Well, that was a longer break than intended.
Imogen gritted her teeth as her question once again went unanswered. It had been the same for the past ten minutes and she was fast losing what little patience she had left. Since nurse Mary had flounced off she had been left very much on the periphery of the conversation. She would ask a question, Doctor Milligan would ignore her and instead listen to whatever it was Miss Cackle asked him. She eventually received the answers to her questions, but only after Miss Cackle had rephrased them. She knew she shouldn't let such behaviour get to her, but she was tired of being treated like her opinion didn't matter.
She pulled herself out of her mood as she heard the level of the back and forth conversation between Miss Cackle and the doctor rise in pitch. Miss Cackle was angling for information regarding Audrey, but the doctor was being decidedly evasive.
"Are you saying she'll never wake up?" She had turned the question around and was trying again to get a definitive answer.
"I can't answer that."
"You can, you choose not to. There is a difference." Miss Cackle's bluntness surprised Imogen. She'd never seen this side of her before. She'd always been the friendly, open face of Cackle's who always left everything that required more firmness than a frown to Constance. Imogen now wondered just how much of that was simply a public persona.
The words had clearly struck a chord with the doctor, but it was apparent he didn't want them to see that he was rattled. "I suppose you know who she is," he sneered, making it sound as though he was disgusted because they were in some way connected with her. "You know what she did?"
"She was a young girl who did a very foolish thing," Miss Cackle shot back quickly. "She should have the opportunity to learn from her mistake. What is your point?"
"She was part of that coven. That business at The Grange." That was all he said, as though it was all that needed saying.
Imogen watched as Miss Cackle's piercing gaze focused on the man, trying to work out if he was keeping anything from her. "You're keeping her in this state, aren't you?"
He didn't deny it. He stood there, folded his arms and stared back at her. "I think you need to leave. I think you both need to leave."
"They were little more than children," Miss Cackle shrugged off Imogen's hand on her shoulder and instead went toe to toe with the doctor. At over six foot tall, the man towered over her, and her attempts at looking imposing were rather lost.
"They were children who tried to break the most fundamental tenet of the witches code, lest you need reminding."
"They were children! You can't deprive someone of their entire future because they once ventured down the wrong path."
"There is the larger community to think of," the doctor kept his tone level, refusing to enter into the argument that Miss Cackle seemed determined to have. "If you have any issues then I suggest you take it up directly with the witches council. It is their orders I'm acting on. There has never been any contact from the family; I think they were pleased that the council decided to keep their disgrace out of the public eye."
Imogen looked at the skeletal figure, a sense of horror washing over her. "She's been like this all these years? Alone here for all that time?"
The doctor looked at her disdainfully. "You should be glad she's been contained. Magic like hers has no place in this world."
"Magic like…."
"No… I didn't think someone like you would understand. She's dangerous. There's uncontrollable magic flowing through those veins. There's a potential she couldn't hope to master. What would you have us do? You want to see what would happen if magic like that was allowed an outlet?" He turned his attentions back to Amelia. "You want someone that disruptive within the walls of your school?" He took in the look of surprise that ghosted across her face. "Of course I know who you are. A sister like yours and you imagine I don't know who you are?" He pulled the plastic folder from its slot on the end of the bed and leafed through the pages. "The level of brain activity in here is off the scale…. Still." He stopped as he reached the chart he was looking for; angling it so the two women could see it. "There's something going on in there that can't be measured. You want me to let it out? You want me to invite danger into this world?"
"She was just a foolish girl who…"
"She made her choice. She is where she is now because of the choices she made."
Silence fell upon the room; the only thing to be heard was the constant beep and hum of the machinery that was keeping Audrey Hawthorn alive.
"Come along Imogen." Miss Cackle muttered quietly, gesturing towards the door.
"You can't just leave the poor woman lying there like that?" Imogen struggled to keep her temper in check.
"You have to pick your battles," Miss Cackle told her as she bustled off in the direction of the lifts, her shoes clicking loudly on the polished floor. "This one is not over; whatever the good doctor might think." The lift pinged as the doors slid open on tired hinges. Imogen registered the number of floors displayed on the panel in front of them, tried and failed to marry them up with the size of the structure she'd seen from the outside, but then simply swallowed and said nothing as Miss Cackle stabbed at the button for the lobby. "Wait for me outside dear," she instructed as the lift began its descent. "I have to… powder my nose."
Imogen knew when she was being fobbed off, but there was a sense of determination in Miss Cackle's demeanour that meant that Imogen let her get away with it. She made her way out through the stark entranceway and glanced back up at the building, trying and failing to suppress a shiver. She wasn't sure that she ever wanted to set foot in the place again.
"Been here years and I'll be damned if that ain't my reaction upon walking out every last time."
Imogen heard the voice and turned her head to locate the speaker. Leaning up against the wall of the building was a woman who looked as though she'd been cheating death for thirty years at least. Her face was liberally marked with deep wrinkles and she squinted out at the world through thick black rimmed spectacles. Piled on top of her head was a shock of vivid ginger hair that owed everything to a bottle and absolutely nothing to nature.
"I'm sorry?" Imogen was immediately concerned that maybe she'd just broken some rule. There was no sign of a name badge, no sign of the pristine, heavily starched uniforms that the majority of staff had been wearing. There was every likelihood that this was someone who belonged within the walls of the hospital, but who'd slipped out for the magical equivalent of a quick cigarette.
"What d'you see that gave you the shivers my girl?"
Imogen dithered over whether she should reply or not; torn between keeping her own council and the lessons regarding politeness that had been drilled into her from an early age.
The awkward silence that had fallen between them was broken by a loud sniff.
"You've no magic, have you?" There was genuine curiosity in the old woman's voice.
"Well I…." Imogen didn't want to connect the dots between the sniff and the question but the two appeared inextricably linked.
"Not an ounce, not the merest hint of anything magical about you." The woman reached out and poked a bony finger into her shoulder. "The non-magical have no place here, no place at all."
"That may well be, but I'm here, aren't I!" Imogen shot the reply back before she could stop herself. Miss Cackle had told her to keep out of trouble. Upsetting witches who were very much past their sell by date, couldn't exactly be described as maintaining a low profile.
"You've been to see her, haven't you?" The wizened old witch sniffed the air once more and pushed her glasses back up her crooked nose. "Disinfectant and neglect; I can smell it on you. You've been to see her."
Imogen shuffled a pace away, to what she hoped was out of reach of the prodding finger.
"Object lesson she is." The bony finger was withdrawn and instead tapped loudly against the side of the witches own head. "Reminds us all that we've got to watch out."
"You know what happened to her?"
There was another sniff. This time it was unmistakably one of derision. "Not a witch alive who doesn't know what they did."
Imogen shot a glance back towards the hospital entrance. Miss Cackle might be back at any minute, or she might be ages. Imogen mentally juggled the situation in her head before smiling at the witch. "What say we sit down and you tell me a few things about it."
The witch made a sweeping motion with her right hand and grasped firmly onto the walking cane that appeared out of thin air. "Come on then my girl. Let's tell you a little about what happened."
Imogen chewed the inside of her cheek and tried to keep her patience in check. She had the feeling that the old witch was deliberately dragging things out. She moved at a pace that even a snail could best, and muttered and complained with each tiny, stumbling step. One hand was gripping the top of the cane that was tapped down forcefully with every step, the other claw like hand was digging painfully into her arm. She swore she could feel the sharp nails digging into her flesh and drawing blood. She allowed herself to be led past a well-tended lawn and onto a gravel path which had raised borders on either side. Interspersed along the path were a series of wooden benches.
With much shuffling and complaining she finally managed to get the witch settled on the first bench and the death-grip on her arm was mercifully released.
"So," the witch drew out the word as she pulled the glasses from their perch on the bridge of her nose and slowly and deliberately squinted at one lens and then the other before cleaning them with the tatty corner of the faded black shawl that was draped around her skeletal shoulders. "What do you want to know?" Without the glasses on, the witch's eyes were like tiny pinpricks. Imogen had the feeling she could wave her hands directly in front of the woman's face and nothing would register. She took a deep breath and went for the one question that was bothering her the most.
"You know who I've been to see. Why is she so reviled?"
There was the sound of air being slowly drawn over a set of ill-fitting dentures. "You don't ask the easy ones, do you girl?"
Imogen pushed her hands deep into the pockets of her coat, watching her breath as it formed vapour in the air. "There are things I don't fully understand about this place."
The old witch let out a rasping chuckle. "There are things I'll never understand about this place and I've been here half my life."
Imogen glanced at the woman out of the corner of her eye.
"Oh don't you worry girl. You're not in any danger from me. I just can't be out there." She shook her head as she pulled her shawl tight around her shoulders. "There's all together far too much of 'out there' if you ask me." She paused and then turned her attention to Imogen. "You came here to see that poor creature kept in isolation. No-one ever comes to see her, no-one ever steps into that room less they have to." She sniffed. "Guess folks are too scared of catching something."
Imogen frowned. "I didn't think you…"
"No no my dear," the witch waved away the words. "Not in the literal sense. When you have a reputation like hers, no-one wants to be associated with you. Folks keep their distance. Turn their collective heads away from things they don't understand."
"The doctor mentioned she had magic she couldn't control."
"That's what they say."
"And you believe them?"
The witch shrugged. "Why would they lie?"
"But I don't understand. If you're innately magical, surely you're designed to carry magic?"
"Ahh, but that's not a limitless amount. No no, we all have our lot. You can build it up, develop the ability to wield more, but you have to put the hard graft in. You can't take shortcuts. You do and well…." She nodded back in the direction of the main building. "You do and you end up like her."
"Do you think she's dangerous?"
"As long as she's kept under, we're all safe."
"And the others?" Imogen bit her lip as she heard the rattle as air was once again sucked in.
"Not my place to talk about them."
"Do you think they're dangerous?" Imogen pushed her point but there was no immediate reply and the expression on the witch's face was unreadable. Imogen waited for as long as she was able before finding herself starting feel uneasy. On the rare occasion where she'd had cause to wonder what her last words might be, she'd never envisaged them being about magic. Her brain processed that thought again. If this was it, it was still better than 'Why are you pointing at me like that!'. She was jolted back to the present as the witch found her voice again.
"They've been touched by a darkness; the sort of darkness you can't brush off." She shook her head. "I'd be keeping my distance from them."
"From what I hear all this happened a long time ago."
"Don't make a difference. That mark is a permanent one." The witch fixed Imogen with a steely gaze. "You know something about one of them? You mixing it with one of them?"
Imogen automatically shook her head.
"You mark my words. Nothing good will ever come of mixing with the likes of them. They've got black hearts, all of that coven. Black hearts."
Imogen wanted to speak up, but the words just wouldn't come. To reveal more might just make things worse. She turned her head as she heard her name being called.
"That who you came with?"
Imogen nodded as she waved; hoping to catch Miss Cackle's eye.
"You sure know how to pick them girl."
"Meaning?"
There was a snort of derision from the old witch. "You don't need me to tell you anything about that family. Her sister's been through them doors more often than most. Right piece of work that one." A bony finger prodded Imogen firmly in the arm. "Where there's one…"
Imogen rose to her feet, automatically brushing her arm where she'd received the none-too-gentle jab. "Miss Cackle is nothing like her sister," she huffed.
"You tell yourself that my girl. Tell yourself as often as you need to." With surprising speed the old witch stuck out an arm and grabbed Imogen's wrist in a vice like grip. "Don't ever say you weren't warned. Do yourself a favour and keep away from those cursed witches. Find yourself better company."
Imogen pulled her arm free and set off down the path, the gravel crunching loudly beneath her feet. She pushed the old witch's words from her head as she lengthened her stride, calling out to Miss Cackle as she covered the ground. Putting distance between herself and the old witch as she quickly as she could.
"Come along Imogen." Amelia told her smartly as she strode down the sweeping driveway towards a waiting taxi. "I think we're just wasting our time here."
Imogen hurried after her. "Where now?"
"That's something we'll decide on the way." The answer came back as Amelia's fast pace took her further away from her colleague. "All I know is that I want to get as far away from this place as I can."
Imogen glanced out at the building as the car pulled away from the kerb. For just one moment, one split-second, she thought she saw the outline of a tall stone building with turrets looming over the plain functional building she'd recently exited. She blinked and the image was gone. She glanced at Miss Cackle and wondered whether she should ask if what she saw was real or just her mind playing tricks on her. She shook her head. There were somethings she was better off not knowing.
There were no windows, no way to accurately judge the passage of time. There was nothing but the chair she was sitting on, the table and the single chair the other side. Even the glass of water that Alice had thoughtfully brought for her had been removed. It was as though Eliza wanted to isolate her from everything.
Her former friend's words rang in her ears. There had been a certain amount of truth in what she'd heard. She had left them all behind. She had moved on with her life because that was the only avenue open to her. The council had decreed they should not see one another again, and that had been that. She had thought of them; in those first few miserable, isolating, months she had thought of little else. They had been so close; they had been family to one another, but with Broomhead monitoring her every move, and the burden of guilt resting heavy on her shoulders she had pushed everything down until she could feel nothing, could hear nothing.
Her thoughts were disturbed by a nervous, hesitant, tap on the door. Constance raised her head and glanced in its direction. She knew already who would be standing on the other side, waiting to be granted permission to enter. She was the one being held against her will, but Alice would still be maintaining some degree of deference. The tapping came again; a little firmer this time. After another pause the door creaked slowly open, and Alice poked her head through the narrow opening. "I hope you don't mind…." she tailed off and her fingers drummed nervously against the edge of the door. "I just wanted…"
"Come in," Constance told her quietly, fearing that any loud sound would frighten her away.
"I'm sorry…" she gestured towards Constance's bound wrists as she took a seat. "Eliza said that you might need a little persuading, but I wasn't aware that…." She tailed off again, not wanting to acknowledge what they were doing.
"You weren't aware that she was planning to drug me and bring me here against my will." Constance looked at her levelly. "I knew you were up to something from the moment you poured the tea in your shop."
Alice refused to believe what she was hearing. "You drank it anyway; knowing it was drugged?"
"I could think of little better way of finding out what it was you couldn't talk to me about directly," she said. "I have carried this around with me for twenty years. Do you not think that perhaps I want to be free of it as well?"
"How did you know it was to do with that?" Alice asked the question, and then blushed with embarrassment. "It will always follow us around, won't it?"
Constance nodded. "To a degree… if you let it." She wanted to ask more questions of Alice, but she could see that the woman was struggling to keep it together, burdened with her own unanswered questions. "Thank you."
Alice's brow crinkled with confusion. "For what?"
"For coming to see me, to see how I am." She nodded in the direction of the door. "I wasn't sure if Eliza was going to permit anyone else to come in here."
"She's not in charge."
"Of course she's not."
"I wanted to ask you..about Veronica," Alice jumped straight in with her question, as though scared she'd lose the courage to ask it if she waited.
Constance noted the way that Alice was staring down at her hands. They were tightly clasped together; knuckles turning white with the stress of the situation.
"I don't know that there's much I can tell you," Constance told her honestly.
"But you were with her… weren't you… that… that night."
Constance nodded, not wanting to go back into her own memories, but knowing that if she wasn't willing to share the past with Alice, she couldn't expect anything from her in return.
"What happened?"
"You know what happened."
Alice shook her head. "I don't remember much about that night. I try and try and there's nothing there. It's as though someone's taken away that part of my memory." She rubbed the side of her head. "Mother always said that my mind didn't want me to remember; didn't want me to dwell on what happened."
"Maybe it's better that things stay that way," Constance offered; privately wondering what sort of enchantment had been used on Alice to suppress her memory. Bringing it back now wasn't going to help anyone.
"She was my friend. I want to remember her. I want to remember what happened."
"Remember her as she was."
"Constance please." The words were spoken with a passion that she'd not been expecting and Constance wondered just how many times in her adult life Alice had been palmed off with half-truths and sugar pills. She took a deep breath and unwanted images of that night rushed into her head. "I stayed at the half-turn in the stairs with Veronica whilst the rest of you went on ahead. We were going to hold things back; that was the plan as far as I remember it." She shook her head as she realised the sheer naivety of it. "That we even thought we had the strength to pull off something like that." She broke off and glanced across the table at Alice. "Why do you want to go back there? You told me you didn't practice anymore; that it wasn't something you wanted to do. So why go back?"
"Because…"
"You have a life that you've built for yourself; you have your shop. If it's what you want then go back there. Pack up what you have brought with you and go back home."
Alice shook her head. "I can't."
"Of course you can; the only thing keeping you here is you, and if you don't want to be here…" She let the words tail off, hoping that Alice would finally draw her own conclusions.
"Where there is one…"
"…No," Constance tried to cut her off. "That was a lifetime ago, and you owe it nothing now. Do not let your life be dictated to you by your past. You don't have to do this any of this…"
The conversation was ended as the door to the room was thrown open and Stephanie was framed in the doorway. From the expression on her face it was obvious that she'd heard a good part of the conversation. "Well, well, well," Stephanie's voice was dripping with sarcasm. "What have we here?" She turned her attention to Constance. "What d'you think you're doing?"
"It was my idea," Alice found her voice; immediately standing up for her.
"Really?"
Alice visibly wilted beneath Stephanie's piercing gaze. "I wanted to know… to know about Veronica."
"And you…" Stephanie turned once again on Constance. "What were you gonna tell her?"
"The truth… that there is nothing to be gained by going back there. That the very thought of it is the definition of madness."
Stephanie's gaze was unchanging, steady. "We are going back. You can choose to come with us, or we can make you." She shrugged. "It's all the same to me."
"You cannot do this," Constance told her firmly.
"After all the work Eliza's put in… we're doing it."
"Have you learned nothing?" Constance tried one last time. "We go back in there again and he will kill us as surely as he killed Veronica."
"As surely as 'he' killed Veronica?" Stephanie shook her head slowly. "You're not still peddling that story, are you?"
"What are you saying?" Alice found her voice. "I asked her about it and she wouldn't tell me. Told me she couldn't remember."
"Really?" Stephanie's lip curled in amusement and she turned her attention towards Constance. "After all this time Constance dear, have you still not told her what really happened? Are you still hiding from the truth?"
The words hit home and Constance automatically readied herself for action. The gesture did not go unnoticed and the smile on Stephanie's face grew wider. "Are you gonna do to me what you did to that poor girl, that poor girl who thought she had a friend in you?"
"What is she saying Constance, what does she mean?" Alice's pleas cut into the air. Stephanie kept her eyes on Constance, her head tilting slightly to one side.
"Yes Constance, tell the poor woman. Tell her what you did."
There had been a flicker of anger visible on Constance's face, but it was quickly replaced with a neutral expression. "Ignore her Alice; she is looking to stir the pot, nothing more."
Constance flinched as Stephanie took a pace closer, hands slamming down onto the table, her eyes drilling into her own. "I think you owe her the truth… don't you?"