Deacon was eager as ever to get to the school. Days and days of waiting had made him eager with anticipation to attend. The entrance exams had been murder, all that studying and cramming well into the night and worrying about whether or not he could go had worried him. But now that he was here with the others, the excitement was beginning to reach fever pitch.

“First years come this way!” Their teacher announced.

The cloaked figure led them along the twisting, turning path through the woods until they came to the school’s entrance. The steep embankments on both sides of the path were overgrown with mosses, ferns and fallen logs while the trees stretched from the ground to the sky. Deacon wanted to scream with excitement when he saw the school entrance. The tunnel stretched open into a wide, black abyss while the guards stood watch in the conical towers. This was it. Finally, he and the others were crossing from their ordinary lives and into the unknown.