GUILDER BOARDING SCHOOL - 1

Rae Of Hope

GUILDER BOARDING SCHOOL

"You can't undo the past. The sins of the father are the sins of the son or, in this case, daughter."

Uncle Argyle's ominous words

echoed in Rae's head long after he

Dropped her off at the airport. A proverb of truth, he had called it. Who spoke like that nowadays? Some goodbye. Tightening her ponytail and trying to tuck her forever-escaping dark curls behind her ears, she looked at her watch then out the bus window at the tree-lined countryside. It seemed strange to see the sun. All she remembered was rain when she had lived in Britain nine years ago.

Trying to get comfortable, Rae tucked her foot up on the seat and rested her head against her knee as she looked out at the scenery flashing by. A sign outside the window showed the miles before the bus reached Guilder. It'd be another twenty-five minutes. She popped her ear buds in, blew the bangs away from her forehead and stared out the window across the rolling farm fields, trying to let the music from her iPod distract her.

It didn't work. Just when she felt the tension begin to ease from her shoulders and started to get into the song, something caught her eye. Black smoke billowed just near the top of a lush green hill. Rae stared, her heart fluttering as an old memory began to take hold. She knew what that smoke meant. She'd seen it before, long ago.

Someone's house was burning. Crap, crap, crap! No, I don't want to go there. Her heart started racing, and her stomach turned over, making her feel nauseated.

Dropping her knee, she gripped the seat in front of her, burying her face in the back of her hands and taking deep breaths like the therapists taught her to do. She'd gone through years of therapy to treat what had been called “panic attacks". It didn't matter what other people called it. To her, it was simply hell, like being sucked back in time against her will to a place she never wanted to revisit. So she breathed the way she'd been taught: slow breathe in, all the way, then slow breath out, all the time chanting it's not real, it's not real in her head.

It helped calm her racing heart and made her feel more in control, but it didn't erase the memory. Nothing on Earth could do that. Being back in England for the first time and seeing the strange smoke, Rae felt six years old all over again.

She'd been in the living room, coloring with new markers before bed, when her mother told her to take them to the tree house her dad had built for her and play there until she called her in. That call never came. The blaze bounced horrific shadows around the inside of the tree house. The stinky black smoke slithered in and scared her little six-year-old self in ways the monsters under her bed never had.

Rae shuddered and lurched upright, forcefully bringing herself back to the present. Could this school be any into the sticks?

Glancing around the now-vacant bus, she wondered if the driver had purposely left her until last. She'd watched the last few people get off at a school about fifteen minutes ago, Roe-something or other. They all looked the same, all pretty girls with blonde hair, not one of them thin, pale, and tall like her. They hadn't been friendly. Big surprise there. She was used to it. She tended to fly under the radar at best. So she handled them the way she always handled the ones who instantly didn't like her for no reason she could come up with. Rae avoided making eye contact and tried to appear immersed in the Guilder Boarding School brochure. It wasn't that she didn't want to make friends. She'd just never really had any. Most kids her age either didn't like her or didn't notice her.

It bugged her that Uncle Argyle had pushed so hard for her to go when Guilder sent the letter. He'd been the one to move them all from Scotland to New York when she'd come to live with them, taking her away from the horrible tragedy of her parents' death, and now he suddenly leapt at the chance for her to go back? It didn't make any sense. It sort of sucked to leave her current high school. She lacked close friends but she also lacked enemies, which was a plus in her book. The girls there seemed just as stuck up as the ones who'd gotten off the bus earlier, but they'd simply ignored her. Rae always told herself it didn't matter anyway. Cliques were so passé, in her opinion.

Another weird thing that she couldn't seem to find an answer to was why Guilder would choose her. How did they even know she existed? Her uncle boasted how big a deal it was for her to be selected, but he'd never once explained how they'd even come to know about her in the first place. She had the grades the brain part always came easy for her-but she didn't have any extracurricular activities at all. Nothing to make her stand out. So how had this amazing school she'd never heard of before decided to take her on? It didn't make any sense. She tried a few times before she left to corner her uncle and get him to explain part or all of it, but he'd always seemed to be busy.

While this wasn't exactly abnormal behavior for him it still left her with a sense of foreboding, something that had clung to her ever since she got the letter. She couldn't figure out why, but she had a strong sense that something big was coming. Whether it was good or bad, she didn't know.

A movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention, pulling her mind out of the endless circle of questions in her head. She turned to look out the window, and was stunned to see the largest bird she'd ever seen in her life. Maybe an eagle? The thing flew parallel with the bus, right beside her. Pressing her face against the cool glass, her gaze focused intently on the curious sight. She jerked back when its large wings flapped, brushed the window, and then veered away. She watched its graceful flight as it soared and then swooped to settle onto the limb of a large tree just ahead. As the bus passed by, the bird seemed to lock eyes with Rae and she was mesmerized. Rae had always wondered what it would feel like to be a bird, to fly so free, go anywhere the wind took her. She continued to watch the bird until she couldn't see it anymore, then slumped back into her seat as the bus sped onward down the long road.

Guilder Boarding School. She gnawed at the cuticle on her thumbnail a little too hard and ripped the skin, drawing a wince from her. She couldn't help it, she always did this when she was nervous. She'd be the only American girl. Well, not really American. She held a British passport but had moved to New York after her parents died in the fire, leaving her orphaned. So...not really American, not really British; a little of both, but belonging to neither.

The bus cruised by an aged stone sign. Guilder Boarding School, Founded 1520. One of Britain's Finest Educational Institutions. Rae read the sign and wondered how a school could be that old and not be featured in stories or online. She'd found nothing when she tried researching it. The bus passed under an old arch supporting a covered walk, punctuated by leaded windows, that were connected by two round, red-brick towers. The stream of people coming and going from the doors at the bottom made her think it must be some kind of office. She craned her neck to get a better view. The buildings were old, but were well kept and held an almost magical aura of their original Tudor era. She half expected to see men in tights and codpieces strutting down the road, leading their horses, with corseted ladies perched delicately atop them. The mental picture amused her and she absentmindedly smiled. Her eyes were drawn to the ornate brick chimneys along the buildings' roofs. She glimpsed the other buildings beyond. This place looks huge...hope I don't get lost.

The driver pulled to a halt in front of a building with an embossed plaque that said “Aumbry Hall". The ancient building had ivy growing all over it. It looked like it was probably older than Henry VIII, leaving Rae with horrifying visions of chamber pots dancing in her head. It better have indoor plumbing...

The bus door slid open with a hiss. Rae gathered her two small suitcases and her book bag, clambered down the aisle and finally, blessedly, off the bus.

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