The Moonlit Girls (NOT Original)

Reach Out and It'll Begin?

Tucked away in her office as one would expect of a headmistress, Miranda Holbrooke stood behind her desk with her back to the room, gently leaning forward with her hands clasped atop her staff.

It was still a tender hour what with the air still calm and the world as she saw it from her window still mellow. Through the glass, her eyes traveled higher until they settled on the twilight sky and a wistful look passed over her face, feeling a familiar stirring in the pit of her stomach.

Her eyes twinkled as she embraced the hushed excitement growing ever louder inside her. It was an emotion she always carried, one that pooled within her time after time, which she only let herself dip into when the proper moments allowed for it.

And she could only affirm that today was undoubtedly one of those moments as she took a serene breath and relaxed into the feelings only these special and specific mornings could give her.

She remained that way until a knock on her door echoed throughout the room and though it interrupted the silence, it was not unwelcome.

"Come in," her voice warm and wavering with age called out.

The door creaked as it slid open. Quiet footsteps padded against the floor as her guest entered and the door clicked as it shut behind them.

"Headmistress," a voice greeted.

She didn't turn to meet their face, yet she smiled as if she had. Her eyes never left the sky.

"Isn't it a nice morning?" She asked.

"Surely. But, will it be a nice night as well?"

"We'll only know when the night arrives, now won't we?" She teased.

"And the night will arrive before we know it. The time is drawing near."

The headmistress released a steady hum. "I am aware."

She heard a short exhale of breath and with a tone slightly more hesitant than before, her company continued.

"Headmistress... don't think me redundant as I ask, but as we reach this point yet again, I feel it appropriate to ascertain that we are doing the correct thing? You are positive of such?"

There was no hesitance in the response given. "Indeed."

No immediate reply followed the statement for the next case of words stirred in even more uncertainty before they were finally said.

"Year after year, many students enter this academy. So far, we have always come up short. Do you truly believe we will ever find the right ones? The ones she spoke of?"

"It isn't our duty to find them." Those words came with a smiling confidence. "When the right ones are ready, they will find us. This, I know."

There was a small sigh. "And you know this based off fact? Or assumption?"

A hearty chuckle left the mouth of the woman in question. "Be kind to me, Anne. I have yet to lead you astray, have I?"

"Perhaps not. Though, with something as important as this, I have the inclination to wait and see. After all, waiting is all I can do. But, as patient as I will be, I do hope that this time our search will finally come to its long-awaited end."

"Miss du Nord," an ever familiar voice snapped. "You aren't coming any closer to finishing."

Sitting hunched over in a desk at the very front of a classroom with no other students in it for she had been the only one demanded to report in so only in the morning, "Miss du Nord"—who would much rather be called by her first name, Chariot—tensed at the voice and stilled her hand that had been busy writing line after line onto the sheet of paper below her. She glanced over her work so far and her shoulders sunk. The page was hardly half-way full.