Osric Finch awoke early, the first light of dawn piercing his tattered curtains. Drowsiness giving way to dread, he sat up and peered out his window at the village he would soon be leaving. A brisk wind pushed the hair from his eyes, and he inhaled the damp yet oddly comforting smell of petrichor. Outside, a nest of thatched roofs huddled around a small, cobbled square. In the centre stood a shrine of Elowen, her polished stone figure faintly lit by dutiful candles sputtering their last. Osric’s parents had warned him against worshipping her ever since he had gotten accepted into the academy. He didn’t quite understand why his new school required abandoning his village’s cherished protector, but “You won’t need her anymore.” was all they would say.
A knock at the door scattered his thoughts and his mother’s agitated voice called him downstairs for breakfast. He dressed quickly, his uniform neatly laid out for him the night before by his mother. The novelty of well-fitting clothes briefly assuaged his anxiety, the stiff collar and garish Ravenhurst crest emblazoned on his coat beacons of a wealth and prestige to which he did not belong. Yet he had been deemed worthy of wearing them, his unintentional displays of magical potential earning him an opportunity – albeit apparently not a choice – to study the craft of magic shoulder-to-shoulder with the most talented 11-year-olds Britain had to offer. He tucked his shirt into his trousers, buttoned up his waistcoat and unsuccessfully attempted to tie his tie before giving up and heading downstairs.
Nervous looks greeted him at the breakfast table. Even his typically cheerful father, Tiernan, sat sombrely, his eyes flicking between his untouched plate and Osric’s new uniform.
“Here,”, he said eventually, taking the appropriately raven-black tie from Osric’s pocket and demonstrating with shaking hands how it should be worn. Osric tried to imitate his father’s movements but struggled, his own delicate hands clenched in frustration after a few failed attempts. Eventually, it seemed to stick, and a faint smile danced across his father’s etched face. Osric’s emerald eyes met Tiernan’s before his father gestured for him to eat.
“Still, you might as well leave it off for now, just remember to put it on before you arrive.” Tiernan added. Osric ate rapidly, eager to direct towards his parents the questions he had been tossing and turning over late last night.
“What if I don’t like it there? What if I can’t learn spells? Will they send me home?” he asked, barely pausing for breath between each question.
“They won’t send you back, so don’t even try that one!” his mother, Eira, fired back, her brow furrowing at her son’s thinly veiled questions. “And if your father and I are anything to go by, you’ll be learning new spells before you know it.”.
Osric’s parents were both adept spell users - his father, Tiernan, had long been magically enriching the fields which the village farmed with spells he learned as a boy and his mother frequently tended to illnesses and wounds that even the village doctor was unable to handle. They drew their power from Elowen, a relationship between spellcaster and god which elevated the natural magic which most folk possessed. Nevertheless, it was common knowledge that magical gifts were not always inherited. As for most skills, study and practise were imperative for the fulfilment of magical potential, as Osric’s parents oft reminded him.
Breakfast was hurriedly tidied away, plates and pans clattering together with the displaced force of his parents’ worry. Osric shared their fear; what little was known to him of Ravenhurst Academy promised a life of relentless study, obedience and competition. Excellence was expected from those who had been carefully plucked from their respective homes to attend. He turned towards his mother, then his father, probing them with questions he knew they couldn’t answer. They swatted his questions away dismissively, their exasperation contained only by their son’s imminent departure. Finally, he struck on a question that softened his mother’s eyes:
“Why can’t I worship Elowen anymore? I’m going to find out soon enough - you may as well tell me!” he tried, unsure if that was indeed the case. His mother sat down beside him. Her face tilted down towards his, she rested a hand on his shoulder and met his gaze.
“Elowen protects us here in Brynwode, and in the villages nearby, but she isn’t worshipped in Ravenhurst. They…” she paused, considering her next words. “You will… be required to worship the gods of the royal family. They act a little differently to Elowen, or any other gods for that matter, and you’ll have to get used to the way they do things. I know it’s strange, but it’s important that you try and fit in there. This isn’t an opportunity that will come around again.”. There was that word again, opportunity, and yet attending Ravenhurst meant giving up everything Osric knew: his family, friends, and the goddess who had watched over him his whole life. Her spells had been used to grow and cook the food he ate and had even been used to save his life once when he had gotten terribly ill as an infant. What could possibly be so great about his new school that it was worth abandoning all that?
As if in answer, there was a knock at the door and Ewan – a friend of Osric’s father who had agreed to take him to Ravenhurst – entered. Stunted greetings were exchanged, the heavy atmosphere suppressing their usual warmth.
“We’re all most grateful for this,” Tiernan offered, the value of a 3-day cart ride not lost on him.
“Of course, anything for the Finch’s!” he exclaimed, although followed it with “I know you’ll keep a close eye on my farm while I’m gone.”. Osric’s father nodded obligingly.
They packed the carriage slowly, the air thick with unspoken words. Eira seemed almost to the brink of tears as she loaded up the last of Osric’s meagre possessions. His old clothes now forbidden, the contents of his bag consisted mostly of small tokens from Brynwode and all the food his mother could squeeze inside. A small pouch of coins rested at the bottom; its value was not sufficient even to replace the blazer which he now wore. He had pleaded with his parents to take the small, whittled figure of Elowen that he had painstakingly made over the summer but their insistence on him “fitting in” had prevailed. In a rare act of defiance, he had buried the figure in his bag anyway, knowledge of its proximity a slight respite from his growing fear. Eira hugged him tightly, pressing yet more food into his hands and casting a protective blessing over him as her words began to shake with sadness. Final farewells and words of advice offered, Osric lifted himself up into the cart and looked back at his home longingly. Tiernan hugged him one last time, pausing as if to say something then thinking better of it. The time was finally here. Ewan tugged on the horses’ reins and soon the only place Osric had ever called home began to slowly shrink into the distance.
Stolen novel; please report.
The journey was both uncomfortable and uneventful. The last of the summer heat had been scared away by an autumnal chill and the quiet countryside paths caused the cart to jolt and start incessantly as if it too wrestled with Osric’s emotional turmoil. He feigned an attempt at conversation, but his heart wasn’t in it. He had barely slept with all the worry of the last few days and talking to Ewan about the verdant, bountiful fields that he tilled just made Osric long to be back home. After asking a few questions about Ravenhurst (Ewan had heard rumours of Ravenhurst’s brutal academic demands, but this was little more than Osric had already been told) he settled into a corner of the cart, wrapped himself in a blanket Ewan had brought and drifted off to a restless sleep.
The days blurred together. Long hours of bumpy, winding paths gradually gave way to more established roads, occasionally accompanied by other carts headed in the opposite direction. Small, intimate villages were replaced by bustling market towns, offering wares the like of which Osric had never seen. Statues and shrines of foreign gods stared back at him, their names and traditions a mystery. What spells did they offer? he wondered. His imagination ran wild with the possibilities. Elowen was a goddess of agriculture, medicine and cookery – the perfect combination for a humble farming village such as Brynwode. Her spells were gifted in abundance, employed on a near-daily basis by all those in her territory who possessed magic. Yet Osric had heard tales of distant gods, those more concerned with meddling in the affairs of humanity. Spells of warfare, trickery and manipulation wove their way into the stories of gods and kings which were sometimes recounted by the elders of Brynwode. Would those be the kinds of spells he would learn at Ravenhurst? He would soon find out.
The playful, Brynwodean folksong that Ewan had been humming cut abruptly short. “This is it, lad.” he called out, the first words he had spoken since they had set off a few hours earlier. Osric had barely noticed the noise of civilisation fading away as the cart had drifted further from the major roads. He sat up and stared. Some distance away the dark spires of Ravenhurst pierced the cloudless sky. A vast avenue stretched out before them, flanked on either side by oak trees whose shadows cast an icy chill on the two travellers. Grand iron gates blocked the road ahead, huge circular windows leering down at them from the turrets above. The slate brickwork cast a shadow no darker than the building itself, save for the towering wooden entrance adorned with the now-familiar school crest. The academy looming ever-closer, Osric frantically rummaged in his bag for his tie. Unsteady hands desperately working to remember his father’s instructions, he pieced it together just as the iron gates lurched open. Their heavy, low-pitched reverberations rattled Osric’s slight frame as two uniformed men pulled them open from either side. Following their lead, Ewan directed the cart to one side before yanking on the reins to bring the horses to a halt. He cast a sympathetic look towards his dishevelled companion before getting off the cart and helping to off-load Osric’s possessions.
“Remember to write to your folks, won’t you now?” he said, noticing a stack of blank letters and envelopes Osric’s parents had packed for him.
“I will.” Osric replied, too stunned by the sheer, ominous size of the buildings in front of him to offer further reassurance.
“I’ll stick around for a short while to feed the horses, then I’ll be off. You head on in now - I’m sure they’re eager to meet you.” he said while pointing towards the wooden entrance with a calloused hand. Mercifully avoiding another sentimental farewell, Osric hoisted his now somewhat depleted bags onto his skinny frame and approached the uniformed men who stood either side of the entrance.
“Name?” one of the men asked, eyes peering down at Osric from over a lengthy parchment.
“Osric Finch.” the boy replied, fixing his messy black hair and feeling more observed than he would have wished after three days of travel.
“Finch, eh?” the man replied with a smirk, poring over the names scribbled on his list. “Ah, here it is. Head inside and take a seat. Mrs Hawthorne will take you to your dormitory. Be sure to tidy yourself up a bit before she sees you.” Osric hastily straightened out his uniform, jostling with his tie which never quite seemed to fit right. What was so funny about my name? he wondered as he tentatively made his way inside.
The crisp gravel outside supplanted by cold, dark-grey slate tiles, Osric took a few steps inside before pausing to soak in the expansive room before him. A high vaulted ceiling hung overhead, an array of painted coats-of-arms of all shapes and sizes sculpted round the edges. A row of ornate wooden chairs positioned just inside beckoned him to sit, their fronts pointed towards a fireplace in the opposite corner. Osric noticed there was no fuel in the fireplace, just a roaring flame atop a bed of marble. A rich, crimson-coloured rug hugged the slate just up ahead, branching off left and right down two corridors. Osric peered round one corner then the next, his gaze met by two near-identical corridors in the same style as the entrance room, the occasional door or piece of wooden furniture the only distinction between the two. Unlit red candles lined the walls, upheld by intricate golden sconces. Awestruck, Osric turned back towards the chairs. This place was like nothing he had ever seen before. Who would build a place as strange and yet magnificent as this? What manner of folk inhabits these halls with their haughty ceilings and cold slate floors?
Just as he sat down, a thin, bespectacled woman approached. Osric admired her peculiar combination of elegance and speed – especially given her age. She came to a sudden stop without so much as a glance in his direction. Her eyes rested buried in parchment for a moment before finally darting upwards towards him. A stern voice called out:
“Osric Finch? My name is Mrs Hawthorne.” the voice announced, not waiting for his reply. “Welcome to Ravenhurst Academy.”. The sound of a horse-drawn cart faded into the distance as the imposing iron gates sealed Osric inside for good.