The Forces

Chapter One

The next morning, I was delivered a note from the office requesting that I go meet the school's dean. Luke gave me his map of the school so that I could find my way, and said that he'd meet me down in the cafeteria for breakfast when I got back.

I met Jenna in the hallways on my way to the office. She had received the same note. She was excited. She wanted to tell me all about her roommate, how I'd probably think she was cute, and how pretty and comfortable her dorm room was.

We arrived at the office, and went into a room made entirely of a reddish wood. The color of the walls and floor forced the room to appear dark, adding to the only source of light being created by a dusty chandelier. It smelled of musty oak. There was a long, black table situated in the middle of the room. The receptionist was young and pretty. She looked up at us over the top of the desk. She had dark hair and brown eyes, and wore a surgical mask over her mouth. I wondered why. She smiled, but because I couldn't see her lips, I saw it in her eyes, and I'd figured she'd practiced that, and then she motioned towards a door in the back of the room labeled with chunky gold print as "dean". Jenna and I walked inside.

The dean's office was made of the same wood material as the room before it, but this time, the walls were encrusted with veins of dull gold and the chandelier that hung from his ceiling was much grander, but even dimmer. Strung on the walls were hundreds of crooked photographs displaying Laibertson's graduated alumni. I looked to my left to see a blurred photograph of the "class of 1691".

The dean's desk was the feature of the room, made of a tarnished bronze and organized neatly with quills and vases and a large red rose. The dean himself stood away from us with his hands clasped behind his back, facing one particular photograph towards the left of the room.

Jenna was in awe. I was too, but I'm good at pretending that I'm not.

He turned around suddenly and tossed his hands in the air with excitement. "Ah! Here you are." He waddled his way towards us and shook both of our hands with a surprisingly weak grip. "It is so incredible to be meeting you both. I expect your grandparents provided you a pleasant journey over?"

Jenna and I looked at each other questioningly and the dean walked over to sit behind his desk. He laid his elbows on it, set his face in his hands, and studied us intently over his gold-wire glasses for an uncomfortably long amount of time. He jerked his hands away and clucked his tongue disapprovingly, standing up. "I can't believe I already forgot! Here, come look."

He gestured us over to the photograph he had been studying as we walked in. It was labeled the "class of 1994". The students were sitting on a set of bleachers, organized by the colors of their robes, starting with red and ending with white. The dean pointed to the right of the portrait, where the blue students faded to the grey ones. There, sitting next to each other, was a woman dressed in blue and a man dressed in grey. They had dark hair and bright eyes that matched the colors of their robes. They held hands discreetly wedged between them on the bench. They both smiled brightly at the camera.

"James Ever and Marina Greene," the dean said proudly. My sister's face lit up with hope.

The dean turned to me suddenly and said, "Do you prefer 'James', 'Peter', or 'James Peter'?"

"Peter," I said quietly. He nodded, almost sadly.

"My name is Frederick Linwood," he declared. He spun around and went back to his desk. Jenna touched the photograph gently before following me to stand in front of the dean. He studied us for another moment.

"Your parents were great wizards, you know," the dean said softly.

"Why did you call us to meet you?" I asked him. I didn't mean for the question to sound so rude.

He answered immediately. "I had thought," he looked at me closely with his bronze-colored eyes, "that you'd have some questions for me."