Up from the stair well the horrid sound came again for a third time. A groaning scrape of metal on stone that echoed of the walls.

Followed by an: "Mind your backs, both of you!"

It was an unfamiliar voice, high pitched and cawing.

And then a complaint of "Oi, watch that stone work!" from someone else.

A Someone was coming up the stairs. Backwards. Mildred and her friends, still with their ears covered, could see the back of his bald rotten head and scruffy shirt. He was taking the steps one at a time; what with carrying the front end of something bulky and seemed very heavy.

"I just polished them banisters yesterday." He said.

Then "Woops!" as, having stumbled, whatever he was carrying slipped out of his hands and he dropped The Something Heavy!

There were two no three yelps of surprise.

One being Mr Blossom the Zombie. He half tumbled into view, falling back ward up the stairs and landed on his backside. And another was a lady Mildred had not met yet. She shot up the top steps; as though narrowly avoiding having The Something Heavy dropped on her toe.

Whatever the Something Heavy was, it went Thud THUD Thud THUD Thud THUD and Screeeech all the way down as slipped back a few steps. And then stopped.

Well the Something Heavy slammed into something else with a crunch.

And then it stopped.

(…Actually… the crunch noise wasn't the something at all, but the unlucky someone who'd been carrying the other end of The Something Heavy.

Ingra Nightingale had avoided the accident. Imogen Drill had not. But the girls weren't to know that! And it was probably best that they didn't. Besides at least Miss Drill stopped the Something Heavy going all the way back down the flight of stairs they'd carried it up.)

Mr Blossom groaned as the curly haired lady helped him up and then brushed him down with a flicker of magic. He shuffled as fast as he could back down the stairs, leaving a ducting of soil and a few leaves in his wake.

"Careful! Lift er up the steps," Blossom said, his voice echoing off the stair well, "not drag it!"

"Oh I'm fine, thank you for asking!" shot a third voice from behind whatever it was. A cross familiar voice. Mildred knew she ort to be able to place it. "I WAS lifting, you let go!"

"Sorry. Can we try again?" asked Mr Blossom.

"Give me a second." Came the reply. And there was a grim wet dislocating noise. The sort you get when Granma's joints creak and pop. But worse.

"Ready-!"

"One two three? Heave!" said the curly haired lady. Well curly haired witch Mildred supposed. She stood with her back to the girls, hovering at the top of the steps watching on and directing. Unaware four little faces were watching her and Mr Blossom as he began dragging the Something Heavy up behind him, someone else pushing from below.

Mildred took another peek at her. The curls were defiantly the most noticeable thing about her; a bouncy mix light blonde and dark brown hair that almost had a life of their own as she fluttered about. But looking past that Mildred saw the pastel clothes under the once black cloak. She had feathers in her hair and on her clothes, as well as smatterings of chalk and paint. And when she turned around and her face came into profile, it was an odd but pleasant face, with black shiny eyes. Very pitch black shiny eyes…