9. The League
It was a cold winter, colder than any young Bella had experienced in her short life. Renee did the best she could to keep her entertained through those long dreary months, but it was a difficult task. Five year olds were never meant to be cooped up in a single place.
When Renee finally deemed it warm enough for Bella to play outside, she was practically bouncing off the walls with excitement. Renee bundled her up in thick clothes, boots, scarf, mittens, earmuffs; the whole nine yards. She resembled a dog sized ball of cloth more than a child, but not even the layers could hold her back. And on this first day of freedom, there was only one place Bella wanted to play.
Renee buckled Bella up in her car seat and they were off towards their spot. A short while later, their car reached its destination.
Bella was struggling against the restraints. She could already see herself climbing up and down the limbs of the tree as she played monkey, or fanning herself with large green leaves when she was playing princess, or hiding in tall grass when she was playing lion.
Once Renee had freed her, Bella thrust herself out of her seat and waddled enthusiastically into the forest. But after only five steps, Bella came to an abrupt stop.
Nothing was how she remembered it. Not a single leaf was hanging off the trees. They were all barren and withered and scary. The ground was covered with fallen damp, grey leaves, and brown grass. There was no color left in this special spot, no flower blooms, no insects, no buzz of life. It all looked dead.
Bella began to cry, pivoted around, and barreled herself into Renee's legs.
"Now, now, Bells. What's wrong?" Renee cooed as she lowered herself to Bella's height.
"I want to go. I don't want to play here," Bella sniffled through her tears.
"Why not, my love?"
"I don't like it. It's all dead."
Renee let out a small laugh.
"Yes, leaves have fallen and the grass isn't green anymore, but it's far from dead. Come with me, let me show you something."
Renee offered Bella an open hand. Without any hesitation, Bella laid her tiny hand inside of Renee's and followed her to a small bare patch to the right of the big tree.
"What do you see, Bella?"
Bella looked around. She didn't see the friendly moths she played with last time, or see the squirrels run up the trees, or feel the wind whisper through the full lush branches. She dejectedly kicked a torn up leaf.
"Dead," she murmured.
"Look again, Bells." Renee crouched down and started to brush the dead leaves aside. "Just because it looks a certain way on the outside, doesn't mean something more can hide out of sight. Come see."
Bella looked into the small hole Renee made in the ground. And out of the wet earth was a tiny, green sprout. Bella reached out her tiny hand. Something in her was calling to it. She wanted to touch it, feel the minuscule petals on her fingertips, but her gloved hands stopped her.
"It's alive?" Bella questioned. Renee nodded with a smile.
"Why? If it was alive before why does it have to die? Why does it change?" Bella asked, her young brain trying to make the connections.
"Change is not always bad. Change helps us become stronger. Don't ever be afraid of change, Bella. Embrace it."
The little girl nodded although she wouldn't really understand what Renee meant for many years.
…
The forgotten memory swirled inside Bella's head as she sat on an empty bench looking at an empty stretch of wall in an empty hallway on a Tuesday close to midnight. Not a single sound could be heard except for Bella fidgeting every few seconds. Her nerves were palpable.
If this wasn't embracing change, she had no idea what was.
Within a week of Bella declaring to Edward she was ready to change the entire course of her educational life, things had moved quickly.
Bella came home one day to a scroll, written in Latin, inviting her to interview with the dean of the magic school for a spot. She was told to be sitting on this exact bench on a Tuesday night, when the clock hit exactly midnight. It didn't give any further instruction.
And so here she was, Bella sitting on the requested bench. She kept folding her hands and unfolding them, brushing out the wrinkles on shirt, airing her hands out because she could feel them getting sweaty and there was nothing worse than a sweaty first handshake, waiting as the seconds ticked by.
Every groan of the old building had her heart beating faster. She kept obsessively looking at the clock on her phone.
Seven minutes.
Five minutes.
Three minutes and twenty-six seconds.
When she had less than a minute left, Bella took a deep breath, not having a clue at what to expect. As her phone buzzed midnight, a door appeared directly in front of her in what was once an empty stretch of wall. The door very softly clicked and opened.
Bella looked around. Nothing else had changed; there was no other person around, nothing different but the appearance of the open door. So she walked through it.
The office she walked into was the complete opposite of the hallway she walked out of. It was an enormous space. A glorious crystal chandelier lit up the room casting rainbow sparkles to glimmer in out of corners. The walls were paneled with wood and filled with volumes and volumes of books or interspersed with impressionist paintings. In the center of the room was a large stone fireplace and, in front of it, a dark purple plush arm chair as large as a king's throne and accompanying dark purple loveseat.
But as intimidating as the office first seemed, Bella started noticing tiny unintimidating touches. Candles with melted wax stuck to end tables, knickknacks strewn across the floor in a corner, a yoyo with tangled string hanging off the bookshelf. And the entire room had the calming scent of eucalyptus.
At the far end of the room sat a majestic oak desk with elaborate carvings. Two matching oak windows were on either side of the desk left ajar. In the desk, she realized, sat a person with the back of the chair turned to face Bella.
"Approach," commanded a deep voice. Bella quickly complied. She stood in front of the desk with her hands clasped to her sides.
In a very slow, deliberate motion, the man swiveled to face Bella, each turn of the chair eliciting an extremely loud squeak.
When his face finally came into view, Bella scrutinized it carefully. He was definitely an older man, but she could not guess what age. From one angle he looked aged and another very youthful. His hair was jet black with facial hair to match, peppered with silver strands. And the closer Bella looked, she realized his beard was in a French braid.
Before she had time to analyze how odd this was, her gaze became focused on his large, unblinking brown eyes. She felt her hands begin to squirm under the intensity, until she realized his eyes didn't just look intimidating because of his stare, but they stood out because…was he wearing eyeliner? And was he dressed in a royal blue fitted pant suit.
Then, in a flurry of motion, the man waved his hands in a complicated gesture and laid them out spread eagle. All the lights in the office dimmed.
"Four elements. First, light the candles," his voiced echoed with dramatic effect in the small space.
Bella was slightly taken aback by the lack of preamble, but recovered quickly. She summoned the internal spark needed for a flame, like she had done multiple times in her lessons with Edward. Mentally she extended that spark to every candle in the room. With a snap of her fingers and a quick mumble of 'ignis', all the wicks lit simultaneously.
"Ficus in the corner," he gestured to a tree Bella did not see when she first arrived. "Water it," his voice croaked somehow sounding even older and deeper than before.
With a quick curved outstretch palm, Bella gathered the water from the air with a confident 'aqua' and directed into the ficus pot. Slightly strange tasks so far, but at least she knew she was doing well.
In the complete opposite of the croak, the man's voice boomed, "the windows, close them!" He pointed to both the open windows with flourish.
It was at this point, Bella really started to wonder if the man had all his marbles. But she did as commanded, and with whispered 'ventus', a push of air gently closed the windows.
"And your last test…," he whispered with a wheeze. He pushed himself back from his chair, and opened up a drawer in his desk. He rummaged around for at least a minute, before he found what he was looking for.
This time Bella could not hold back an audible 'what?'
On his desk, the man placed a comically large miniature zen garden, complete with bonsai tree, purposefully placed rocks, and sand.
Millions of questions ran through her mind. Why does anyone have one of these? How the hell did this thing fit in his desk as it was larger than the top of it? What the hell was she supposed to do with it?
The man sat, with arms crossed, slowly nodding his head up and down.
"What am I supposed to do," Bella let out slightly exasperated, and then decided to add a proper 'sir'.
"Garden," he responded.
Bella glanced around as if it were a joke. The man only sat there, still nodding. And in one of the strangest tests, Bella used the element of earth to create wavy patterns in the sand. When she was done, he unhurriedly stood up from his chair, placed his hands on his hips and inspected the garden with many hmms and yeses.
After an interminable amount of time, he sat down again. And the two of them stared at each other in silence.
"So," Bella started after a few minutes of the uncomfortable quiet, "can I join the school?"
The man burst out into a joyous laugh.
"Of course! What a silly question to ask!" he responded in a higher pitched voice.
"I passed the tests?" Bella asked with a smile.
"Tests? There were never any tests, silly girl!"
"Wait, what? What was I doing for the past fifteen minutes?" Bella questioned, truly bewildered.
"Helping me with my office chores! I do so hate to do them." He looked around smugly at his office while running his fingers over his French braided beard.
"I'm so confused," Bella admitted. "Why go through the trouble of all of this, I don't understand."
"You may not remember me, but we met a few times when you were a child. Your mother and I were friends. I could spot you as a descendent of her line from a mile away. Magic is in your blood, child. You never needed a test to get into the school, just a willingness and preparedness to accept the magic. The theatrics are just how I get my chuckles."
This time when he stood up, he walked around the desk and stopped in front of Bella displaying the magnificence that was his outfit. He wore a pair of expensive Italian leather loafers, and when he extended his hand, Bella could tell it was freshly manicured.
"I am Octavious Huxtable Emerson the 83rd, dean of the Walter B. Walton School for the Magically Inclined. But you can just call me Dean."
She returned the handshake, still feeling slightly lost.
"You can begin attending classes tomorrow. Now run along, little Isabella. It's quite late. Note to self." A pen and paper appeared in the air beside his head, and the pen wrote as he spoke, "next time I decide to play the character of scary dean of the school frightening the youngling, midnight is way too late." Then in an aside to Bella, he added, "Dean needs his beauty sleep."
The dean gave her a quick embrace and scooted her out the door. The door closed in front of her, and she watched as it dematerialized before her eyes.
Bella gawked at the empty wall. She had no idea what the hell she experienced. Finally, when she was caught by a janitor staring at the wall in an empty hallway at 12:30 at night, Bella thought it would be a good idea to walk back to her car.
When Bella reached the parking lot, she had a small heart attack when she noticed a group of people milling around her car till she realized it was Edward, Alice, Jasper, Rosalie, and Emmett.
As soon as they noticed her, they began to hoot and holler in celebration.
She broke out into a smile.
"Yes?" Edward asked as she approached.
"Yes," she answered proudly.
Emmett pushed his way in front of Edward and clasped Bella on both shoulders and said:
"Welcome to The League, Bella!" the grin taking up half of his face.
"What's The League?" she asked.
"It's what the students call the school," Rosalie replied.
"Isn't it something longer and more professional sounding than that?"
"Yeah, but who wants to say they attend Walter B Walton blah blah. The League is much cooler," Emmett answered.
"Okay," Bella punctuated with a smile and nodded. "The League. I can get on board with that."
"So how was it? Did he do the whole scare tactic? Loud voice, soft voice, wise voice? " Edward asked.
"Did he bring out that ridiculous oversized Zen garden of his?" Jasper added on. "And do his chores? I think he even made me sweep his whole office."
"Yes! He's a… strange fellow."
"Don't worry, he grows on you. Dean is a little eccentric, but one of the smartest and magically talented men you will ever meet," Alice responded. "And he's a blast in the classroom. On top of that, he likes to roam the campus. Keep an eye out for his door appearing. You're always in for an experience when he decides he wants to take you on an adventure."
The group regaled her with stories of impromptu running with the bulls in Spain, hikes through the Swiss Alps, and a plethora of other escapades the dean had taken students on throughout the years.
Bella looked around at each of them as they retold their tales, and she realized how lucky she was to be accepted with open arms into this group; how excited she was to start this new exciting and nerve wracking journey; and she couldn't help but think how proud her mother would be of her for embracing change and all it had to offer.
She smiled to herself.
Bella was going to kick ass in The League.