AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I think that’s the case at most of the big universities I’ve heard of.” At least in the movies.
“Oh?”
A door opened not far from us, and a lanky guy stood up and walked in without being asked. How did he know he was wanted?
I nodded toward the door closing behind him. “Is the Testing private?”
“Mmm, hmm.” The cheerful Alara was getting quiet, and I peeked over at her.
“Is anything wrong?” If she was nervous, where did that leave me? “Should I be scared?”
She blinked as if focusing again. “Nervous? Well, probably. This only affects the whole rest of your life.”
Before I could react to that bombshell, the door clicked open again and I stood up. “I guess that’s my turn,” I murmured, trying not to be aware of the wide-eyed look Alara gave me. She’d been so comfortable with everything, even if it was her first term, that any panic on her part scared the bejeezus out of me. But, just as weirdly as the fact I knew it was my turn to go in, I knew resistance was futile.
Like a death star tractor beam, I was drawn toward that door. At least I wouldn’t be alone with the proctors or whoever was conducting the Testing. Maybe it was the headmistress herself? That guy who’d gone in ahead of me was still there. Unless he failed and they ate him or something.
The excess of drama snapped me back to myself. Cannibals? Really? Just because I wasn’t familiar with the testing procedures at my new school did not mean I was going in to meet Medusa and be bitten by her snake hair.
“Close the door behind you.”
And then I was all alone with a woman who had to be older than Methuselah, if Methuselah was still alive now. She sat in a deeply upholstered chair in a corner, and her clothing…it bore no resemblance to anything I’d ever seen anyone wear. Medusa would have been a more familiar image. The lady’s hair was gray and long, intricately braided and falling over her shoulders to pool on the floor like coils of rope. Her cloak was royal blue, her dress striped with the same color as well as maroon and gold. And perched atop her braids was a narrow crown with the same sparkle I’d seen on the gate, or something very similar.
She extended a hand to me, and, as you do with the elderly or infirm, I took it gently and helped her to stand. She was petite, at least a foot shorter than me, but as she studied my face, I could see a film over her eyes that hadn’t been apparent in the dimly lit room before. Could she see me at all? If not, she was giving a good impression of doing so.
Once she’d satisfied herself with whatever she saw…or whatever she was doing…she gave a shrug. Her cloak fell to the floor. And from behind her unfolded a set of wings so large, they brushed the nine- or ten-foot ceiling. The woman, whose name I had not learned, enfolded me in the luminous glittering feathers and I froze, unable to move, but enshrouded in so much love, tears poured from my eyes.
Then, the wings were gone, and when I opened my eyes, I faced the same small, cloaked woman.
“You will find your wings here. All of fairy do. Go now, child,” she murmured. “I have much to think on where you are concerned.” She waved me to another door, one the first student must have left via, and I curtseyed and left.
I was shaking when I finally made it outside of the building after running up one hallway and another. The lack of the first student in the room was explained when the crone waved me to an exit on the far side of the chamber. My entire understanding of the world was in pieces, and I had no understanding of it whatsoever.Fairy?I would find my wings here?
I fumbled for my phone in my pocket and yanked it out. My parents. They could explain.
I dialed their landline and both their cells but everything went to voice mail. I finally left a message on Dad’s, but then my voice held more tears than tone. “Daddy, call me. I don’t understand.”
Chapter Nine
I stumbled out of the castle-freaking-fairy place and into the fresh air of the back grounds. With a hooked finger, I pulled at my collar and somehow thought it would make the air come in faster. Nothing helped. If it did, if lack of clothing would help, I would take it all off right there in the courtyard and let the cards fall where they may.
Gods, I was losing it.
As I turned around and looked back at the school, so steeped in history it nearly wept stories, I sighed. Even with my depths of confusion, there was a sense of belonging here. I belonged here, somehow.
My knees shook as the realization took over me. It was like looking into a forest for the hundredth time and just realizing there was a jaguar standing right between two trees. Maybe my true self was the jaguar and I was simply discovering it for the first time.
Shit. I was losing it. Right here in the middle of nowhere. While Stephanie was going to community college and probably waving pom-poms, here I was freaking the hell out because some lady just hugged me with her wings.
“Wings,” I said out loud, and the word itself made me stumble forward.
I stood in sunlight, but the landscape in front of me looked fuzzy, blurry. I reached out, and my hand became opaque in the mist. What the hell was this place? I moved my fingers left and right, trying to figure out the shimmering white line of puffiness in front of me.
“You shouldn’t touch it,” a low bass voice resounded behind me.
“Why?” I asked defiantly but pulled my arm back. My skin tingled on my palm and down my fingers where it once had been inside the mist, which was now swirling around my feet and beginning to travel up my legs. I swayed toward it, drawn to the coolness, the embrace is offered, drawing me in, I—
“Step away.” He took my elbow and pulled me from the mist and then inserted himself between my body and it. The fog or whatever it was seemed offended by the motion and wafted away in a slow, methodical crawl.
