The clock on the wall tick-ed and tock-ed with agonizing slowness. Every jerky motion of the second hand was like a gong echoing through the room. The only thing louder was my heart pounding against my rib cage. It made my chest ache. It made my stomach roil and my palms sweat, my muscles tense and my legs itch. The desire to run intensified.

If I hadn’t been so nervous, that might have been funny—I hated running.

A hand touched my shoulder, giving me a jolt.

“You okay, Sweets?” my mom asked from the space beside me on the leather sofa.

“A little nervous, I guess…”

We sat in the reception hall/sitting room to the Headmaster’s office at Abbey Hill Preparatory Academy, and sweated. The sitting room was small; barely large enough to fit a pair of twin Chesterfield sofas flanking an oval coffee table, a secretary’s desk, and a few ornaments. A hand-painted porcelain tea set covered the table before us. Chickadees fluttered over the pale porcelain, alighting on eucalyptus branches. The rims of the tea cups, saucers, and other holders shimmered with a delicate gold inlay.

I tried to focus on the painted birds and not the horrible anxiety coursing through me.

I hadn't touched the steaming, strong smelling tea (even though it probably would have helped to settle my stomach). I was too nervous. Knowing my luck, I’d drop the delicate cup, and shatter any chances I had of getting into this school with my clumsiness.

This room had been designed to intimidate, and it was working.

The expensive furniture was in excellent condition despite their antique appearance. To me, that spoke of money, of control, of power. It gave the impression of sumptuous libraries and gentlemen's lounges. Everything from the School of Athens painting in a gilded frame on the wall, to the thick Oriental rug covering the polished hardwood floor spoke of old money and old traditions. The room was pristine and beautiful and completely out of my league.

Without saying a single word, it told me everything about the people I was going to need to impress.

The pinstripe skirt suit I wore had been ironed twice and brushed with a lint roller several times to rid it of any residual cat fur. It was tight about the bust, waist, and thighs, but it was the nicest outfit Mom and I could come up with. A little clever accessorizing made it hard to tell how ill-fitting the suit was, but it was difficult to feel comfortable or confident.

I’d washed, dried, and styled my straight, strawberry blonde hair until it shone like a girl on the cover of a magazine. I wanted to look like the most responsible student on the planet. My mom and helped me keep my makeup tame, demurred. It gave me that “fresh-faced-girl-next-door” look that bespoke eagerness and opportunity.

It had taken us more than an hour just to decide whether we wanted to cover up my freckles for the interview. They covered me from head to toe and back again (which made finding a good foundation all but impossible).

I was worried these freckles of mine would make or break the look I wanted to affect for this moment—this interview that could decide my future.

Guess we’ll find out…

Mom gave me a sympathetic look. “You’re going to do great,” she assured me, as though sensing my thoughts. Which she probably was.

Her hand slid from my shoulder to my upper back where she began to make clockwise circles with the flat of her palm. I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

“Amber Perkins?” called a saccharine voice.

“Y-Yes?”

A pretty blonde woman in a mauve skirt suit smiled at us, her hands folded in front of her. She lifted a pale hand, flashing manicured mauve nails to match her suit and indicated the open door beneath the clock. “The Headmaster will see you now,” she said sweetly.

Mom gave me a winning smile and two thumbs up. “Knock ‘im dead,” she mouthed.

I swallowed, hard, and stood too quickly, staggering in the three-inch heels I wore. I felt Mom reach out to steady me, but I waved her off. I realized I was trembling.

I can’t go in there, I thought. Not like this…

I closed my eyes and breathed, filling my lungs to bursting. With an effort, I visualized the stress, the dread, the anxiety pooling on my hands in thick, tar-like globules. My hands began to feel heavy and greasy.

Exhaling, I shook my hands as though to throw off moisture. I visualized the goo dispersing with the gesture and evaporating into little puffs of smoke wherever they hit the floor, sofas, or walls.

To anyone else, it have looked like I was trying to psych myself up for what lay ahead.

To the Mom and me, it was different.

We were different.

When I opened my eyes again, I felt steadier. I flashed my mom a smile over my shoulder, and walked into the Headmaster’s office with my back straight and my head high.

Like the sitting room, the Headmaster’s office made every effort to show off how much money went into the academy. Hardwood floors stretched from wall to wall, like the rest of the campus I’d seen thus far. They'd been buffed and polished to a sheen. There was hardly a scratch on them to mar the brindled wood. One could almost mistake them for new.

Along one wall was a fireplace accented with a plush Oriental rug and two leather wingback chairs that matched the sofas outside. The décor around the room matched the portentous, masculine energy of the space—a marble bust of Plato stood on a pedestal in one corner, a shield with (presumably) a family crest and two crossed swords hung above the mantle, a coat rack, umbrella stand, a wet bar, and so forth. The room smelled of leather, tobacco, sandalwood, and cardamom.

It was precisely the kind of study you’d expect the Headmaster of the most prestigious academy in the nation to have.

Abbey Hill was one of the hardest schools to get into—harder than some college universities. Being good wasn’t enough, you had to be great. Have great grades, great extra-curricular activities, great recommendations, great everything. You even had to pass a drug screen and a background check to even be considered for enrolment. It was a school whose mere name carried the weight I needed to make my dreams a reality. If I could get in here, I could get in anywhere.

Just looking around the room was starting to make me nervous all over again. I dug my nails into my palms and reminded myself to focus. This was no time to balk.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Three floor-to-ceiling bookcases along the eastern wall caught my attention. Each book appeared more ancient than the last; this one bound in leather, that one bound in cloth. Each one was perfectly preserved behind the glass of the bookcases.

A sound, fainter than a whisper, reached out to me from across the office. It was like a breath filled with dust and ash. A gasp of pain stifled before it could become a scream.

Something in my chest began to hurt.

My brows knit, but as I opened my mouth to speak, another's voice filled the study.

“Miss Perkins, I presume...”

My attention snapped away from the books and settled on a man seated behind a large desk. The Headmaster.

The books fell back into stillness and silence.

The Headmaster was old with a thick mane of white hair combed into a style that reminded me of the actors in old black-and-white movies. He stood, straightening his charcoal-grey three-piece suit. Despite his apparent age, he looked athletic. Robust. His broad shoulders tapered into a sturdy waist supporting long legs to match his long arms.

He was singularly handsome, with a bizarre quality about his face that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. The Headmaster had dark eyes, like a shark, with thick black eyebrows, cheekbones that could cut glass, a chiseled nose, and a thick black mustache. He had the air of an aristocrat about him and looked as though he had stepped right out of Richard Connell’s The Most Dangerous Game.

I couldn’t help but imagine him practicing swigs with the swords above the mantle, and telling me she would have a five-minute head start before the hunt began.

“Headmaster Hathorne,” I said in a voice that sounded more confident than I felt. I held out my hand to shake his. If he noticed the quivering of my limb, he didn’t show it. His hands were hard, calloused, not the kind of hands you’d expect to see on the Headmaster of a school. The idea of him holding those swords seemed less unlikely.

My right arm felt numb to the shoulder as Hathorne released my hand. I blinked at the sudden and bizarre sensation, and resisted the urge to roll my shoulder.

He must have pinched a nerve or something, I thought.

Hathorne grinned down at me, but said nothing as he indicated the chairs by the fireplace. He led me to a chair and waited until I was seated before taking his own.

“Will you take tea?” he asked.

“No, thank you.”

“Very well, to business then. I have your transcript folder right here,” he said, holding up a manila folder I hadn’t noticed before. He started flipping through it absently. “You are obviously a bright girl, Miss Perkins,” he said sounding, at best, bemused.

“Thank you.”

“Good grades, the teachers like you. Not a lot of social activities, though…”

I tried not to let my self-consciousness show. “I was on the Hollybrook High Forensics Team,” I mentioned, hoping it didn’t make me sound contradictory.

“So, I see…” Hathorne set the folder aside and leaned back in his chair. He crossed one leg over the other and regarded me over the tips of his steepled fingers. “This folder can tell me a lot of things about you, Miss Perkins, but it cannot tell me everything. That is why I called this interview. So, tell me, what are your aspirations?”

I sat up a little straighter. This I was ready for. “I want to go to Harvard and study Law and Speech and Debate,” I declared honestly.

“On your way to being…”

“A public defender.”

One of Hathorne’s dark brows perked up. “Really?” he asked. There was something about his tone that didn’t sit well with me, but she couldn’t say what or why.

“Yes.”

“And why is that?”

I could tell he was psyching me up for something significant. I needed to be smart about my next answer.

I forced myself to meet the man’s hungry shark-eyes; forced my body language to ooze eagerness, my expression into one of determination, and my voice to be firm and confident. “I want to help people. We always hear ‘everyone has a right to a fair trial’ but I don’t think everyone gets a fair trial.”

“And you think you can make a difference?” Hathorne asked, sounding as though nothing could be more laughable. “Why not become a nurse? Surely you could help people there.”

He said ‘help’ as though it were the kind of four-letter word not meant to be spoken around children. My face grew hot. I opened my mouth to say something, but Hathorne wasn’t done.

“There’s always humanitarian work. Meals-on-Wheels. If all that matters is helping others, then why not simply donate to charity, Miss Perkins? Why become a public defender?”

I licked my lips. Anxiety prickled in my veins. The room felt cold, almost wintery. I shivered. Hathorne must keep his office especially air conditioned. A/C was rare in the Pacific Northwest—another testament to Hathorne’s wealth and status.

What was I going to do? I felt so nervous, and yet looking at this man’s eyes, at the hunger twinkling all along their dark edges, at the way in which he delighted in making me squirm, I knew I couldn’t back down. If this was a test, then Hathorne was in trouble—tests were my specialty.

I can do this…

“I want to be remembered as someone who used whatever talent she had to do her work to the very best of her ability,” I answered, meeting his gaze. “I realize that admitting this may hurt my chances of getting into this school, but I don’t have very many talents, Mister Hathorne. There isn’t much I’m good at, but there are many things I care about, and one of those things is the truth. Not only telling it, but finding it and protecting it. I care about honesty, and I want to do whatever I can to help those who tell the truth receive the justice they deserve. I know in my heart that I can achieve that best as a public defender, but I don’t want to be just any public defender. I want to be the best public defender, and to do that, I need the best possible education.”

“Well,” he said at length, “I would say that is quite ambitious for a young lady like yourself.”

“Thank you,” I said, trying not to sound intimidated. Hathorne studied me for a pregnant moment before rising to his feet. He strode about his office, hands behind his back.

“None of this, however,” he said, “will be of any benefit to you. Abbey Hill has one of the highest academic standards of any school in America. You may have been the smartest girl at Hollybrook High, but this is a different place. The pressures are greater, the rules are stricter, and the expectations are higher. If you make it through, you will have received one of the finest educations one can get, and there should be no reason why you should not achieve all your goals. However, there is a good chance you will fail.”

I blinked. He’d said it so matter-of-factly that I almost physically recoiled from the words. He hadn’t even bothered to look at me as he said it. I kept my gaze firmly on his shoulder, not trusting myself to meet his eyes.

“That is fine,” he continued, undaunted. “Failure is a part of life, but not a part of Abbey Hill. Do you understand?”

I swallowed audibly. “I do,” I said feebly.

Hathorne nodded. “Very well,” he said, opening the door for her. “We will be reviewing your application, Miss Perkins. Expect our answer by mail.”

I stood, grateful that my legs held up beneath me as I crossed the room. I forced myself to stand and shake Hathorne’s hand one last time. “Thank you for your consideration,” I said and tried not to look eager to leave.

My arm was numb again.

The moment I stepped out of the room, I felt lighter. It was as if a weight that had been pressing down on me had suddenly lifted. I took a deep breath to steady myself. Even the air seemed different outside of the office.

Mom was already on her feet, bounding across the room. She took my hands in her own, grinning from ear to ear.

“How’d it go?” she asked, threading her arm through mine and leading me out of the room. I was all too eager to follow. We didn’t give the secretary a second glance.

“I don’t know,” I answered truthfully. “It was…weird…”

“Weird how?”

“I don’t know. It was like…he was trying to intimidate me or something.”

Mom scoffed. “Ugh, men!” she groaned.

I bit my lower lip and let Mom launch into a small tirade. I wasn’t sure how to tell her that it didn’t feel like it was a “man thing.” The truth was, I didn’t know what to make of Hathorne or the interview.

Sunshine spilled through the painted glass along the corridors as we made our way towards the vestibule. Glistening rainbows colored the polished hardwood and Tuscan columns of the school building. They caught the gilded picture frames that wreathed portraits of past headmasters and alumnus. Our heels were muffled by thick carpets that filled the space with color and rich texture.

I’d never been somewhere so beautiful in all my life.

I couldn’t help but begin to daydream about what it would be like to go here every day, to wear a smart uniform and sit in beautiful classrooms and learn about things I couldn’t learn about anywhere else from some of the best teachers in the country.

I wanted it.

I wanted it more than I had ever wanted anything.

I released a yearning sigh as I watched the school grow smaller in the rear-view mirror of my Mom’s baby blue Prius.

What would I give to go to a school like that?

What would I do?

“Hey, Mom,” I said slowly, an idea forming in my far reaches of my mind.

“Yeah, Sweets?”

“Do you think Grandma has any, um…any spells for good luck?”

A vulpine grin stretched Mom’s lips, her eyes fixed on the road ahead of us.

“You know, I’ll bet she does.”