Amethyst Night and the Secrets of Nightingale Academy - Chapter 9

Struggling to Adjust

When I woke up the next morning, Fey’s bed lay empty next to me. I groaned, slipping out of bed and going through the morning routine as if I was stuck in slow motion. I was sure that Fey was angry with me for what had happened yesterday. Quickly, I changed into my uniform and grabbed my books. Then I opened the door and wandered aimlessly down the corridor, weaving from side to side as if I was drunk. When I opened the door at the end I could hear people shouting.

“What were you thinking?” Fey shouted. I looked over in the direction of the shout and discovered that she was stood in front of Gemini and Parker, her usually serenely peaceful look wiped from her face. “Well? Anything to say for yourself?”

“I can’t believe you’re siding with her,” Gemini snapped.

Fey turned on him, poised and ready to strike him down should he say anything else. “She hasn’t done anything to warrant saying the sorts of things you said,” she told him. “Now I don’t know what you’ve got against her, but keep it to yourself.”

“She doesn’t belong here,” Parker said. “Now that we know she really is Amethyst Night we know that she’ll cause a lot of trouble. We’d all be better off if she wasn’t here.”

“I don’t care,” Fey said.

Then Parker looked up and met my gaze, the look in his eyes wavering for a moment to that of pity before going back to hatred. Fey turned round following his gaze. I walked in the direction of the door and Fey ran to catch up to me.

“I’m sorry,” she said guiltily.

“For what?” I replied, grinning at her. “Sticking up for me?”

Fey smiled back at me. Parker and Gemini didn’t turn up at breakfast and I could hear some of the people around me blaming me for it. Unfortunately, they were there at our first class, standing right next to the door.

“Fey,” Parker said, not even acknowledging my presence. “We need to talk.”

Fey walked right past him into the classroom, causing Gemini to give me the evils.

“Wait.”

I stopped and turned round slowly, confirming that Parker was speaking to me.

“I honestly don’t care if I upset you,” he said. “But Fey does so...”

“Save it Parker,” I interrupted. “I don’t care if you think I’m a failure as a witch or whatever. In all honesty I should be thanking you.” Suddenly silence fell on the room and everyone was listening to me. “After all, since I’ve come to this school you’ve been the only one willing to tell me some sort of truth as to what is going on surrounding my family, even if you do need a few lessons on how to break news gently.”

There was a moment when no one dared to speak or even move. Then Parker took a couple of steps towards me. “You’re thanking me for saying something designed to be hurtful?” he asked.

I nodded.

For a moment there was a look of amusement on his face, but it disappeared quickly. “Then you’re an idiot,” he said, making his way to his seat.

I turned back to Fey, who looked just as shocked as everyone else in the room.

“I wasn’t expecting that,” she said.

Now I was sure she was angry at me but, instead, she just smiled at me and said in that same calm, bird song tone she always spoke with, “You’re an unpredictable person.”

The bell rang and was met by the sound of the purposeful footsteps of Mr Keats. I scampered to my seat, eager to not end up on his bad side again. I just reached it as he came through the door.

“Don’t get too comfortable, Miss Night,” he said, striding towards the desk at the front of the room, “Because you won’t be there for very long.”

I looked at him, furrowing my brow in confusion. “I don’t understand,” I said.

“From today onwards you will be sat next to Phoenix,” he explained impatiently. “Because Chariot now believes that it is ok for her to interfere with how I teach my lessons.” He paused, watching me, for a moment. “Well, are you going to make us wait all day?”

I gathered my things and moved to the back of the room where Parker sat. Gemini hesitated, but eventually got up and moved to sit next to Leo where I had been sat before. I sat down, my back completely rigid, my eyes fixed on the desk. I couldn’t help but feel that this was going to cause me more trouble than help.

“It seems like you were brought here just to cause me trouble,” Parker said.

I turned to look at him. He was watching me, which only served to make me even more anxious.

“I try,” I said, punctuating the words with a sarcastic smile.

Mr Keats started his lesson. He was talking about potions designed to manipulate emotions. A list was hanging from the board at the front of the room that told you which stones to use in which potions. But the more he talked about making the potions the less I understood. For a second, the thought crossed my mind that I should ask Parker about what I didn’t understand, but the idea of talking to him about something like this scared me slightly.

“Now, I want you to all make a potion designed to cause intense anger,” Mr Keats said.

My heart sank to the floor as I envisioned all the possible outcomes of this task, most of them involving me blowing up the class room. Everyone else had already started, obviously more familiar with making potions than me, while I resorted to desperately scanning the contents of my potions book for pages relating to anger potions. I found an appropriate page and memorized the ingredients before quickly heading up to the front of the room to collect and bring them back to the desk. When I got back I found Parker scrutinizing my book. I ignored him, setting up a Bunsen burner and placing a small china container over it. Then I looked through my ingredients.

What do I put in first? – The stone? – The herbs?

Parker watched me, expecting me to do something but I had no idea what to do. I looked around the room but everyone else was all ready too far ahead. I looked helplessly down at my ingredients. Finally, I gave up and picked up the yellow topaz on my desk and dropped it into the container. Almost as soon as it was in there Parker reached forward and took it out as quickly as he could.

“You don’t want to do that,” he said.

“Why?” I asked, slightly confused about what happened.

“Because if you put the gem in first it will get too hot and crack,” he explained.

I felt slightly defeated. “Well what do I do then?” I asked.

“I’m not telling you,” Parker said in a rather patronising tone.

I could feel the frustration building up and combining with the desperation to show him that I could do something like this too.

I looked back at the book that lay open on the table. My heart sank when I realised that the instructions for creating the potion were written in riddle form, as if I wasn’t struggling enough to make this potion. Fire of the soul, head my words and take hold. As I set them alight, let these flames burn bright and swallow all reason in their way. I reread it a couple of times before deciding that I had no idea what it was going on about and resorted to looking for something fiery in my ingredients. Slowly, I pulled a chopping board and scalpel towards me, which had been placed on our desk by the teacher, and picked up a small chilli, the sought that had to be grown in the magic kingdom from its size, colour and shape, and rolled it back and forth between my thumb and forefinger. I chopped up the chilli until it was no longer recognisable and dropped it into the china dish. Hesitating and scanning the ingredients, I dropped some herbs in with it and watched them slowly disintegrate in the heat.

Now there were only two ingredients left, the topaz and a small bottle containing some sort of liquid. I turned the bottle round over and over, attempting to find some sort of label and failing, before giving up and pouring a small amount of the liquid into the dish. I noticed something white on the bottom of the bottle, a label. I put the stopper back in and turned it on its side so that I could read the label. I frowned.

“Ethanol?” I read out loud in confusion. I realised my mistake too late – at that exact moment the china dish shattered, dropping it’s contents directly onto the flame of the Bunsen and creating a massive fire ball. I leapt forward and turned the gas tap off as quickly as I could and the flame disappeared.

I looked up, heart still jumping around in my chest, skin still tingling from the previous heat, and discovered that everybody was staring at me. Mr Keats was stood in front of me in a flash, glaring down at me.

“What exactly do you think you’re doing?” he asked. “Do you have any idea how close you just came to blowing yourself up?”

I tried to talk, but I couldn’t think of what to say. I tried to move, but found myself completely paralyzed. I had no response to give him and that just made him even angrier than he all ready was.

“Stay behind after class,” he said through gritted teeth.

He turned away and spoke to the other students, most of whom had all ready finished the potion. I sank down into my seat and focussed on breathing instead of hyperventilating. I was just regaining control of my body when he spoke.

“You’ll need to do better than that,” Parker lectured. “You’re not going to survive here if that’s the best you can do.”

I fisted my hands on my knees and squeezed them until they were so tight that my nails dug into my palms and stung slightly. I considered making my way out of the classroom so that I didn’t have to hold it back any longer. I imagined screaming at him, letting him know exactly what I thought of his little comments. I wondered if the floor could just disappear beneath me and I could drop into the centre of the earth so that no one could see me at this moment of utter humiliation. Unfortunately, I could do none of those things, no matter how hard I wanted to. Instead, I just sat there, concentrating on my breathing and forcing back the tears.

I was suddenly aware of a hand sweeping back my hair.

“You’re not going to cry, are you?” Parker said, breaking through every wall and pillar that was stopping me from collapsing in a mess. But I didn’t cry. The emotion creeping up in side me caught me off guard – it wasn’t the emotion I had been expecting. Anger surged into me, overwhelming me to the extent that I was shaking.

“No I’m not,” I hissed, keeping my eyes fixed on the desk. “Is that what you want? You want me to cry?”

“I want you to go away,” he said.

“Well, I’m not going anywhere,” I said. “So you’ll just have to get used to having me around.”