Ex Nihilo Academy Read Free

lamely and he studies me for a moment
     before putting the truck into drive. We continue down the main road which has boxy row houses with slanted gray roofs in varying shades of yellow, beige and sage green. A dense belt of yew and ash trees peek out from the top of the
     buildings and the greenery is so thick that it’s almost jungle-like, if it were not for the small grey stone castle sitting off in the distance. I think that I could enjoy Strangford in an ‘I’m-here-for-the-weekend-passing-through’ kind of way but right now it’s terrifying in that ‘oh-my-God-I-can’t-believe-I-live-here-where-is-the-Starbucks’ kind of way. As if sensing my panic Niall drives us through the center of town to point out the hotel with a restaurant and a few of the shops.
    “How many people live here?” I can barely manage to conceal
     the disappointment in my voice and Niall glances at me sideways.
    “About five hundred or so, though it gets very busy in the summer time with the tourists.”
    Five. Hundred. People. There were over a thousand kids at my last high school alone. I can’t think of any way to respond to that so I just nod. He drives on, pointing out places of interest and waving at people on the street. He seems to know everyone - not that it would be hard in a place this
     size.
    “Where is the house exactly?” I ask impatiently even though I’m dreading seeing where I’ll be imprisoned until the minute I turn eighteen and can hightail it back to California.
    “We are about a ten minute drive outside of town.”
    Great. I’m not even going to be living in what barely passes for a town; instead I’m going to be living in the country. I shudder at the thought. I’m holding my breath when we finally pull up to the rusty gate of my
     new home. Niall gets out of the truck and pushes it open and I lean forward to peer out the windshield at the ‘English Tudor Style Manor’ that the lawyers’ notes described. One look at it has me thinking that to call it a manor is an
     insult to manors the world over. It is long and rectangular with tall narrow windows and a steeply pitched roof that dwarfs the rest of the house. The roof is covered in sickly-looking green moss and has a crumbling red brick chimney
     dominating its center. The front of it is covered in dingy gray-white stucco that is crisscrossed with chevrons of faded black wood. One of the windows is boarded up, more moss grows at the base of the house and there is a trail of
     what looks like rust staining one of the far walls.
    “Welcome home, miss.” Niall says almost apologetically. “Wait until you see the inside; she’s truly a beauty but she’s seen a lot of years and she can be a bit of a challenge to keep up with.”
    Understatement of the year I think to myself, while silently wondering if Niall refers to all inanimate objects as females. As the truck rattles up the leaf strewn driveway past the overgrown bushes and tangled thickets of roses I get a glimpse of the rest of the grounds. The house is set back from the road overlooking the loch and there is a weathered boat dock that stretches out into the water. I jump out of the truck and walk across the lawn, my pink flip flops slapping a staccato against the wet grass. The air is damp
     and it sends a chill right through my denim jacket. Niall takes my bags from the truck bed and trudges toward the house. He opens the front door and I follow him in, watching as he sets my bags down on the gray marble floor. It is
     bigger than it looks from the outside with a high ceiling and a curved staircase made of mahogany.
    “The living room is to the right through those doors, study and library are beside that and the kitchen is at the back. The bedrooms and
     facilities are upstairs and your room is at the end of the hall. My son and I live to the left in the servants’ quarters. It‘s a separate wing that was built on to the house some years ago so you needn’t worry about having your