Page 27 of Magic in the Woods
She raised her hand above her head, pointing to the metal framing around the arched door. The wordsBecome the Chosenwere written in strings of twisted metal, blending into the door. “That’s what every witch wants, and what you’ll have a chance to become here at the Academy.”
Another witch yelled out, asking, “Where are the clothes we packed—our things?”
“Silence!” Gray Curls screeched. “You’re lucky to be here! I can tell your human parents didn’t teach you magicormanners—thankfully, the Academy will instill both.”
The room was silent once again. Gray Curls smoothed the hair on the side of her head before continuing. “Now, this is a special year. Years like this only come once a generation and only when we have a male witch come of age. You all are lucky to be here, but all of you will also be at a disadvantage. There are other young human-born witches who have been here at the Academy for several years and witches born from magical parents who have been training and waiting for this moment since they were born. They’ll be better prepared than you and ready for the evaluations that begin in a few weeks.”
I looked over at Brooke, who stared at Gray Curls with her mouth open.
“Even more of a reason you should be listening to my every word—following the instruction your elders are giving you. If you want a chance at becoming the chosen, it will take fortitude, power, and the aptitude to know when to listen.” Her eyelids partially closed as her glaring eyes made their way around the room, scanning our faces.
“So…we’re not going to be taking college prep classes?” one of the witches asked.
“Enough!”Gray Curls snapped.
A collective gasp echoed across the room.
“When you walk through the door, there will be no more whining, no more complaining. You’re here to train at the Academy and serve the Coven. You’ll be nothing but grateful you’re here. This is an opportunity to become the chosen. You don’t know how lucky you are.”
Gray Curls turned to the witch with long fingernails, who stood on the opposite side of the rounded room with her arms crossed, her claws tapping her arm in a steady rhythm. “Are we ready?”
Fingernails nodded once before walking toward the metal door and entering a combination of numbers into the keypad, her nails clicking with every key strike. The door took a moment to disengage all the locks inside it. With a single black boot, she propped the door open, crossing her arms in front of her body again.
“Strip.” Gray Curls gave the command casually.
I looked down the line of girls, who looked just as confused as I felt.
She sighed before looking back at Fingernails. “Every year I forget they’re imbeciles when they arrive.” Her boots clunked along the dirt floor before she stopped in front of the girl who had challenged her earlier. “Maybe if I show you, you’ll understand.”
Gray Curls spun the girl around by her shoulders, so her back was to her. Taking the collar of her pale yellow dress between her two hands, she tore it down her back, the thin fabric shredding easily. The girl covered her mouth with her hands, keeping her shriek muffled.
“Take off your dirty clothes,” Gray Curls commanded, stepping back and waiting.
The surrounding girls started pulling their clothes off slowly.
“Speedit up! All of it off! I don’t want any of the filth you brought with you to make its way into the Academy.”
Everyone moved faster, stripping the clothing from their bodies, leaving puddles of worn clothing in front of them. I followed suit, letting the faded green dress fall to my feet, peeling the underwear off and letting it fall on top of the dress. I stood like the other girls, covering myself the best I could with my two hands.
When everyone had undressed, shaking, not from the cold but from being uncomfortable and scared, Gray Curls motioned to me to walk through the metal door.
“We’ve got showers and uniforms.”
The promise of clothes had the rest of the girls walking toward the door, pressuring me to lead the way. The arched door was short enough that I had to duck my head to walk through it. Tiled floors and walls replaced the dirt floor we’d just exited, the cool tile numbing my feet. Every few steps, I walked over a small drain on the floor. When I met the tiled wall on the far side of the room, I stopped and turned around, watching the girls line up on the wall, their backs to the tile.
Fingernails walked into the narrow room, bending down to pick up a black hose attached to a spigot on the opposite wall. It was finally light enough to see her features. Like Gray Curls, her face was covered in a mix of sores and warts, her nose long and bulbous at the tip.
I braced myself as she twisted the knob and squeezed the nozzle. Jets of ice-cold water hit my skin. The girls screamed as the spray hit them, crouching over, trying to avoid the icy water. Did they not have hot water in the Coven? Even the Velkans’ trailer had tepid water—something I’d become used to living there. This was just plain torture.
I glanced up at Fingernails, manning the hose, the smile onher face told me she was enjoying spraying young witches with cold water.
They couldn’t treat us like this, like we were nothing more than farm animals. Even the animals at my grandmother’s cottage got bathed with water warmed by the sun. This was inhumane, completely unnecessary. Was this what it was going to be like here? The seasoned witches preying on those who were new and weaker?
Everyone around me huddled in a cluster, struggling to get to the middle of the group, to get protection from the jets of cold water.
Being left on the outside of the group, Fingernails aimed the hose at me, and I winced each time the stream of water hit my skin. I found myself cowering with the other witches, their fear infectious.
A jet of water hit me directly in my face. I coughed, spitting out the water that had gone up my nose. It was enough to snap me out of whatever feeling of fear I’d absorbed from the witches around me—this wasn’t right. Annabel had wanted to do something to stop this, to end the torment the human-born witches at the Academy went through. She wasn’t able to do anything because she needed to protect her children.
