Monster Academy for the Magical (Monster Academy for the Magical 1)

The next day, he made a vow to rid his thoughts of the baby and his wife. And for years, he hardly ever thought about them, except on the darkest of nights when no moon was in sight.

When only darkness thrived.

Haven

I’ve always felt like I was… different. Okay, different might be sugarcoating it. Honestly, I’ve always felt like a freak. Like I can’t relate to anyone. Like I don’t belong in this world. And sometimes I wonder if maybe, just maybe, that’s it. If perhaps I don’t belong here. If maybe my… curse… ability means I’m from somewhere else. That this curse means I’m something magical. That it means what I did to my first foster mother all those years ago happened because I hadn’t learned to control my magic yet.

Back in the day, I thought it was okay to tell people about my secret ability. Boy, was I wrong. This was something I learned the hard way after I told a couple of kids at my school that I believed I had magical powers, that I could sometimes feel magic crawling under my skin and voices whispering to me. I was immediately mocked, ridiculed, and deemed the freak that no one wanted to be around. But honestly, I probably didn't stand a chance anyway, considering what happened all those years ago…

“She was perfectly fine until she showed up,” the mother of my foster mother sobbed to the police as her daughter, Mia, was wheeled out on a stretcher…

I remember how Mia had to be strapped down or else she kept trying to claw off her flesh, insisting demons were living inside her. She had also said the same thing about me the first day I was brought to live with her. She had taken one look at my dark, nearly black eyes, and had frowned in disgust. Later, I heard her gossiping with her friends about how I must be possessed like some kid in a movie she had recently watched.

She had pretended it was a joke, but every time she looked at me, I saw the fear in her eyes. It didn’t help that I was socially awkward and would barely talk.

And then one stormy night, the… incident happened and now… Well, Mia now spends her days locked in a psych ward.

And me? I do my best not to think about it, think about what I did. But sometimes late at night, it haunts my nightmares.

Maybe I really am a demon.

I've thought this many times, and part of me actually believes it. Not that I’ll ever admit it aloud. Like I said before, I've learned to keep my mouth shut about those sorts of things.

That silence has led to me spending the entire seventeen years of my existence without any friends. While the loneliness can get to me, I’ve learned to cope with it, learned how to exist by myself without going too mad.

One of the coping m

echanisms that have helped me not go insane with loneliness is reading. Books and stories are my escape. Well, normally they are. Right now, though, my love for books may have sentenced me to a horrible punishment.

Earlier today, when I left my house, I thought it'd be okay to make a quick stop at the town book fair. I'd told myself I had plenty of time to hang out there and also have time to run the errands that my newest foster mother had sent me on. I should've known better, remembered how I get around books, how I lose track of time. Now, I'm realizing I never should've stopped and risked being late. It's not like I did—or could've bought—any of the books anyway. I have zero dollars to my name. Always do. Being a foster kid my entire life, I rarely have any money of my own. And with me constantly bouncing through homes, getting a job is complicated. Not that I haven't tried. But no one wants to hire me. That doesn't surprise me since I've spent my entire life aware that most people are repulsed by me.

Even after the incident with Mia was years behind me, I still was the girl no one wanted to be around. Even my teachers acted like I had the plague, although I think some of them had heard the rumors of what I did to Mia. Plus, I’d often zone out during class and go into trances where I wouldn’t communicate with anyone. Last year, a rumor was going around that I worshipped the devil. It didn’t help that during my zoned-out episodes, I started muttering words in a bizarre language. At least that’s what I was told. I can’t recollect what happens during my “episodes,” as everyone calls them. I only know what people tell me.

A school therapist once suggested I should go see a doctor. My foster parents at the time told her they’d take me to one, but they never did. And I'm glad since the one and only time I talked to a therapist led to me nearly getting put in a "special" group home, which is basically where the send foster kids who are considered dangerous. I've heard stories about these homes, about the horrible things that go on inside them. It makes living with crappy foster families seem wonderful. Not that all foster parents are that way. I've heard stories about good ones. I just usually seem to end up with the bad ones.

The ones I'm currently living with are the worst. I've been living with them for almost ten months. Ten months of hell.

On the outside, they seem like a nice enough couple. Middle-aged with no kids of their own, and I'm the only foster kid they're fostering. My first day with them, the foster mother gave me this lecture on how I was basically going to be their maid, that I owed them that for the food and shelter they were going to provide me with. Which whatever. I've been in situations like that before. But what makes this one worse is the punishment system they have for when I mess up. And everything I do seems to be a mess up. Like tardiness, which is about to happen. Again.

As I glance at the time, I quicken my pace to a run. If I hurry, I might be able to make it in time. At least that’s what I try to convince myself. Deep down, I know I’m not going to, that I can’t run that fast.

Maybe if I try harder, make my feet move quicker—

Smack.

I crash into something solid, the force sending me backward, and I fall all to the ground hard.

“Shit, that hurt,” I mutter, blinking up at the object I ran into.

Nope, not an object. A woman with the brightest pink hair I’ve ever seen, almost like it was spun from magic. Or a cotton candy machine since it looks very similar.

So weird.

She also has on an extravagant black dress secured together with laces and ribbons, and the bottom is made of lace. She looks like she's going to a Halloween party, but it's only September.

“Sorry about that,” I tell her as I get to my feet.

Her brows knit. “You can see me?”