“Hey,
Dana, wake up! We just passed the town line!”
I
groaned as Kara shook me by the shoulder. I hadn’t really been asleep; just
dozing and running through the fifty-five reasons I had tallied so far about
why this year was going to be the worst year of my life. Not that repeating any
of them out loud would convince Kara or my dad of the fact. They’d both been
ridiculously optimistic about my attending WCH instead of going to Salem where
they had to know I really belonged. I got into all of my other safety schools,
of course, and usually with a full scholarship as a boon for my excellent
grades and extracurricular activities. I guess it didn’t hurt that I’d already
mastered a few of the Thirteen Powers under my mom’s tutelage. My name attached
to hers probably didn’t hurt either. Everywhere except her school.
I
shook my head. Before we left home, I had determined to put the endless cycle
of wondering why I had been rejected from Salem behind me. What was done was
done, after all, and I couldn’t do anything about it until spring semester at
the earliest.
“Look!
Oh, isn’t it cute?” Kara squealed.
I
finally looked out the window and saw the town where I’d be spending the next
couple months. Holyoak was much smaller than my own home town. I’d done my research;
the entire population was only five times bigger than that of my public high
school. I was used to living in a place where I could disappear into a crowd. But
this two lane main street lined with elms and mom and pop businesses didn’t
look like it could generate its own government, let alone a crowd.
Not
that the school would be much better. There would only be 30 girls in my entire
graduating class! I’d always liked small classes, but that was kind of insane.
Before
Kara could breathe more than a few oohs and aahs, we’d reached the end of the
shops and turned onto another street, this one lined with trees and houses.
“Guess
there probably won’t be much of a nightlife here, huh?” Kara said. My dad
chuckled from the front seat.
“Holyoak
might be small, but you’ve never been much for distractions from your academics
anyway, right, Dana?” he said.
There
was that stupid optimism again. I forced myself to smile and nod.
Right.
My life was over.
The
houses we were passing spaced out. And then there were farms with actual cows and
horses. I looked up and saw more sky than I was generally comfortable with.
“Hey,
that must be it,” my dad said suddenly as we came around a bend in the road. Up
ahead we could see a hill rising above the town. It was crowned with a circle
of large brick buildings and more trees. Trees
everywhere, I thought bitterly. My
allergies are gonna go berserk.
The
farms vanished quite suddenly behind a wall of trees. They lined the road,
looming and bowing together in a long and unbroken tunnel of green and brown. The
hill disappeared from view. Kara pressed her nose to the window in an effort to
peer between the tree trunks flashing by.
“I
can’t see anything,” she complained.
“Duh,”
I said, leaning back in my seat. “Just because the college is here, doesn’t
mean it was always welcome. I read in the brochure that they started growing
these trees in 1909 after there was a string of local disappearances.”
Kara’s
eyes grew round.
“It’s
not what you think,” I said. Black and white photos of my Victorian
predecessors flickered through my head. “It was students who were disappearing.
Being shot by the yokels who saw them flying or conjuring things out of midair.
Convinced that the devil was among them. After that, the school put in the
trees and they put up an iron fence too and started spreading rumors around
town about being an insane asylum for girls. Now no one can just see in, and
more importantly no one can just walk in.”
“But
everyone knows about witches now,” Kara said. She looked frustrated, and I
didn’t blame her. I still struggled with wishing we were more accepted too. That’s
why my mom worked so hard as an advocate.
“Yeah,
but it takes time to change opinions,” I said.
I
could have said more on the topic – it was dear to my heart – but just then my
dad turned the car into a gap in the trees marked with a white street sign.
Witches College
of Holyoak à it read in straight black letters. I was
sure I would have missed it if I hadn’t been looking for it.
We
drove for about a quarter of a mile until we met a towering wrought-iron gate
stretched across the road in front of us. I glanced at Kara whose eyes were
rounder than ever.
“Oh
wow,” she said. “Wow! Look at it! It’s so… so…” She couldn’t seem to figure out
what it was, but I had a few descriptors of my own.
“Old?”
I said. “Decadent? Arrogant?”
My
dad snorted.
“No
way!” Kara said. “It’s beautiful. Look at it! Oh man, I want to go to school
here…”
I
shook my head. Unlike the Salem Institute which had been fully renovated into a
modern campus with beautifully sleek buildings and paved squares, Holyoak
looked pretty much the same as it had in photos from when it was built in 1905.
The gate was a iron monstrosity of carved flowers and vines twining around the
date the school had been founded. Beyond it was a cobblestone avenue winding
its way up the hill. Victorian houses painted in garish colors crowded close
together on either side of the road. From down here at the bottom of the hill,
we could only see the tops of the academic buildings, but I had seen them in
pictures and I knew they were all colonial revival in design, big brick squares
with lots of rectangular windows and pointless columns and porticos.
None
of it was my style at all. Everything looked like it was trying too hard. As
the gates opened, and my dad drove forward, I hoped fervently that I wouldn’t
end up living in one of the houses sporting bright pink and purple trim.
A
woman wearing a tweed skirt and matching jacket stood next to the road just
inside the gate. She motioned for my dad to roll his window down.
“Name
of your student?” she said in a pleasant voice.
“Dana
Bolete.”
My
dad had barely finished saying my name when the woman’s whole face lit up. I
groaned; I should’ve guessed that my name was going to garner me some unwanted
attention. Especially from someone who looked like she was in my mother’s age
bracket.
“Oh
yes!” the woman exclaimed. She leaned forward to see me cowering in the
backseat. I offered her as tepid a smile as I could manage. “We’ve heard such
wonderful things,” she chattered, beaming away. “So pleased you’re here.”
I
considered asking my dad to turn around right there, but by then my new admirer
was already directing him to the top of the hill.
“All
of our Neophytes live in the houses closest to the faculty,” she told him even
though her eyes were still trained on me. I could feel an extreme heat in my
cheeks, and Kara hiding a grin behind her upraised hands wasn’t helping. I
poked her in the ribs. She collapsed into giggles at my side, and the woman
raised her eyebrows at us. Some of the shine left her eyes.
“Yes,
so, just up the hill there,” she said in a bit of a flustered tone. My dad
nodded, and I could see his eyes dancing in the rearview mirror as he rolled
his window up.
We
made our way up the hill slowly. The street was wide enough for four lanes of cars,
but my dad was indulging Kara in her wild pointing and marveling over the
architecture. Both sides of the street were lined with three story Victorian
houses spaced moderately far apart from each other. We saw glimpses of their
fenced in backyards, full of flowers and bushes and I thought I even saw a
fountain or two. My heart started to thump a little painfully in my chest. Was
I going to college or finishing school? All of this old-fashionedness made me
feel like the school gate had been a portal to the past.
The
houses didn’t diminish the slightest in their ornate design as we left the
older girl’s housing behind and came upon those for the first year students.
The only reason I could tell the difference was the cars parked out front of
these, unloading girls who looked to be my age with their families and piles
and piles of suitcases. I felt a bit boggled by some of the trunks being pushed
out of backseats. What was in there? Clothing? Who needed so many clothes?
Another
woman, this one much younger than Tweedy, stood in the middle of the street
directing traffic. She pointed my father to an empty spot, and he pulled up to
the curb and turned the engine off.
He
turned in his seat to face me, and smiled. “Well, my little princess,” he said.
“This is it.”
“Please
don’t call me that,” I said, scrunching my nose at him.
He
laughed. “You’ll miss it soon enough,” he replied sagely. I couldn’t say
anything because I knew it was probably true. I hadn’t been away from him for
more than two or three days at a time in my entire life. He worked from home,
so I was used to him always being there for me. Everything about my daily life
was about to get very strange…
I
unhooked my seatbelt and patted my dad on the shoulder.
“I’ll
miss you,” I said with a smile. He
rested his hand on top of mine for a moment, and I swore there were tears in
the corners of his eyes.
I
opened my mouth to say something else – but whether I was going to plead for
him not to leave me or simply reassure him that I would be all right, I never
found out. The young woman directing traffic had come over and was rapping
violently on the back windshield. I threw my door open and got out, worried
we’d done something wrong.
“Are
we in the wrong spot?” I asked. “We can move, it’s not--”
“Oh
no no no!” the woman cried. Her hands were fluttering in front of her chest
like a startled bird’s wings and she was staring intently at my face. “Yes, I
see what Anna meant. You do look just like your mother.” She thrust one of
those fluttering hands in my face. “Hello! My name is Natalie. It’s so nice to
meet you, you know. I’m going to be one of your professors!”
Um… I shook her
hand as gingerly as I could manage without seeming rude. “Nice to meet you
too?” I offered.
She
giggled, for the life of me, in just the same way Kara had when I poked her. “It’s
like having a celebrity on campus,” she went on. “We’ve all heard so much about
how wonderful you are already. In fact, we were quite shocked when you decided
to come here. Thought for sure you’d be attending Salem like your mother. She is wonderful, isn’t she? She came to
speak here once. I remember it like it was yesterday. Well, it was almost
yesterday, you know. It was just at the end of last term during the unrest
after the President’s speech on TV. You remember that, right?”
She
probably would have kept on, but my dad came around the car and interrupted by
introducing himself. I took a moment to step back and take a breath. Natalie’s
babbling made me feel winded. Not to
mention, I didn’t really want to address the fact that everyone else assumed
I’d be going to Salem too.
“So,
where should we set up Dana’s stuff?” my dad asked.
Kara
thumped one of my suitcases down on the curb to punctuate the question. She looked
up at Natalie with an angelic smile. Natalie beamed back at her.
“Ooh,
and you must be the younger sister!” she cooed. I am not even joking. She cooed
just like a proud mother bird. “We can’t wait for you to come of age too,
sweetness,” she said. “We hope you’ll consider WCH like Dana!”
I
paused. She pronounced the school’s acronym just like the word ‘witch’. Really? I thought. Is this honestly a real place?
Kara
was now babbling right along with Natalie, my future professor. I stepped
carefully around both of them, and started unloading the trunk next to my dad.
“I
don’t know if I can do this,” I whispered to him.
“Oh
honey,” he whispered back. “You just need to settle in. Everyone is a little
bit nervous on their first day.”
I
wanted to explain that this wasn’t simply first day jitters, but Natalie had
finally decided to be useful.
“For
the first couple of days of term, it’s just you Neophytes here on campus,” she
explained. “We don’t want you to feel overwhelmed while you get adjusted to college
life, so the older girls don’t get here until you’ve already started your
classes and had some time to explore the college on your own.”
“Fun!”
Kara said. I glared at her. If it was her, she’d already be plotting how best
to take advantage of the time without the upper classman by, I don’t know,
organizing her roommates into toilet papering their houses or something.
“Yes,
it is!” Natalie said with evident pride. “We have lots of events for you all to
get to know each other and develop a sense of class spirit.” She patted my arm.
“You’re really going to love it here. There’s such a great feeling of community
on campus.”
“And
off?” I asked before I could stop myself. But hey, I saw the gates. I wanted to
know the truth that wasn’t in the brochures.
To
her credit, Natalie didn’t look the least bit flustered. “Oh, it’s like just
about anywhere else, I suppose,” she said. “Well, not like Salem because
they’ve always been used to witches in their midst. But Holyoak is a nice
little town with lots of nice people. You’ll see! We do have an event or two
downtown for you girls. Now, let’s see…” She whipped up a clipboard I hadn’t
even realized she had and started scanning down a list. “You’ve been assigned
to the Honeybee House,” she said. Her eyes started twinkling. “I love that
house. It’s my favorite one up here because it’s so sunny looking. You’ll see.
Come with me!”
She
grabbed one of my suitcases, and started off down the street. I glanced at Kara
and my dad, but they were already following with luggage of their own, so I
grabbed my one remaining bag and locked the car. Natalie led us a few houses
down the hill and stopped in front of one that was painted dandelion yellow.
The porch and shutters were bright white and they sported cut outs in the shape
of – you guessed it – honeybees. It was kind of cute, I supposed, but not what
I would have chosen. The house directly
across the street had a copper sign plate out front that read Spider House in beautiful Latin lettering.
It was painted a much more sensible silvery grey. I wondered idly if I could
ask for a transfer.
“Here
we go,” Natalie said, lugging my suitcase up the front steps. “Looks like
you’re the first one here.” She checked her list again. “You’ve got four
housemates coming, and the Caster assigned as your Head Witch In Charge is
Poppy Landry. She should be here, though she is a bit of a social butterfly…”
She peered out at the street, scanning the milling crowd. “Ah, there she is.
Poppy! Over here, love!”
I
turned to see a girl with wildly curly brown hair come sprinting up the walkway
toward us. She definitely didn’t look the type to be able to sprint; she was
short and chubby, and she wore a pair of thick, round glasses that looked like
they came straight out of the 80s. Nonetheless, she sprinted like Secretariat
and leapt up the front steps of Honeybee House to stand panting in my presence.
“Hi!”
she said with so much enthusiasm that I actually took a step backward. Now that
she was in front of me, I could truly appreciate how short she was. I knew I
was taller than average, but this girl was nearly a foot shorter than me.
“Hello,”
I replied. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Poppy
Landry,” she said. “Nice to meet you too! Welcome to WCH. Let me guess… Dana,
right?”
I
nodded.
“I’m
so excited you’re in my house. The
other Head Witches are just green with jealousy.”
Natalie
smiled at us and tapped her clipboard. “Well, I’ll let Miss Landry take it from
her. See you in class, Dana.”
“Um,
see you,” I said as she trotted off to greet the next car that had driven up
the hill.
Poppy
opened the front door (a glaring scarlet with more stenciled honeybees) and
ushered us all inside.
“Just
leave your things here in the front parlor for now,” she said. ‘Once the other
girls have arrived we can all choose our bedrooms and unpack.”
I
stepped over the threshold and looked around. It was just as sunny and overly
decorated inside as out. Colored light from stained glass windows streamed in
to spill over green velvet couches and chairs set with embroidered cushions.
There were half a dozen little tables covered in doilies and cut glass bowls
full of dried lavender and sage. And the luster of the pinewood floors beneath
our feet was being muffled by Persian carpets in every color of the rainbow.
I
looked at Poppy who looked back at me with such a quiet smile that I knew she
knew exactly what I was thinking.
Kara
brushed past me.
“Oh,
look at it, it’s all so cute! Like a doll’s house!” she gushed.
I
looked at my dad, but he just shrugged.
“Don’t
worry,” Poppy told me. “This is just the default set up. Been this way forever,
I think. But you girls will be allowed to put your own stamp on the place.” She
glanced at Kara who was bouncing around the room and looking under every chair
as though expecting to find hidden treasure. “And now I’m sorry to cut the
party short, but it’s time for your family to say goodbye.”
“Of
course,” my dad said cheerfully. ‘We don’t want to get in the way.”
“But
you aren’t in the way,” I protested, feeling like I’d rather go home and rot
than spend one more second in this mothballed massacre of a room. “Can’t they
stay a little longer?”
Poppy
shook her head. “Your housemates will be here soon and the schedule of events
for the day starts in only forty-five minutes. You should really take what time
you have to say goodbye now.” And she smiled again and did her best to fade
into the background by looking out the window and ignoring us.
My
dad enveloped me in a hug. I clung to him. “Relax, Princess,” he whispered. “You’re
going to do great things here. And you’ll make plenty of friends too.”
“But--”
I said.
“Besides,”
he went on, pulling away and looking me in the eye. “The holidays will be here before
you know it. We’ll all see you at Samhain, right?”
“Right,”
I said in a faint voice. I was worried that the tears threatening to spill from
my eyes were actually visible.
“Have
fun, sis!” Kara cried, hugging me briefly before bouncing away again. My dad
managed to catch her hand before she could get too far and, shaking his head,
they moved toward the door.
“Love
you,” my dad said over his shoulder as they left.
“Love
you too!” I called back a belated moment after they were already through the
doorway. I sank down on one of the green couches and stared at my pile of
suitcases.
“So
have you really mastered flying already?” Poppy asked almost immediately. She
dropped down on the couch next to me.
I
was saved from having to answer by a huge crash on the porch.
“Careful!”
a voice cried. “That’s genuine Louis Vuitton!”
Great, I thought as I
got up with Poppy to investigate the situation. She sounds exactly like the kind of girl I want to be friends with…
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