I don't own the Worst Witch.
Please tell me what you think.
Hallow Sisters on my Mind, this is for you.
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The Frustration of Esmerelda Hallow.
Hallow Manor was quiet, the servants who were dressed in neat, dark uniforms, went about their business silently like wraiths or ghosts as they served the current heads of the Hallow family and their children. The servants may have come to the manor happy at the prospect of good wages, but they quickly lost their interest after meeting Mr and Mrs Hallow. They had learnt to keep themselves on the peripheral edge of the Hallow family, and so refused to speak to them on a personal level since Mr and Mrs Hallow had made it clear they would be fired as soon as they said something personal that was not work-related.
Esmerelda Hallow, the eldest child of the family and a naturally kind-hearted and generous young woman, had long since given up trying to speak to the servants on a personal level, but she had tried many times in the past to make good relationships with them. Ever since the beginning of the school term, Esmerelda had become increasingly depressed.
Her parents had virtually isolated her in this mansion without giving a thought at all about her mental well-being. She had been to the non-magical world a few times, escorted by one of the servants, but it was like she was going out on her own. None of the servants who were ordered to escort her particularly wanted to go, but they had been promised a little bonus if they brought her back in one piece.
Those visits to the non-magical world were eye-opening and depressing at the same time; eye-opening because she had only visited place in the witching world, and had never really realised just how filthy the non-magical towns could be; their cars belched out disgusting fumes, their streets were littered with rubbish, and they never seemed to care about their own people. Whenever she visited that world, a world she simply didn't understand, a world that was colourful but seemed so bleached of colour and life…. it sickened and terrified her because she knew that sooner or later her parents would have no alternative but to send her to school there.
The thought depressed her even more. Esmerelda didn't know anything about that world, and there were no books describing how life was, but that was logical; there were no books about the magical world since everyone knew about the taboos and the laws held within the codes. But Esmerelda knew nothing about the non-magical world besides the basics, but that was not enough.
Her parents had promised to find a way to get her powers back, but Esmerelda didn't really hold out much hope that they would keep that promise - she may have been gullible when she had given her powers to Agatha thanks to her younger sister, Ethel, but she knew her parents would say one thing and not bother to help her.
Her parents seemed to live in a bubble where they believed the world would go their way simply because they were Hallows. They never seemed to realise that they were only one magical family, and besides Esmerelda had learnt years ago their promises didn't hold a potion. They seemed to think if they said yes to such a promise then it would appear out of thin air, but it didn't work that way.
But it was depressing for the elder Hallow girl because she had hoped that her parents or even other members of her own family would have found a way, a plausible and simple way, for her to regain her powers. But no. She was still powerless, and her parents hadn't found a single solution to her problem. Esmerelda imagined that it made a sort of weird sense, since the code said, in cases like this, the only way she could get her powers back was if the witch who took them gave them back, but like many other rules there were loopholes.
Esmerelda knew Agatha would never give her her powers back. The woman was safely locked away in a photograph which was now hanging on a wall in Miss Cackle's office at the Academy, and even if she was let out, the woman could find some way to escape or cause more trouble. She wasn't to be trusted either, the woman was manipulative, sneaky and she had no problems with demolishing the school she had spent so many years trying to gain from her sister and mother, and she didn't care if there were people, especially young witches, trapped inside.
She wished she was at Cackles, and thinking about the school she had worked long and hard in as part of her parent's wishes to be successful only served to depress her, but there was another reason she was depressed; in fact at first she had nearly driven herself mad with grief that she wasn't at school, she had really looked forward to being there with Ethel and Sybil, but now that moment was there and she wasn't with her sisters, Esmerelda had fallen into terrible bouts of depression and loneliness. Esme knew the year would be rough on Sybil and Ethel; Ethel would try to bluff her way through it like she always did, pretending to be strong, but deep down she would miss her, though all previous evidence said otherwise. One of Ethel's biggest secrets was she suffered from anxiety and depression, and she had been prescribed medication which she had taken, but then their parents in all their infinite wisdom had decided to stop it, believing it was shameful that a Hallow girl needed to be treated for something like that.
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One of the advantages of being in her family home all the time when she wasn't with one of the servants going out to visit the non-magical world to help her familiarise herself with the culture was she didn't really see her parents. For some kids that might be seen as odd, but contrary to what some people might think, Esmerelda didn't really get along with her parents.
Not that they would notice, anyway.
It was their own fault. They were both so distant Esme often wondered if they were even her parents, and that her real parents had died years ago, and that Ethel and Sybil and her were being raised by strangers who'd been paid to look after them but hadn't bothered looking at the job description which read treat them with love and affection.
As she had grown up, Esmerelda had come to realise that her parents didn't really care about her or her sisters - her sisters even less, though they seemed more willing to love Sybil, though that was only because the younger girl was cute and sweet. As the eldest child of the three, Esmerelda had to spend a lot of her time with them, though it wasn't what she wanted really.
Like most teenagers, Esmerelda just wanted to have some fun. She wanted to go out, make friends, go to loud, raucous parties, do things that teenagers enjoyed. But would her parents let her? No. They had stopped her trying to leave the mansion more than once over the years when she had tried to sneak out - Esmerelda was sure they were using a spell to monitor her and her sisters, but she wasn't sure - and they would send her back to her bedroom so then she would keep studying those books for those stupid competitions and going out to that theatre to meet the people her parents called friends.
As always, whenever she thought of the people her parents called friends, Esmerelda grimaced. She hated those people. Hated their children, who were so spoilt and arrogant that she often wondered if that was how people saw her whenever she achieved something.
Esmerelda always hated it whenever she was forced to interact with one or more of those people, because they were not her friends, especially those with kids of their own (she would not think about Prince), and they were as obnoxious as they could be. Esmerelda was proud of her family heritage, she was pleased she came from a long line of witches and wizards. Just because she had lost her powers didn't mean she didn't have the right to be proud of her family, but right now she was so frustrated.
She had been waiting for either of her parents for the past few hours, but it could be a while before they returned home from either work or from the Magic Council. Unlike Ethel, Esmerelda wished her mother had never been given that particular role; her mother had always been arrogant and big-headed, but ever since she'd found out about what had happened with Agatha, her mother had become obsessed with 'dealing with Miss Cackle,' completely ignoring her own daughter whenever Esme had tried to tell her it wasn't Miss Cackle's fault.
Esmerelda hoped her mother didn't do something stupid to hurt Miss Cackle, but she could more or less see her mother's point of view; with Agatha locked away and because it was her own feud with her, Ada had made it easy for Agatha to steal Esmerelda's powers, but Esmerelda was keeping an eye on her mother to make sure she didn't do anything stupid.
Finally, her mother appeared in the atrium of Hallow manor. "Well met, mother," Esmerelda bowed politely.
"Well met, Esmerelda," Ursula Hallow returned in her usual cool manner before she took off her cloak and put it on a nearby hanger.
Esmerelda watched as her mother took off her work shoes and slipped on her home shoes - they weren't really that different, they were softer but Esmerelda sometimes wondered why her parents always insisted they dress smartly even at home, but this wasn't the time to worry about something so trivial.
"Mother, have you and father found a solution to restoring my powers?" Esmerelda asked politely, keeping her voice low and level so then the woman wouldn't detect the desperation in her voice. In her parent's eyes, well mostly her mother's, emotion was a weakness and one no respecting witch should be showing.
Hearing that question made Ursula go still for a moment before she bowed her head and carried on with what she'd been doing. That wasn't really encouraging to the teenager.
"No," Mrs Hallow said simply and shortly as though that was the end of the matter.
But Esmerelda had no intention of letting it go; she was becoming increasingly desperate and frustrated with what was going on now, and she wanted to escape the prospect of living in the non-magical world. She often forgot she didn't have her magic, she had grown up using it for years and the thought of not being able to use a spell now was distressing.
Esmerelda bit her lip. "Why?" she asked, deciding to throw all caution to the winds. She was getting seriously tired of asking this same question to her parents over and over again.
"You know what the code says-," Ursula said, but Esmerelda interrupted her. Not a smart move, but she was sick and tired of her parents making the same excuse. "Mother, I know what the code says. I know that ideally, Agatha Cackle would return my powers to me, but she won't do that. Besides she's trapped inside a picture in the headmistress's office at the Academy."
Mrs Hallow looked up, her glacial expression not shifting for a moment, but she was listening and that was the main thing.
"You know you can simply find a witch out there, one who's already dying from a terminal illness-," Esmerelda began but this time it was Ursula's turn to interrupt her, but instead of Esmerelda's approach which was to be calm and logical, Ursula was cold, spiteful, and harsh.
"What? Have a daughter whose magic comes from someone who's ill?" The derision in her mother's voice made Esmerelda's blood turn to ice. "It would shame the family-!"
"A family which already has an older daughter without magic," Esmerelda pointed out, "what difference does it make? If you find someone who is dying, and they decide to give me their powers, then I could easily bring glory to the family, that way people forget about me losing my powers."
Esmerelda made sure to alter her tone a little bit so then the proposal sounded appealing, and indeed for a moment it looked like Ursula was going to go for it.
The teenager simply could not understand why her parents couldn't think of a solution like that. It was so easy and simple - all they would need to do was find a witch with a terminal illness, preferably one who was in so much pain anyway that it made no difference at all if they had magic at all since it wasn't helping them, or a witch who was so ill that she wanted to die it wouldn't make any difference to them if they handed their magic to another witch.
Her parents weren't without influence and power, and with that power and influence came connections. They could effortlessly find out if there were witches like that in intensive care.
Esmerelda was almost sure the proposal was tempting for her mother to hear, but just as quickly as the expression crossed her face, Ursula's expression instantly stiffened icily. "No, I will not allow it, Esmerelda," Ursula's voice was harsh which was the woman's way of telling the teenager to drop the subject, "I will not let the family name be soiled-."
Esmerelda lost it then. "How about you come up with a solution? I'm sick and tired of coming to you to ask whether you've found a way for me to get my powers back, and besides, why should it matter if I get the powers from someone who's too sick it doesn't make any difference?"
"It matters to me, Esmerelda," Ursula's face was stone-like, dangerous, but Esmerelda didn't care even if all her instincts were telling her to shut up. "Our family name has already been sullied because of what Ethel did to you, and Miss Cackle did nothing-."
"How could she, Miss Cackle didn't come into the room until the deed was done?" Esmerelda interrupted her mother again, but she didn't care about the potential dangers, she was becoming sick and tired by her mother's complete blindness.
"She was responsible!" Ursula finally lost it, and with a red face she approached Esmerelda, and the teenager completely lost her argumentative mood in the face of her mother's anger. But Ursula said nothing. She just sighed and walked away.
Esmerelda watched her go, shaking slightly with adrenaline brought on by her worked up emotions and terror; under the Witches' code it was considered acceptable practice for parents to 'discipline' their children if they pushed the boundaries, but mostly it was to make sure they didn't make cause an accident with potions deliberately and caused terrible injuries. But like many other rules, some parents crossed the line between wanting to discipline their child and keep them from making a mistake in future and giving into their sadistic sides.
Her parents had crossed that line over the years with her, but in the last few years since she had hit her teens, Esmerelda had talked back to her parents. They'd slapped her whenever she did that, or whenever she refused to do what they'd wanted like whenever she went along with their stupid competitions and theatre visits when she just wanted to relax and go out and have friends, a life.
And her parents could get away with it simply because of the code. There was also another clause in the code which said they could get away with it since it was forbidden for another witch to interfere in their affairs, and Esmerelda knew it would do no good to complain. But she had used her own knowledge of the code to safeguard her sisters.
Oh, she knew how tempted her parents were from time to time to hit both Sybil and Ethel, even if they favoured Sybil more than they did Ethel, and the only reason they were tempted to hit Sybil was when the younger girl sometimes became scared or even when she had a nightmare.
Esmerelda had lost count of the number of times she had had a nightmare, terrible ones, and her parents had slapped her around for screaming her head off in panic. Her mother always lectured her that witches did not scream when they had a nightmare, but over the years Esmerelda had found ways to stop her parents - and her sisters - from hearing her scream.
Sybil's habits of crying and hiding under the covers of her bed often frustrated and annoyed their parents and Esmerelda had told them that they could beat her instead so they didn't touch Sybil. So each time Sybil cried or rushed to her room to hide under the covers on her bed, Esmerelda would take the beating for her. It hadn't been easy for her to persuade them to do that, but she had managed it, and she had tricked them into swearing their lives on the code - that had been tricky, she had needed to get them to say the first part of the oath, and then she had made them swear on their lives, and there was nothing they could do about that, they could have sworn on their magic and the effects would have been the same - so they would never beat her younger sisters.
Esmerelda had taken many beatings from her parents for things her sisters had done. A part of her sometimes considered telling her sisters about what their actions were doing, but fortunately, her parents weren't too sadistic; they knew that if they beat her too badly then they wouldn't have the eldest daughter to boast about anymore.
When she thought about it, Esmerelda had taken more beatings as a result of Ethel's mistakes than she had Sybil's problems.
That didn't surprise her.
Why did Ethel always have to think about herself?
Esmerelda loved her sisters, she had begged her parents to give her little sisters to play with, but she was so frustrated by Ethel's selfishness and poor decisions; did she really think their parents would have been happy with her for tricking Esme into giving her powers over to Agatha in such a manner? Ethel had known the whole time it had been Agatha. The fact she had been so cruel had been heartbreaking for the teenager who had given so much of her time trying to be Ethel's big sister, and a part of her now wanted to show Ethel the injuries she had accumulated over the years, but it was even worse now. She was getting tired of Ethel's endless quest to achieve something she didn't have a hope of getting - her parents love. They didn't love her and never would, why couldn't Ethel be realistic and see it?
Their parents had not been happy when they found out what Ethel had done, she had two broken ribs to prove it, but without her magic to cope with the injuries it had almost been unbearable. Esmerelda had used her magic to stop her parents from going too far, but she had also used her powers to heal her injuries. Even when she had been beaten until she was black, blue, purple, maroon, and whatever colour you could picture for a bruise, her powers would always heal the injuries and mitigate the damage, but thanks to Ethel's desire for mummy to talk to her, that was no longer possible.
A flash of movement and the bowed head of one of the servants as they passed her by made Esmerelda realise she'd been standing in the same spot watching the same direction her mother had taken to get away from her, so she silently left the hall and went back to her room - she had nowhere else to go too, and besides she needed to think.
When she returned to her bedroom, with the walls lined with pictures and bookshelves containing books that she had read through time and time again so many times she could probably repeat each sentence verbatim, Esmerelda stifled a scream of frustration.
Why did her parents have to be so stupid?
Esmerelda walked to the bed and threw herself onto it, letting herself bounce a bit on the mattress, and let herself think about the problem.
But as before she didn't have a clue about what she could do about her problem.