My First Coven

You Don't Learn That In School

 I stood in front of the long mirror attached to the back of my rooms door, sleepily tugging my neck tie in to place and arranging my shirt collar around it. I looked awful. I'd been having those weird dreams again. And I just noticed I had toast crumbs from breakfast still stuck to my blazer, thinking I'd brushed them all off.

'Must call Auntie Morrigan about those dreams.' I made a mental note to myself before I was violently shook back in to the real world.

'Hey Madelyn we don't wanna be late!'

My room mate Katie shook me by the shoulder and laughed as I groaned in exasperation. I hated Mondays. I don't think there's a person alive that genuinely likes Mondays. From the look of my other room mate Victoria, she was probably on the same wavelength as me. She mumbled something as she grabbed her bag and shuffled out of our room, yawning as she went. It was our first day back in class since the summer holidays and most of us weren't feeling it at all. Except maybe Katie but she had been holidaying abroad for the break much like most of the other students, but Victoria and I weren't so lucky. We ended up just staying at home. Victoria even had a private tutor over the summer break too while I just ended up doing nothing but stay in the house as my mother insisted she carried on working, not even suggesting even a weekend away for us.

School was in fact boarding school, Saint Augustine's to be precise. "Established 1887" according to what the school faculty and fancy literature on the place said, even though the buildings and grounds had been around much longer. I was in my second last year here along with Katie and Victoria. I was in the middle of our group age wise, I turn seventeen in October but after that it's Katie's birthday in November and Victoria's birthday is at the beginning of September. "Besties forever!" We'd always say. Which was fine, because we didn't really socialise with the other students much.

'Ugh I just wanna go back to bed.' Victoria yawned and huffed as we made our way downstairs to the ground floor of the girls dorm, she trailed behind Katie and myself. Our building was about five minutes walk away from the main part of the school where he had most of our classes. The walk over to the main building from the girls dormitory was quite busy. It seemed like everyone had left it till the last possible minute to get ready in the morning and leave their rooms. The two live in Dorm Mothers June and Julie; both in their forties who had never married or had children were trying to usher all the other girls out of the front door in record time with cries of "It's the first day back you absolutely do not want to be late!" It appeared to fall on deaf ears. I however saw the opportunity to quickly leave with my room mates before there was a huge rush for the door.

'C'mon guys! Before we end up at the back of the queue!' I urged Katie and Victoria, they soon hurried out behind me.

Outside was blazingly nice for September. The sun was warm and bright but there was a slight wind chill that kept you on your toes. I loved days like this; not too hot and not too cold. It was refreshing really, the best thing being I didn't need to put my thick tights on with my uniform nor did I have to wear the school regulation sweater, just the thin summer cardigan over the long sleeved white shirt and tie combo under the black school blazer we wore. And not wearing your blazer to registration class first thing in the morning wasn't an option. It wasn't a bad uniform I must admit, I've seen worse. Ours consisted of a purple and black tartan skirt for the girls, Baru I think the tartan was called along with white shirts and a tie in the same tartan as the skirt, the blazer was black with the school crest on the left breast pocket and the cardigan was also black with the same crest. The thicker black sweater we wore in winter had the crest too. The boys wore the same clothes except the skirt.

We made our way up in to the main building for registration, the building itself you could tell just from its style that it was old but impeccably maintained. There were huge steps leading up to the main doors; heavy and imposing but not unlike any other entrance doors that belong to other castles or mansion houses. They had a familiarity to them but then again I did walk through them several times a day for most of the year; of course they were familiar. It was nice however to leave the chill of outside and the weird odour of freshly cut grass and shrubbery that was stinging my nose. Everything has been smelling really strong recently, I'm putting it down to my hayfever acting up again. Katie and Victoria had been chatting away but I was in my old little world, it was like I was having a sensory overload.