The Skullcap Chronicles

Chapter One

 Okay. I can do this.

 I can go to school like a normal kid. I used to, didn't I? How much harder could it've gotten? It's only been four years. Besides, Massachusetts is supposed to be a nice place, isn't it?

 But the mass of students swarming into the school weren't helping my nerves. All I'd seen of high school was movies, and middle school had only been one year there. Almost all of my school experience had taken place in elementary school. And now I was standing in front of a high school full of kids who knew each other, in the cold January weather of Saranden, Massachusetts.

 "Hey," someone said. I looked over and nearly took a step back- she was gorgeous. The girl next to me was a few inches taller than me, with black hair just long enough to fall into her face, but cropped close to her hair in a boyish cut. She had a friendly, wide smile, with straight white teeth and apply cheeks. She had on a Batman shirt, a gray and black striped shirt, and solid black skinny jeans with denim converse. "Are you new here?"

 I gulped and nodded. "Yeah, I was home-schooled for the past four years, and just moved here."

 "Oh, nice," she replied. She had a deep voice for a girl, but it worked for her. "I'm Kai, I hope you like it here."

 "Alys," I answered. She grinned.

 "Well, this isn't quite wonderland."

 I rolled my eyes but smiled. "I'm catching on to that. Not enough hats for it to be Wonderland."

 "What grade are you in?" She asked suddenly, changing the subject.

 "Oh, I'm a junior, what about you?"

 "Senior- last semester here. What's your schedule?"

 I unfolded the piece of paper in my pocket and handed it to her. She skimmed over it.

 "Your first block is next to mine and we have the same lunch," she informed me. "Nice. Come on, I'll introduce you to my friends and then walk you to class."

 "Oh- okay."

 She led me down the main hall and then into a courtyard, pointing out the cafeteria and the library on the way. We reached a secluded corner by a picnic table where three girls and a boy stood in a lumpy circle.

 "...Oh, my god, Heather, you are not starting this conspiracy again," said a tan girl with red velvet colored hair and exasperation etched into her baby-face features, her brown eyes looking up and arms folded across her Avenged Sevenfold hoodie.

 "I'm just saying- Oliver Cromwell was a parliamentarian leader in England during the witch trials that preceded the ones here, we're forty minutes from Salem, and we're attending Cromwell High School. That's bullshit!"

 The girl protesting, Heather I assume, was short, with close-cut fawn brown hair, the same color as the freckles on her cheeks, and bright blue eyes. She was wearing a pale blue sweater with a white cat on the front and dark blue skinny jeans, black flats beneath.

 "Just because you're a Wiccan doesn't mean you have to know everything possibly related to witchcraft," the red-haired girl said.

 "Lacey. I do witchcraft, and I live forty minutes away from the location of the most famous witch trials in American history."

 "If you really wanna protest, cupcake, head to the bible-belt," Kai suggested as we approached. "Then you'll really be offended."

 "Oh, hey Kai," Heather greeted her friend, changing her tune. "Who's this?"