The Eclipse on Opening Day

Friday. We opened today, and the Blood Eclipse rose precisely on time, which is more than can be said for anything else this week.

For five hundred years the Founders’ Spell has kept our world sealed from the Shadow Realm. This morning the sky went the colour of rust, the old enchantment began to fray, and I did what any headmistress would do. I summoned my apprentices and set them their final test: find what the founders left behind and put the spell right before the dark gets through.

Some of them had already been to the castle in Perth or Sydney, the one with the Headmaster’s sanctum, and arrived knowing exactly what sort of trouble the Sorcerers of the Dark Side can stir up. They nodded wisely at everything. The ones who had never been near a castle did every bit as well, and nodded less.

I shan’t write down how any of them did it. A headmistress does not leave the exam answers on the staffroom table. But the corridor was full of whispering and, once or twice, of cheering, and the sea outside sounded very pleased with all of us.