The Aerysteria Academy for Girls
Chapter One
by Emma Jayne / WitchyEmma

The castle loomed above them, a solitary figure; totally alone in it's empty, bare surroundings. The castle’s ancient stonewalls seemed impenetrable to any who saw it…  but only few could actually see it.
The skies above where covered with so many clouds it was hard to tell where one began and one ended. Each cloud had a deep rumbling in its belly and poured heavy rain onto the ground below. Lightning flashed across the sky, illuminating the castle and adding an almost eerie feel to it.
She sighed as she glanced out the window at the castle. It felt like the holidays had only just started when they ended and now she was back at school.
“It hasn’t changed much, has it, Rachael?”
As the voice broke the silence in the carriage she looked to see who had spoken. The owner of the voice was a girl her age. Her hair was short, lightly touching her shoulders, with a gentle curl to it. Her fringe parted on either side of her face and went down to the middle of her torso. Freckles were scattered on her pale skin over the bridge of her nose and underneath both eyes, which were a shade of bright blue that was often mistaken for grey.
“Of course not, Elliot. Did you honestly expect it to?”
She looked to the one who answered. This girl was also their age, sitting perfectly straight on her seat in a very prim and proper manner. Her hair, raven black in shade, was pulled back out of her face and tied up in a manner it seemed like she’d had a professional do it for her.
“It’s not like this place is willing to upgrade or anything.” Rachael huffed.
She rolled her eyes and looked out the window again. To make matters worse, she was stuck in a carriage with the populars.
“Welcome back, Hex.” She muttered under her breath.

~*~

“The students are arriving.” She said in a soft voice.
She took her slim, gold-framed glasses off her face and nervously cleaned them. When she fixed them back in front of her brown eyes, which were almost orange in places, she appeared a very prim and proper woman or, at least, she dressed like one. Her long, slightly wavey auburn hair was tied up on top of her head in a firm bun. Despite how neatly and properly she dressed, there was an air of weakness about her. She seemed shy, naïve maybe. She wasn’t that much older than the eldest students.
“Running on schedule, then~” Said a second voice with a thick English accent.
The owner of this voice was obviously an eccentric witch. Her hair was cut almost boyishly short; sticking up at all angles it was an odd pink-black. The shirt she wore had long, flared sleeves, but stopped just above her navel so they could see her midriff. She wore a short skirt, with striped rainbow stockings and black boots that went up to her knees and buckled at the sides. She had a piercing in her right eyebrow, two piercing in each ear lobe and one in her nose. She looked about the same age as the other teacher, maybe a year or two older.
“Yes, Rain.” The first agreed in soft, meek tones. “You’re right.”
“We’ll get to meet Chela’s replacement, though.” The second, Rain, said breezily. “Did anyone say anything about what they were going to be like to you, Lizzie?”
“No.” Said the first, Elizabeth, with a small shake of her head. “But Gillian did say it was going to be a guy.”
Rain paused, then laughed. Elizabeth blinked at her.
“…What?”
“Oh nothing, nothing~”
Elizabeth frowned lightly.
“No, tell m-”
They were interrupted be a soft thudding against the window. Startled, they both looked back to it and saw a bat fluttering on the other side of the glass, being pounded by the rain.
“Oho, this must be him now. Open the window for ‘im, Lizzie.”
Doing as she was bid, Elizabeth opened the window and stood out of the way for the bat, then closed the window before the rain soaked the carpet.
“You’re late, on your first day too.” Rain said with a grin. “Not a good first impression.”
“So?”
Standing in front of them was a tall man. At the front, his black hair was short, going just past his eyes. At the back it was long, tied up in a ponytail that went down to the middle of his back.
He was dressed in a manner one might describe as elegantly casual; a black leather jacket which wasn’t the full length, only making it halfway down his torso. Underneath his jacket was a plain white shirt with a v-shaped neckline. To complete his attire he wore plain black trousers over sturdy black boots.
He looked at them, his ice blue almost silvery eyes seeming to pierce through their bodies to see their very souls. His ears were slightly pointed, just enough to be noticeable and the right one was pierced three times. A stud in the lobe and two silver rings near the top.
He was definitely easy on the eyes, but there was an air of mystery about him. Lightning danced in the sky behind him, adding to his eerie demeanor.
“Who’re you, then?” Elizabeth asked with a light frown.
“The name’s Lucas.” He said simply. “Lucas Charming.”
He flashed them a dazzling smile.


~*~

It was dark and there was a cold draft beneath the school, but at least it was dry. Leaning against the wall stood two young men. The one on the left, closest to the door, was taller than his friend. He had dark hair, cut short, with a bit of a romantic wave to it. His eyes were as dark as his hair, if not darker. He wore a pair of old steel-capped boots on his feet, baggy trousers and a steel blue sleeveless shirt.
“I don’t know why they want this all done tonight.” He said with a shake of his head.
“I know.” His companion agreed, breathing the smoke from his cigarette into the air. “I mean, they’re not going to need them until tomorrow at the earliest.”
His friend was dressed almost the same as him, except his boots were newer and in better condition and he’d taken his shirt off. His hair was a mousey blonde, shaved short and traces of stubble lined his jaw. His brilliant blue eyes watch the trail of smoke from the end of his cigarette in its ascent toward the stone ceiling.
“We better get this done.”
“Yeah…”
He flicked his cigarette at the floor and crushed it under his boot.
The room they stood in had several wooden crates sitting on the floor. Each was big enough for a person to sit in.
“LITTER BUG!” A voice cried out from one of the crates. “SHAME ON YOU!”
They froze for a second then looked around; trying to pinpoint the crate from which it was coming from.
“MAY YOU KEEP ON DYING UNTIL YOU ARE DEAD!”
“What the…?”
“That made no sense.”
“Sounded cooler in my head.”
“I’m sure it did.”

~*~

She sat at a long wooden table, right elbow on table top, first under her chin to keep her head propped up. She boredly glanced around the sea of girls, from the nervous and fidgety First Years to the mature and collected Seniors and at all the giggly teenage girls between. You could tell the year of a student by her uniform, although currently everyone’s uniform, except the First Years, were badly in need of an update. The uniforms looked like they were going for ‘typical English girls boarding school’ but weren’t quite getting there. In Hex’s case, she wore a white blouse underneath a black blazer, which had leaf green trim around the edges and boarding the school Coat of Arms on the front pocket. Around her neck, neatly fixed, was a black tie with thin, diagonal green stripes. She wore a pleated black skirt with thin lines of green that just reached her knees. On her feet she wore a pair of clean black shoes, which laced at the top and had a light heel to them. Her pale legs were covered by a pair of black stockings and on her head, tilted at an angle, was a black witches hat which seemed like it had been battered around. The point of the hat pointed down slightly and around the base of it there was a thick green ribbon.
Everyone wore the same uniform; it was just the colour that accompanied the black that told the years apart.
“I hear they’ve come up with a new program in Mythical Beasts Studies which our year is going to be the first to try out!” A girl said excitedly to her friend.
“Oh yeah?” Her friend replied. “What?”
“Well, Pansy told me that we’d be getting a Beast to look after for something like two months. And instead of going to class and doing theory work, we use that time to look after them!”
“Really? Cool! What Beast?”
“I heard it was going to be a-”
“Settle down, students.”
Hex looked over to the long table at the front of the room where the teachers sat. In the middle of the table on a high backed chair that vaguely resembled a throne sat the Headmistress. Behind her throne like chair, a large banner was suspended in the air. On the banner was the school’s Coat of Arms and motto.
The coat of arms was a shield divided into two. The top part was a third of the whole shield and on it was a black cat with it’s back to the viewer, looking forward. Beneath that was a large, open textbook with three five-pointed white stars to represent each word of the motto. On the banner, these words were around the shield, one to it’s left, one above it and one to it’s right. There words were ‘Honour’, ‘Knowledge’ and ‘Pride’ in that order.
The Headmistress now stood up to address them all. The Headmistress was a taller than average woman, Hex estimated six feet. Her skin was olive in colour, her lips full and red. Her hair was long and black and fell elegantly around her waist. She wore a dress with long flared sleeves and a v-shaped neckline. The dress itself was a beautiful scarlet trimmed in black. Her dark eyes looked around the room very seriously before she allowed a smile to touch her face.
“Welcome, girls,” She began lightly. “Back to The Aerysteria Academy for Girls.”
Booooriiiiiing. Hex thought and promptly zoned out, leaving the Headmistress to talk about how lovely it was to see everyone again, what would be happening during the school year and how everyone was expected to uphold the school code of conduct. While the Headmistress talked a violin was softly playing in the background, but where it was coming from no one could tell.
At last came the moment they’d all been waiting for, when the Headmistress would officially ‘welcome’ the students into their new year by updating their uniforms. This particular tradition the new First Years in their black and baby blue uniforms were left out of.
The Headmistress waved a hand at the First Years from the previous years and slowly, like a ripple of water in a still pond when a stone was cast into it, the baby blue in their uniforms turned a darker royal blue. This officially recognised them as Second Years.
She then waved a hand at last years Second Years, and their royal blue rippled into a leaf green that matched Hex’s.
The Headmistress waved a hand at their table and slowly Hex’s uniforms, like all the other girls who sat there with her, turned a violet shade of purple. The feeling of her uniform change was one Hex couldn’t quite get used to. It was like there many invisible hands running over her body. She couldn’t tell if she liked it or not but now she was officially a Fourth Year.
The Fourth Years’s violet became yellow.
The Fifth Years yellow became red.
The Sixth Years red became grey.
And The Seventh years grey became black.
“There.” The Headmistress said when she was done, nodding her head in approval. “Now we are ready to start again this wonderful and glorious 2009.”
There was a hearty round of applause, with the occasional wolf whistle or woop of delight. Hex clapped her hands lazily three times, then allowed them to fall back onto the table.
“Hey,” a girl whispered into the ear of her friend, who happened to be sitting beside Hex. But because with all this noise, she couldn’t really whisper, and Hex heard what she said too.
“Who’s that man in Ms. Torres’ seat?”
“I dunno…” Her friend said with a sly smile. “But he sure is a hunk. I’m so glad Ms. Torres’ quit.”
Hex glanced up to the table, eyes running along it to the place where Ms. Torres would sit as the food appeared before her.
“Alright everyone. Dig in.”