Chapter Seventeen
Through A Silver Haze

 

Something beeped. Something close by and right up in his ear. It was like a little humming sound, going ‘mwee’ every few seconds. Blearily, Emily opened his eyes and realized that the sound had been him. He looked around to see if anyone had noticed, and then realized nobody could have. The felt igloo surrounded him on all sides, cozy and comfortable, with his backpack right next to him. He blinked a few times and stuck his head out of the entrance. It was barely light out. Good, he didn’t want to be late on his first day. 

All around him in the room were the sounds of animals slowly waking up. Lots of yawns and stretches. He saw Simon, curled up like a pretzel on a frumpled up blanket, his nose pressed into his own back. Emily shook his head and smirked, then hopped down with his backpack slung over his back.

Bathroom to the right, right? He jumped down from his perch, taking care not to overthink things this time. He landed gingerly, and then quickly trotted over to the cat flap that had a little shower-head icon next to it. Pushing through, there was the weird sensation of being somehow both upside down and sideways, and then he was standing in a normal-sized bathroom. His luggage was on a bench to his left, just like Sarah had said it would be. Right. With a little push of effort, he was a human again. 

Jonathan Rosewood looked back at him in the mirror, and he frowned. Not in frustration or anger, but in confusion. He’d expected that he’d have to shave. Sure, at sixteen, his facial hair wasn’t exactly prominent, but he did take care to go over his face once a week to get rid of the encroaching fuzz, which always itched uncomfortably. But it looked like he didn’t need to. Maybe it was a side-effect of being in cat form so much lately? 

“Whatever,” he said, and reeled back at the sound of his own, croaky voice, what felt like two octaves lower than it should be. “Blegh.” Taking his toiletries out of his bag, he made the space his own a little bit more. A shampoo Charlie had let him borrow. Some new deodorant. It wasn’t much, but they were his things. And they smelled nice. His parents had always insisted on the four-in-one shampoo-deodorant-soap-toilet-cleaner, so having something that smelled like flowers was a lovely change of pace. 

He brushed his teeth, took a quick shower, and changed his clothes. There was a laundry basket in the corner of the room that he tossed his old clothes in, and then he turned back into a cat. “Test,” he said softly, and the croakiness was gone. It was the soft, high-pitched gentle cat voice of Emily again. “Much better.”

With that, he turned back to the cat flap and felt his face smoosh when it didn’t open. He took a confused step back, and looked around. The cat-flap had a little flashing red light floating above it. Maybe something was wrong with the magic? The big, human-shaped door had a little blue-green light above it. Maybe that meant it worked? He turned large again, and tried it. He stepped out into the hall. That was weird. He closed the door behind him, and immediately the door opened again, and Sarah stepped out, looking confused. 

“‘Morning,” she said. “You know what’s wrong?” Jonathan shook his head and went around the corner, up the impossible staircase that put him on the ceiling — or was it the floor? — and he went over to the door of the Familiar Dorms. Crossing the threshold, with Sarah close behind him, he went back into the room. He heard the click-clacks of Sarah’s fox-form nails on the tile floor trotting alongside him.

There was a little bit of tumult on the other side of the room, and now, Emily saw why he couldn’t leave the bathroom through the cat flap. There was a very fluffy dog stuck in the cat flap. He recognized the panicked looking snout as belonging to Dennis. 

“Oh no,” Sarah mumbled, “poor thing.” She quickly rushed over, but there wasn’t a lot they could do. Dennis looked… well, like a panicked dog, which was to say he was frowning and whining and scratching his little paws on the ground, trying to find traction where there wasn’t any. As Emily also got closer, he heard the gathered animal kids arguing. 

“How did this even happen?” a large python hissed. 

Dennis let out a sad little howl. “I saw someone else go through this door and I thought this was where we were supposed to go.” He looked up. “I didn’t see the doggy door,” he whined. 

“Well, maybe we can squeeze you out from the other side?” A rabbit said. Her nose twitched slightly as she looked at Sarah, who came closer to nudge Dennis in a bid to cheer him up a little.

“We can’t do that without getting a teacher,” Sarah said. “There’s no way to get into his bathroom.” She nudged Dennis again. “We’re getting you out there, okay? I know getting stuck in stuff is really scary.”

“Yeah,” Emily said as he also got closer. Not knowing what to do, he put a paw on Dennis’ head. It seemed to work a little bit. The malamute was calming down some, although he was still making soft, sad puppy noises. “And don’t forget, we’re in a school for magic people. It’ll be easy to get you out of there.”

As if on cue, there was a loud ‘Fwoompf’ sound, and suddenly Emily was outside. And not just him, but a whole bunch of the Familiars were as well. Dennis and a rapidly approaching Simon were, too, as well as some of the other kids. Based on his own voice and appearance (and name) as a cat, he didn’t want to make any assumptions, so Emily just categorized and mentally named them by species. There was Rabbit from before, Parrot, the Other Cat, Owl and Greyhound. There were also several of the kids he’d seen the day before in their introductory class. 

The red-haired boy, Ned, waved at the haughty cat, although Greyhound was the one that walked over to him and sat down regally. The cat was picked up by a boy with a slightly dour expression. Well, those two fit together. Quickly everyone paired up with their Witch, Wizard or Warlock. It wasn’t long for Emily to see Jenna run over to him. 

“Hey, you!” she said, picking him up under his armpits. He was quickly getting used to being picked up like this. “Did you sleep well?”

“Yeah,” Emily said, doing his best to smile. “Do you know what’s going on? Where are we?” He looked around. They seemed to be in the middle of clearing in the forest. The village was nowhere to be seen. Jenna shook her head. 

“No, but I’ve heard about this.” She looked a little worried now that the situation seemed to be dawning on her. “I think it’s a kind of, like, hazing ritual?” She held Emily closer against her, almost like a shield. He looked around the trees to see if he could pick up anything, but for now, it looked like it was just them in the clearing. 

“By the older students? This early in the morning?” He heard Owl hoot next to them. Its feathers seemed to be more than a little ruffled. The girl whose shoulder it was sitting on seemed to be doing her best to flatten out its feathers. “I’m Erinna, by the way,” the owl said. “This is Sylvie. Simms.”

“Pleasure,” Sylvie said. She seemed mostly concerned with the owl. 

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“I’m Jenna. And this is Emily,” Jenna said, holding Emily up. “Do you know exactly what’s going on?”

“You’re not ready,” the cat boy cackled behind them. “You’re all going to look like a bunch of fools.” 

“Shut up, Terence,” Erinna said, her head turning 180 degrees to glare at him. “Don’t mind him,” she said to Jenna and Emily. “He’s been here two years, and thinks he’s better than anyone because of it. That he’s ‘too good’ for a Wizard. Or was, anyway.”

Simon and his Wizard Benjamin walked up, as did Dennis. Well, Dennis didn’t walk up. He was being carried by the older boy, since the little Malamute was shivering. “I know what this is,” Dennis’ Wizard said. “Get ready to run.”

“What’s going on?” Simon said with a little bit of annoyance in his voice, and then he calmed his voice a little bit. “And how’s Dennis holding up?”

“He’ll be okay,” the boy said. “I’m Jacob, by the way. And this is your first self-defence class. I’ve heard professor Vigours does this to see how the new kids act under stress.”

“Does what?” Simon asked as Benjamin, his Wizard, put him on his shoulder. “Poof us into the middle of a forest to scare us?”

“Uh, no,” Jacob said, shaking his head while he carefully patted the back of Dennis’ head. “But from what I heard, you’re not allowed to talk about it, so I don’t know what he has in store for us.”

For a brief second, Emily had a horrifying image of one of those shades being released at them. Surely a teacher wouldn’t do something like that? To see if they could stand up to one of those things?

He felt something press against the back of his head, and he realized that Jenna had pushed her nose into his fur. “Don’t worry, Emily. We’ll protect you.”

“Wh…” he meowed in protest, “what are you talking about? I’ll protect you!” There were a few chuckles from around them, and then all sound was sucked out of the air. It was deathly quiet for a moment. Then there was a loud bang, like a hundred doors being slammed at the same time, accompanied by a yellow flash from the edge of the clearing. 

Vigours, in an even more frumpled suit, had appeared out of nowhere, with his hands in his pockets. Next to him sat a Great Dane, its eyes looking at them all with attention. 

“Let’s go,” Terence said. The fluffy cat sat in his Wizard’s arms, “while everyone else is listening.” The wizard didn’t make a move, just staring at Vigours. “Ricky, I swear, I will bite you if you don’t—”

“My name is Vigours,” the teacher said as he approached them. “You can call me Vigours, mister Vigours, or professor Vigours. That’s it.” He looked at everyone with an air of disinterest and jutted his jaw forward. It clicked slightly. “Some of you heard ‘bout my own initiation.” He glared at Terence. “That isn’t gonna help you.” The Great Dane had also approached them, and seemed to be glaring at the Greyhound sitting at Ned Jensen’s feet.

“What is going on, mister Vigours?” Benjamin asked. Simon, sitting on his shoulder, looked at Vigours defiantly. 

“Like you were told yesterday,” Vigours said as he fished a pack of breath mints out of his pocket and popped one in his mouth, “we’re counting on you lot to save the world. Ruddy work it is, so it’s my job to make sure you don’t die. But I can’t do that if I don’t know what you’re made of.”

Emily could see where this was going, and he didn’t like it. “There’s got to be a kind of aptitude test for something like that, isn’t there?”

Vigours looked at him. “Hmm. Good to see you’re doing better, kid.” He turned back to the rest of them. “And no, there isn’t. I need to know where your limits are before I can push you past them. Now, Wizards, Warlocks, Witches among you, you lot will have some kind of latent magical potential already. Use that. Familiars, you’re going to have to assist your mages while taking care of yourself.”

“Assist our mages doing what?” Erinna the Owl asked. 

“Protect yourself,” Vigours said. “School is seven miles that way.” He jutted a thumb over his shoulder. 

“So this is, like, a test?” Emily asked. Vigours nodded. He started to glow softly yellow, and his Familiar bared its teeth. 

“Yeah. If you make it there alive, you pass.” In front of him, a golden sword appeared out of thin air in his hand. “Go on,” he said. “Run.”

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