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Grade
8

Emily had just got to this school and she was already struggling. She was the nice, quiet girl, but everyone else saw her as a mistake, as a  weak link.

Emily went to the academy for magically gifted witches or to the students academia. Emily herself wasn’t sure if she was a magically gifted witch. She could hardly summon any magic or do anything worthy as being seen as gifted, she was always seen as average. Emily had a black pixie cut and different colored eyes one blue and one green. She always tried to hide this, but her peers managed to find out.

She always tried her best with school work unfortunately, her best wasn’t enough. She seemed to constantly fail her classes, her teachers were starting to become impatient with her. Even her classmates were always annoyed with her.

After class Emily went towards her room to sulk. She was just a hallway away when she heard Lexi. Lexi was one of the most promising students at the academia and she loved to belittle others about it. She had curly brown hair and green eyes. She was always followed around with her groupies, Eleanor and Alice. Her favorite target were the people couldn’t defend themselves, so Emily was perfect

“She should be here by now.” Emily stopped mid step and listened carefully to each word.

“Don’t worry Lexi she should be coming around the bend any moment now.”

Emily changed her course towards the library. She loved the library. The academia library was so large that the only person who knew the borders of it is the librarian and she was the oldest staff member. The library actually had a consciousness, so each year a new wing of the library is discovered. The library decided where you go in it and if it doesn’t like you it could make you go to a random empty room. Emily loved the library it was the only place she felt like she belonged. The library felt magical to her it made her feel at home. She loved reading books, they transported into different worlds. In those worlds she saw amazing adventures that she felt part of and she liked it.

When she got to the library she had no idea where she was going to go. Emily closed her eyes letting the library control where she goes. When she opened her eyes she was in a older wing of the library. She had never been here before and by the looks of it neither has anything else for a long time. All the shelves, tables,chairs, and books were covered with a layer of dust. The room had the faint smell of dried paper and every breath Emily took she nearly choked on dust. Emily searched the shelves looking at each and every book. She didn’t know why, but she felt energy wafting from the books. As if she just disturbed an ancient place. Emily had a feeling she wasn’t supposed to be here yet, she still continued looking for a book. She was just about to give up when she saw on one of the tables a book.

She looked at the book, it had an leather cover with a lock on it. By the looks it was grimoire and an old one too. The title of the book was The art of magic explained. Emily was spellbound despite all her instincts telling her not to touch it she did. She felt an electric shock go through her body. She gasped from the pain. She tried to get her hand off the book, but she couldn’t. Her knees knocked together when she thought she would finally collapse, the pain stopped and she whipped her hand off the book. She glared at the book she didn’t like it so much now. She didn’t know what compelled to pick up the book.

She braced herself for another shock, but it never came. She stuffed the book in her messenger bag. She turned away and closed her eyes wishing to leave. When she opened her eyes she was at the library exit. She quietly slunk back to her dorm room and she made sure before she turned around the bend to listen for Lexi and her goons. She listened and didn’t hear a sound. She tiptoed into her room and silently closed the door.

She threw in her messenger bag on her bed and sat down at her desk with the book. She cracked her knuckles like she did just like she always did when she was about to dive into a book. When she touched the book it immediately opened and flipped to a random page. She was about to discard the page when she read the title. It was one of the subjects she was having trouble with alchemy and chemistry. She skimmed the rest of the page and couldn’t believe it. This page explained all the hard equations she couldn’t understand into simple easy to understand problems. She flipped through the book each page she landed on was a subject she was having trouble with. She stretched she had a lot of reading to do.

 

A week later Emily had caught up with all of her classes to the surprise of her teachers and peers. In fact she was so caught up she was ahead of her class. Finally, she wasn’t the average or quiet one, she wasn’t the one who was forgotten, she was the smart one. Emily herself was happy with this, but her classmates began to wonder how she caught up so quickly.

Lexi accused of her of cheating or using magic to get ahead everyone. Emily was uncomfortable with everyone’s eyes on her watching. Waiting to see if she would slip up. She began to find it hard to have a moment of peace when people were trying to steal her “secrets”.

For example she would walk into the library and a group of people would follow saying that they’re here to study. Then they would spend the whole time following and staring at her. The only moment of privacy she could get was in her room. With most of her time spent in her room she had nothing to do, but to study, finish her homework, and read the grimoire. Afterall she had to get ready the headmistress was going to make. Headmistress Rouge was one of the oldest members and the most respected member of the staff. She was an old lady who wore her red, gray streaked hair in a tight bun. She always wore a scott dress with an high collar. Her sharp gray eyes could spot a troublemaker a mile away and a no nonsense attitude. The announcements said that the headmistress had something important to tell all the first years next week.

 

Emily sat in the auditorium watching as the headmistress walked onto the stage and shushed the audience. The headmistress stood tall and looked in disdain with her piercing glare at all the students.

“Ladies, you all have been progressing through the year wonderfully. Now to reward you for all your hard work there is a special treat for you this year. Do any of you know what a familiar is?” Lexi’s hand immediately shot up. The headmistress looked for any other hand when she didn’t see any she frowned and called on Lexi. She did her most dazzling smile and hair flip while answering the question, “A familiar is a creature made or summoned from the soul of a powerful being.” The headmistress nodded approvingly.

“Just like she said, familiars are usually animals mythical or real. Everyone’s familiar is a little different in some way. This year you will be taught how to summon your familiar.” The headmistress whipped out her wand and waved it. Colors started bursting from everywhere, Emily looked down color was coming from her too. She realized it was her soul all the colors where souls. The headmistress touched her own soul and pulling out a little bit of it. The bit transformed morphing until it formed a lion. Applause and squeals joy erupted from the audience.

“Soon all of you will be able to make your familiar. Afterall every self respecting witch can summon their familiar. I expect much from all of you.” a burst of light appeared and the headmistress was gone. This usually means that they were all excused back to their rooms.

Emily walked back to her room wondering what her familiar might be? The girls around her talked excitedly about familiars and how strong they could become. When Emily got back to her room she opened the grimoire expecting to find another subject she had trouble with, but nothing appeared. She flipped through all the pages trying to find something, but they were all blank. She realized she wasn’t having any trouble with any subjects. Emily decided to let the book decide which page to turn. She took her hands off the book when it began to turn until, it got to the last pages. The title of the first page said How to summon a familiar: your own personal friend.

“A friend huh?” Emily smiled.

About an hour later Emily had mastered most parts of the spell. Some parts of the spell required her to summon her soul and split it into a smaller part to make the familiar.

Emily took a deep breath and closed her eyes bracing herself. She summoned her soul and carefully held it. A searing hot pain spread through her hands. She wanted to cry from the pain. It took all her effort to rip her soul and when she did it began to change shape. Emily watched in wonder as the small soul took on a new form a cat.

The cat was all black with one eye green the other eye blue and at the edge of the eyes fire circled it almost like an eyeliner. It also fire at the end of its tail. Emily was tempted to touch it, but she was afraid she was going to get burned. Before she could make any decisions the cat opened its eyes. The cat glared at her, looking her up and down.

“So, this will be my master, looks quite weak if you ask me. Oh, nice to meetcha my name is Celeste. What is your’s master?” Emily sat there in shock for a second before she responded.

“My name is Emily and I guess you’re my familiar. It’s nice to meet you. You know you don’t have to call me master. Why do you talk like that?” the cat stared at her curiously.

“Oh, ya mean how I don’t really say the whole word. That’s because I’m from the small parts of ya that’s are ruder and less formal. So what do ya want me do?” Celeste stretched and looked at her indifferently.

“Will you be my friend?”

“Is that what you really want?” Emily nodded and Celeste shrugged. Can a cat shrug?

“Fine, I’ll be your friend. Now you should probably rest. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.

 

Emily went to class excited to see her classmates and show her familiar. Right now Celeste stood on her shoulder with a grim expression like a gargoyle. When she got to class she was surprised to see no one had a familiar yet. She was just about to tell Celeste that she could disappear when her teacher spotted her.

“Looks like Emily summoned her familiar early.” Everyone in the room turned towards her. Lexi frowned and whispered to her friends about something. Suddenly she sneered and shouted out, “Mrs.Trig why does odd eye get rewarded for cheating?” Her groupies joined in shouting, “Cheater! Cheater!” Emily tried to tell them she wasn’t cheating, but her mouth dried and her eyes stung from tears threatening to spill out.

“Hey, leave her alone at least she doesn’t have dragon breath.” Lexi whipped her head towards Emily, “You dare to speak to me that way!” Emily almost shrunk at her glare if it wasn’t for Celeste.

“No I dare!” she glared at Celeste.

“You a lowly familiar dare challenge me. I outrank you.”

“At least I’m not some weirdo who takes joy in making people feel worse about themselves.”

“I-i!” Lexi stormed out of the classroom her face as red as a tomato and veins bulging from her forehead. Her groupies followed close on her heels. Emily smiled she felt strangely like a burden had been finally placed off her shoulders.

“Thank you!” she bowed her head to Celeste.

“Aw, don’t mention it. It is my job since I’m you’re friend.”

 

The rest of the day her peers complemented Emily about Celeste and her victory against Lexi. When she and Celeste finally got back to their room, they were exhausted. Emily collapsed on her bed.

“I’m so tired. I hate it when people pay attention to me.”

“No you don’t. You like it when people are nice to you.” Emily simply smiled and lay next to Celeste nose to nose. Emily knew for once everything was going to fine and she laughed with Celeste. Emily had a strange sensation that a new friendship was budding.