Spearwood Academy Volume One (The Spearwood Academy Book 1) Read online

  A.S.Oren

  Rook Hilt Publishing L.L.C

  Copyright © 2014 A.S. Oren

  Rook Hilt Publishing L.L.C

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.

  Fanworks are okay. Just make sure to link me, I would love to see them, and please have a disclaimer.

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  ISBN-13:

  978-1511425582

  ISBN-10:

  151142558X

  Table of Contents

  AVALON THE CURSED

  THE BARN

  JUNK AND APPLE BLOSSOMS

  GOODBYES AND HELLOS

  ALMOST THERE

  SPEARWOOD

  BREAKFAST

  THE GRAND TOUR WITH THE HANDSOME FOUR

  THE WELCOME BRIGADE

  MARKS OF THE FIRST DAY

  THE FABULOUS DR. QUINN

  CALLING HOME

  THE FIRST NIGHT

  MR. MAGIC TUTOR

  ANICENT ONE

  ENGAGMENT?

  THE GRINCH TUTOR

  THE WHO CABIN

  SURVIVAL

  RUNNING FOR LIFE

  COLD

  THE VOICE

  THE CAVE

  THE FINAL WALL CRUMBLES

  FLYING

  DEDICATION

  To The Parents ;). For always being there when I need you

  AVALON THE CURSED

  I hate the night. She’s such a cruel mistress. Even with the sun still up and night a few hours away, the moon pulls at my bones. They ache at the mere thought of it rising and submerging me in its hellish, white rays.

  “Avalon,” he says, uttering the same name written on the piece of paper that was stuck within my baby blanket. When he found me near his barn, he assumed my mother gave it to me; so that’s what he called me. I’m not sure if it came from the legend of King Arthur, but I hope it did.

  “Avalon, pay attention!”

  I glance up at the chalkboard covered in chicken scratch. I sigh, roll my pencil away from me, and wait for it to roll back. “The answer is two.”

  “What?” He scratches his balding head, which is covered in wispy white hair. He looks at the board before staring at the textbook in his hand. He scribbles more chicken scratch on the board and smirks at me. “No, it’s six.”

  I push the pencil away from me a little too forcefully; it falls off the other side with a clatter. I get on my knees and retrieve it. “Look at the answer key, Ed.”

  He huffs. “I know I’m right this time.” Frustration thickens his strange in-between accent.. I’m not sure why he has one. I know his parents were Irish immigrants from North Dublin. He was raised with them and the Hands who helped on the Orchard. Bellingham, Washington isn’t known for having distinctive accents, but I guess any American accent is miles apart from a strong Irish one. It must have came from hearing two different accents while he was learning to talk. I would’ve picked up his accent too, but I had help from the Hands and Sesame Street to keep me from developing an in-between accent.

  Louder than he should be, he finds the answer key. I sit back down in my chair.

  His face falls, and I feel bad for the old man. He snaps the book shut. “Yaur right; it’s two.”

  “Great, can I go outside now?” I’m already halfway up from the desk.

  “Yeah, but I want yau to stop day dreaming during yaur studies! I don’t do this for mi health!” he yells after me. I’m outside before he can give another huff.

  Glorious sunrays kiss my skin, and the sweet scent of apples rides on the air. The apple blossoms have just begun to bloom in our Orchard. I stretch my arms above my head and give a groan of appreciation as stiffness leaves my muscles. I fall back onto the soft, long grass. My dark golden curls fan out from underneath my head as I gaze up at white, fluffy clouds, which drift across the sky. I pick out different things I see: a bunny, a vase, and a dragon’s head.

  I cover my hazel eyes with my tan arm. I don’t want to see it. Every night, as soon as the moon appears in the sky, I turn into a monster. The painful transformation should kill me, but for some reason I’m still kicking.

  Edgar says I ‘scared the livin shit’ out of him the first night he had me in his home. I screamed and screamed while he tried to cool my body with icy, water-soaked cloths. He watched my body change from that of a baby to a toy poodle-sized lizard. He said he almost called the priest to come exorcise me; but when I looked up at him with my gold eyes, he couldn’t bear to do that. He took pity on me and didn’t abandon me like my mother had. After that, he never considered giving me up. He knew if I went into the system, the Government would get their hands on me; and I would be a test rat for them.

  By the grace of something greater than myself, I survived infancy. The pain has never been bearable, but I’m accustomed to the pain. I no longer sleep the entire day just to transform again at night.

  The delicious scent of chocolate wafts its way into my nose. I smile and take my arm off my face. Edgar bakes a chocolate cake, one of my favorite foods in all the world. I only get it once a year, on my birthday. Edgar doesn’t like baking, but he refuses to let me make my own birthday cake. He also doesn’t like sweets around the house. So having the chocolate cake once a year makes it all the more special.

  Tomorrow, I will turn fifteen. We go by ’the day Edgar found me since we don’t know the actual day of my birth. We’ve always celebrated in the morning. Nighttime isn’t exactly a time of celebration for me.

  I stand. A’ spatula covered in cake batter calls my name.

  Edgar doesn’t even look up from his paper as he points to the bowl and spatula on the counter. “Lick only the spatula. I don’t want yau gettin’ sick on mi.”

  “I know.” I grab the holy grail of cake batter and sit down at the kitchen table. Small does not even begin to describe Edgar’s house, but it’s home. The living room and kitchen are the same room. Old, scuffed-up wood planks serve as the floors, and the stairs leading up to the second floor creak. The house also has a little bathroom and a spare room where I keep my stuff. I love this house. I hope Edgar gives it to me one day.

  I couldn’t be happier in this moment. The batter, not too sweet with just a hint of bitter dark chocolate, makes my tastes buds do a jig. Only one thing could make this moment better, and I still have a few hours before nightfall.

  “Ed,” I say in a tone that I know will make him cringe.

  “No,” he says. He ruffles his paper.

  I wipe my lips with the back of my hand. “You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

  “Yes I do. Yau want to watch that darn movie again.”

  “Please? I know my birthday’s tomorrow, but I want to watch it before the moon comes up.”

  He sigh heavily. “Fine, but I don’t want to watch it again for a month.”

  I smile and jump from the chair. “Thank you!” I run up the stairs and grad the DVD. It took me five years, but I finally got Edgar to upgrade his VCR to a DVD player. It will probably take me another five to get him to upgrade the TV and get a Blu ray player. To him, they are useless junk, but he gets them for me. He knows movies and books allow me to escape from my life for a while.

  Most of my room has wall-to-wall bookshelves, which Edgar built himself. Ninety percent of them are filled with books, but I have two or th
ree shelves dedicated to movies. I grab my current favorite movie, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One. It’s tied with the first one as being my favorite Harry Potter movie. Though if I’m being honest, my absolute favorite movies of all time are While You were Sleeping and You’ve Got Mail. I’m a sap for romances like those. I don’t subject Edgar to them though. I save them for days when I’m ‘sick’ and can’t work on the Orchard with Edgar and the Hands.

  “I got it!” I yell down stairs.

  I smile when Edgar grunts in return. I hope some things never change.

  THE BARN

  Edgar gets ready to shut the barn doors, hiding me away for the night. “I’ll see yau in the mornin’, Avvi”.

  “Okay.” I nod. The moon will be up soon, and I’ll transform.

  He closes the barn doors, and I take a seat on the ground. I used to transform outside and move around; but ever since I hit puberty, the size of my transformation has quadrupled, and I don’t want the locals catching a glimpse of me. My skin burns like coils on a grill, but never blisters.’

  My clothes scratch at my skin, making it impossible to get ’comfortable. I take them off in hopes that it’ll bring some form of relief, but it only worsens.

  Moon’ rays shine down on me through the open door in the hayloft. I dig my fingernails into the dirt below me. ’’’’An itch so deep it can never be scratched courses through my bones.

  My skin flairs l’ike a first-degree sunburn all over my body, magnifying my discomfort tenfold.

  I can’t stand it! The itch will drive me mad. My nails elongate into gold talons as I lift my hand and scratch my arm. I cry out in pain as my skin comes off like shredded kabob meat. Underneath, where muscles and blood should show, pointed, golden scales reveal themselves.

  As I rip at my skin, pain courses through my face, my skull reshaping into a snout. My jaw and teeth break and shift with cracks and pops to form their new shape. I want to scream, but my jaw won’t move.

  My bone and muscle mass increases. The skin I wasn’t able to remove on my own tears due to stress and falls away. A roar bursts forth as the final two parts of my transformation take place: a pair of leather-like wings shooting out of me and my tailbone growing to the length of a six-foot man. Three spiked bones push out from the tip and scales rush down from my back to cover the new muscle.

  I lie in the dirt, panting. My hot breath creates a dirt cloud in front of me. Pain dwindles as my body adjusts to its new form.

  I stretch my wings out, but they push against the walls. The barn’s too small for me. If this monster form continues to grow, Edgar and I will have to build a bigger barn.

  I spend my nights staring out the hayloft door at the starry sky. What would it be like to go flying? I haven’t used my wings in years. I miss feeling a cool breeze underneath them as I get higher into the air. After a while, my imagination runs out, and sleep becomes my pass time.

  By morning, I open my eyes to the sun shining down on me. Still’ on my back, I lift my hand—good as new—as if the night before didn’t happened. I’ve never even felt myself change back. It’s always painless. I wish I knew why. I turn over and glance at where the piles of flesh should be. Heaps of dust are in their place, waiting for a breeze to carry them away.

  I gather my clothes and get dressed. I grin. Today is my birthday, which means there’s a cake waiting for me on the dining room table.

  Every day, I try to find something to smile about. Edgar and the small blessings are the only things keeping me going. It’s the only thing I can do in situations like mine.

  JUNK AND APPLE BLOSSOMS

  I smile as I walk into Edgar’s little white and green house. A messily frosted chocolate cake with a lit candle and a wrapped gift next to it wait for me on the old dining room table. Edgar sits at the head of the table with a smile on his face, but his eyes aren’t showing their normal gleam.

  I take my seat at the table and close my eyes. My wish, the same as it has been ever since I can remember, is for my curse of the night to end. I blow out the candle, and Edgar claps. “Okay, open yaur gift.” He sounds almost somber about it. Why is he so down today?

  I take the square package and rip off the old newspaper. I stare at the gift in my hand for a moment. It’s a cell phone. Not one of the fancy smart ones I see the locals using, but it’s a cell phone nonetheless. Why would he get me this? I have no use for it. He has always called things like this junk.

  I frown and glance up at him. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate it, Ed, but you hate these things, and I really have no use for one. Other than people online, you’re the only person I talk to; you know the locals my age don’t like me.”

  “Yau’ll have a use for it now. It’s so we can stay in touch. Yau can call the house phone.”

  What? Where would I be going that I would have to call him? “Are you kicking me out, Ed?” My heart pounds in my chest. The thought of leaving the only person I care about is scary beyond all measure.

  He swallows hard and shakes his head. The loose skin at his chin jiggles. “I’m sending you to school.”

  I frown. My panic eases a little. “You mean the one in town? Ed, I don’t think I need a cell phone for that.”

  “No, Avvi. Far away, to a boarding school. They teach yaur kind.”

  His words get jumbled in my brain. “My kind?” I put the packaged cell down in front of me.

  “Others who turn into dragons like yau,” he mumbles.

  “Wait. There are others like me? I’m not the only one? How long have you known about this?” My knuckles turn white as I make a fist. I almost don’t want to hear his answer. I don’t want to accept the fact he has kept something this big from me.

  He looks down at the table. “Since yau were ten. When I started getting those packages. They were from the man who runs the school. I don’t know how they know about yau, but they have wanted yau since then.”

  “All these years and you didn’t think I should know any of this? Why now?”

  “They’ve been houndin’ me for years to let yau go to the school they run. I didn’t think yau were ready for it. So, I chose not to tell yau.”

  “What changed?”

  “I’m tired of seeing yau hurt. Maybe they can help yau. Now that yaur older, I think yaur ready for sometin’ that’ll take a good amount of maturity to handle.”

  “Do I have a say in this?” I look at the cake; I don’t even want it anymore.

  “Well, I can’t force yau to do anyt’in’ yau don’t want to, but I think it would be good for yau. They plan to pick yau up the day after tomorrow. If yau don’t want to go, I’ll call them and tell them I changed mi mind.” He picks up a cake knife and walks around to my side of the table. After cutting into the cake, he serves me a slice before getting his own.

  I nibble at it in silence, not really tasting it. My world has started the spin cycle, and there’s no emergency stop switch for me to flip. The milk chocolate frosting I normally would kill for has too much sweetness for me today.

  I know Edgar means well, but is sending me off to a boarding school an option? What if they want to weasel money out of him and are going to take me off to some Black Market slave trade? “Do you have to pay tuition or anything? You don’t have that kind of money, Ed.”

  He shakes his head and takes a heap of cake off his fork before answering me. “Nope, not a single cent. They said yau a special case of some kind and will pay for all that. They really want yau.”

  I search my mind for an excuse, any, that will talk myself out of wanting to go. “What if they are some Government group that wants to keep me as a test rat? I’ll never see you or the Orchard again!” I put my hand over my mouth; I didn’t mean to get hysterical.

  “I don’t think that’s it, Avvi.” With a groan, he pushes himself from the chair and goes to the bear head hanging on the wall. He reaches into its snarling mouth. His hand comes out with several folded papers.

  He puts them down in front of m
e before returning to his seat. “I saved those from the package that came last month.”

  My hand hovers over them. I’m almost afraid to touch them. It’s as if touching them will confirm the reality of this situation. “When did the package come? I don’t remember one coming.”

  “Yau were out by the river readin’ or somet’in’.” He plays with his slice, not eating any of it.

  I put my fork down and pick up a brochure for the elite school. It’s light blue with a coat of arms and gold embossed lettering, ‘Spearwood Academy’. Underneath it is, ‘The place for your gifted child.’

  I open it slowly. The pictures inside make my eyes go wide. The place could be compared to a mountain resort for the wealthy, not a school. There are pictures of boys studying and playing tennis, but there are other pictures too: boys in mid transformation. I’m floored. There are others out in the world like me. I take a closer look at the pictures. Something is off about their expressions. It hits me like a wrecking ball: there’s no pain on their faces. Why isn’t there?

  For a moment, I put aside that thought and think about the other issue. No girls are in any of the pictures. “Ed, this looks like an all boy school. I don’t see any girls here.” His back goes stiff.

  “Look at the other stuff,” he mumbles.

  I pick up the next thing, a two-page letter addressed to Ed.

  Dear Mr. Clementine,

  As you are aware, your adopted daughter will be turning fifteen in a month’s time. We have asked you in the past to allow her to come to our school early. However, now she is the same age as the rest of our student body.

  As we have discussed with you before, we would very much like to teach and learn from your daughter. She is the only female in existence to have the same abilities as our male student body.

  We understand you may have doubts about sending her to our currently all boy school. Please let us assure you, all appropriate measures will be taken for her housing and needs.