Chapter 1: 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, I thought 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.

Inside though it smelt like a regular Monday morning; of pine scented disinfectant and traditional wood polish and even that was making the inside of my nose feel like it was burning. The floor was shining; freshly wax polished from the tiles in the entranceway to the wood flooring throughout the rest of the ground floor. I don't think there's even a single carpet in the entire building, just some really expensive rugs in the faculty offices.

Victoria and Katie were practically dragging me up the mahogany stair case to our registration class; class 1B on the first floor. The whole school was bustling with activity and noise from all the other students; now including all the day students who had been arriving in dribs and drabs throughout the morning and the occasional teacher; attempting to keep us all in line and hurry us up for registration. We made our way up the main staircase, saying good morning and hello to some of the others we shared classes with. It was then we spotted bespectacled and Tweed jacketed Mr. Bishop stood outside of classroom 1B, waiting for us all to waddle on in. A bunch of girls however were loitering outside their registration classes hoping to catch a glimpse of of the new History teacher Mr. Evans who started at the beginning of the year. He was a lot younger than all the other teachers and particularly good looking.

'Dude Vic! Get in!' Katie nudged Victoria in to the classroom. 'It's the first day back we don't wanna be late right outside the damn classroom, geeze.'

I took my seat at the left middle bench closest to the window and Katie and Victoria sat in their usual places beside me.

'Okay folks settle down.' Mr. Bishop bellowed over the din of the classroom noise, he was pretty loud as he had to make himself heard over the sound of about twenty kids chatting. Mr. Bishop was our class guidance teacher, he did our registration class every morning. He was supposed to be the teacher we went to if we had any problems or advice. He was okay, somewhere in his forties and a little tired looking. He was also a fan of the elbow patch, every tweed suit jacket he owned had them on.

'First registration of the new term so I hope everyone is present.'

Mr. Bishop flicked his finger across a fancy new tablet, landing on the class list. He started reading out names. I kind of tuned out as it took a while to get to my name. I ended up staring out of the window for a bit as something had caught my eye. There was a dog slowly ambling about on the grass verge outside; well I think it was a dog anyway something like a doberman, it did look a little hazy.

'Taylor! Madelyn Taylor! Wakey wakey!'

'Oh! Yes! Here Sir.'

The rest of the class started giggling at me and Mr. Bishop just rolled his eyes. I wasn't paying attention. As soon as Mr. Bishop called out the next name I looked back outside. The dog looking thing had gone. I'd literally looked away for a second and whatever it was had disappeared.

'Yeah I definitely need to call Auntie Morrigan.' I told myself for the second time this morning.

Weird stuff had been happening to me a lot recently. My things have been going missing and turning up in the weirdest of places. I keep seeing strange things too and hearing things. And the dreams I've been having recently are kind of starting to freak me out.

At least if I can have a chat with Auntie Morrigan at some point she might be able to put my mind at ease. If I could get a hold of her anyway, she was probably doing something weird in some random part of the world. She had always said we were a "gifted" family, my mother included even though she said she never wanted anything to do with it.

'Maddie. Maddie! C'mon it's time for our first class.'

Katie had literally shook me back in to the real world, again. I could tell today was going to be one of those day where it would either sail on by, quicker than anything; or it would drag.

It didn't drag though. I had somehow managed to auto pilot my way through most of the day and somehow didn't get in trouble for not paying attention in class. I felt even weirder as the day went on, like I'd lost time somewhere. We had finished for the day but I could not figure out where the day had gone. When school got out, the boarders all went back to their rooms to dump their stuff, get changed, get ready for after school clubs and so on. All of the day students went home, picked up by their parents or their drivers in their fancy expensive cars.

Victoria and Katie had dumped their things in our room as they had a piano lesson and tennis club respectively after school. I didn't have any after school lessons till Wednesday and Thursday when I had Judo classes. I had no studying to do either as we never usually got any assignments to bring back with us on the first day of the term. I'd done all of my laundry over the weekend so I didn't have any to do through the week. Wow, how organised I was this week. That never happened.

'I know, I'll call Auntie Morrigan.' I said out loud. It was the perfect time as my room mates were out and I had some weird stuff to talk about. Auntie Morrigan was all about weird stuff. She is my mum's younger sister by a few years and to be honest, I got along with her better than my mum. She was pretty cool, kind of eccentric and had her fingers in a lot of pies due to her work. She's done two degrees, one in Chemistry and one in Archaeology. I know her current job sent her all over the world, digging up ruins and dead bodies and stuff but it was really difficult getting hold of her sometimes. I got lucky this time.

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'And how's my favourite niece?' She said to me, not even saying hello or anything. I was a bit surprised she even picked up.

'I'm your only niece Auntie Morrigan. I'm fine though, how are you? Where are you this time?'

'Oh just in Paris. I've brought back some Egyptian stuff for their exhibit that we found a few months ago at some dig.'

Auntie Morrigan's deep, Northern voice was pretty soothing in my ear. I always felt better when I spoke to her. It was like having a big hug surrounding your brain.

'I'm getting the impression you're not fine though Maddie? What's wrong girly?'

Damn. She knew every time without me even saying anything. I swear she's psychic or something. I sighed before I spoke.

'Ugh I've been having really weird dreams recently and I think my hayfever's acting up too. I think I'm stressed out or something.'

'Have you been finding it difficult to get to sleep? I mean is it taking a long time for you to drop off?' Auntie Morrigan asked.

'Yeah it's like my brain is in over drive. And I can't seem to get comfy either so I just end up tossing and turning for ages.'

'Hmm, sounds like you need to ground yourself a bit. Do you remember what I taught you?'

Auntie Morrigan did teach me "grounding" before I started attending Saint Augustine's. She said I've always been a bit off a stress-head even when I was little and I'd wind myself up over nothing sometimes. She told me that whenever she tried grounding; she'd go outside and find a nice patch of grass and lie down on it with her bare feet sinking in to the green. "Let the blades of grass go between your toes." She said. Imagine you're sinking down in to the ground, like the earth is wiping away any negative thoughts and feelings away from your body." Yeah, I never did any of that weird spiritual stuff. And right now I'm willing to try anything.

'Yeah I remember Auntie M. I'll give it a go.'

'It might chill you out so you can hopefully sleep without the dreams. As for your hayfever, get yourself some nettle tea. Oh and stick a teaspoon of local honey in it. Have that every morning at breakfast okay?'

I was a little dubious of Auntie Morrigan's remedy, especially with her being well; a qualified scientist but I agreed to what she suggested. She didn't ask me about what happened in my dreams though, I guess she didn't need to know those details. I couldn't remember them entirely but I had them often enough for me to take notice. Do I tell her I'm seeing things too? Yeah, might as well.

'Auntie M, I'm err...' I paused for a moment.

'Seeing things? When you're awake?'

'Yes.'

'Yeah sweetheart you're tired. You really really need to rest properly by the sounds of it. You've just started school again haven't you?' Auntie Morrigan stated. 'And I guess you've got some important exams this term?'

Spot on Auntie M.

'You're right. I guess I do need to chill out.' I rubbed my face slightly. I was starting to stress out about telling her these things, but she'd taken a lot off my mind by just telling her. 'Thanks Auntie M, I actually feel a bit better now.'

'Just do what I suggested and see how you get on okay. I'll be back in the country soon for a bit, why don't I come get you at the weekend and we'll go out somewhere eh?'

'That sounds nice, yeah sure why not.'

'Yeah we'll make a weekend of it. Do a bit of shopping, get food and that. The works.'

'Thanks Auntie M, I'm looking forward to it.'

I hadn't been on the phone that long with Auntie Morrigan but for some reason I felt exhausted. I put my phone on charge and set it down on my bedside table. Climbing on to my bed, I figured I'd have a short nap before Katie and Victoria got back. I could feel myself getting more and more tired as the seconds passed.

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