The following morning Hecate has barely managed to secure clothing on her body when Ada summons her to the office. Dimity yawns, still wearing her pajamas as she materializes before them.
"I have selection day tests to finalize," Hecate reminds her superior, hoping it will get her off whatever proverbial hook she finds herself on.
"Ladies, have a seat," Ada begins.
Dimity happily obliges as she positions herself in an armchair. Hecate folds her arms across her chest.
"Please," a hint of irritation arrives in Ada's voice.
Hecate's body barely grazes the chair she chooses.
"I received a new bulletin from the council an hour ago."
"It is a quarter of six," Hecate glances at her watch out of habit.
"It was an emergency bulletin. It woke me from my slumber. It appears that things are far worse than originally thought. So far five women have been identified from four different academies to have fallen prey to this predator."
"You are telling me that five instructors from four separate witching academies, all of whom attended the council mixer have found themselves in the family way, with no memory of how they got that way?" Dimity's tone drips in cynicism.
"I find myself alarmed to admit this, but I have to echo Dimity's skepticism."
"The fifth instructor identified did not drink any of the agave cocktail. It has become mandatory that all female faculty of a certain age who attended the mixer visit their academy nurse within the next forty-eight hours. You are not required to share your results with the council, but I am required to confirm to them whether or not you have complied with orders."
"This is utterly preposterous. It is absolutely absurd to suggest such an outlandish scenario," Hecate offers her outrage.
"The mixer was weeks ago, certainly a host of symptoms would appear by now," Dimity adds.
"Not necessarily. I have already scheduled the two of you with the nurse first thing this morning. Selection day has been postponed network wide until next week."
"This is atrocious! What about the future of witching?" Hecate nearly snarls as she responds to her superior.
"It would appear that someone has determined they take that matter into their own hands, so to speak."
Hecate Hardbroom, and Dimity Drill sit out the nurse's office on a hardwood bench. The two of them offer differing levels of irritation. Dimity chews on her cuticle.
"Dimity settle yourself. The statistical probability is less than successfully completing Cackle's three impossibilities. It would take copious amounts of nutmeg, and a band of unscrupulous characters to make any of this a remote possibility."
Dimity's eyes widen as she recalls a detail from the mixer, "What about the three amigos?"
Hecate furrows her brow, "The deplorable characters who were ill-advised enough to attempt to convince us to dance?"
"Wasn't it odd to you that they were wearing masks? It wasn't a masquerade."
"I find this conversation odd."
"They would flit from one unwilling participant to the next."
Hecate scrapes the recesses of her memory, "That isn't how I recall it. Towards the end of the night I noticed that they were succeeding in leading some of our counterparts on, and off the dance floor. I didn't find it particularly odd at the time, because after all it was a social event."
"Are we really going to consider the possibility that someone was able to dupe more than a couple of highly powerful, and generally capable witches into the horizontal tango?"
"Ada offered statistics on five women who have suddenly found themselves expecting. Given the best of circumstances it is nearly impossible."
"Maybe, not. It would take a considerable amount of magic, and years of planning, but I don't think it is impossible."
Hecate shifts tactics, "If you throw a ball into a net it will not land in the net every time. If you can only throw the ball when certain conditions are met it is statistically not possible to then manage to get the ball into every hoop that you throw it at."
Dimity furrows her brow, "Or a wizard who has posed as a pharmaceutical representative."
"What?!"
"When was the last time you had to visit the nurse?"
Hecate shrugs, "I do not fall ill."
"Do you take aspirin for a headache? I know you deal with plenty of those."
"There is no vaccine for Mildred Hubble, though I would inoculate myself if there were."
"Didn't Miss Tapioca mention something about a shortage of oats in recent history?"
Hecate nods, "There was a blight, and oats have been in shortage for months. She had to switch to the oat, quinoa blend that was so gritty the pupils refused to eat it."
"They started eating some form of rice cereal. None of this amounts to anything other than conjecture."
The nurse appears in the hall, and ushers them into her office. She smacks her bubble gum, and studies her clipboard in transit. She grins as she hands them each a specimen cup for their samples.
"This isn't really necessary, is it? Can't you just mark us off the list? We are a couple of old croons," Dimity tries to persuade the young academy nurse.
"Please do not pee all over the cup."
"What an exciting activity before we have even had breakfast," Hecate responds facetiously.
"Or caffeine," Dimity adds.
The red headed nurse points Hecate towards the bathroom. She groans as she accompanies her clear specimen cup to the bathroom. It reeks of fresh sharpie marker that has permanently etched her initials onto the clear plastic, as well as the blaze orange lid. After washing her hands she begrudgingly passes her cup off to the nurse. Dimity soon returns from her journey. Hecate leans against the counter with her arms folded across her chest.
"This has to be one of the most improbable things I have ever been instructed to do, and I try to instruct Mildred Hubble."
Before Dimity can responds the nurse breezes past them to wash her recently ungloved hands.
"That's it?" Hecate glances at her watch, "Certainly no result can be achieved in less than five minutes."
"It is a pregnancy test, not rocket science. The results are conclusive. I will remove the two of you from my list, but you will have to schedule further appointments."
Dimity furrows her brow, "For what?"
"Whatever you decide."
"Decide?"
The young nurse points to the work station paces away. Hecate and Dimity cross the room, to examine the evidence on their own. Two plastic sticks casually lay on a sterile drape on the nurse's workstation. Initials are clearly etched on each test in permanent marker.