A/N: The story was worked out with a wonderful friend of mine, and I owe her everything.
Wendy and the Stone Heart
Chapter One: The Staircase
It was an early September morning in the great State of Massachusetts.
A few No-Maj's who were awake brewed their coffee, brushed their teeth and started their car for work. Slowly, lights blinked on in the No-Maj's cities. Ready for another, No-Maj day.
But for the first years of Ilvermorny, today was one they'd been waiting for since they could fly their toy broomsticks. They came from all over North America, a few arriving No-Maj ways, like train or bus, and hiking from there. The rest came on the school's steamboat that had picked students up from various ports along the coast.
For those, it had been a week's long journey and they were eager to start learning magic right away.
At least a hundred of them gathered at the base of Mount Greylock, trunks in hand, blue and cranberry robes pressed, ready to start school.
Only to find a gruff, one-eyed docksman who took their luggage and pointed his cane at the mountain. "Yeh walk from here." He grumbled. "And don't leave the trail, or there'll only be bones left of yeh."
The group exchanged glances. The ones born to wizarding families had already been briefed on the journey ahead, and wearing appropriate footwear, started out. The less lucky ones trudged across the sandy port in pinchy loafers.
The way seemed to appear as they walked, mossy branches cleared a path, until they came upon a stone arch over a rising stairwell. At the top was a carving of a Gordian Knot, the same as the gold clasp every student wears.
They all whispered in awe and excitement to each other.
One student in particular was trying her to best to look like she knew where she was going.
Wendy was short and pale - as if playing under the cloudy skies of Maine had somehow stunted her growth. She suffered from the impatience of a field mouse, and right now was regretting wearing her brand new maryjanes in lieu of more practical footwear.
Avoiding touching shoulders with anyone, she merged with the steady stream of her soon-to-be classmates.
The stone steps were covered with a minty layer of moss, and a trickle of a cold brook rolled down a few, winding between pebbles. Magical ruins and carvings from past students marked their surface.
'Eloiween + Furbow' encased in a tiny heart.
'Gorwin was here' in rushed, jagged letters.
Along the edges of the path sprouted clusters of Virgin's bower and Mountain Laurel, Sweet Pepperbush and Holly. Tingling their noses and brushing their socks. A few students were tempted to pick berries, but their hands were slapped by their friends.
It could be a Mirageweed, and then what would we do if you vanish? Or a Prickerprack cleverly disguising itself, one cut from its thorns and you'll swell up like a balloon.
They were engulfed by enormous trees, all untouched for centuries. Mostly White Pine with fanned needles, but a few Sour Gums were mixed in. And the occasional Red Maple dripped sticky sap on their heads.
For the first hour the group was hushed, quietened by the wonders beneath the shadow of the canopy.
Birds called to each other from the branches high above, a few flitting over their heads. The undergrowth rustled with activity. Yellow eyes blinked at them from under rocks.
Wendy stopped to stare at a moth with black-tipped wings, and was surprised to see that it was, in fact, some sort of pixie with sharp teeth lunching on a beetle. Stomach flipping, she hurried along.
She continued higher and higher, the steps weaved back and forth across Mount Greylock's face. The closer they came to Ilvermorny, the more magic manifested itself before their very eyes.
Magic from the school had seeped into the landscape over the years. Roots moved inexplicably, and stones seemed to shift the moment you looked away. Should anyone leave the safety of the staircase, they'd surely be lost.
Glowblooms bounced around the students' noses on the wind, sparking like tiny, purple firecrackers and drifting in and out of the morning mist.
After being accustomed to the strange forest, the students broke up into small groups, discussing what house they'd be sorted into. Perhaps they'd be picked by multiple houses and get to choose, like the famous president Seraphina Picquery. This erupted into a heated discussion about which house was best.
Wendy had heard the stories on the voyage over. About the Wampus panther who chose warriors and favoured the body. She held up her skinny, limp arm and stared at it. No, perhaps not.
There was the Thunderbird, who preferred adventurers with a strong spirit. She liked watching storms from her bedroom window, so maybe, but hadn't heard the call to adventure and doubted one would occur now.
The Horned Serpent she could be happy with, a house that favours the mind and produces many great wizarding scholars. It was the founder, Isolt's house, whom she admired from what she had read in the school history book.
The one house she was certain she did not want was Pukwudgie. For those of a strong heart. Not that it shouldn't be a respectable house - many healers came from Pukwudgie. But Wendy had heard students discuss Pukwudgies in the same sentence as house elves, and dismissed it as the least competitive of the houses.
Wendy did not wish to be cleaning bedpans and healing cuts and employed in servitude for the rest of her life as a nurse or maid.
Silently, she settled on Horned Serpent, and repeated the name over and over in her head as they climbed, like a spell.
The conversation switched gears. The students discussed if they'd be allowed to ride winged-buffalo as first years. Or if their luggage would be safe with the grumpy handler at the bottom of the mountain. Or who would win the Quidditch cup that year.
No one talked to Wendy.
She tried to interject in a few conversations, asking questions or mentioning what wand she'd prefer, but the other students politely smiled and then turned back into their own groups.
Her shoulders fell and she slowly fell behind the others.
This was the usual way with Wendy.
She wasn't very good at making friends, and instead of playing conkers or hide and seek with the other children from the village down the road, she'd often end up picking up jacks alone, or sitting with her legs dangling off the cliff by her house, looking at the sea.
She was much further behind the group now, and her toes had started to lose feeling.
She stopped and sat down on a broken log, pretending to catch her breath. She removed her robe and set it neatly on her lap, showing her white shirt-sleeves were rolled up, and her cranberry vest was a little too big.
Once the other students were a mere mumbling in the unseen distance, she took off her shoes and rubbed her sore feet.
Breathe in. Breathe out. In. Out.
She closed her eyes, hiding their muddy hazel flecks. Shaking palms rubbed the rough bark of the log. A rustle to her left, then above her. The sound of running water through crisp, dry leaves. She felt a chill from a breeze that played with strands of her wavy hair, trying to tease it from its messy bun.
Slowly, her beating heart calmed.
"I like being alone." She said suddenly, to no one in particular.
The forest didn't answer, as if it too thought she was lying.
Sighing, Wendy shrugged on her robe.
Then her head shot to the right. Something, just beyond vision, darted behind a tree.
She froze. The trees seemed to be circling her, closing in. The hair on the back of her neck stood up, the same sensation she got from a quick, sheer violin note.
A branch snapped behind her. She whipped around only to catch sight of a thin shadow before it disappeared behind a stone.
Wendy then realized that there was no other sound. The birds and animals were silent. Even the wind was gone.
"Hello?" She asked tentatively, fear rising in her throat. "If you're a student playing tricks it isn't funny. I'll report you the second I get to Ilvermorny." She warned, and was dismayed at the tremor in her voice, which made her sound considerably less intimidating.
Wendy had skimmed her school books on the voyage down to Massachusetts, tucked safely away in the warm bunk of the school steamboat. Creatures like mischievous Hurblemuts, dragonous Snallygasters and temperamental Thornkrill didn't seem so frightening then.
Her mind raced.
It could be a troll. Don't be ridiculous. You'd spot it a mile away. You'd SMELL it a mile away. It could be a Jappersnip. It could be a pack of Jappersnips. They go for the eyes first.
It moved again.
She jumped nervously and her heel slipped. With a cry she fell, getting tangled with her robe and tumbling backwards down the steps. Head over heels. Scraping her elbows and knees.
Her fall stopped short when her back hit a large, upended tree root. Panicked and heart racing, she scrambled to throw back her robe and unobscure her face.
She saw it.
Just a glimpse, right before it dove inside the dark branches of an aspen. Her face paled.
Wendy knew exactly what it was.
A Hidebehind.
The same creature Isolt, the founder of Ilvermorny, encountered when she first discovered the school.
A terrifying beast, the Hidebehind can shift between a black mist and a solid, wide-mouthed monster with long, thin claws. It changes its shape to fit any surface, there being where it got its name, hiding behind thick foliage and attacking unsuspecting travellers, ultimately disembowelling them.
Wendy was being hunted.
She swallowed back the painful lump in her throat and, coming to her senses, fumbled the ground until she found a short twig. She held her arm out straight and started backing away.
"I'll curse you!" She warned. Not that she knew any curses. Or any spells for that matter.
Wendy was only eleven.
First years don't receive wands until after they're initiated at Ilvermorny. Her twig (which still had a leaf attached to the end), was a bluff.
A raspy sound came from the bushes. Shi-shi-shi.
It was laughing at her.
Wendy's cheeks flared an angry red. She stomped her foot down on the stone step and locked her elbow, pointed up at the tree. "I'm not afraid of you! I'm not. I'll make quick work of you, I will!" She lied.
Shi-shi-shi.
With a very solid THUMP, a cloud of blackness smashed down a few steps above her, sending debris rolling down the stairwell. Slowly, it rose up to its full height, the shifting cloud of darkness oozing from its body like water.
The Hidebehind had shiny, black skin - and was smooth, like a frog. It was easily twice the height of a grown man. With long arms that bulged at the wrists, and claws that dragged on the ground. It had no eyes or neck. Only a huge, gaping mouth with razor thin teeth.
All thoughts of bravery evaporated.
Wendy couldn't move her feet. She was stuck, one bare foot a step above the other. She shook uncontrollably, hair raised. She tried to remember spells she had read from glancing at her textbooks. Hidebehind, Hidebehind, what gets rid of a Hidebehind? But her mind was a blank page.
She didn't see the Hidebehind swipe at her, but she did feel the tree trunk her face smashed into.
Wendy crumpled, her twig bouncing away into the brush. Flinching, she grabbed her arm and looked where three red slashes now cut through her sleeve.
Shi-shi-shi.
The Hidebehind loomed over her, its shadow obscuring the sun.
Her eyes widened, then she quickly shut them and tucked her head between her knees and tensed, waiting for the final blow.
"TAKE THIS!"
THUMP.
Suddenly, the sunlight returned.
Cautious, Wendy peeked out from one eye.
Standing on the steps, holding a second large rock over her head, was another student. Chest heaving, she raised another rock higher and shouted at the trees. "And STAY gone! Or I'll give you another lump on the head!"
Wendy gaped, open-mouthed, at the student.
She had fiery hair that curled up at her shoulders, warm brown eyes and a furious expression. After a tense second, the girl dropped the stone, grabbed Wendy by hand and yanked her up the staircase. "Hurry up!" She shouted. "I think I just confused it. We've got to RUN!"
In a daze, Wendy turned back around, arm reaching out. "But...my shoes," she said weakly.
"What?" The girl exclaimed. "Who cares about your shoes?!"
Wendy sniffed as she stumbled after her, higher and higher up the stone steps. "Well, they were a very expensive present from my Grandfather and-"
"Aside from the monster trying to KILL you," she emphasized, "we can't go back. My brother told me if we're late for sorting we'll be expelled on the spot!"
The girl yanked her arm again, urging her to go faster, and Wendy was too out of breath to argue and run for her life at the same time.
The trees whizzed by her in a green and yellow blur.
Could you be expelled for tardiness? On your first day?
There were tales, dark tales, of what happened to a witch or wizard banned from practicing magic. The magic has to go somewhere, so it eats you alive, from the inside out.
Wendy shuddered and shook her head, snapping out of her shock. The chance of being kicked out of school, however small it may be, was strong enough to focus her mind.
She simply refused to imagine returning to her Grandfather's lonely estate a disgrace - with nothing to show of her short adventure but bare feet.
She ran in step with the other girl, two at a time.
The air was colder now, and only dark pine trees grew this high. They rounded a final set of stairs, between a hollowed out cliff, and onto flat grassy ground.
Nothing.
The stairs had ended. There was no path. Only pine trees and white mist, circling.
Wendy stumbled forward a few steps, then back. "Where...where is it?" She asked, flabbergasted.
What if they were too late, and the school had disappeared from them for the rest of the year?
Wendy watched the mist with a worried expression. One wrong step and we could fall off the mountain. "What now?"
"How should I know?" The girl exclaimed, and sat back onto the flat grass to catch her breath. She glanced up at Wendy. "Dianna Lawson by the way."
Wendy blinked. "O-oh." She cleared her throat and stuck out her hand. "Wendy Wildes. Pleasure to make your acquaintance."
Dianna raised an eyebrow at the formal gesture, but shook Wendy's hand regardless. Her lips twisted in amusement as her own strength made Wendy wince and rub her hand. "Wildes, huh? You're not related to that Weston Wildes fellow, are you?"
Wendy clasped her elbow and looked away. "That's my Grandfather."
Dianna whistled. "No wonder you wanted to go back for your shoes. Were they lined with gold or something?"
"Very funny." Wendy scrunched up her face. She turned back the problem at hand, peering into the mist. "Perhaps there's a secret way through, or a spell to make it disappear, or-"
"OR we just walk straight."
"But-!"
Dianna wasn't hearing it. She hopped to her feet and started pushing Wendy forward. "Don't be such a fraidy cat."
Wendy dug her heels into the dirt. "If you're so brave you go first!"
But Dianna proved herself once again to be unusually strong, and drove both of them deeper into the mist.
Wendy shut her eyes tightly, waiting for the ground to drop out from beneath her. She felt a strange sensation, as if silky threads were pulling apart against her skin, and then all of a sudden it was gone.
"Wendy." Diana whispered.
"What?" She answered sharply.
"I think we're here."
Wendy opened her eyes.
The castle took her breath away.
End of Chapter One