Willow's Dark Discovery

by D J DuMont

  Willow’s Dark Discovery

  The Dragon Heart Academy of Magic, Book 1

  By D.J. DuMont

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Similarities to actual people or events are entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 by D.J. DuMont. All rights reserved.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Thank You For Reading!

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Willow Ember’s father had been missing for exactly five hundred and forty-one days when her mother sent her away. Not that she was counting.

  Even as she walked off the plane into the Bangor, Maine airport, Willow couldn’t quite wrap her head around the fact that she was alone. Her father was likely dead, and her mother didn’t want her. Oh, her mother had made a big show of telling her that the decision to send her away to boarding school had actually been her father’s. Willow’s mother had sworn up and down that the last thing her father had said before he vanished was that he wanted Willow to attend Birch Point Academy, just outside of Birch Point, Maine. But Willow wasn’t buying her mother’s story. Why would her father, who had adored her more than anything, have wanted to send her to a boarding school in the middle of the boonies in a state she’d never been to? A mediocre boarding school, at that. Willow had googled the place, and it was nothing special. No prestigious alumni, and it didn’t rank on any lists of top educational institutions. The only thing special about it, if you could call it special, was that it was far, far away from any major cities. The city of Birch Point itself, population 5,971, was twenty miles away from the school, and the next closest city was fifty miles beyond that. Willow was being exiled to the wilderness by her own mother.

  She hiked up the shoulder strap on her duffel bag and followed the signs toward baggage claim, trying not to look as miserable as she felt. At least here no one knew her father. At her old school back in D.C., she had not been able to escape the questions. Her father’s face had been plastered on the newscasts for weeks on end, the city unable to get enough of the story about the CIA Scientist who had been captured in a raid by an unidentified group of men. Eventually, when no new leads popped up, the news cycle moved on to fresher, more salacious stories. But for Willow, there was no moving on. Her classmates still asked her about her father, or, worse, whispered about her when she was in the room, casting pitying glances in her direction.

  Willow didn’t want to be pitied. She just wanted her father to come home. With every day that passed, though, she knew it was less and less likely that he was still alive. Her mother had gently hinted that perhaps they should hold some sort of memorial service, but Willow had blown up in anger at the suggestion. It felt disloyal to give up as long as there was the tiniest shred of hope that her father was still alive.

  Those shreds of hope were growing tinier and tinier. Willow gritted her teeth as she pulled her suitcase off the conveyor belt, and started making her way toward the airport’s exit. Her palms felt sweaty as she looked around for the shuttle that would be taking her and her new classmates to Birch Point. Trying to stand tall, she pushed back stray strands of hair and wondered if she should run to the bathroom and attempt to make herself look more presentable. She’d woken up at five a.m. to catch her flight, and she suddenly felt self-conscious about her bleary-eyed, frizzy-haired appearance. First impressions were everything, and she was about to give her classmates the impression that she was an electrified hedgehog.

  But before Willow could turn around to head back inside, a tall, dark-haired woman started waving at her.

  “Willow? Willow Ember? I’m Anjali. I’ll be driving you to the school. The others are already here. Are you ready to go?”

  Willow frowned. How did this woman recognize her? She knew the application to Birch Point Academy had included a headshot, but in Willow’s headshot she’d had her hair flat-ironed and had been wearing makeup. Surely, her current makeup-free, messy-haired appearance didn’t look anything like her application picture.

  Anjali was still waving at her, though, beckoning her toward a large, black van with the words “Birch Point Academy” painted on the side in a bright turquoise hue. Willow had no choice but to walk up to the van and shake Anjali’s hand.

  “Yes, I’m Willow. Nice to meet you.”

  Anjali gave her a look that seemed almost sad. “I’ve been looking forward to seeing you. Here, let me put your bags in the trunk, and then we can get going.”

  Willow let Anjali take her bags, and then climbed into the shuttle. There were four other students inside already, and Willow forced a weak smile onto her face.

  “Hello. I’m Willow.”

  Only one of the students pulled out her earphones to acknowledge Willow. The girl had silky brown hair and perfect olive skin. Willow was already jealous of her beauty, but the girl had such a friendly face that it was impossible to dislike her.

  “I’m Sylvie,” she said with a bright smile. “Nice to meet you.”

  Willow gave her a grateful smile, but then turned away to put her own headphones in her ears. Anjali climbed into the driver’s seat and started up the engine, and Willow swallowed back the tears that threatened to form.

  Here she went, into the wilderness.

  Chapter Two

  The drive from Bangor International Airport to Birch Point Academy took two hours, but it only took about ten minutes for Willow to drift off to sleep. With sad pop songs filling her ears through her headphones, she quickly fell into uneasy dreams. She might have slept the whole way, if it hadn’t been for the sudden screech of brakes and a chorus of loud screams jolting her awake.

  As her eyes flew open, the shuttle careened to the right and then the left, and then the right again. Willow’s head smashed against the side of the vehicle as it came to a sudden stop. Quickly, she took in the scene around her. They were on a road in the middle of a forest somewhere, surrounded by pine trees that towered at least seventy feet high. In front of them was another van, parked horizontally across the road, and several men with large guns were jumping out of the van.

  “Get out! Get out!” screamed one of the other students from behind her. Willow didn’t wait to be told twice. She quickly unfastened her seatbelt and groped for the door handle. Her hands shook violently, but she managed to get the door open and jump out onto the road, then dash into the trees. She tripped over a tree root and felt a sharp pain as a rock scraped against her forehead, but she ignored the blood that started trickling out of the wound and scrambled to her feet again.

  She didn’t stop running until a stitch in her sid
e grew so strong that she had to slow to a limp. Behind her, two of the students from the shuttle, a tall blonde boy and a fiery, red-haired girl, slowed to a halt as well.

  “What in the world just happened?” the girl asked, her eyes growing wide with fright.

  Before anyone could answer, a long scream rang out through the forest, followed by gunshots. Willow winced. You would think that having a father who worked in the CIA would have meant she knew how to remain calm in emergency circumstances, but she felt anything but calm right now.

  Suddenly, Willow had a horrifying thought. Was this attack because of her? Had the men responsible for her father’s disappearance come to find her as well?

  Another scream sounded through the woods, and Willow felt her stomach twist in agony. If this attack was her fault, then she should be doing something to save whoever was left behind at the scene. Without thinking—which was a good thing, since if she’d thought about it she probably would have chickened out—Willow began running back toward the road. The adrenaline coursing through her body was so strong that even the cramp in her side could not slow her down.

  When she reached the road, she saw the men climbing into their van again, pulling Sylvie along with them. Anjali was screaming at them, and they were threatening her with their guns. Sylvie was screaming as well, but the men were ignoring her.

  Willow ran forward, yelling and waving her arms. “Let her go! It’s me you want. Let her go!”

  The men turned to look at her, but did not let go of Sylvie. “We should just take both of you,” one man said.

  Willow felt anger and adrenaline overcoming her. Willow normally considered herself the timid type, and she didn’t know Sylvie well. But something deep inside her told her that she needed to save Sylvie. After all, Sylvie had been kind to her, and she was Willow’s classmate. With a scream, Willow ran toward the men.

  Then, a strange thing happened. Instead of standing up to Willow, the men let go of Sylvie and turned to jump back into their van. Without another word or threat, they revved the engine and sped off, leaving a stunned Willow to stare at the empty space in the road where they had just been.

  “I…I…what just happened?” she asked, looking over at Anjali, who, to Willow’s surprise, was smiling and no longer looked the least bit distressed. Sylvie had also stopped screaming and was beaming at Willow.

  “You just passed your first test, that’s what,” Anjali said. “Welcome to the Dragon Heart Academy of Magic.”

  Willow blinked. “The what?”

  “The Dragon Heart Academy of Magic. Get back in the shuttle so we can get to Birch Point. You’re about to discover a whole new world.”

  Chapter Three

  Anjali refused to say anything further on the subject, no matter how much Willow begged. Whatever the Dragon Heart Academy of Magic was, the other students all seemed to be in on the joke. The band of armed men had been some sort of setup, intended to freak Willow out, and all the other students had known about it. But what had the point been? Was this some sort of sick hazing ritual Birch Point put its students through?

  Willow begged to be allowed to call her mom, but Anjali refused to let her do that, either. The woman had grabbed Willow’s cell phone in the chaos of the “attack,” and was now refusing to give it back.

  “I’ll explain everything when we get to the Academy,” Anjali said. “Hear me out, and then I’ll give your phone back.”

  Willow protested, but Anjali would not back down. With no other options, Willow slumped moodily in her seat and watched the last few miles of forest pass by. Sylvie tried to smile encouragingly again, but Willow only glared at her. Now that she knew that everyone in this shuttle was part of whatever game Anjali was playing, Willow didn’t feel like being friendly with any of them. All Willow could do was fume on the inside, and hope that once she got her phone back and told her mother what had happened, that her mother would bring her back home to D.C. immediately. Even though her mother didn’t seem to want to spend time with her, surely she would draw the line at her daughter being subjected to a fake armed attack. Wouldn’t she?

  Willow’s stomach churned as a large clearing appeared in the woods up ahead. She’d seen photographs of Birch Point Academy on the school’s website, but nothing had prepared her for the view in front of her. In person, the place was nothing short of magnificent. The camera could not do this place justice. For a moment, Willow even forgot to be angry. Her eyes widened as she took in the campus.

  A large, iron fence surrounded the property. The shuttle drove right up to the gate, which began to slowly squeak open when Anjali pressed a button on the dashboard of the shuttle. Above the gate, an ornate, arched sign read “Birch Point Academy” in swirling script.

  In person, everything looked much larger than it had on the website pictures. Beyond the gate was what appeared to be a small city of large stone buildings. Even though the school had been founded in 1829, the buildings looked like they came straight from the Middle Ages. Giant wooden doors were flanked by stone towers that glistened in the midday sun. The driveway up to the campus was made of cobblestone, adding to the charm. Acres and acres of the greenest grass Willow had ever seen surrounded the buildings, eventually giving way once again to thick, lush forests. To the right of the main buildings stood a giant sports field of some sort. To the left was a park-like area, with a water fountain spewing crystal-clear water at least thirty feet into the air. Willow was mesmerized for a brief moment, then reminded herself that she didn’t want to be here and was planning to go home as soon as possible. But it was too late to hide her awe. Sylvie had seen it on her face, and was grinning.

  “Impressive, isn’t it? Wait until you see the inside of the buildings.”

  Willow scowled and crossed her arms, then looked away from Sylvie. She refused to make eye contact with anyone else until they had parked and she had retrieved her bags from the trunk, at which point she had to look at Anjali to get directions on where to go.

  “You may all leave your bags here, and our staff will take them to your rooms for you. Sylvie, Locke, and Cara, step inside to the front office and wait for Headmaster Damon to greet you. He’ll show you where to go. Willow, you come with me. I have some things to show you.”

  Without a word, Willow followed Anjali. The strange woman still had her cell phone, and Willow hoped that once Anjali got through whatever excuses she was going to make for the incident on the road, the phone would be returned and this horrible experience would be over. With any luck, Willow would be back in Bangor by tomorrow morning, catching the next flight to D.C.

  As she followed Anjali through the halls, though, Willow did have to admit that Birch Point Academy was one of the most beautiful places she’d ever seen. And that was saying a lot. Willow’s father had taken her on dozens of trips to places all around the world. She’d seen cathedrals, museums, and castles that had taken her breath away, but Birch Point did a surprisingly good job of giving those other gorgeous buildings a run for their money. The inside walls were made of the same stone as the outer walls, with intricately carved wooden torch holders spaced evenly along their lengths. The torches cast soft light on the stones, causing them to glisten just as the ones outside had done in the sunlight. Stained glass windows appeared every so often, sending colorful shapes along the wall as the sunbeams shone through their panes. Now and then, marble statues graced the hallway, and the stairwells Willow passed seemed to glitter as though they were made of gold. Nothing on the website had prepared Willow for such splendor. She felt more like she had entered a palace than a school.

  What is this place? she wondered.

  Anjali walked a long ways, and Willow soon felt hopelessly lost. For a while, she had tried to keep track of all the turns they were making, but eventually she gave up. They left the main building and walked past several other buildings, following the twisting cobblestone footpaths for several minutes until they came to a small but beautiful stone building near the back of the campus. Willow f
elt her head spinning as she tried to get her bearings. This place felt like an actual town, not just a school campus.

  Anjali paused in front of the door of the small stone building she had approached and spoke some words in a language Willow did not understand. The words must have been a password, because as soon as she said them the door groaned and then creaked open. Anjali stepped inside and beckoned for Willow to follow.

  The building looked similar to the other buildings Willow had already been in, with one major exception: large portraits decorated the walls between the torches. Some were of people, none of whom Willow recognized. And some were of dragons. The dragon ones looked like photographs, but Willow knew they must be computer generated images, which made her wonder whether the people were real or also computer generated. She was about to ask, when Anjali turned to open a large, oaken door, and gestured for Willow to walk through it.

  “Welcome to the Dragon Heart Academy of Magic, Willow Ember.”

  Feeling like she was in some sort of strange dream, Willow walked into the room. The walls were stone in here as well, but you could hardly see them. Nearly every spare inch of wall space seemed to be covered with pictures and newspaper clippings, many of which related to dragons. For a moment, Willow forgot to even be angry. She was so overcome with the absurdity of the day that she burst out laughing. She had started out the morning angry about being sent to boarding school, then had been attacked on the way to boarding school—which had turned out to be a fake attack—and now she was being introduced to some weird dragon lovers’ club or something.

  Willow’s laughter caused the deep scratch on her forehead to start bleeding again, and she cursed as her fingers went to it, then came away with fresh blood. Anjali handed her a tissue and gestured toward a seat, before going herself to sit in the chair behind the desk. Willow’s chair looked like a normal office chair, but the chair Anjali sat in was high-backed and decorated with intricate carvings and colorful jewels. It looked like something out of a museum, and Willow wondered whether the jewels were real. They looked real, but if they were, that chair was worth a fortune. It seemed more like something that belonged in a palace than in a boarding school in the middle of rural Maine.