"I think we shall begin with a look into your mirror, Constance," Miss Cackle said. "Given what happened the last time any of us set foot in the wood, I'd like to see what's going on there before we return."
"Of course, Headmistress." With a gesture, Constance raised her pier glass from its place near the windows and floated it through the air to the empty space beside her. It came to rest gently, its giltwood frame making the softest of clicks as it touched the floor and leant itself backward against the sofa's leather seat. Years ago, she had spent a Christmas on her own in Uppsala, searching through every shop and market stall for a scrying mirror, until she had found this one covered in dust and hidden behind a stack of faded oil paintings. She had seen things both beautiful and horrible in its silvered and age-spotted surface, and it was with trepidation that she spoke the spell to show the clearing in the trees.
"There." Miss Cackle pointed with a long, bony finger, being careful not to touch the glass.
"Is that the doorway?" Miss Drill had knelt on the floor in front of Constance and the mirror, apparently having forgot in her fascination with the scrying that she and Constance had been at each other's throats a few minutes before. "That shimmering place, like a mirage?"
"Yes," Constance said. "Look closely. You are seeing something that no one has seen in more than a hundred and seventy years. Something that no one now living, to our knowledge, has seen."
In the mirror's reflected light, Miss Drill's face was rapt and grave at the same time, like a saint seeing a vision. Her eyes flickered across the image from trees to sky and back again. "And the dark man?"
"Nowhere to be found," Miss Cackle said grimly.
"But he's there somewhere. He must be." Miss Drill was up again, bouncing on the balls of her feet as if she were at the start of a race, her lithe, springy body nearly vibrating with the desire to run. "When shall we go?"
"Not yet, I think," Miss Cackle said. "It occurs to me that we've not encountered him in daylight yet. Our victim was killed at night, and it was night when Miss Hardbroom met him. I know time is short, but if we wish to find him, we might do well to wait until dark, or as close as possible. It will give us a chance to gather our strength as well."
She didn't look at Constance as she said the last few words, but Constance knew they were meant mainly for her benefit. It annoyed her to be the weak link, but she knew full well that even with her best reviving and healing potions, she was still vulnerable enough to be a liability rather than a help. She had no intention of either jeopardising their mission or staying behind while it happened without her, so if she had to endure a delay, then endure she would.
"Well, we won't have to wait long," Miss Drill said. "This looks to be one of those days when it never really gets properly light." She looked at her wristwatch. "I'll find you both when the time comes. Let's hope we all get more rest than we did last night. I'm sure we'll need it."
As Miss Drill departed with Miss Cackle close behind, Constance took one last look at the vignette in the mirror, lingering on the eerie glow of the doorway between worlds. Then she passed her hand across it in a wiping-away motion, leaving only the reflection of her own familiar room behind, and returned it to the wall.
She spent her hours of enforced rest in the library, reading her way through every book on the forbidden shelf that mentioned the other world and its inhabitants. Most were cautionary tales of people stumbling through a doorway by accident or going into one on a dare, never to return, or of being killed by monstrous creatures that emerged and dragged them through to the other side. A twelfth-century monk had written an account of what he had seen while performing the spells to close a doorway that had appeared in a sub-cellar of his abbey, talking at length of a nightmare landscape of flame and smoke and sulphur that he and his fellow monks had believed was a portal to Hell. What none of the books mentioned, and what Constance was most concerned with, was whether anyone had ever managed to cross over and come back alive. Miss Drill was irritating and argumentative and utterly non-magical, but she was brave, and Constance had to grudgingly respect that. She didn't want the reward for Miss Drill's bravery to be a terrible death in some other realm, or in their own for that matter.
Sometime in the afternoon, Mrs Tapioca appeared with a bowl of soup and deposited it in front of her as if presenting the crown jewels, neatly avoiding the spread-open books all over the table. Constance looked down at islands of cooked egg and pasta floating around in a yellow sea of broth, felt queasy and started to wave the bowl away, but the cook pulled a clean spoon from a pocket and handed it to her in a manner that allowed no room for refusal.
"Sorry, Miss Hardbroom, but the Headmistress says wait here and make sure you eat." She folded plump hands across the front of her apron and gave Constance an encouraging nod. "I don't use the Cackle's recipe book for this one. It's what I make at home for my boys when they are little and don't feel so good. I think you don't feel so good either, do you?"
"No," Constance admitted with a sigh. She set to work and managed to get through most of the bowl before Mrs Tapioca said "There, that's enough. I don't tell about those last few bites if you don't."
From the air of casual conspiracy with which she said this, Constance suspected that she had probably offered a similar deal to the girls many times when they were meant to be undergoing some punishment or other. It deserved a reprimand, but lacking the energy, Constance simply said, "That would be kind," and let Mrs Tapioca clear away the bowl and spoon.
"You're a little better now?"
"I suppose," Constance said, and discovered to her surprise that it was true; whatever the cook had put in the soup, it had been almost as effective as a potion. "Yes. Thank you."
Mrs Tapioca smiled, but then her face grew sober. "Miss Cackle, she says you all have important work to do tonight and I should go home early again."
"Miss Cackle is quite right," Constance said. "And once you're there, I advise you to stay there. Lock the door behind you. It isn't a good night to go wandering about."
"Maybe not a good night for witches either," Mrs Tapioca said. "You be careful, Miss Hardbroom. The girls need you here when they come back."
"This school existed for a hundred years without me, Mrs Tapioca. I'm quite confident it will carry straight on whether I am here or not." Constance pulled the nearest book toward her, picked up her pen and made a deliberate note. "You had better be getting along, hadn't you? It will be dark soon, and I'm sure you have work to do before you leave."
When Mrs Tapioca had gone, Constance got up from her chair and walked to the library window to test her strength. She still felt shaky, as if she had been ill in bed for a week—something she had not experienced in years, despite spending sixteen hours a day with girls who coughed and sneezed and snuffled their way through every winter—but the nausea and giddiness had faded away. She perched on the wide windowsill and looked out at the frozen world below, as still and silent as the image in her mirror. The snow had stopped for the moment, but the clouds still hung swollen and heavy over castle and wood, so low it seemed they might catch on the treetops. She strained her eyes, looking for any sign that the dark man might have passed by, but the white expanse of the lawn was pristine and unbroken.
Where is it? she wondered. Does it know what we mean to do? Has it any awareness at all? Some witches were able to read thoughts and emotions, but that was one skill Constance lacked; even Mistress Broomhead's harsh pedagogy had failed to drum it into her past the very beginning level. She had only her own human ability, and she knew it was weak at best. But she had not felt anything at all coming from that dark shape as it walked toward her—not anger, not hate, not fear, not desire. Somehow that alienness, that absence, had been more frightening than evil. She sensed that it could kill them all and barely notice, unless it happened to be hungry.
"Constance, it's time," Miss Cackle said behind her. She turned round and found both her colleagues waiting, Miss Cackle in her thick winter cloak, Miss Drill in black trousers and a black puffy jacket, with a matching knit cap pulled down over her fair hair and trainers on her feet instead of boots. Miss Cackle had brought Constance's own cloak, folded over one arm, and now she shook it out, came forward and stood on tiptoe to drape it over Constance's shoulders.
"Are you strong enough for this?" Her voice was low and worried in Constance's ear.
"Are you, Headmistress?"
"I don't think any of us are," said Miss Cackle, "but we'll have to do it anyway." She fastened the clasp on the cloak and stepped back. "Do the transport, Constance, please. You're best at it."
Constance folded her arms, and all three of them disappeared.