1 The Familiar Academy

Briar could feel her heart stop in her chest. Today was The Dreaded Birthday. Her parents gave her a buffet for breakfast. Everyone holds their day on The Dreaded Birthday; It was extravagant.

Pancakes, eggs, French toast, all of her favorites. She would have joked that her mom hadn't slept last night to make all this, but she knows she hadn't and Briar felt it would be cruel to point that out.

Her mom and dad took turns hugging her from behind, taking pictures of her, and on two noticeable occasions her mother excused herself to reapply her make up to hide the fact that tears had fallen.

The phone has been ringing off the hook; family and friends had been calling to wish her a happy birthday, and to comfort her and their own anxieties. Briar tried to summon all her courage as the phone rang again, her older sister answering it—It never leaving her hand.

"Yes, she's still eating. I'll put you on speaker for her." Her sister said robotically. She heard an aunt she hadn't seen since Thanksgiving on the speaker. "Briar! Happy Birthday my darling!" was the fake chirp she gave. The Dreaded Birthday was never happy, but it had the potential to be relieving if luck was on her side. "Thank you, Auntie." Briar said, "I'm not worried at all." She smiled into her fork, trying to comfort anyone around her. Her sister quickly switched the phone back and reassured her again for good measure, like all the family calling.

The truth was she just pretended to chew on the extravagant pancakes, they tasted too sweet and sickening. Her eggs tasted like a fake yellow, and her orange juice tasted too bitter in her mouth.

Her dad ushered the family into the living room for some birthday pictures. Briar must have been wearing the most expensive outfit she had ever worn. Her mother bought her designer everything from head to toe. She appreciated feeling special, this might be the last outfit her mother ever buys her after all. Everyone was dressed in their Sunday best, everyone polished and lovely and everyone cooing over Briar. Normally she would have been annoyed, but she couldn't really name the emotion she felt so she just went on auto pilot.

Briar was scared that was for certain, she was also flattered by all the gifts and flowers that studded the living room. Her father had hired a photographer, who like a paparazzi had recorded everything that morning. After shooing the family away, the photographer posed her for some portrait shots of giant bouquets, teddy bears, and presents that might never be unwrapped. He made a joke that he'll stick around after Briar's Calling and get her big smiles than. Everyone glared at the Photographer, as if he broke the magic spell and made it more real. A flurry of movement and screaming at him to shut up, the phone sounded off in the background and Briar's mother let out a large sob she must have been keeping in and Briar's father quickly hushed her as the poor photographer apologized profusely. The cacophony of sudden sound and movement was jarring.

A guard issued by the city sat outside their house in his car, watching the clock. Parents would lie to their children that they were there to escort them to The Calling, but everyone knew they were there to make sure they didn't try to run away.

Looking at the patrol car through the window, she recalled when her classmate tried to run away a week prior and was thrown under house arrest, not even able to leave for school and a guard was posted day and night. They weren't called on their Dreaded Birthday, and at the time she thought that was unnecessary silliness. Now she looked at the car and briefly thought how fast she could run away on her bike.

She saw the large man exit his car and walk toward the door. It felt like she watched it in slow motion, but it all happened too fast. He gently wrapped his knuckles on the door. Even though Briar watched him from the window, her father answered the door with a curt nod.

"It's time" said the deep voice of the stranger.

Briar smoothed down her white dress. She felt like a prized fair pig going to slaughter.

Her fathers warm hands and voice wrapped around her. He grasped her hand so tightly that for a moment, she didn't feel afraid. "Let's go get this over with and have a big party after this waste of time." He winked, Briar appreciated how strong he sounded.

Only one parent was allowed to go to the office, the twelve-year-old knew she'd have to borrow her father's strength today so it was an easy choice. The sat side by side, holding hands in the back of the guards car.

Briar tried to remember every feature of her father's face, every wrinkle, fine line, his deep inset brown eyes and his beard that tickled her as a child and was the subject to many lumberjack jokes. When she felt like she was caught staring she looked out the window and tried to remember the trees and the streets and all the houses she ran around to when disappeared for days on end during the summer.

The building was large, and gray. It was shaped like a box and the car had to parked inside it. She wondered if it was to prevent running away. She saw six other cars; it must be six other children celebrating their Dreaded Birthdays.

"See? We aren't the only ones." Her father said reassuringly, as they followed the guard up through the cartoonish marked garage.

"We follow the yellow line" The guard grumbled, the small group of three was quickly joined by others converging out of the cars and into the waiting room.

The room was plastered with childish posters featuring happy looking men and women in robes, each of them with an animal. The models in the posters looked fake and had obvious photoshops and didn't seem genuine. It seemed like a regular, if not over decorated doctor's office. She had thought that it might be more threatening.

She had only seen a Mage and Familiar once in real life. It happened the first day of school her first grade year, to welcome and invite them to be called on their twelfth birthdays. The Mage was small and grandmotherly, with wrinkles and gray hair that curled stylishly around her face. On her lap, Briar remembered a thick fluffy gray Maine Coon cat, whose fluffy body seemed to dwarf the elderly woman's lap.

They pelted the mage in questions,

"Did it hurt to have your soul removed?"

"Is your familiar your best friend?"

"Why is it a cat?"

"Can you do a magic trick?"

With ease she answered all of the questions, as if asked these a million times. The only time she paused in quiet reflection was when Briar raised her hand to ask,

"Do you ever miss your family?"