The school sat at the top of the hill, with the surrounding land taken up by farms and small towns which were used to prime students when they were old enough, so the saying went, to climb the hill.
The school had been there forever, or near enough to. It was the pride of the nation, having survived so much in the intervening years. A single unbroken connection dating all the way back almost to the first people that set foot on the island.
Even today, young adults, ready to learn how the world works and their places in it come to this school to study. Like their parents and grandparents, they would learn so much more than they expected and their places in the world would change and shift and move as much as they did.
Jillian Adler wandered down the corridor of the northwest tower of the school. It was her least favourite trip between classes, but the room she was headed to housed her favourite subject – The History. She was a third year at this school. She had arrived as something of a delinquent, a misbehaver. Her early education was spotted with a poor attitude, friends who were able to convince her to do things she shouldnt and a general lack of effort in the important things she was meant to know.
That isnt to say she was stupid, quite the opposite. She picked up things quite easily, and her misbehaviour was due to boredom when the teachers had to go over things she already knew with the other students.
Here, though, she was challenged. She was kept on her toes by teachers who had seen her kind before and by older students who were tougher and who had been through more than she had. To her, it was a challenge to get back to her boredom. She wanted that again, so she had to try and learn it all. But she soon discovered there was much more. Every time a book closed, a more in-depth book presented itself. There was another subject, or a separation of subjects that allowed her to explore ideas she liked in fine detail. She loved to learn and she was given every opportunity to do so.
And then there was The History. A class about everything that had come before. A class about their nation, about their people and about the events that shaped not just those two things, but the larger world beyond their shores. Jillian ate this up. Everything that came out of the professors mouth found its home between her ears and never left. Her place in the world was to be another historian; to fill in the gaps where her current teacher could only say I dont know.
She arrived at the door and smoothed herself out. There was yet another reason why she liked coming to this class. It was the only class where the male and female sections of the third year were combined. Which meant he would be in the class. The boy that every girl in the third year, and some even in the other years, talked about endlessly, Bryan Kidder. Jillian was in love with him. True love, not that infatuation the other girls had. She understood him better than them. He had spoken to her more than any of the others and like her, so she said, he was a historian. He wanted to learn more about the deep past just as she did. That meant they were made for each other. For their whole lives.
She opened the door and its unoiled hinges let the other students who were milling around talking another had joined them. Most, including the young man Bryan, looked to see who it was and seeing Jillians face, went back to their chatter. One group, though, called for her and waved her up to join them quickly.
“Jill! Jill!” one of them, another of the third year girls, stage whispered as she got closer to them.
“What?” she said in a normal voice.
“He has a girlfriend,” the other girl hissed. “Someone who doesnt go to the school!” she was very excited by this information.
“What?” Jillian said again, her head already turning to look at Bryan, two groups over, him in the middle. “How?”
“Shes from,” the girl leaned in conspiratorially, “the other school.”
“And he would dare touch that?” Jillian said, her face turning grotesque at the thought. “Who is she? Can we do anything about it?”
The others in her group all shook their heads sadly.
“Shes the daughter of someone important. The mayor or someone like that. Some people are saying-”
“Ash is the only one saying it,” another, quiet, girl said.
“Some people are saying,” Ash repeated, glaring at the other, “that hes being prepared to marry her.”
“What?” Jillian shrieked, getting another glance from the others in the room. She went beet red and hunkered down with the others. “What?” she said again, on the verge of tears.
“Someone like him would be a great husband for a position of power. Imagine what he could do,” she turned her nose up before continuing, “out there. For us, I mean.”
“Theres no reason to believe her,” the quiet girl, Madison, said. “But I heard him say himself that he has a girlfriend. Gloria went to ask him out. He said no because hes dating someone else.”
“Gloria,” Jillian said and then spat at her feet, the other two girls repeating the gesture. Their dreaded rival. All the ways the three of these girls talked about Bryan, the boys of their year level talked about Gloria. “That hag could have anyone. Why does she need to steal my things?”
Conversation ended as the staff entrance door opened and their teacher, Professor Stellan Glasky took the stage.
Stellan was one of the older staff, well on his way to retirement and doing whatever he could to stave it off as long as he could. If he was going to die, he had said more than once, it would be behind his lecturn, overlooking a bunch of eager students. He had a friendly, softly spoken manner about him and many of the students, mostly the elder ones, had considered him something of a father figure as they progressed through the school. He relished those relationships and would never give it up for the world.
For the majority of his time here, he had taught this class. He had studied history for many years before taking this position and many believed that he was responsible for the increase in rates of successful graduates out of this school seated atop a hill in the middle of nowhere.
“Alright, my young charges,” he said; his usual greeting to the 4th and lower years. “Where did we leave off last time?”
“The escape!” someone called out.
“You said it was the prelude to war,” another chimed in.
“We were about to learn about the most dangerous and powerful person to walk the earth,” Bryan said in his slow, yet engaging voice.
Stellan nodded at all three and made a show of reacting well to Bryans contribution.
“Thats all correct,” he said, clapping his hands together and pointing at the board behind him where words had already been written. “The war has a proper name, but thats not for this class,” he said. His tone was now somewhat less chipper than before and the children all knew this meant what he was about to say was vitally important. “We shall just call it The War, and understand that everything that happens after it is influenced by it in some way. The world before it was a vastly different beast, and when you come back for this class next year, I will be able to take you through some of that in more depth,” his eyes were set upon Jillian as he said that. The young girls face split wide in a grin as he spoke. “But for the rest of this year, we shall only be talking about the lead up to, and The War itself. Your entire end of year essay will be on something to do with this war, and in a change from your previous essays, you will have an upper limit of 6,000 words.”
The class gasped. 6000? The usual was always 3000.
“Why the change, professor?” someone asked.
“Because, my dear,” Stellan said. “The War is that important. There is a lot to cover and those of you who have a talent for essays will find yourselves struggling to keep to that word limit. But before we get into all of that, we need to get to the fighting. And before we get to that, we need to discuss one very important thing.” He paused and took in the students before him. Most of them were watching with interest, others were paying attention, but werent entirely there. He knew what came next, and so did they, even if they didnt realise it yet. He knew exactly what was going to get their attention.
“Can anyone tell me,” Stellan asked slowly. “What The War was about?”
This was the question. The one he, and so many others over the years, had spent their lives trying to answer. To find the truth, should any such truth exist. There had always been an answer. A single, easy to remember mnemonic that was enough for most people. It gave them something to rally around. It wasnt ambiguous. It was easy to teach to the youngest of them and it wasnt, exactly, wrong. Each person in this class should know the nursery rhymes and the scary stories told to make them behave. Someone was going to say it.
“To keep them out,” someone shouted. He didnt see who it was, but he snapped his fingers and pointed in the general direction.
“Thats the answer, isnt it?” he asked the rest of them. “To keep them out. To make them go away. To keep us safe from them. Right?” there was a muted muttering that seemed to agree with him. “What if I said that was wrong? What if I told you there was a deeper level to it?”
Confused noises rose up among the students.
“Ok,” Stellan said. “Not wrong exactly, but simplified to the point of meaninglessness.”
“But my mother always used to tell us thats what it was about,” someone said, their voice riddled with confusion and the frustration from being told something they had grown up with was wrong.
“And her mother would have told her that,” Stellan said. “Like I said, its not wrong. But I know that you cant tell me who they are, right? Who was fighting in this war? What factions were there? Who won?”
To this last question there was silence. Then Bryans hand slowly rose into the air.
“Bryan?” Stellan asked.
“We did?” he ventured.
“Did we?” Stellan said, smirking.
“When we split the magic from them, when we stopped them from being able to use it to fight us.”