Prologue

“Mike! Mike!” Wilson yelled, never taking his eyes from the scene in front of him. “Get in here now!”

Mike ran in, expecting a catastrophe. “Damn, it's cold in here. Don't you remember we're on budget cuts?” He practically bowled Wilson over in an abrupt stop. What lay before him was nothing he had ever expected before.

In the wall before them gaped a hole, slashing diagonally across. It was longer than he was tall and maybe three wide. Inside it lay heaps of snow, fields of snow as far the eye could see. In the distance stood a proud castle, complete with turrets, guard walls, and a moat. Even from here, he could see the water was frozen. Wilson's eyes flicked to the window beside him. A cardinal chirped in the tree, the tree with newly grown leaf buds, in spring.

A gust of wind swept over them, sending a stack of papers fluttering the floor. Neither man moved. Mike's glasses fogged over, but he made no move to clear them. His too long blond locks fell in his face. Wilson, for once, didn’t make a fuss over a messy lab.

Both men stood as if in a trance.

After a moment, Wilson spoke again. “This is it. We have finally found it.”

“Found what?” Mike said. “This can't be... it just can't.”

Broken from his vigil, Mike stepped forward and touched the wall around the hole. He spread his fingers out, ran his hand over the perimeter of the hole, and even rapped on it. The supporting structure held up to his inspection.

“How can this be? I know we worked for so long, but how?” Mike repeated.

Wilson joined him. “I don't know exactly. I was aiming the array, I hadn't even calibrated it yet, when I realized I was muttering to myself and twisting my hand around and then suddenly, there it was.”

Mike blinked. He turned to Wilson and said. “What? You didn't even touch the array?”

“No, I didn't, but there it was.”

They turned back to the wall.

“Hey,” Mike said. “What happened?”

The gaping hole wasn't so gaping anymore. It was now only two feet or so long and several inches wide. They could barely see what lay within it and only the barest trace of wind flowed through.

“It's shrinking.” Wilson said.

“I can see that, you dolt.” Mike snapped and took a step forward. “But why?”

“Don't do that,” Wilson warned. “I know what you're going to do and don't.”

“I have to. Can't you see that?”

The hole was steadily closing fast. Mike knelt down so he could see through and slipped his hand into it. Across the way, he saw something moving towards them. A gust of wind threw up snow and Mike's hand went numb. The wind died. The snow fell back down and right in front of him stared a woman, a woman so beautiful that he gibbered wordless speech.

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Her skin was fair, her face flawless, and her eyes wide, sparkling. She wore a dress straight out of the renaissance period, but more elegant, more lovely than anything Mike had ever seen. Raven locks spilled over her shoulders and onto Mike's outstretched hand. He would swear years later that they were the softest he had ever felt. The woman looked behind Mike. Her eyes grew cold, colder than the wind freezing Mike's hand. She let out a shriek, grabbed onto Mike's shirt, and yanked hard.

She was stronger than she looked. Mike would have been pulled through if the hole wasn't still closing. It was only inches now. Barely enough to poke one's head through. The woman yanked him through up to his shoulder. Mike yelled and leaned away, bracing himself against the wall. From behind, Wilson made a noise of bewilderment and grabbed a hold of Mike around his middle. Wilson hauled, Mike shoved backwards, and the woman's grip failed. Just before the hole closed, she shrieked again. Her rage pierced the work room even after the sound died.

The two men tumbled to the floor. They picked themselves up, shivering in the frigid room.

“What in the hell was that?” Wilson demanded.

“I think that,” Mike said slowly, still staring at the wall. “Was our first encounter.”

Myra had just gotten back to their rooms early from track practice. One of the girls had broken her ankle and the matronly coach hadn’t wanted the other girls to see the horrific twist and blood and completely freak out.

At Horizon Academy Myra shared a set of rooms with five other girls. For now, they were empty. As she let herself in and made her way to her room, she dropped her sports bag in the common area. Several loveseats and armchairs were arranged around coffee tables with one set around a T.V. and another across from a chess set, and a third around a fireplace. Warm, supposedly comforting colors, according to the headmistress, splayed across the furniture. Everything was just quiet enough for her to be able to hear soft voices coming from one of the opposite rooms.

Grimacing and expecting to hear first hand gossip that she would later surely know anyway, she strode slowly towards the source.

There were only two voices. Myra recognized them as her two best friends, Summer and Lucilla, or Illa, as they most times called her. The two girls seemed to be taking orders from someone in rather subservient voices. Odd. Even when talking to the professors there was always a hint of superiority and laughter in their voices as if they knew something the adults didn’t. It was usually true, though.

The third voice was a man’s and sounded slightly off like talking to someone on the phone who was millions of miles away and the transmission was broken up.

However rough it was, a few words were still unmistakable. “-Myra... remember the vows... now is... ever.”

Myra inched forward a few more steps to see around the hall corner that their bedroom door was open. Bright blues and greens that accented their bedroom and dominant browns greeted her. The two girls stood away from the bedroom door, leaning over something they held in their hands.

“We shall... soon.” The garbled male voice intoned.

Summer and Illa nodded to their hands and stared up at each other, their eyes wide, mouths pressed into determined lines.

“We will have to do better than ever.” Summer whispered, her tone grave.

“We can’t fail.” Illa agreed.

In shock and confused, Myra turned away from the door. Her feet must have carried her to the loveseat because she found herself resting on the soft tan material. She hadn’t even showered yet. She was suddenly aware of how sticky her skin felt against the loveseat.

What did the man mean about a vow? Summer and Illa had been Myra's friends her whole life. How could they be hiding something that had to do with her? They trusted each other, did everything together. Sure, they had other friends over the years but these three had always been together. Summer had even turned down an offer to a prestigious school that would have been amazing for her future to come here with Myra and Illa.

If she did something like that, how could the two of them be keeping something so serious from Myra?

As thoughts spun around her mind, Summer and Illa must have entered the common area, just watching her, as if waiting for something to happen.

The main door of the common area burst open. The other three girls rushed forward, gushing about the drama on the track field. Grim looks planted themselves on their faces.

“-blood shooting everywhere!”

“An ambulance showed up immediately!”

“-girls screaming-”

“Just horrid.”