Disclaimer - I don't own the Worst Witch.
Please leave feedback.
Seeing the Other Mildred.
When she had found out magic existed, though truthfully she had always imagined there was something out there modern science and technology could not understand; there were so many unusual things happening in the world which were easy enough to look for that were so fantastic and unexplained, though many people logically came up with an explanation even if it made no sense anyway, and Mildred had worked out ages ago not to get herself worked up about it.
But experiencing actual time travel had not been something she'd expected so when she had experienced the Mists of Time she had been taken by surprise to find herself in the past when she had gone with Ethel to find her cat, Nightstar.
Meeting the younger version of the Cackle twins was also a surprise, and it was just so odd to see them acting like sisters should instead of being at each other's throats like they were in the future.
But that didn't mean Mildred could not see the tension between the two siblings. It was there whenever Agatha stared at her sister, knowing she would inherit the school instead of her, though when they were younger they both seemed to be okay with it and had both reached a fairly peaceful compromise of running the school together instead of just having one of them do it like it would in the future. While she did feel upset the arrival of both her and Ethel in the past had started a chain reaction where Agatha became twisted, Mildred knew Ada was not entirely innocent herself.
Mildred had been at Cackles for nearly a year now, she had come to learn while the woman was more than happy to give her chances and opportunities to excel, in truth she had no faith in her whatsoever - the Spelling Bee was a prime example, and Mildred would never forget the way she and Ethel had been pushed into learning extra potions with a whistle blowing in her ear to motivate her when it gave her headache instead of making her do what they wanted, giving her brain food when they had no intention of letting her take part in it at all, only for Miss Pentangle to give her the chance but Miss Cackle at the end made that tactless comment - and Mildred had learnt the hard way the woman was not going to help.
That was nothing compared to what Ada and HB put her mother through.
Mildred grimaced as she thought about the 'talk' she and her mother had over the mirror call only a few days ago, how Hardbroom had once more complained to Miss Cackle about her not doing her level best during class, though what else she expected Mildred didn't know. Mildred could understand the need for teachers to inform parents their children were not doing their best during school lessons, but sometimes the results were mixed and sometimes it didn't even help as it should, and truthfully what could her mother do?
Ever since she had started at Cackles, Mildred's mother had been dragged into the school whether she was busy or not (she didn't understand why it was so hard for the teachers to get it through their thick skulls her mother had a job to do as a nurse, but it made no difference since they never listened to her), and Julie was subjected to all kinds of criticism from Miss Cackle (with some snide comments and observations from HB thrown in; really, that woman was not very good at being subtle).
It looked like the younger Ada was also pretty much the same, which made Mildred wonder, truly wonder for a moment, what Agatha had gone through during her own childhood; while the other twin might have been outwardly agreeable to the prospect of running the school with her twin, Mildred knew the woman she would become had turned bitter because of it, and the Witches code which said clearly Ada would be the one to get the place.
Seeing the younger Agatha made Mildred actually pity the girl. She would never pity the woman, not after what she had tried to do the last time by nearly getting her killed, but she could pity the child.
In the end after she had managed to persuade Ada not to go through with the plan to take everyone's magic, she had not bothered to try to persuade Agatha not to do the same, mostly because she knew it would fall on deaf ears, though it had been a shock to discover just how greedy Ada had been for recognition…
Still, after she had gotten Nightstar away from a girl who resembled Ethel and was very likely her blonde classmate's grandmother, Mildred had passed once more through the Mists of Time to head back for her own time after clearing up the mess she and Ethel had accidentally caused by getting Mona Spellbody expelled from Cackles, and sent to a school where "only the bad witches went," and stopping Ada from stealing everyone's magic for some insane scheme the Cackle twins had cooked up (while Mildred didn't have much faith or trust in Ada, she did wonder why the other girl hadn't even tried to be the better person and persuade her mother not to do it in the first place, but she knew the girl wouldn't listen to her though she felt sympathy for the devil).
But when she passed through the Mists of Time after Mona had been reinstated, Mildred had caught a glimpse of a reality where Mona's expulsion had changed everything in the future, reminding her of those science-fiction shows she had watched (she definitely had liked Back to the Future with Star Trek thrown in, and Doctor Who episodes had truly shown her the dangers of messing with the past, but seeing the reality was something different).
When she saw the fragmented images of the alternate timeline where Mona's expulsion had gone through like it was a reflection in a mirror, Mildred had been taken aback with horror at what she'd seen…
Seeing a world where Maud was a bully even worse than Ethel was on a good day was horrifying enough; Mildred had some ideas about what made Ethel feel so justified about her bullying, but the fact that somewhere out there, in a different reality the girl who'd been her friend had the potential to be even worse because she could be horrifying.
In that reality, Maud practically ruled the roost, and she had no problem belittling and hurting everyone around her, and though the other timeline was fading away, there was still enough of it for Mildred to see.
She saw Maud talk back to the teachers and cause trouble until even they were frightened of her.
She saw how Maud and Drusilla, who seemed to be built to be a follower no matter what, went around and caused all kinds of nasty things to happen in the school. She saw this version of her friend, who was clearly anything but, bully girls older than her, stealing the things, and destroying them and going through detention after detention seemingly without a care in the world.
That was nothing compared to what she saw of her counterpart.
Maud had been the person to virtually introduce her to the witching world on the day of the entrance examination, so Mildred had no idea how her counterpart had found her way into Cackles Academy since it was clear this Maud believed in the same nasty stance as Hardbroom and Ethel did, that she shouldn't be attending the school because she was not from one hundred per cent pure witching stock. While it was likely her counterpart was there under the same allowances, Mildred could tell her counterpart was lonely even before she saw her other self. Outwardly they looked identical - same round, moonlike face, dark eyes, brunette hair with the same uniform and the clearly ill-fitting boots with the laces undone to give her feet some breathing room no matter what the teachers said.
That was when the differences appeared. Mildred was good at reading people's body language, and she could tell from her counterpart's sad and melancholic expression which the Mists showed for some strange reason, her counterpart was more lonely than anyone should be. Through the Mists, Mildred could see the awful way she was treated by everyone, especially Maud who was especially cruel for reasons Mildred could not work out, but she had a feeling the other girl's constant need to bully her for trying to be a witch in a school meant for true witches was more than a clue.
Maud's continual need to sneer the other Mildred didn't have any friends was bad since it showed she wasn't friends with Enid - how had that happened, she wondered to herself, but she soon caught her answer when she saw how Maud had bullied and harassed Enid into ditching her counterpart.
So, Mildred thought to herself, they had been friends once, but because of Maud, it wasn't true anymore. Mildred wondered just how this version of Maud had managed to do it, but she quickly decided she didn't want to know.
She found it a bit ironic Maud was able to bully Ethel so thoroughly, but she quickly got the impression that this Maud Spellbody was a proper bully in contrast with Ethel's opportunistic bully; Ethel was more than happy to prank and lash out at others when she had the chance, or when she was feeling particularly hacked off about something, but she only did it when she was provoked or saw something that caught her eye. This Maud was an all around bully who would say or do anything to anyone at any point.
Mildred wasn't surprised the teachers hadn't really done anything to curb this timeline's version of Maud, they had never really helped her that much during the times Ethel had bullied her in her home timeline (was that what it was called?), she remembered bitterly, which was made worse with the fact they'd had plenty of opportunities, but because Hardbroom and Cackle both seemed to live in their own little worlds and seemed certain the 'feud' between herself and Ethel would sort itself out, none of the teachers had lifted a finger.
To say she was relieved to get back to her timeline again now this one was fading away - she wasn't sure if the other timeline still existed in some form or not, but as long as she never saw it again, she didn't care.
When she was back, Mildred didn't tell Maud or Enid about what she'd seen. It was too terrible for her to consider, but in time to come, she would wonder to herself about her counterpart, and what was happening with her…
Until the next time...