Wood Haven Academy

Year One

For eleven year old Flynn Owens, pain was an uncomfortably familiar feeling. Pain had become a friend in the way that the strange shadow a coat casts in an already dark room becomes a friend to a desperately scared and lonely child in the wee hours of the morning. In fact, pain was, if anything, one of the few things Flynn actually understood about his situation in full, unwavering clarity.

His first coherent memory of pain was when he was just barely two years old, still waddling around his parents’ house in a diaper. He had been playing in the large backyard of his parents summer vacation home somewhere in Germany with a few of his cousins on a dark, moonless Christmas Eve night. They had just returned from Christmas mass, and they had gone out back for some fresh air before bed.

They had been out there from anywhere between ten small minutes to a few hours, Flynn wasn’t quite sure, when their parents had called them in. Flynn, having been the youngest, was forgotten by his older cousins, and left to stumble back towards the porch. However, despite the high spirits of the night, Christmas soon became one nightmarish day.

Flynn was attacked by what at the time his parents had thought was a rabid fox, and had been bitten on the right shoulder, where he could still feel the shallow impressions in his skin where the teeth marks had scarred strangely. However, it had not been a fox at all. Rather, it had been a flickling, which judging by the quiet, pained way his parents talked about it outside his nursery door, was not a good thing. When the next new moon fell, and Flynn himself was forced through the excruciating transformation that came with being a flickling, his parents were faced with a decision.

They could either try and take care of him, or they could pass the problem onto someone else. And, as any young couple would given their situation, they chose to pass their problem onto someone else. That someone else was a mundane orphanage somewhere on the border between Russia, Finland, and Norway called Red Widow. It was at this orphanage he was to live in ’blissful ignorance’ until he turned eighteen.

However, as one might expect, he was not ignorant towards how different he was from everyone else, let alone living blissfully. Every new moon he would be locked in a small storage closet, with only one small, gold plated window high up towards the ceiling, to cast a cold, silvery white light into the room every morning. There wasn’t any furniture in the room, let alone a blanket or a pillow for him to use the next morning when he transformed back. The door was a heavy, solid wood door reinforced with gold plating so he wouldn’t be inclined to slam up against it.

And as if that wasn’t enough to tip him into his estrangedness, the other boys would often try and gang up on him, and some days succeed in beating him into a small smudge on the ground for the Dean to clean up later. Other days they would come away with burnt bruises where Flynn had managed to hit back. He didn’t do it on purpose, but there always seemed to be a fire simmering low in his gut, both literally and figuratively.

He was always just so angry, he couldn’t explain why, but he just was. It could have been from the harsh punishments from the Dean and her staff. It could have been the gruesome set up he was put in for new moons. It could have been the boys always trying to pick a fight. It could have been the fire that would sometimes dance around his hands when he was bored and alone and got tired of reading.

It could have been the cold stones beneath him as he lay on the ground, the dull tang of blood and the sharp burn of gold abusing his scent glands and making his eyes water, but that could have also been the pain in his collar bone. He could feel small bits of the cells in his arms and legs shifting back into place, sending pain searing through his limbs and deep into his core.

The smell of gold that clung to the air made him nauseous, and he curled tighter in on himself. He wasn’t cold, but everything hurt and he could feel the wet slide of blood down his left shoulder from his collarbone as it made its way to the floor where it accumulated in a small pool around his bicep and neck. He was shivering violently, which only made the pain worse. The thin shaft of light from the window above him was slowly brightening, so he only allowed himself a few more moments to lay there. ‘Ow…’ he thought painfully.

After a minute or two, he pushed himself up stiffly and reached over to the loose floor tile that he kept his spare clothes and glasses under. He dressed himself slowly, leaving the shirt off so that the Dean could patch up the gashes across his collar bone that hooked up over his left shoulder and dipped down under his right arm like a blood soaked seam of a roman toga or cape. He ran a shaky hand up through his auburn hair, raking out a few messy curls that had tangled together.

Flynn pushed on his glasses, and grabbed the bit of shattered mirror he had stashed under the flag stone and examined the cut. It was technically three, but the middle slash was much deeper, and the only one still actually bleeding, if much slower than before. He grumbled softly under his breath for a moment, mad about the new scar. He had tons of scars. All golden slashes across his tan-ish skin.

That was another thing that set him apart from his house mates. The long, golden scars gleamed like fire in late afternoon light. They covered his entire body, except for his face. At least he could cover them all up with long sleeves and jeans. Not to mention the fact that he was virtually mute. Sure, he knew how to speak English, Russian, and German fluently, he just couldn’t put words to his thoughts. When he was younger he would try, but it just came out as nonsensical gibberish, his voice grating even to his own ears, so he stopped trying.

He spoke using his books, or his drawings. It was easier to draw the things inside his mind then describe them with words. Especially the more gruesome bits.

As he waited for the Dean to come unlock the door and dress his cuts, he held up his right hand in front of him slightly, the back of his wrist resting on his drawn up knee, palm facing him. He summoned a small burst of fire, and watched as it danced and flickered in his palm. It released a warm glow, and radiated only the smallest bit of heat in his hand.

He turned his hand around and let the flame twist around between his long, scarred fingers. When the sharp clicking of heels and soft jangling of keys echoed down the hall Flynn closed his hand into a fist, smothering the flame, and pushed himself up to his feet, using the wall as support. It took a moment, but Flynn noticed a second, calmer pair of footsteps with the Dean. ‘What in the world? Who…’ he thought in confusion. They were talking softly, but he still managed to pick up small bits of their conversation.

“He is quite the problematic little child. Never says a word, and always has his nose in an English book. I worry he does not speak Russian at all sometimes. But he does. Fluent in it and English,” the Dean was saying in her heavily accented English. She only knew that because of his school assignment. She did not know he was also fluent in German.

“We have plenty of wonderfully bright students who are quite introverted. Not to mention we encourage them to read as often as they can. And I’m sure he will find a group of kids his age who will help him come out of that shell of his,” the other person said, a chuckle rising from his chest and carrying through the cold morning air. It was a man, middle aged probably, with a warm, aristocratic British accent. He smelled of chocolate and warm summer grass. Flynn already didn’t trust him.

“Of course. I do not doubt. He is just… a special case,” the Dean replied, right outside the door. “Give me a moment. Probably need patching up.” she said, the keys jangling as she slid them into the door and pushing it open just enough to slide in. So the man probably knew of his affliction, then. The Dean entered with an old, antique looking red tin box with a white cross in the middle of it in one hand, her keys in the other.

“Ah, a bit of a scratch. Nothing too bad. You can still move about fine, yes?” the Dean asked, in Russian. Flynn nodded, taking the disinfectant wipe she offered him and cleaned off the scratch. He cleaned the blood off his bicep and arm as well, before the Dean stepped forward with a piece of gauze with antibiotic ointment on it which she handed him to smear over the cut, which he did. He then took the long strip of gauze she handed him and wrapped it over the wound, and taped it down with the medical tape she gave him.

When Flynn said nothing, just pulled his shirt over his head, and his sweater on over that, the Dean sighed haughtily and opened the door for him. Even without having to touch the door, walking past the golden plates still made him uncomfortably itchy and nauseous. He stepped out of the little storage closet and blinked awkwardly at the light difference between the dark room and the bright hallway.

“This is Professor Whitebridge. He is here to talk about school. Be good,” the Dean explained, still speaking in Russian, before walking away.

“Hello Mr. Owens, how are you?” the man asked. He was wearing an expensive looking gray suit and a dark green tie. He had mostly black hair that was peppered with white and gray, and a thick but not unkept beard that covered the bottom half of his face. He had kind, intelligent brown eyes that glittered fondly, with wrinkles at the outer corners implying he spent a lot of time smiling, and a warm smile on his face that confirmed it.

Flynn simply shrugged. He didn’t know what he expected him to say, the dean had already explained his lack of verbal responses.

“How about we go for a bit of a walk, hmm?” the man said before holding out a little square wrapped in silver foil. “Chocolate?” he offered. Flynn took it hesitantly, nodding his thanks as he unwrapped it and ate it quickly, a niggling voice at the back of his mind worried he would take it back. The two walked around the halls for a little while in silence, the professor leading the way.

Despite Flynn being pretty sure the man had never stepped foot in the orphanage, he seemed to know his way around just fine, and led the way out of the building and into the back courtyard.

“Do you know what magic is, Mr. Owens?” the professor asked as they stopped by a bench under a tall, snow bent pine tree. Flynn stared at him for a moment before hesitantly nodding. “I figured as much. And do you know that you have magic in your very veins?” Professor Whitebridge went on.

Flynn nodded again, wringing his hands and looking down at the already frosted ground. It was late August, but as far north as they were they only got maybe one month of warm-ish weather.

“Can you show me?” he pressed. Flynn shifted uncomfortably where he stood, hesitating yet again. After almost half a minute he held out his left hand and a small, flickering flame came to life in his palm.

The small blaze danced between his fingers as it had earlier, and looped around his wrist.

“You have quite good control of your magic for such a young boy, Flynn. You should be impressed with yourself, I certainly am.” the man smiled, and Flynn closed his hand over the flame, putting it out.

‘I wonder if he has any more chocolate.’ he thought absently. The conversation was starting to get mildly mundane and Flynn’s already exhausted mind was beginning to wander.

“Like Mrs Opaldelski, or the Dean rather, told you, I am here to talk about school. I heard you like reading?” he continued, gesturing for Flynn to sit on the bench next to him as he lowered himself down. Flynn nodded again and went about tearing up the chocolate wrapper slowly.

“Your marks are quite impressive as well as your magic, and from what I’ve gathered from your teachers you’re quite curious.” The professor started up again.

‘This guy talks too much.’ Flynn thought to himself as the professor continued to ramble on about a school where other kids with magic learned spells and potions and learned how to control their magic.

By the time Professor Whitebridge finally finished it had become increasingly clear that this was purely a conversation to make Flynn feel like he had some degree of control over the fact that he was being sent to this school. He didn’t really mind that much though. If it meant getting to spend months away from the always cold pit of hell he had been stuck in for a large chunk of his life then he was fine with the move.

“So, are you interested?” the man smiled warmly.

Flynn pretended to contemplate it for a moment before looking at the man. He nodded decisively, and stood up.

“Spectacular! We’ll have an area set up for your… episodes before you come. School starts on the seventeenth, the Dean will drop you off at Queen Elizabeth station so you can catch a train up north. Oh, and don’t worry about being an oddity among oddities. Knox Willshire, a boy about your age who will be starting this year has a similar moon related predicament. You won’t be alone, Flynn. I promise you that.” and with that, Professor White bridge was gone, disappearing in a plume of white smoke, and Flynn was left alone on the bench, a bag of chocolates on the bench where the professor had been.