Eternity (2 page)

I knew from my
letter that you could not apply to the school. The students were
specifically chosen by the school, and only those chosen were
allowed in. The programs lasted for four years, past the normal age
when one finishes high school, so the last two years were
considered to be university level. Other than that, there wasn’t
really much in the letter, but that didn’t stop me from
speculating.

I believed that
the school was for those with magical abilities.

I didn’t share
that thought with Jack because I didn’t think he knew what he was,
and I had never told him. Jack was a werewolf.

I knew this
because I could see people’s auras. Everyone radiates energy in
different colors, depending on their mood. I spent my whole life
observing people and finding out what the colors meant. I also
noticed that some people have very distinct auras, and some have
none at all. I learned when I was seven that those without auras
were vampires. I learned when I was eight that those who had a gold
ring surrounding their auras were witches. I learned when I was
twelve that those with a gold ring around the inside of their auras
had special powers, like the ability to fly. I didn’t learn about
werewolves until I was fourteen, though I had always wondered what
Jack’s silver aura meant, since he had been the only person I had
ever seen with one.

I found out the
same way I found out about the rest of them – by following them.
Ms. Holland took a bunch of the older kids out to the park one day
to see the waterfall. I was walking in the back behind some of the
more eager people, Jack included, when I saw them behind us. There
were four of them, a family, all older than me. They all had silver
auras. They were talking and laughing and not paying attention to
our group. I looked back at Ms. Holland, who was discussing the
different types of pine trees with Jack, who was hanging onto her
every word. No one was looking back at me, so when I saw the family
slink off the path and into the forest, I followed them.

By the time I
got back to the group only about ten minutes had passed and no one
had noticed I was gone, but I had seen all that I needed to see.
About a hundred yards into the forest the family had stopped,
looked around, and then took their clothes off. I was considering
leaving at that point, thinking something really weird was going
on, but then they changed, right before my eyes. I had read enough
books to know what had happened, and I already had a strong belief
in the supernatural.

When Jack’s
temper started to flare up about a month after his sixteenth
birthday, I knew that it might happen soon. He got more and more
touchy, especially around the time of the full moon, but it didn’t
happen. I knew Jack, and I knew he was freaked out. We talked about
it, and I knew that he would tell me if he actually transformed. I
should have told him what I had seen, but I didn’t want to make him
even more worried, and there was still so much that I didn’t know
myself.

Sitting in the
plane on our way to Germany, he still didn’t know what he was, and
I hoped that I wouldn’t be the one to have to tell him. I could
tell by his aura that he was both nervous and excited. I could also
see a color that always made me feel guilty around him. That color
was pink.

Pink can mean a
few things. It can mean caring or compassion. It can also mean
love.

It was one of
the annoying things about my ability. It was so hard to shut it off
that most of the time I didn’t, which meant that I knew a lot of
things that I shouldn’t, especially about people’s feelings for
each other. For example, I knew that Jill had a crush on Henry, and
that Mr. Andrews had a thing for Ms. Holland. I also knew from a
young age that all of the other girls at Pembrook hated me, which
was how I ended up being best friends with Jack. I also knew that
Jack was in love with me, and he wasn’t the only one.

He never said
anything about it and he always acted normal around me, probably
because we had been friends since we were five. I could catch it
every now and then anyway, no matter how well he tried to hide it.
Sometimes it was the way he was looking at me, or the way he
defended me around the other girls, and there was always his aura,
and how it would go almost completely pink when he was around me,
but not with anyone else.

I felt guilty
because I didn’t feel the same way. He was my best friend, and I
loved him, but I just wasn’t in love with him. When I was around
him my aura was generally its usual shade of white. It wasn’t that
he wasn’t attractive, because he definitely was. He had thick dark
hair that started to curl when it got too long, and sweet brown
eyes that contrasted his strong features. Still, his friendship
meant the world to me, and I just couldn’t lose that. He was like
family to me.

“Are we there
yet?” he asked, waking up from a nap. He stretched and peered out
the window, which was beside him. He groaned when all he saw was
the sky.

“We’ll get
there eventually,” I said, yawning. I hadn’t managed to fall
asleep, though I wanted to. It was going to be early morning when
we landed, so there wouldn’t be much time for sleep.

“I had no idea
that plane rides felt so long,” Jack commented. “I feel like I’ve
been in here for days.”

“It’s only been
a couple of hours, I think. It does feel like a long time though,
especially because I can’t wait to land.”

“Me neither,”
Jack said, yawning. He curled up to go back to sleep. “I hope where
we’re going is better than where we’ve been.” He closed his eyes,
and in minutes he was snoring softly. I watched him for a little
while out of curiosity. Auras are interesting when people
sleep.

We didn’t land
until two hours later. After we found our luggage, we saw a man
with a sign saying Winterwood Academy. There were already two
people around our age standing with him from another flight, and
when we joined them he said he was waiting for three more from a
flight from Australia, which should be landing any minute. He
introduced himself as Paul, and explained that he was a teacher at
the school. He didn’t really look that old, maybe mid twenties, and
he had messy blond hair that almost covered his eyes. The two
others were Sydney and Kyle, from Ontario.

We ended up
waiting half an hour for the flight from Australia. During that
time Paul explained that people had been coming in for about a
week, and there was still another week before classes would
actually begin, as people were still coming. The school was
actually quite far from the airport, so Paul was going to drive us
all there, which was a journey that would take about half the
day.

Sydney and Kyle
didn’t know each other, but I could see that they both had gold
rings around the insides of their auras, which meant they had
special abilities. Sydney was a returning student, back from
spending the summer at home, but Kyle was new like us. Paul was a
werewolf, and he looked at Jack with interest.

“Are you
related to the Sawyer family in Oregon?” he asked Jack.

Jack looked
surprised, since we lived in Washington, near the border to Oregon.
He shrugged his shoulders. “My last name is Leewood, not Sawyer,
but I don’t know who my relatives are. I was given up at birth.
Juliet and I are both orphans.”

“Ah, well, just
thought I’d ask. You look kind of like Dexter Sawyer. He was in my
year when I went to the Academy.” He looked at me. “I can’t say you
look like anyone I’ve ever met before,” he commented, looking at me
with interest. I could feel my face grow hot with embarrassment,
even though I was used to such things.

Once the
Australians were with us we went out to the van that would take us
to school. It was white and fairly large, with four rows of seats,
so there was plenty of room for us and our suitcases. There was
already a cooler and a few bags of food in the back to keep us
satisfied during the journey.

The Australian
students were all returning, and they all knew each other, so they
kept to themselves and sat in the back of the van. I was sitting
near the front between Jack, who got the window seat yet again, and
Sydney. I asked her shyly about the school, and luckily she didn’t
hate me right away, like most girls did.

“It’s the best
school in the world,” she said, with enthusiasm. “I’m really
excited to be going back. There’s the opening ball to look forward
to, which was awesome last year. It’s really formal, so you get to
dress up and they even had an orchestra, so it was kind of like
stepping back in time. The classes are generally really
interesting, even though they have boring names. The names are just
so that if someone on the outside sees a transcript, they won’t be
able to guess what the classes are actually about, or they’ll be
misled into believing it’s something else. The teachers are all
really cool, and they -”

“Why would
other people not be allowed to know what our classes are about?”
Jack interrupted, looking confused. “Is there something special
about them?”

“What, you
don’t know?” Sydney asked, looking startled. Then she relaxed. “Oh,
that’s right, you’re an orphan. I guess I shouldn’t expect you to
know already, since they don’t say anything in the letter in case
someone else reads it. Most of us grow up with parents who have
gone to Winterwood, so we know what the school is for and we expect
our letters when they come.”

Jack waited a
minute for her to continue, but she didn’t. “So what’s the big
secret?” he finally asked.

Sydney turned
to me, looking nervous. “Do you know?” she asked.

“Not for sure,
but I have a pretty good idea,” I answered. “I’m assuming it’s some
kind of school of magic.”

Jack laughed.
“This isn’t a J.K. Rowling novel, Jules. There’s no such thing as
magic.”

“Actually,
Juliet’s right. That’s why you can’t apply to attend the academy.
Only those with special abilities get letters.”

“You can’t be
serious,” Jack said, looking somewhat stunned. I could see the
whirls of his emotions in bright colors. “If you knew all this
time, why didn’t you say something?” he asked me.

“It’s not the
kind of thing you make casual conversation about,” I replied. “I
wasn’t sure how you would react.”

“We’re best
friends, Jules. We’ve had conversations that weren’t casual
before.”

“It must be
weird to grow up not knowing what you are,” Sydney said, resting
her head of black curly hair against the seat. “I’m a hero. That’s
what they call people with one special ability.”

“I wondered
what they were called,” I said.

“Yeah? What are
you, then?”

“Actually, I
don’t know,” I said honestly. “I’ve never seen anyone else like me
before. I can see auras. I know that people like you, heroes, have
a gold ring around the inside of your auras. Witches have a gold
ring on the outside, vampires have no auras, and werewolves have
auras that are predominately silver. I have none of those
things.”

“Huh. So is
your aura, like, normal?” Sydney asked.

“No,” I
answered. “It’s predominately white. I’ve never seen anyone else
with a white aura. Do you know what it means?”

“No. Heroes
don’t really learn about auras, and I’ve only heard a few basic
things. They teach that stuff to the witches and wizards, but not
until later years because it’s a pretty advanced skill just to be
able to see them, and they’re generally the only ones who can
anyway. Maybe you’re a witch or something.”

“What am I?”
Jack asked. “I’ve never been able to do anything special.”

“You’re a
werewolf,” I told him.

He turned away
from me to try to hide his reaction, but I could still see it in
his aura. He believed me, and he was terrified. He stared out the
window, obviously deep in thought.

I talked to
Sydney a bit more, but didn’t learn much else. She told me a little
about some of the classes she had taken the previous year, and also
about some of the events that occurred. After a while I closed my
eyes, listening to the sound of Jack’s soft breathing beside me. I
didn’t even realize that I had fallen asleep until I felt Jack
roughly shaking my arm.

“We’re there,”
he said sharply, and I looked out the window.

Chapter 3

The school
seemed to consist of only one building, but it was big and spread
out. I could only really see the front, and there was a tall
section in the middle, connected to shorter sections, and then the
corners were even taller than the middle. I counted six floors of
windows in the corners, two in between, and four in the middle. The
red brick facade had a timeless quality, and I wondered how long
the school had been there. There was a lot of open space around the
building with stone paths, benches, a field, and a tennis court,
and the open area was completely enclosed by forest except for the
long driveway that led up to the building. It looked more like a
mansion than a school, and I couldn’t help but find it beautiful.
It was like nothing I had ever seen before in my very sheltered
life.

I followed
Sydney out the door of the van, and Jack came out behind me. He was
clearly mad at me, but there wasn’t much that I could do about it
at that point. We gathered our suitcases and followed Paul to the
front doors in the middle of the building, which were already open.
We stepped through the doors, which led to a beautiful foyer. He
told the returning students to go ahead and get settled in their
old rooms, and then he turned to the three of us who were
remaining.

“You guys won’t
get your final room assignments until after orientation, which
isn’t until tomorrow night. In the mean time you’ll have temporary
rooms in the north wing, which is generally pretty empty. I’ll take
you there now to dump your suitcases, and then I’ll give you a
tour. After that you’ll be pretty much free to do what you’d like
until orientation.”