Chapter Thirty-Eight
The Academy hummed, but beneath that hum, it whispered.
Not in words, exactly. Not in anything you could catch with your ears or scribble down in a notebook. It was more like a suggestion.
A pull. A rhythm against the edges of thought that only grew louder the quieter you became.
I recognized it from the first moment I was in Stonewick, at the cottage…
And I was quiet now.
After everything, the feast, the laughter, the warm glow of the kitchen and the way Nova had looked stepping over the threshold, I’d wandered down this hallway to clear my head. But something else had found me first.
A vibration against my ribs. Not a tremble.
A calling.
I pressed my hand to the stone wall beside me and let my fingers drift lightly along the surface. The whisper was there. The hum ran underneath, soft and steady like a heartbeat, but the whisper… that was what tugged.
The moment I followed it, my pulse quickened.
It wasn’t fear. It wasn’t even really nerves. It was anticipation.
I knew, somehow, without knowing how, that the Academy wanted me to come. Not out of duty or destiny or any of the grand words people throw around when they’re trying to convince themselves they’re important. This felt quieter than that.
Personal. Like a friend reaching for your hand without needing to ask.
The whisper guided me down the corridor, each step deliberate. The sconces flickered brighter as I passed, as though they were stretching after a long sleep.
I followed the curve of the wall, my fingertips trailing across smooth carvings—stars, vines, patterns that looked like the edges of maps or the ends of spells. They lit beneath my touch, faintly glowing, then fading as I passed.
Not everything in the Academy woke for you. You had to be called.
The hallway narrowed, and the air changed.
Lighter.
Like someone had opened a window, though I saw none. The scent of something sweet drifted through, something between wild mint and sun-warmed tea leaves. Familiar, but not traceable.
Ahead, a door waited.
Unlike the heavy oak doors that filled most of the school, this one was slim and whitewashed, with carvings that curled along the frame like ivy. It didn’t creak when I opened it. It didn’t groan or resist. It simply welcomed.
I stepped inside.
The change was immediate.
The room was light. That was the first thing I noticed.
Not lit— light .
The way the air felt, the way the walls shimmered gently, the way the floor seemed to glow with its own memory of sunlight. There were windows, round and low, scattered like stars across the curved wall.
Through them I could see nothing but brightness. A soft, golden haze.
The ceiling arched high, impossibly high, with beams that looked carved from driftwood and inlaid with silver. Tiny winged lights, more like floating seeds than sprites, bobbed gently through the air, humming in tones too faint to catch.
There were no desks. No bookshelves. No chalkboard or lectern.
But there were cushions. Lots of round and square pillows in every color I could imagine had been scattered across the floor like someone had prepared for a gathering that hadn’t yet begun.
At the center of the room sat a small pedestal. Carved, yes, but simply. No flair. No grandeur. Just stone shaped to fit two hands, palms flat, as if waiting for a beginning.
I didn’t move to it.
Not yet.
I walked the edge of the room instead, letting my fingers brush the strange soft walls. They didn’t feel like stone but more like old paper.
The hum was louder here. And yet, it was easier to think.
Hope.
That’s what this room felt like. Not the blind kind. Not the reckless, sunshine-in-a-bottle kind. But something truer. A kind of steadying .
A place for the beginning of something.
I sat on one of the cushions.
Cross-legged.
Waiting.
I didn’t know what I was waiting for .
Just that I needed to.
The Academy was doing something, rearranging itself. Testing. Inviting.
I didn’t know if this room was meant for me.
But it had called me.
And that mattered.
My fingers rested in my lap, and I let my breath slow. The silence wasn’t empty. It was the kind that listens back .
And I let it.
No rushing.
No fear.
Just the stillness of stone that remembers, and walls that wait for the right voice.
A single floating light drifted down, close enough that I could see its wings. They were as thin as a soap bubble, with a pulse of green-blue running through. It hovered in front of my face for a breath, then dipped gently… and vanished into the pedestal.
I didn’t move.
I didn’t need to.
The room had already accepted me.
Now, it was up to me to listen.
The silence stretched long enough that I almost thought it was over…that whatever the Academy had wanted from me had already happened. Maybe the room was just here to be sat in. A soft place to rest after a storm of questions. Maybe the hum I’d followed was nothing more than the echo of too much magic and not enough sleep.
But then I heard it.
A voice, but not in the way people think of voices. It didn’t come from the pedestal or the ceiling. It didn’t echo through the floor or press against my ears. It arrived all at once, everywhere, and inside.
It wasn’t one sound. It was every sound.
Hollow yet full.
Deep but shrill.
Soft and hard in the same breath, like glass singing under pressure. Like the trees whispering their secrets all at once through wind and root.
And the words, oh, the words , wrapped around me like silk, gentle and cutting, lovely and certain.
Maeve Una Bellemore.
My name reached inside me. Not spoken, not forced—but known . Each syllable like a hand brushing my cheek, familiar and unyielding.
You are the Headmistress.
The word fell like a bell toll.
Not sharp, but inevitable. I felt it settle in my bones.
I didn’t move. I couldn’t. The air wasn’t heavy, exactly. It was intentional . Like if I shifted, even a little, I’d miss what was coming next.
This place has endured its darkest hours. The walls remember the screams, the silence, the slow forgetting. And yet, we remain.
The walls did seem to shift slightly at that. Not with weight, but with memory. As though a thousand moments were etched into the mortar and stone.
We have shielded Stonewick as best we can. Still we hold. Still we try. But the time for waiting has passed.
A warmth bloomed in my chest—something more solid than magic or fear, a steadiness that spread slowly, like sunlight rising over snow-laden ground.
The Wards stir. You have felt it. You have seen it. Life returns. One breath at a time.
I nodded because yes, I had felt it. The pull in the Stone Ward. The flicker in the Flame Ward. The wings of the Butterfly Ward stretching at last. The pulse beneath the maple trees.
And now, so must we. We dream of students.
The word didn’t land lightly. It crashed softly, like waves again and again.
Students.
Not children, though some may come. We dream of those who thought it was too late. We dream of the weary, the seekers, the changers. The midlife witches, who do not yet know their second beginning is yet to come.
Images flickered behind my eyes with men and women with tired hands and curious hearts, stepping into hallways they thought were only for the young.
Opening old books. Touching new magic.
Laughing like they used to.
Like me.
The voice wrapped around my ribs like breath.
They will come. And you will lead them. But not alone.
There was comfort in that. Though the next words sent a chill down my back.
This role carries sacrifice. You will lose what cannot walk beside you. But you will gain more than you know.
I didn’t ask what I would lose. I already had an idea.
You will shape the future. You will carry the past. But more than that, you will hold the threshold. You are the door, Maeve Una Bellemore. You are the key.
I opened my mouth, and though my voice was thin, it didn’t shake.
“Will more teachers come?”
Yes. Some will arrive like they never left. Others will find their way through strange turns. Some will stumble into your arms, and you will know them by name before they speak it.
“And the students?” I asked. “How will I know when it’s time to open? When we’re ready?”
The light in the room flickered and changed to a softer cast.
The Academy does not open with ceremony or spell. It opens with presence. Once the first student steps onto the threshold, the doors will know. They will not close again to those who seek midlife wisdom with true hearts and truer intentions.
I felt it a low thrum beneath the floorboards. The very heartbeat of the building shifting gears. Preparing.
That first student will be your companion. The most loyal. They will ask more questions than you are ready to answer. They will challenge, and comfort, and become a tether when you forget where the ground is.
A student who would be mine. Not like property, but like an echo. Like truth finding truth.
I closed my eyes.
The room was still humming.
I was humming too.
The words faded not into silence, but into memory. The way water fades into stone. Nothing vanished. It became a part of me.
I stood slowly and walked to the pedestal that pulsed once beneath my hand.
The light in the room shifted, becoming softer at the edges, like dusk coming through a quiet window.
I sat back down on the sea of cushions.
But I was different now.
The Academy had spoken.
And it had named me Headmistress.
Not as a title.
As a promise.