Sorry that this part is so short; it's just the best place to put the break between parts. I'll try and do battle with the next part soon. Thanks for your patience… and as always, thanks for the reviews.
Enid turned her head away from the discussion her parents were having with Mr Blossom. Unbeknownst to her, both her parents had taken a fancy to gardening in the past few months and were now taking the opportunity of discovering as much as they could about the propagation of tomatoes. Enid had to confess that she was bored rigid. Before the evening had begun, she had feared that her parents would embarrass her; she hadn't envisaged that they would bore her to death.
She let out a heavy sigh, making no attempt to disguise her mood. She was fully expecting some sort of rebuke from her parents but they were so engrossed in their discussion of the relative merits of Baby Bio that they failed to notice her. She gave her full attention to the small, but vocal, crowd that was starting to form on the far side of the room.
Amid the chatter she made out an unmistakable wail; it was a sound that had blighted her life ever since the day her mother had returned from hospital with her baby brother.
She broke away from her parent's side and made her way swiftly to the centre of the group.
Her mouth dropped open as she took in the sight before her. Her brother was at the centre of a small circle of people. His right thumb was placed firmly in his mouth, tears were running down his face and Fenny and Gris appeared to be trying to pull the offending thumb out.
"What on earth are you doing to my brother?" Enid immediately went on the offensive. She tried to push the two older girls away from her brother.
Fenny and Gris let go without a fight and Enid swiftly pushed her brother behind her.
"I never had the two of you figured for bullies." She snapped angrily.
"We're not." Fenny protested. "We were trying to help him."
"By yanking his hand out of his mouth!"
"His hand is stuck."
"In his mouth?" Enid's tone was full of disbelief. "Are you seriously expecting me to believe that…" She turned her head as her brother emerged from behind her; he was tugging at his right hand with his left and looked very very confused. "He's got his hand stuck in his mouth!"
Constance was crossing the hall to avoid having to listen to another mind-numbingly dull question from Celia Ragwort's mother, when she stopped suddenly in her tracks as she caught sight of something on the periphery of her vision; it was something that sent a shiver right through her. She closed her eyes and then opened them again, knowing that what she had seen had must have been her mind playing tricks on her; there was no way that she could be here. She scanned the room again and breathed a sigh of relief. There was of course no way that Heckity Broomhead could be in the hall; it had been foolish of her to even entertain the notion. She stopped again; just what had made her think that she had seen her former tutor? It wasn't as though it was someone she wanted or expected to see. Perhaps it was as a result of catching Imogen with her file earlier; perhaps that was what had brought thoughts of Mistress Broomhead to her mind; ghosts of the past raising their heads.
Constance shook her head and tried to forget the matter. She had only taken two more paces across the room, when the same feeling came over her again. It was stronger this time; she imagined that she could sense her ex-tutor's presence in the room. The feeling was hard to shake and Constance was at something of a loss to explain what was going on.
She looked around the room and tried to work out if it was perhaps one of the students attempting to play some kind of a trick on her; not that she thought any of them were that stupid, or really relished the thought of spending the rest of their time at Cackles in detention.
She was in the middle of glaring at the room as a whole when Amelia spotted her and made her way to her side.
"I take it that the stuck finger is your work?"
"What?" Constance was only half-listening to Amelia. There was magic in the air, she was certain of it. What she wasn't certain of was what the nature of the magic was.
"Are you or are you not responsible for little Thomas Nightshade and the finger that seems to be magically stuck in his mouth?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about." Constance finally gave her full attention to Amelia. It was becoming apparent that until she'd gotten rid of Amelia, she wouldn't be able to get back to the matter in hand. "I have no idea who Thomas Nightshade is."
"Small boy; can't be more than seven."
Constance was about to dismiss the details when she suddenly remembered the child from earlier.
"Were there any other identifiable marks?"
"He's a small boy not someone's missing pet." Amelia scolded before adding. "He does seem to have a remarkable amount of chocolate spread around his mouth.
An expression of guilt flitted across Constance's face as she realised that she'd never removed the spell from the boy. She subtly waved her hand in the general direction of the boy and muttered under her breath before meeting Amelia's gaze.
"I have no idea of what you are talking about." She insisted.
Amelia narrowed her eyes and scrutinised her colleague for a moment. She wasn't entirely convinced that Constance was telling the truth but neither was she foolish enough to suggest such a thing openly. She 'hhmmed' quietly and turned her attention back towards the small group around the young boy. She heard a yell of surprise from one of the girls and then a wailing cry from a small boy.
She returned her focus to Constance and raised a questioning eyebrow. Constance's expression didn't alter in the slightest. Amelia 'hmmed' again and bustled over to where the small group was still gathered.
"What are you doing down there?" Amelia enquired as she spotted Enid sitting on the floor.
"Getting up Miss." Enid tried to explain as she struggled to regain her dignity.
"She was trying to pull her brother's thumb out of his mouth." Fenny stepped in to explain the situation. "She was tugging at his hand when it suddenly came unstuck."
"If I was asked," Griselda added. "I'd say that someone had put a spell on him."
Amelia glanced at Griselda over the top of her glasses.
"That's a rather heavy-handed accusation to make. I hope you've got some evidence to back it up."
Griselda noted the tone in her headmistresses' voice and tried to look suitably apologetic.
"It's just a little hard to explain why his thumb was stuck in that way." She voiced her thoughts and received another glare from Miss Cackle.
"Well is he alright now?" Amelia decided that it was safer to try and change the subject.
Enid looked around to try and spot where her brother had run off to.
"I expect he's fine." She smiled in what she hoped was a winning manner. "And when my dad asks, can you let him know that it wasn't my fault?"
"Of course." Amelia reassured Enid as she watched the young girl brush the dust off her uniform and set off in search of her brother.
"There's something strange going on around here." Fenella whispered to her friend as she watched Miss Cackle head off in the other direction.
"Miss Cackle seems keen to keep a lid on it." Griselda agreed. "I wonder if HB doesn't have a hand in what's going on?"
Fenny raised an eyebrow.
"Open dissention in the ranks, that's not like HB."
"True, but there is definitely something strange going on around here and we both know how HB feels about this evening."
The two broke off their conversation, as there was a shrill scream from across the hall.
"Get them away from me, get them away from me." Jadu's mother was flapping at the coats that were hung on pegs in the corner of the hall as though they were attacking her.
Jadu looked mortified and was desperately trying to pull her mother away and out of the hall. Ethel and Drusilla were standing only a few feet away and were laughing hard at the sight before them.
"What's wrong with her?" Ethel managed to get the words out through her laughter. "Is she always like this?"
"It's only a few coats." Dru pointed out. "What does she think they're going to do….eat her?"
"Shut up." Jadu snapped at the pair, too distracted with trying to drag her mother away, to put up much of a fight.
"What's going on?" Fenny was first to the scene and immediately confronted the two giggling girls.
"It's not our fault that Jadu's mother has a morbid fear of coats." Ethel sneered.
Fenny turned away and looked to where Jadu and her father were now trying to calm her mother down.
"What happened?" She asked as gently as she could.
Jadu shook her head and prised herself away from her parent's side.
"I don't know what happened." She admitted shakily. "She was standing there perfectly happy one minute and then shaking in fear the next."
"What did she think they were?"
Jadu shrugged her shoulders.
"The only things I know she's scared of are ghosts."
"But they're not ghosts." Griselda had moved to the coats and now ran her hands along the row. "They're just coats."
"What's going on over here?"
The girl's all groaned as they recognised the tones of Miss Hardbroom. Dutifully they all stood back and waited until she appeared in their midst.
"My mother was just spooked by something." Jadu tried to explain.
Constance pursed her lips.
"Spooked! What precisely do you mean by 'spooked'?"
"She saw something that scared her Miss." Jadu pointed to the coats but wasn't really sure how to explain further. She wasn't sure that she understood herself. She looked up at HB and waited for the expected scathing comments. She was somewhat surprised to see the thoughtful expression on her teacher's face.
"I take it that the 'something' in question wasn't real?"
Jadu nodded.
"I don't know what she thought she saw but…" Jadu was unable to complete her sentence as her mother entered into the conversation.
"I saw ghosts." She announced with a shaky voice. "They were there in front of me, all white and shimmering."
Constance fixed Jadu's mother with a firm gaze.
"But they're not there now?"
Jadu's mother shook her head nervously.
"But they were there. I know they were. I saw them."
"Hmm." Was the only response Constance gave.
Jadu's eyes widened as she watched the way that her mother seemed to shrink under HB's gaze. She'd always assumed that HB's 'look' only worked on them. Now she watched her mother as she squirmed under the familiar piercing gaze.
"You are certain of what you saw?" It was an accusation rather than a question and Jadu watched as her mother seemed to shrink down another inch.
"There were ghosts." The voice was quieter this time and less certain.
"Hmmm." Came the response from HB again.
"What's going on Miss?" Fenny finally found the courage to enter into the conversation.
"Nothing that need concern you, Fenella Feverfew." Constance snapped and turned on her heel. "Let's here no more talk of ghosts."
Fenella watched as her potion's teacher stalked away and the small gathering began to break up.
"I tell you Gris. There's something funny going on here and I'll bet you any money that HB knows it too."
Mildred racked her brains and tried to remember whether she was supposed to be meeting Ruby's father at the table by the fruit punch or by the doors that led out to the gym. She closed her eyes and tried to visualise the scene. She could remember Ruby coming into the potion lab and placing both her hands on her arms and telling her that the next piece of information was important. She screwed her eyes tighter as she tried and failed to recall any more detail.
"Stupid brain." She reprimanded herself. She paced up and down between the long wooden benches and tried to remember who she had seen last. She had been with Ruby's father for the tour of the school gym. She had reasoned that Miss Drill would be unlikely to be able to see through the spell; the games teacher had once spent an entire lesson trying to teach two potted plants how to play badminton, not realising that Enid had placed a shapeshift potion on them.
She looked around nervously; standing in the potions lab wasn't exactly the safest place to be. It was possible that HB could be back through the doors at any moment… Mildred looked nervously around; there was nothing to say that she had to use the doors to enter the room. She closed her eyes and tried to slow her thumping heart. The hardest part of the evening was over, she reminded herself; she just had to hold out for another hour or so.
Imogen had been waiting for the right moment to approach Constance. She'd watched the way that the potions teacher had managed to avoid coming into contact with the majority of parents; she'd watched and marvelled at the way that she seemed to weave through the crowd, never seeming to notice all the hands that were raised in her direction or the voices that called her name as she passed.
Satisfied that she had no obvious route of escape, Imogen threaded her way through the crowd to Constance's side.
"I want to have a quiet word with you." She told the tall potions teacher firmly.
Constance glared down at her with undisguised annoyance.
"I was under the impression that you'd said plenty earlier."
"It's earlier that I want to talk about."
Constance pursed her lips.
"I didn't say anything to Miss Cackle about you, if that's what you're worried about."
Imogen was momentarily lost for words; it hadn't crossed her mind that Miss Cackle had found out about the file and her role in its appearance within the school.
"What?" Was the only word she managed to utter.
"Davina had an attack of conscience and confessed all to Miss Cackle." The note of distain in Constance's voice told Imogen everything she needed to know about the way that Constance felt about the situation. "She apparently didn't mention you, but Miss Cackle seemed to instinctively know that you were involved."
Imogen wanted to ask a few questions of her own but she was determined that Constance wasn't going to distract her from her appointed task.
"Did you do something to me this afternoon?" She kept her voice as level as possible.
Constance raised an eyebrow, amusement plain on her face.
"What on earth are you trying to suggest?"
Imogen was flustered, despite her intention to remain calm and unflappable; there was something in Constance's voice that made her feel as though her question had been somewhat ridiculous. She swallowed nervously, determined to plough on, whatever the outcome.
"Every now and again I see flashes of myself sitting in my room. The file, your file, is on my lap." She raised her eyes and met Constance's piercing gaze. "I know the folder is open."
Constance took a deep breath.
"Just what are you implying?"
"I think you know full well what I'm asking." Imogen forced herself to remain calm. "Did I or did I not open that file?"
"How clear are these flashes that you are seeing?" Constance's tone changed completely and Imogen was briefly thrown by the urgency in her colleague's voice. She forced herself to keep on track.
"Don't try and dance around the subject Constance. Did you or did you not…"
"They feel real, don't they?" Constance's tone was urgent. "You feel as though you were there?"
"What?" Imogen was well and truly lost in the conversation.
She watched as Constance turned her head this way and that, as though searching the air for something.
"What is it?" She found herself asking.
Constance shook her head.
"There's something in the air. I know there is. I just can't put my finger on what it is." Constance walked away from the corner and headed out into the middle of the hall; this time there was no pretence in the blanking of the parents who were in her path. There was something strange in the air and Constance was determined to get to the bottom of it, everything else in the room melted away and her attention was fully focused on the task in hand.
Imogen watched open-mouthed as Constance swept into the centre of the room. Her colleague's tone had sent a shiver down her spine. She looked around her, as though expecting to see something mysterious in the air. After a few moments a thought struck her. Constance had dodged answering the question once again.