Chapter 6 Midnight Meanderings
"Hey, Leah, earth to Leah Wood!"
Amber's voice startled me out of the daydream I'd been having. I looked down at what I'd been doing, homework for our social studies class, and realized I hadn't gotten any further than I had been when we had first sat down to do it.
"You're far away in your own thoughts again," Amber said. "Want to tell me about it?"
The common room was quiet. Vivian, Kirstin, and Natalie had finished their own homework an hour ago, so they were off somewhere, taking a walk in the gardens before dinner time.
It was a few days after lessons had officially started.
The homework Amber and I had to do wasn't due for a few more days, but it was better to work on it every night; otherwise, it tended to pile up until it looked like a mountain.
"I guess I'm just missing home a lot. That's all." I said, looking down at my hands. I was feeling a bit embarrassed. I didn't want it to seem like I couldn't cope with being so far away from home for the very first time in my life.
"Yeah, I know how it can get," Amber said quietly.
I glanced up at her, surprised. She always seemed so quietly self-assured and never talked about missing home. "You get homesick?"
"Sure. It's like, you'll go a day or two without thinking about them at all, and then on another day, it just seems like you can't get your family out of your mind." I nodded, and she patted me gently on my shoulder. "Writing to them helps."
I squirmed a little in my seat.
"You haven't written to your family yet?" Amber asked. "But why? They must be worried about you."
The truth was, I had been putting it off because I didn't know what I could and couldn't tell them.
It was different for Amber and the others.
They could tell their families all about the Summoning Ceremony and the mates they had bonded with, and they didn't need to lie by omitting a large part of the truth. I explained some of this to her.
"You can tell them about your classes, can't you? And about this marvelous castle, about your friends, and about Vaerath. That's plenty. They won't care what you can and cannot share with them. If they knew the reason, they would understand. All they want is to know that you're okay."
I nodded. She was right.
"Now, I'm going to go down to the kitchens to see if I can't find Ursula and twist her arm to give us a few of those chocolate bars that she stashes away. You could use some privacy. Write your letter."
I watched Amber as she got up and walked to the door. "What about this homework?"
She turned around and shrugged. "It'll still be here tomorrow." With that, she opened the door of the common room and disappeared down the hallway.
Sitting there alone in the common room with just the distant sounds of people moving about the hallways to keep me company, I allowed myself to think of my father, with his sun-weathered face and the leathery skin of his arms. I recalled his thick fingers, most often dirty, and the nails he would fastidiously scrub with a brush before dinner time until not a speck of soil remained, and the fingertips were red and tender.
He called it an occupational hazard. He was the head gardener of the Baron and had always taken pride in his job.
He had what they called the "green touch.
" There wasn't a thing he couldn't grow if he set his mind to it.
I thought of my mother with her kind eyes, her long, graceful neck that had always reminded me of a dancer's. She was a small woman with surprisingly strong arms and hands, which she attributed to years of kneading her own bread dough and carrying little ones on her hips.
I thought with affection of my two brothers, Samuel and Simon.
Mischievous twins who had terrorized and adored me in equal measures and had made me promise to write to them often.
I hadn't kept that promise. I had not written them a single letter.
I felt guilty about it, but it was difficult to know what to write home about.
I thought of telling them about today's lessons and felt uncertain if it would be the right thing to put in a letter.
Remembering father's shock and mother's tears when it came out that I was Manaborn, it was difficult to imagine them feeling reassured by the news of how different things were here.
With a feeling of pain like a clutching fist around my heart, I thought of Lilly, my baby sister.
I missed her most of all right then. She was always so serious and seemed so small for her age.
The summer holidays seemed so far off. What if she forgot me and, upon my return, regarded me as a stranger?
She was only three years old. I imagined my mother reading her my letter and knew Amber was right.
It didn't matter if hearing how different things were here than what they had always known made them uneasy; they would want to know I was where I was supposed to be.
I found parchment, quills, and a pot of ink.
With a sense of duty, I started scribbling a message for my family, telling them about the friends I had made and the classes, about Caleb, who was doing his best to instruct me.
I told them briefly about Vaerath, the Abyss Dragon mate I had bonded with.
It might upset them knowing I was something of an oddity, but better they hear it from me than news of it reaching them by some other means.
I had already put off telling them about it for way too long.
I couldn't tell them the truth, that I was something even more unique, that I had bonded with two other mates as well, but I vowed to tell them as soon as I was able.
I described the castle and the grounds in as much detail as I could muster, and told my family about the demonstrations of power I had seen among the other students.
Before I knew it, I had more than three pages of my scribbled handwriting down on paper.
With a final wish for everyone to be healthy and happy, and a reminder that I loved and missed them all, I finished the letter.
Then I sealed it with wax and placed it in my pocket.
I fully intended to stop off at the mailroom after dinner.
It was then that I heard a bell ring and realized I had finished my letter just in time. Even if I'd been unable to tell my family everything, I felt lighter as if sharing some of my experiences had unburdened me. I made a promise to myself to write home more religiously from now on.
Dinner that night was a joyous affair; I felt more relaxed than I had in ages and enjoyed Oliver and Amber's company.
Afterward, as everyone was pouring into the hallways and heading toward their respective dormitories, I was walking along with Amber when I remembered something. I stopped at the foot of the stairs.
"I have that letter for my family I wanted to drop off in the mail room," I told her. "If I wait until tomorrow, I'm likely to forget."
"Want me to come with you?" Amber gave a big yawn just as she said this.
I laughed. It was obvious the day had taken its toll on her. I was sure I would be just fine to go on my own. I was feeling a bit tired, but not enough to head to bed just yet. "No, you go on ahead. I'll see you soon."
I met a few students on my way. Mostly women wandering around in groups of three or four.
Some of them were taking a last cup of warm tea to enjoy out in the garden at one of the benches.
Others were just meandering about in long bathrobes, with hair up and faces scrubbed clean, whispering so as not to make a nuisance of themselves while other students and staff were trying to sleep.
I smiled as these reminded me of chattering ghosts, but I was sure no ghosts had ever been so giggly.
By the time I reached the mail room at the other end of the castle, the hallways had emptied considerably.
We were not required to be in our dorm rooms or in bed at a specific hour.
Every single student attending the Academy was already above 18, so we were treated like adults.
Most students went to bed early, as the days were busy and exhausting.
I opened the door and was taken aback by the quiet bustle, and by how much larger the mail room was than I had imagined. With its many fat, yellow wax candles in black sconces flickering against the walls, it turned the shadows of the people moving about into leaping giants.
I hadn't realized how active the Academy was, even at night and behind the scenes while the students were asleep.
At a large table made from dark wood, an elderly lady with tufts of salt-and-pepper hair that looked like fluffy storm clouds greeted me with a glare over her round glasses.
Her name was Mrs. Winston, and she treated everyone, regardless of age, like rowdy children.
I had seen her before, wandering the hallways during the day, telling people off for things like "running indoors" and "talking too loudly.
" She was quite intimidating. I went over nervously and took a seat across from her.
I handed her the letter and, when asked, provided her with the name of the town my parents lived in and their names.
I was about to feel like the world's biggest idiot when it dawned on me that I should have brought some money down from my room for the postage. Still, Mrs. Winston assured me that sending letters to students' families was a service the Academy provided free of charge.
"Within reason, of course." She glared at me as she spoke in a raspy voice. I was fascinated by the tiny, silver whiskers on her chin that glittered in the slightly creepy ambiance of night and candlelight. "Don't think you can write home twenty times a week just 'cause it's free, Miss Wood."
"Um, no. I... I won't." I looked down at my hands, feeling properly chastised. She had a way of making a person feel guilty even before they had committed a transgression.
"I suppose you want me to check if there's any mail for you from home?"
I blinked, surprised. It hadn't even occurred to me that my family would have already sent me a letter or a package. "Yes, please, if you wouldn't mind."
She sniffed and got up, leaving me sitting at her desk, wondering if I should stay or if she wanted me to follow.
She used a cane that she gripped in one claw-like, liver spotted hand.
It made clicking noises across the floor while she shuffled along.
She disappeared around the corner into another section of the post office, where I suspected students weren't supposed to be.
While she was gone, I sat and fidgeted nervously, not wanting to get my hopes up, but now that she had mentioned the possibility, I really hoped there was something for me from home.
When she returned, she was carrying a parcel tucked under her arm that was covered with brown paper and tied with twine. As she handed it to me, I saw my name scrawled on the front in my mother's handwriting, and felt a lump in the back of my throat.
Mrs. Winston seemed to sense the homesickness suddenly enveloping me again, so she placed one of her gnarled hands over mine, the one clinging to the package.
"There now," she said in a soothing voice that surprised me with its sudden kindness.
"The first few months are the hardest for all the new students.
I remember back when I was called to duty, much like you.
I was just a wet-behind-the-ears pip when I left my family to come to the Academy.
It's been so long since I came here, but I can remember how strange it all seemed.
Don't worry, soon enough you'll settle in and this will seem like home, too. "
I thanked her and left soon after. I wanted to sit somewhere quiet and open the package, to see what my family had sent me. I was staring down at the brown paper clutched in my hands as I let the door swing shut behind me.