Dreams of Flying

Chapter One

It was one twenty-five in the morning, and Anna Roberts was floating. Floating down the hallway of the small cabin her family owned on the campground. That's odd, she thought absently. Rather nice, though...and she drifted back off to sleep.

She was awakened some time later by considerable pain. She was no longer floating: On the contrary, she was collapsed on the ground. There were hundreds of figures in cloaks and masks standing all around her, and they were laughing. At least, they seemed to be; but it was difficult to hear them over the screams which she soon came to realise were her own. She hadn't thought herself capable of such noise; but then, she had never dreamed herself capable of feeling such pain. Another moment of this and she would surely explode...

Fortunately, Anna never found out if this was actually a possibility. A man's voice called out drunkenly from behind one of the masks,

"Enough, Lucius! Let th'rest of us have our turn!" There were murmurs of assent from the crowd. The pain ceased abruptly and Anna's screams turned to choked sobs. She gasped for breath, and in a struggle to convey her horror and confusion, she managed to get out one word:

"Why--?" There were delighted shrieks of laughter from all around her, while the figure closest to her spoke.

"Why?" he echoed, stressing the word so that Anna wouldn't fail to see how ridiculous her question had been. It was difficult for her to hear his next few words, but when the shrieks of his companions died down at last, she was able to hear the conclusion of his statement. "...unworthy, waste of space in the world. You deserve this." He approached her wearing what was perhaps his imitation of a friendly smile, knelt down on the ground beside her, and asked mockingly, "Do you understand now? I wouldn't want you to be confused. That wouldn't be fair."

And then she was floating again, but it was not at all nice this time. As Anna was lifted higher and higher--much too high for her liking--she became vaguely aware that her family was there as well. She saw her mother flip over in midair, her brother spinning like a top, and her father looking as though he was about to be pulled apart. She herself was being horribly twisted and contorted, and soon she was once again lost in her own screams.

The next thing Anna was aware of was a woman's voice muttering something unintelligible, then a sense of pleasant oblivion, and then...

***

Anna Roberts awoke at home in her bed, her face tear-stained as it always was after she'd had The Dream. It wasn't nearly as bad as it used to be. When she had first started having The Dream--the summer she turned eight--she had often woken up screaming. Her parents, in an effort to rid her of this unpleasantness (and themselves of the inconvenience), had taken her to see a funny old man who was supposed to be an expert on nightmares of this sort. Anna had found him much too nosy and entirely unhelpful, and had refused to go back after the second visit. Since then she had learned on her own how to control her fear.

But tonight she was having difficulty falling back to sleep. She was remembering something, trying to decide whether it was real, or just another dream...Her father's voice: I'm not sure I like the sound of this, Anna. Then her mother's: We'll talk it over. Best not mention this to Eric until we've decided what we're going to do, all right, Anna, dear?

Anna struggled to remember what they had been talking about, and then it hit her: The letter. A glance over at her desk confirmed its reality.

It was a very strange letter in several ways. The first was that it was a letter of acceptance to a school Anna had never heard of, much less applied to. Second, it gave no hint whatsoever as to where the school was located. Third, it told her that the school awaited her owl. Anna didn't own an owl, nor did she have the slightest idea what they would want her to do with this hypothetical pet. Or perhaps "owl" was an abbreviation of some sort?

But the strangest thing by far was that the school called itself one "of witchcraft and wizardry", and said she'd be needing a wand.