The Spirit Academy

Chapter 1 - Through The Mirror

Dahlia

Dahlia awoke before any of the other girls, as usual. She climbed down her top bunk; Connie was sleeping peacefully on the bottom. Dahlia walked past Imogen and Aliya the other two girls in their dorm. Dahlia crept out of the room, and into the hallway. She walked down the stairs and into the common room.

She made her way to the other side of the room and opened the window. The cold wind stung her body, she wished she'd brought a jumper.

She climbed out of the window. She landed on wet grass; it had been freshly cut. Dahlia listened for a moment. No gardener. No footsteps. She began running on the gravel path that ran along the outside of the school. It wasn't outside school grounds, just outside the building. She'd been doing it for a while now, whenever she'd had a nightmare. She'd gone running. But now she'd seen hallucinations as well. Great. Life's just great.

When she was little she would think about her Grandmother and the nightmares would go away. But now she was the main reason she had nightmares. Dahlia would've laughed if the tears weren't threatening to spill. She ran along the ground, the wind lashing at her face, and she moved into a sort of rhythm. It was dark and silent. She couldn't see anything, except for the dark figures of the trees. It was very late at night. Or very early in the morning.

The moon wasn't shining, but neither was the sun. It was the eerie time between night and day. Her breathing, her footsteps, her heartbeat. That's what she liked about running. She did a lot of running. Running around the school. Running from her problems. Running from herself. From reality.

But when she ran, she left it all behind. The dark shadow was behind her, just right now. And she closed her eyes. Everything was behind her.

And then she was down. She was rolling on the ground. Someone was on top of her. She screamed.

"Shut up! They'll hear us!" It was a girls voice.

Dahlia went still. "You aren't meant to be here."

She snorted, "Yeah, well, neither are you."

Dahlia inwardly groaned. Why couldn't you pay attention? Why couldn't you hear her coming? Dahlia stood up and helped the girl up. She could see her dark figure.

"Are we lost?" Dahlia whispered.

"It's okay I have a flashlight, and a bobby pin."

It wasn't a flashlight. It was her phone. But it worked. She shone it on Dahlia.

Dahlia could see her now. She had dark brown hair piled up in a bun on top of her head, she had bright blue eyes and a birthmark on her jaw. Dahlia looked down at herself. She was still wearing her pyjamas, and her hair was a mess.

"And a bobby pin?" Dahlia asked cutting through the silence.

"A flashlight, and a bobby pin, and maybe some rope, it's basic necessities of life."

"Right and food and water are completely unnecessary?"

The girl smiled, "Here take this bobby pin, if you ever get locked out of your dorm. All you have to do is stick the flat end of the pin into the top of the lock and bend it, push the pin in, then fold the rest the bobby pin, and just give it a wiggle."

"Or just be smart enough to have an extra key."

"Don't go all high and mighty on me."

Dahlia laughed, "I'm Dahlia, from Dalton house."

"Ahhh," She smiled, "Gabrielle, from Cuthbert."

The houses were named after the four friends who built the boarding school in 1963, Adelaide Dalton, Josephine Cuthbert, Briar Farrier and Esther Harrison. They were in each corners of the school, Dalton in the north, Cuthbert in the east, Farrier in the south, and Esther in the west.