I shook my head, bewildered. Faes? Drakes? Nocturnes? Sisters?
“I don’t know any of these people you’re talking about. And I don’t understand how such a huge lake and castle could have been hidden from view when I was looking up Frostproof online,” I said blankly.
“Never mind about that. Here we are—be sure you bring your acceptance letter.” Aunt Dellie patted my knee comfortingly and parked the car next to a few others scattered around the small parking area on this end of the lake.
We got out and I saw that there was a kind of bridge—almost like an extended pier—stretching from the land to the castle, which sat in the very middle of the black waters. It looked like kind of a long walk but Aunt Dellie started down the bridge briskly, her sensible low heels tap-tap-tapping on the smooth planks.
I followed her, my sneakers squeaking on the polished gray wood which matched the stones of the castle. I wondered how they kept everything in such pristine order here. There wasn’t a single scuff-mark on the bridge as far as the eye could see and the green hedges which surrounded the perimeter of the castle were perfectly trimmed too.
The bright sunshine meant it was already hot, even though it wasn’t quite nine in the morning yet, but there was a brisk breeze blowing across the lake which seemed to cool things down some. I clutched the acceptance envelope tightly in one hand, not wanting it to get blown away.
One thing that made me nervous was the fact that there were no guardrails on either side of the bridge and that the bridge itself, which was about five feet wide, was only about a foot above the impenetrable black water. I could hear it lapping beneath the wooden planks, a quiet, somehow ominous sound.
“Aunt Dellie?” I asked her as we walked. “Isn’t it dangerous to have a bridge over a lake so close to the water and with no guardrails too? I mean, this is Florida—there could be gators, couldn’t there?”
“Gators?” She spoke without even looking around. “Don’t be silly, Meggie—the Guardian would never allow that.”
“Guardian?” I asked but as the word left my lips, I saw something from the corner of my eye that made me catch my breath.
A broad, scaly head breached the water far out in the lake to the left and vast nostrils flared as though catching our scent. Then a huge golden eye the size of a dinner plate winked open and stared at us with a slitted cat’s pupil for a long moment before the immense head disappeared once more below the surface of the lake with scarcely a ripple.
“Aunt Dellie!” I gasped, snatching at the back of her jacket. “Did you see that?”
“See what, dear?” She was completely focused on getting to the other end of the long bridge where a rounded stone arch framed a truly massive set of double wooden doors bound in black metal.
“That…that thing in the lake!” I exclaimed. “It was huge. I mean, if that was an alligator, it was the size of twenty regular-sized ones.”
“I told you, Meggie, there aren’t any alligators in the Nocturne Academy Moat. Ah—here we are.”
We had reached the double doors at last. Without a trace of uncertainty, Aunt Dellie lifted the heavy iron knocker, which was shaped like the head of some strange animal with horns and teeth straight out of a nightmare, and let it fall. The knocker boomed sonorously against the wood and the door swung silently open at once, almost as though someone had been expecting us.
But when we stepped through the vast doorway, no one was there.
5
“Welcome to Nocturne Academy. And you are?” The receptionist in the North Tower, which turned out to be the administration building—or at least the bottom of it was—looked over the rims of her horn-rimmed glasses at me with obvious disapproval. She was wearing a severe black suit and her hair was pulled tightly back from her high forehead into a bun at the back of her skinny neck.
She was staring at me like I was something she’d scraped off the bottom of her shoe.
Crap—knew I should have changed my clothes!
I shuffled my feet and tried not to look as shabby and insignificant as I felt.
“I’m Megan Foster—I mean Latimer,” I hastily corrected myself. “And I’m here because I got a letter—an acceptance letter.”
“Let me see.” She snatched it out of my hand rudely and began to scan it. I crossed my arms over my chest and wished miserably that Aunt Dellie was still with me.
After wandering our way through a huge deserted courtyard which seemed to be divided into several sections—a flower garden in one corner, a vast grassy lawn in another, and an area with a café and seats under broad, spreading umbrellas to keep the merciless sun at bay in a third, Aunt Dellie and I had finally come to the North Tower.