the
Institute, sweetheart?”
If my dad wasn’t so nice, I would’ve
shot a glare at him too. But he was, and he didn’t know, and I couldn’t.
“Well,” I said. “I mean… Kind of…” I
looked at my mom for the first time. I was told often by her peers that Audrey
Bolete was considered quite a beautiful witch. She was tall and graceful and
always perfectly made up. But when I looked at her, I saw the black swan from
Tchaikovsky’s ballet. Maybe she was beautiful, but her black gaze could chill
me to the core.
“I’ll get it!” Kara trilled. Before
I could stop her, she had dashed out of the room.
Oh
gods, please! I prayed fervently. There was nothing I could about it now.
Kara came back in with the letter and handed it over to my mother. From the
look on her face, she hadn’t read it. She must have thought I was being falsely
modest or something… I couldn’t believe she’d sell me out like this if she
knew.
My mom unfolded the letter and read
it slowly. I watched her eyes move over the words more than once and wondered
if she’d felt her heart stop too. As it was, all of my existence was concentrated
on remembering to breathe.
“This must be a mistake,” she said
finally. My heart leapt up into my throat. She thought so too? Maybe this
wouldn’t be as bad as I thought. “Antonia told me…” But then she shook her head
and seemed to be thinking. Oh gods, what had Antonia told her!?
Obviously whatever the words the
Dean had used, they weren’t ones that absolutely indicated my acceptance. My
mother stood up and crumpled the rejection letter in her fist.
“Dana,” she said, and I cowered. I
had never heard her speak my name in such a cold, flat tone before. The thought
that I had betrayed her came swiftly and horribly to my mind. I had single-handedly
destroyed her national reputation by failing to be accepted to her Alma mater. I
had failed myself, of course, but it was far worse that I had failed her – and my
family. I bowed my head.
My mother dropped the balled up
letter on the table and walked out of the room without another word. I slumped
down in my chair. I heard my dad’s chair scrape across the floor and felt the
weight of his hand on my shoulder for a moment before he hurried after my
mother.
Kara was smoothing the letter open
on the table. As she read it, her eyes widened. She looked at me with horror.
“You didn’t get in?” she whispered. “Dana…”
And as she realized what she had done, she flew across the room to hug me. “I’m
sorry! I never would have given it to her if I’d known. I thought, I thought…”
She was crying. I pushed her away
and stood up. She stared me, hiccuping and still trying to apologize. I shook
my head, but I couldn’t seem to form the words I wanted to say to her. It
really wasn’t her fault after all.
I choked back a sob, and rushed out
of the room before my tears could burst forth.
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Episode 2: The Honeybee House -->
Season 1 - Full Episode Listing
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Episode 2: The Honeybee House -->
Season 1 - Full Episode Listing
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