The Merkwood Chronicles

Prologue

At first glance, it seems to be very much abandoned, but as the fog clears and you take the first steps through the huge iron gates, there lies an ancient castle-like structure, its red brick facade dulled with age. With each tiptoe closer, lights become visible, flickering in the windows. Through a barrier that is invisible to the naked eye, a whole new world, just itching to be explored.

Merkwood Academy; The Institute for the Individual, a secondary school for the peculiar and remarkable (in all aspects of the words.) Located in the middle of no-one-quite-knows-where, the building stands as strong as it had for hundreds of thousands of years, overlooking a dark, shifty sea, underneath an ever growing inky sky.

For the moment, the brightest light that flickered in the entire structure was the light in the window of the headmistress's office, in the tallest and most solitary tower of the school, away from prying eyes. She sat alone by candlelight, writing a handpicked selection of incredibly important letters on her typewriter, signing each one with a swish of her quill pen and ink. The rest of the building in eerie darkness, looking out over the school's campus, watching every creature sniff and scamper, she hunched over her list of scribbly written names, a million envelopes piled around her in tall and wobbling piles. With each tap of the typewriter keys by the headmistress's hand, they swayed lightly, each time threatening to fall and engulf the woman completely.

But they never fell. Not once.

The headmistress perched like that all the way through the night, into the early hours of the morning. Sounds of clicking typewriter keys echoed down the empty hallways, every inch of the building yearning desperately to be filled with the whisperings and laughter of students, waiting for the next school year to roll around.

If you asked anyone who had had the experience of meeting the headmistress, they would say that she was an extraordinary woman, but that would never even begin to describe her full air of grace and mystery. Headmistress Paloma Chase was one of the most incredible and yet puzzling people that I had ever had the good fortune to meet. She was the only member of staff at Merkwood Academy to stay at the school all year round, even when the school year was not in session. Always committed to the school and its students, which may have been why she was chosen as headmistress all those years ago...

I always loathed how a select few of the staff criticized her behind her back, gossiping about how she would often walk around the corridors at night and talk to herself as if she was talking to the school itself; the walls, the ceiling and the floor. But every year, as she plowed through her neverending list of students and typed out every letter, running her hair through her thinning hands through her greying raven hair, she didn't look particularly extraordinary.

"At it again I see, Paloma?" An older but still sweet voice said, a bright purple glow shining from the windowsill nearby, the voice's owner no larger than a toothpick. Miss Chase looked up suddenly and smiled, bowing her head then proceeding to lift it once more. She always enjoyed these visits from the pixie queen, and was happy to have a dear friend as her company in the lonely hours of the early morning.

"Yes, Queen Thicket, I'm left once again to choose which children will attend Merkwood in the next academic year,"

"The offer still stands from last year, you know, Paloma. And the same offer from the year before that, and the year before that, and the year before tha-"

"But as I said last year, and the year before that, and so on, this is a job that I have to do, alone." the headmistress sighed, staring at the piles of paperwork, her eyes tired.

Queen Thicket was an older pixie woman, which would never be clear from her looks; her golden hair as bright as it was in her youth, the only sign of aging being in her skin gathering in faint wrinkles around her eyes and along her forehead, which were visible from her frown.

"But as always, I do appreciate your generous offer, as I have already told you a million times," Miss Chase began fumbling around with the letters, sealing them with wax despite knowing that sealing each letter with wax wasn't a requirement now that they were living in a more modern society. It had always been the smell of the wax, it reminded her of when she first started this job at the academy. She had been so young and excited when the previous headmaster had handed the care of the school over to her, and she'd never forget how he had smiled at her, his eyes gleaming, and given her some advice before he slowly closed his eyes and vanished into thin air. The words still echoed in her head;

'Never give up, those children are relying on you'

But that was, what, 250 years ago? The headmistress had honestly lost count.

"I'll leave you to it then Paloma," Queen Thicket bowed, her small golden crown glittering in the flickering candlelight.

"Yes, well I do suppose you'll be wanting to get back to Pixie Woods, who knows what kind of havoc they could be reeking without you there," Miss Chase laughed, earning a small bell-like-tinkling laugh from her dear friend.

"Well, I have left them with my husband, so I do hope they'll be fine,"

"Oh yes, quite safe," Headmistress Chase said, laughing softly to herself as she went back to her pile of letters. "Please give my love to King Thistle and everyone else back in your home."

"I will," Queen Thicket smiled regally, fluttering her tiny fairy wings over to kiss her friend on the forehead. "And I wish you the best of luck for the academic year ahead, and for coming out alive if those letters topple over and drown you!"

Both of them laughed at the comment in the dark of the office. But just as the pixie queen turned to leave the whole office was engulfed in some form of bright light, cascading onto every surface, forcing both the headmistress and Queen Thicket to shield their eyes. Both of them looked confused, one more panicked than the other. As they approached the source of the light, it grew brighter and brighter. It flashed as quick as lightning and then the room was dark once more. Something had been left behind, an unsealed letter. It's paper seemed to have a silver shimmer that made it stand out from the rest of the letters she had written that night, it caught the light of the flickering candle as the headmistress picked it up off her desk to examine it. She opened up the letter and began to read it, a smile slowly spreading across her face. Placing it back into its envelope, she sealed it with wax, as she had done with every other letter and placed it on the top of the pile.

"Was that-" Queen Thicket asked curiously.

"Yes, yes it was..." Miss chase trailed off, still grinning to herself. She sighed softly, looking around her at the piles of letters and checking off the remaining names from her list.

"Well, it looks like my work here is finally complete,"

"Would you like me to take the letters to be sent by pixie post now? Whilst I'm here?" Queen Thicket offered, Miss Chase smiled and nodded slightly. The pixie queen then reached into the pockets of her lilac dress and brought out what looked like tiny specks of glitter, which she sprinkled over every enveloped letter making each letter shrink to the correct size that she could carry them.

And with that, Queen Thicket and Headmistress Chase said their final farewells and the queen left, leaving the headmistress alone, pondering, in the candlelight.

The lonely silence was deafening.

"Mabel Banks," Headmistress Chase whispered into the unknown, "welcome to Merkwood Academy." She smiled to herself again then, in her darkening office, blew out the candle and disappeared as her office was shrouded in darkness once more.