Merlin's Academy for the Magical Arts Chronicles ||Book 1: Warlock

Prologue

Nixie groaned as the bucket fell again and crashed milky-whiteness all over the hay of the floor. She glared at black and white splotches of the cow she had been milking, grumbling, "Why do you hate me so much?" She breathed in deeply, then set the milk bucket back on the stool. The cow snorted and finally let herself be milked. Nixie sighed, then stood up, wincing as her knees popped from being folded for an hour in the cold. The wind gusted through the open parts of the stables, blowing chills across Nixie's skin. Come on, she thought. Winter just ended! Damn mountain weather. She shook off the cold and began walking across the grazing field to her home.

As soon as she opened the creaky back door, Nixie's father spun around and asked, "How's Millie this morning?"

Nixie sighed, handing over the bucket and saying, "She's ever as stubborn as an iron rail, dad." Her father chuckled. Nixie frowned. "Don't laugh! She kicked the pail over twice! Why did you name her something as fancy as Millicent, anyway? She doesn't deserve a name that pretty."

Nixie's father met her daughter's aggrieved brown eyes with the air of a traveling minstrel, full of mystical ballads and legends. "Do you want to hear a story?" He asked eagerly. Nixie sighed, then nodded.

"When I was a child living in Camelot, my mother had a job working in the palace as a maidservant. I would accompany her to work, and I would help her with the washing, and plate settings, and little things like that. I had a friend named Millicent who was the daughter of the Master of Hunt, and we always used to play with the stable hands when the masters weren't looking! When I was ten or eleven, I forget, one of the cows became pregnant, and Millie cared for it like a mother. When the cow was giving birth, Millie was there, helping the stable boys like a midwife. Somehow, she got the stable master to let her help with the birthings of the other animals. She even named one of the foals Camellia!" Nixie's father laughed.

"So, you dubbed our stuck-up cow after a childhood friend who was the animals' midwife?" Nixie snorted, holding back laughter behind her hand. Her father's lips widened into a grin.

"I thought it suited her well." Nixie's bubbly laughter broke free as she crossed over the stone floor to join her father in hefting the cast iron pot from the oven. Nixie inhaled the warm yeasty goodness, growing delirious from the overwhelming scent of golden, crackling bread. "This batch turned out rather well, didn't it?" her father said with pride. The job of baking morning bread once fell to Nixie's mother, but since she had died three winters past, the two living of the household took turns fulfilling that duty. Nixie wrapped her hands carefully in a dishcloth, lifting the loaf out of the pot and setting it onto the cutting board. Her father went about slicing the loaf while Nixie poked around the kitchen for the cheese round before finding it hidden behind a crock of oats leftover from the winter.

"Can I take some to Axel? He said that they ran out of flour already," Nixie asked.

Her father sighed, "A family of bakers and you'd think they would have plenty of bread to eat. Go ahead, and take the fresh butter-pot back to them. It's already a day late, missy."

Nixie protested, "You made me sow the garden, lest you forgot!"

Her father chuckled, "Just get going. You know you want to talk to him anyway."

Nixie smiled, wrapping half of the loaf and shoving it and the butter-pot in her day bag. She waved at her father in the kitchen before running out the front door. The wind had warmed up, and it whipped grasses into a flowing frenzy. Nixie wondered if that was what the oceans of her father's stories looked like.

~*~

Axel Garreth had been Nixie's best friend since the two were babies. Their fathers were very close. The two families looked after each other as their own kin and blood. Especially after Nixie's mother's death. It was a cold trek to the Garreth family farm but one Nixie was always willing to make to help or see her friend. Axel was a tanned, muscular boy of sixteen, a year older than Nixie herself. He had black hair and deep Caribbean blue eyes. So, yes he was a heart-throb.