When the ice has melted, Cackle's is slightly flooded. The floor is slippery in places and in the basement levels...well, Mildred knows there's a reason that the whole entire school has been recruited to empty out the floor of paperwork and furniture, but she can't quite remember what it was.
"Paperwork's important," Maud tells her, when she asks, "If you need to find something out from ages and ages ago-"
"Like when I tried to find out if there'd been any other Hubble's that went to Cackle's?" Mildred interrupts to ask, having a lightbulb moment as she lifts up the end of a trunk, grimacing as she feels her shirt get even wetter from leaning down. "Enid, can you help me with this?"
"Sure!" Enid says from across the room, gleefully splashing Felicity and Dawn as she bounds through the waist-deep water. Their schoolmates shriek and there's a minute where everyone begins splashing - even Maud. But Mildred still has one end of the trunk and when she laughs, reaching across the water to splash Maud in the face, the trunk tips, over-balancing.
Focus snapping back to her load, Mildred can't correct her mistake in time for the old hinges to give way, the lid opening up underwater. Mildred's pitying moan, loud and unfortunately recognisable among her peers, causes the water-fight to end abruptly as the contents of the trunk slide out neatly to the bottom of the basement-sea.
"Millie, what have you done?" Maud squeaks, Enid not even hesitating before dropping to her knees, head disappearing under the rippling ocean that is inhabiting their school. Mildred watches her gather up as much stuff as she can, pushing the trunk back around. Guessing her next plan, Mildred readjusts her grip, lifting the trunk up as Enid gets the other end as originally planned, the two girls hauling the trunk up onto a nearby desk. The waterline is still an inch or two above the trunk bottom, but it's enough.
"There's still stuff at the bottom," Felicity points out worriedly, "Oh, I hope we won't get in trouble for this."
"We just don't tell anyone," Enid says, diving back down. She gathers the remaining items, but just as she comes up again, depositing them on the table, Mildred spies something shining with magic. It glimmers gold, like the shine of underwater treasure and – thinking that perhaps with how splashed she is, she could afford to dunk under to get it – Mildred takes a deep breath, retrieving it as quickly as she can.
The water is lukewarm, but colder as she leans down, hand skirting through a freezing current before it clamps around what turns out to be some kind of heavy jewellery box that isn't as shiny as she originally thought – there's a shard of mirror on top, broken. Squinting, Mildred sees what looks like a key and swiftly changes her mind as she brings it up out of the water, plaits dripping as she straightens. She peers curiously.
"What is it, Mildred?" Enid questions, already using a drying spell on the items she'd retrieved, one at a time.
"A music box, I think," Mildred says, shaking off the excess water before holding it on her palm, other hand aiming carefully. "Soggy, dewy, damp and drippy, make this thing less soaked and drizzly!"
Her magic shoots up inside her, coalescing around the unpolished music box to fling the magical water outwards. Mildred wrinkles her nose as she's splattered on the face, wiping her nose before she turns the shiny golden key.
"I wouldn't, Milly," Maud warns, "What if it's enchanted?"
"It's just a box," Mildred murmurs, before letting go of the key. It turns immediately, the circular mirror set on top shimmering before the box clicks. In Mildred's hand, the sides of the box open out in a star shape, the shard of mirror sinking down as tiny runes on the star points glow. The key moves upwards, turning in a circle around the mirror, causing the air above it to shimmer.
"Oh!" Dawn exclaims gently, Mildred's eyes widening as the space in front of her face starts to shift, like smoke or mist. Two figures form, the image moving around the room and the two teenage witches that appear laugh faintly, grinning ear to ear, dancing to imaginary music, hands clasped together as they spin and spin. They look like they're having fun and there's something familiar about them both, to Mildred – it's on the tip of her tongue.
They come closer to her, standing back over the music box – which hasn't played any music yet – standing still. Mildred strains to look closer, but the colours are barely there. One is blonde as day, the other with hair dark as night, pulled back in a blue ribbon. The dark-haired witch lets go of the blonde's hands, instead cupping her cheeks and kissing her lips softly, kneeling in front of her.
"Hiccup, what are you doing?" the blonde witch asks, her voice faint but still audible. The other witch who must be her girlfriend pulls her down to join her on the ground.
"I want to be with you forever. I love so you, dearest."
"Sweetie…you mischievous witch, what are we going to do?" the blonde says and it's obvious she's perfectly willing, scooting closer. "We've already spelled our entire night to the mirror."
The dark-haired witch talks more, then, but Mildred can't hear her, the sound completely failing, the misty image even fading, cracking right in the middle.
"What is this?" Mildred asks Maud, barely taking her eyes off the witch, who looks to be rambling now, enthusiastic, hands waving about wildly.
"I don't know," Maud says and by now, Mildred's classmates are all near, huddled around her, watching the silent image. Suddenly, however, the sound returns, louder and clearer than before.
"-magic to magic, suchlike things. Just copy me. Do you promise?"
"Only if you do the performance with me," the blonde says, tugging at the V of her girlfriend's neckline. The dark-haired witch narrows her eyes, leaning forwards to steal a kiss.
Enid snorts, "She doesn't want to do that performance."
"Don't play coy," the blonde says when they part, giggling, "Please, my sweet lady. I'll pay you back two-fold…"
"I'm not fond of accepting bribes," says the other, "but…perhaps. Yes. I agree. Now, marry me by magic, P-" the sound cuts off again, making the group of girls make varied noises of annoyance, Felicity actually whining.
"She proposed! Oh, I know what they're going to do, this is adorable. Only the Old Witches did this – it's fallen so out of fashion."
"What are they doing?" Mildred asks, watching as the two witches kiss and laugh, the dark-haired one reaching over to something that isn't in the image, returning with a potions knife. Mildred jerks as she cuts their palms, holding them together tightly, droplets falling away into nothingness. "Why did they do that? Sharing blood is dangerous."
"Yes, it is," Maud frowns, looking at Felicity. "What are they doing?"
"It was more popular in America," Felicity says excitedly, "Witches used to get married in moonlight, under the Goddess' gaze. They spilt blood into the ground and then shared it, so- look!"
Mildred looks. The witches, even in the misty image, seem to glow. The box grows warm in her hand as the very presence of their magic seems to seep out of it. Mildred shudders, feeling it brush against her own in such a strange but good way.
"They must have been pretty powerful," Felicity whispers, shivering slightly. "This must be a memory."
"They recorded it in the mirror and this is a shard," Maud says, deducing the most likely explanation, "so this must be a part of their original recording. That's why it's so fragmented – it's not the entire thing."
The witches say things to each other, resting their heads together before removing their hands from the others, wiping it on the ground beside them. They kiss each other again and then the mist fades, the key slowing to a halt before returning to its original space, the sides of the box folding inwards, the shard rising once more.
"I wonder whose things these are," Enid twists back around, rummaging through the things she's dried. Mildred peers inside the open trunk, seeing lots of dark dresses, a faded purple scarf emblazoned with an unfamiliar school crest, outdated books, broken quills and a bundle of blue ribbons. Maud reaches past them both, picking up one of the books and opening the front pages.
"This book is a first edition herbalists guide," Maud says in wonder, suddenly holding the book like it's precious. "And we got it wet."
"If it's a herbalists guide, it's probably been splattered with worse things than water," Mildred argues for the sake of it, stuffing the box in her pocket before picking up another book, checking for places people usually wrote their names. There's no name, but however, there are notes. She pages through the book, eyeing the blotchy handwriting that edits and corrects as it goes. "Maud, that might not be worth as much as you think."
"Why?" Maud asks, Enid spying the edits in Mildred's book with a cackle.
"They wrote in their books!" Enid exclaims happily, Maud immediately looking through, sounding sad at seeing the corrections. Mildred is frowning though.
"There's something familiar about this handwriting," Mildred says, frustrated, "I can't think…"
"Let me see," Enid takes it from her, eyes scanning the old pages. Mildred forces herself to take her eyes off the scrawl to look in the trunk again. The ribbons catch her eyes – they're a blue that is so very bright and Mildred thinks that maybe, this trunk belonged to the dark-haired witch in the memory-box. She reaches out, taking the bundle, playing with it. She isn't using them, Mildred thinks.
No sooner had she tucked them in her pocket, however, the water around their waists started to drain. Spinning around in a circle, Mildred watches all the water disappear out the corridor, nearly tipping Dawn over before Felicity catches her.
"Oh, they finally figured it out," Maud sighs, smiling. Mildred gives her own grin. The ice had been black-spot ice, so the water had resisted all form of magical banishment – up until now, that is.
"Maybe they found a sewer!" Enid offers, before spelling them all dry, proud of her quick mastery of the spell. All the droplets that push off them all join the rushing river that disappears into the corridor, leaving only the bottoms of their boots wet. "Let's go!"
The young witches all rush out of the corridor – Mildred forgetting all about the memory-box in her pocket.