Gifted: The Winterwood Academy Book 1: A Young Adult Witch Novel

by Kate A. Fox

  You know what you must do. The voice that I now realised was that of the Goddess, Selene, whispered gently to me and I sat before the book to lift my pendant once more.

  The fingers of my free hand caressed the great iron lock on the book and I began to notice grooves within it that didn't resemble any key I'd ever seen before. In fact there was no keyhole at all.

  As if moving of its own accord, the pendant began to slip towards the lock, carrying my hand with it as though they were glued to the gemstones.

  What the hell is happening? My inner voice screamed at me to stop even as the gemstones seemed to melt into the lock, fitting perfectly to the grooves.

  A high pitched whirring sound suddenly overwhelmed my ears and both my hands flew upwards in an attempt to protect my eardrums.

  Then, suddenly, the leather cover of the book of shadows was flung open as if an invisible gust of wind had blown it flying.

  Winterwood! The word echoed loudly in my mind and my mouth opened upon a gasp, "I'm a Winterwood!"

  Continue reading for a sneak preview of the next book in The Winterwood Academy series!

  CHAPTER 1

  BLOOD.THERE WAS SO MUCH BLOOD. IT RAN LIKE a river all around me. Warm, thick, crimson liquid ran torrents around my legs until all I could see was red. The irony scent clotted in my nostrils and made me feel sick.

  Yet I couldn’t take my eyes off the woman who stood before me. She was devastatingly beautiful with pale white skin that seemed to radiate silver light from within. Her silver-white hair blew all around her, framing her face so that she looked like she was standing in a wind tunnel.

  The sight of her made me tremble but I wasn’t scared. At least not until I really looked at her face.

  She was crying. But instead of tears what oozed from her eyes was blood. It spread in a thick stream down her cheeks connecting with the streams of blood that oozed from the corners of her mouth. Every time her hair whipped away from her face I could see similar streams cascading from her ears.

  The blood dropped like teardrops onto her flowing white dress, turning it crimson before continuing onwards to join the river around our feet.

  I weep for my children. Her ethereal voice sounded in my head just as it always did when the Moon Goddess came to me. I weep for the lives lost and the lives still to be lost.

  “What is happening?” I asked the same question that I always asked, “What am I supposed to do?”

  My children are dying. Selene continued as though she had not heard me and her eyes continued to weep blood. I could feel the stream rising against my calves, growing thicker and going cold until it came to my knees.

  “Why have you come to me?” I asked, “What do you want me to do? Why have you chosen me?”

  All questions that I continually asked myself.

  You are chosen, Brianna Winterwood, you have always been the chosen one.

  What kind of answer was that? Why couldn’t the Goddess just tell me what she wanted from me? Why couldn’t she just make this easy for me?

  “Please, tell me what I am supposed to do?” I pleaded but still she did not seem to have an answer for me.

  Trust yourself, Brianna Winterwood, daughter of my daughter.

  I could see her now, beginning to fade. Her body beginning to melt into the blood that seemed to consume her.

  “No! Wait! Don’t leave me!” I screamed.

  That’s when I heard the second voice, calling out to me from a great distance, “Bri! Bri! Brianna! Wake up!”

  My shoulders trembled then and I suddenly realised that I was being shaken awake.

  I blinked and when my eyes opened I was staring up at the familiar white ceiling of my room at the Winterwood Academy.

  My roommate, Zoe Johnson, had her hands clamped down on my shoulders almost as if she was pinning me to the bed, trying to anchor me down to stop me from hurting myself.

  “Bri? It's alright. You’re okay. You are in your room.” Zoe spoke softly now as if she was a mother talking to her child and when I blinked up at her it took me a few moments for me to really register her face.

  She was beautiful - just like everyone else at the Academy - with black hair that was cut into a short pixie cut and almond shaped brown eyes that were huge and round with concern.

  “Were you having another bad dream?” Zoe sighed, finally taking her hands off me as though she realised I was no longer going insane.

  Or was I? I couldn’t be sure.

  I nodded although I didn’t tell her what I had seen. I’d had the same dream every night for the last week. Ever since I had opened the Winterwood Book of Shadows - a book that could only be opened by someone with Winterwood blood - I had been having horrible nightmares of blood and pain and the Goddess crying.

  But still I was no closer to having any idea what the hell any of it meant.

  “You really should go and see Lecturer Merrin.” Zoe sighed and sat back on the bed to look at me. Her eyes were still round with concern, “You look like you’ve barely slept all week.”

  That was probably because I’d woken sweating and in tears every night. But, even though I knew I could trust my roommate, I had no idea of how to tell her that the Goddess had been coming to me in my dreams.

  How the hell was I supposed to tell a lecturer if I couldn’t even tell her?

  “It's nothing. I’m sure it’ll pass.” I shook my head. I tried to remind myself of the conversation I’d had on the phone with my adopted mother shortly after the first time I’d had the nightmare. She’d told me that it was probably nothing to worry about. I’d had bad dreams as a kid. She’d told me that it only ever seemed to happen when I was stressed about something. Of course, she’d questioned me on what was stressing me out but how was I supposed to tell her that since coming to the Winterwood Academy so much had happened it would make her head spin?

  The stress of keeping everything to myself probably wasn’t helping but I didn’t want to worry her.

  “That’s what you’ve said every morning this week.” Zoe pointed out. She was right. I was in denial. What else was there to do? I was still trying my hardest to fit into school.

  “Well, if you are going to continue acting like everything is normal, we should probably get dressed and head down for breakfast.” Zoe shrugged and jumped up from the bed. I suddenly realised that she was already dressed in a pair of skinny red jeans and a white vest top.

  It dawned on me then that I’d made it through my first week of classes. It was the weekend. At least I didn’t have to sit through another class with all the third years staring at me like I didn’t belong. All except for James Booth who seemed to have accepted me from the moment I stepped into the school.

  Even though I was a freak, I could at least pretend to be normal around him. He seemed to ignore everything else and just enjoy my company. It was a little relief compared to everything else.

  I pushed back my bed sheets and clambered off the mattress to grab some fresh underwear and a purple maxi dress from my closet.

  Hurrying into the backroom so that I could hide my new marks from my roommate, I changed as quickly as possible. Being late for breakfast meant that all the good food would be gone. I just hoped that the other students had taken advantage of the fact it was the weekend and had chosen to stay in bed.

  I’d just brushed my teeth and washed my face when I heard the sound of loud banging coming from the main room.

  I’d quickly come to learn that whenever that happened something big was going on. And it turned out that I was right.

  I pulled open the bathroom door just in time to find Keeya and Luci bursting into the bedroom.

  “It happened again.” Keeya gasped. Her thick African hair that had been straightened to within an inch of its life was sticking out at odds and ends all over her head as though she hadn’t bothered to run a brush through it.

  Luci was looking just as frantic, her blue eyes were frantic even behind her thick rimmed glasses.

  “What�
�s happened?” Zoe asked quickly, “What’s going on?”

  “Another student died last night.”

  I dropped down onto the end of my bed, unable to believe what I had just heard coming from Keeya’s lips.

  The images from my dream danced in my mind and I cringed, wondering whether the two might be connected. My stomach was suddenly aching so badly that I had to place my hands over my abdomen in an attempt to stop it.

  “Who?” Zoe asked, her voice small as if she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to know the answer.

  “Cameron Steel.” Luci’s answer made me cringe.

  I knew that name. It was the name of one of the Golden Suns - the Winterwood Academy football team - and one of Booth’s teammates.

  Suddenly he was all I could think about. Not Cameron but Booth. He must be feeling awful right now.

  “How did it happen?” I asked, unable to look at any of them. I was trembling so badly that I moved my hands from my stomach to the edge of the bed, holding on so tightly that my knuckles turned white.

  I didn’t really need to ask the question because I already felt like I knew. That was the aching feeling in my gut - the knowledge of what had happened.

  “Booth found him.” Keeya answered and my stomach lurched all over again, “He was his roommate. Apparently he tried to wake him up but when he rolled him over his face was covered in blood. It was like he bled to death in his sleep.”

  Bile rose in the back of my throat and I placed a hand over my mouth to stop myself from retching.

  The other girls looked just as horrified as I felt but I knew one thing that they didn’t. Tonight Cameron would be buried in an unmarked grave outside the boundaries of the main cemetery. Why I didn’t know but the sensation in my gut told me that I needed to find out.

  “I have to go.” I told them as I jumped up from my bed and grabbed a pair of sandals from my closest.

  “What? Go where?” Zoe gaped at me as if she was stunned by the fact I could even move after what we had just learned.

  “I have to go and see Booth.” I told her.

  I was relieved when a look of understanding crossed her face.

  “The two of you have been getting really close lately.” she remarked with a raised eyebrow, “What’s going on with that?”

  I shrugged because the truth was I didn’t really know the answer myself. All I did know was that we were the only ones who really knew the truth. After all, he had been the one to show me the unmarked graves when I arrived at the Winterwood Academy. As far as I knew, other than Celestria and the two guys she had doing her dirty work, he and I were the only ones who knew what she was doing while the rest of the school was asleep.

  I had to go and see him. I had to find out if he knew anything. And most of all, I needed to know if he was alright.

  Note From The Author

  Thank you so much for taking the time to read Brianna’s story so far. It's already been a whirlwind but there is so much yet to come!

  If you enjoyed the first installment of The Winterwood Academy I would be so grateful for you to leave a review on Amazon or even Goodreads before you continue on to the next book in the series: Blood.

  For more information on the next book please don’t forget to follow me on Amazon and you will be notified when it becomes available.

  Once again I’d like to thank you for reading Brianna’s story and wish you well on all your reading adventures! Your continued support means the world to me and gives me the chance to keep bringing stories to you!