The Echoes of Rivalry & Ruin (The Acamancy Series I)

Chapter 9: 5 Days Until Year One Begins

Saying my goodbyes to Mom, Brian, and Leo was a lot easier than I thought it would be. There were only a few tears shed, all from mom, of course. A lot of hugging, from everyone. But surprisingly, there was a very small number of attempts at convincing to come home, as well as probing, on mom's part. I survived the weekend with them, and now I have officially been alone and living at Acamancy for three days. There have been a few meetings, paperwork to fill out, getting some names to match the faces I've been seeing around, and decorating my dorm room. But otherwise, it has been an uneventful few day. I am counting down the hours until the Year One Banquet on Friday. With just over 36 hours to go, it's consuming my mind! I am just so ready for the real journey here at Acamancy to start.

At the top of my To-Do List for today, is getting a new dress to wear to the Banquet. The shops are quite a trek and even though I did get my driver's license last year, mom and Brian refused to buy me a car, and I couldn't afford one on my own. I was working up the motivation to walk over there this morning, when Brynn told me a friend, she made has a Year Three, Fire Mani brother at Fam-ac. He has a car, so he agreed to drive us over to the shops. Now, here I am, sitting at my fountain waiting for Mallory to come back. She went to get some extra spending money from Mitchell, and for Brynn to return with her friend, so we can walk over to Fam-ac and get a ride.

After about 15 minutes of waiting, Mallory shows up first.

"I got it! Mitch let me take the credit card, so we have an unlimited budget," Mal yells out to me as she rushes to sit next to me.

"Is that what Mitch told you? I thought the credit card was for emergencies only and you had a $100 spending limit on a single purchase," I skeptically reminded her.

"Yeah, yeah same thing," Mal says, rolling her eyes.

Mallory is not usually the girly girl, shopping type. I was honestly surprised she even wanted to go to the banquet, let alone go on a shopping trip. And now here she is shocking me further with excitement, disregarding spending limits, and high hopes for a beautiful and expensive formal dress, I have never really seen Mal dressed up. Even at school dances, which she usually avoided, she opted for a simple dress from a local chain store. Only at weddings had I seen Mal in a formal gown, and none were of her own choosing.

A few minutes later, Bee walks up with four other girls. I begin to wonder how we all will be fitting into one car.

"Hey ladies! Ready to go?" Bee smiles at us

We both nod, and look curiously at the friends she brought along, wondering who has the brother and how Brynn has made so many friends already. I was able to chat with a few Year Ones I have been seeing on and off at the library, by the fountain, and who live in dorms on our floor. They gave me their names, but of course I forgot all of those already, and we've chatted once or twice, but I wouldn't call them my friend just yet.

"Oh, how rude of me," Brynn starts.

"Emmie, Mal, this is Lylah, her brother has the car and kindly offered to drive us over to the shops today," Brynn informs us.

Lylah gives us a shy smile. She is absolutely beautiful. Stunning in an almost dark and mysterious type of way, yet at the same time she looks so young, almost childlike. She is petite, even smaller than Mallory. Her hair is as dark as midnight, and nearly as long as Brynn's golden blonde Rapunzel locks. She has a warm tan skin tone, which only makes her bright eyes appear even more blue. They are like two clear ponds standing out and glowing under the moonlight on a dark night. Her simple blue tee shirt that she has on, which matches the color of her eyes perfectly and serves to further enhance the color of her irises.

"Lylah is one of Callie's roommates," Brynn continues as she gestures to another friend that she brought along.

Callie is the opposite of Lylah in basically every way possible. She has a huge smile plastered on her round, pale face. Surrounding that face is a curly bush of brown hair, pulled slightly out of her face by a giant sunflower headband that she appears to have made herself with fresh flowers, it is no wonder she is friends with Bee. She is around my height with a slight build. She has green eyes that shine so brightly that they still stand out, even behind a pair of sunshine yellow, cat eye shaped, eyeglasses. Her glasses perfectly match the petals of the sunflowers that are in her hair, as well as on her mainly cream-colored dress. Callie waves at us brightly and introduces herself.