Days in Counting

I check off one more box on my calendar. 30 days till the school’s entrance exams. It’s been 3 weeks since I saw that fancy lady out in the street. I still feel bad about bumping into a noble such as herself, but she said it was fine. She hasn’t sent anyone after the orphanage either, so I think I'm in the clear. I can never be too careful, though. I still haven't talked to my mom, and I don’t plan to either.

“Livy!”

My mom busts into my room, swinging my door open so fast she forgets to stop it before it hits the wall. The doorknob slams into the wall with a loud bang. Vibrations shoot and spread through the building’s floors and walls, causing it to sake a little.

“Something came in the mail for you, and I think it's important since we never get mail other than our bills and taxes.”

“Mail? For me?”

Just great. I didn’t want to talk to her, but now I have to. I mean, mail addressed to me is a good reason to start talking to your mom you had a huge fight with, right? My mom hands me the envelope. It's not torn or bent, so it must have been from somewhere or someone important, but who? I turn the envelope over, and there it was, staring at me dead in the face, its glossy red wax stamp glaring at me.

“This emblem… My god, Mom! This is the academy’s emblem!”

“The academy’s emblem? You mean Willow’s Magic Academy’s emblem!?”

“Yeah!”

I tear the envelope in a hurry, almost ripping the letter in the process. I unfold the paper hidden inside. The paper looks at me, blank as can be, not even a single ink mark.

“Huh? It’s blank…”

“Blank?”

My mom takes the letter and looks at it. 

“Are you sure? This definitely has writing on it.”

“What!?”

I snatch the paper out of my mom’s hands. I look back at the blank surface. 

“I... I can’t see it!”

“Thats strange.”

“Wait!”

I squint my eyes, looking at the page. 

“Magic?”

The page is surrounded by a blue-tinted aura. Its flowing and moving around the page like some watery jello.

“What do you mean magic?”

“The paper, it’s surrounded by magic!”

“You can tell? How?”

My mom looks at me, equally confused as she is worried.

“There's this aura around the page. Now that I think about it, that lady I ran into was surrounded by this same stuff when I ran into her that one time.”

“Livy, you’re not joking with me right now, right? Also, what lady?”

"No, I'm not kidding. And the lady doesn’t matter right now. There’s a spell cast on this paper; I’m not sure which one though.”

“Livy, give me your hairclip.”

“My hairclip? You mean the one you told me to never take off?”

"Yes, that one; give it to me now.”

I remove the moon hairclip with the black ribbons and glossy white moon. As soon as I take it off, I get the worst headache I think I’ve ever felt. It felt like my head was splitting in half. My mom takes the clip and mumbles under her breath. I can’t understand what she said; my head was pounding so badly that my vision blurred and my hearing started to fade. Soon, I was on the floor, my conscience? Lost.