Apologies - the real world keeps getting in the way.

If anyone is still here to read, then I'll do my best to get this edited and posted.

Imogen blew on her hands and wished for the umpteenth time that she'd thought to bring a pair of gloves with her. She glanced nervously around, half expecting some policeman to appear out of the shadows and arrest them both. When she'd taken the job at Cackles, she'd never for a second imagined that she'd end up standing in a shop doorway, acting as lookout whilst the headmistress of the school attempted to magically pick the lock! There was a low muttering from Amelia, followed by grumbling about the complexity of the security system.

They had been in the taxi for a good fifteen minutes before Amelia had produced the scrap of paper. "The florist at reception was most helpful," she had said with a smirk when Imogen had called her on the provenance of the address. She'd recalled the wilting flowers in Audrey's room, and Amelia had admitted that she'd applied a little magical leverage on the florist in order to obtain the address of the woman who'd sent them. It had turned out to be the only name on the florist's list. In all the time Audrey Hawthorn had been lying in that small, featureless, room only one person had ever sent her flowers. Imogen decided that she already liked Alice Wellspring.

They'd reached Myth and Magik just as the last shoppers of the day were finally giving up and heading home. The card taped up on the window informed potential customers that the shop would be closed for a few days due to a family emergency. Amelia had been all for breaking in there and then, but Imogen had managed to persuade her that people took a very dim view of breaking and entering, and that the best thing to do was to wait until the streets had emptied and the fading light of day gave way to the early evening shadows.

She looked up and down the road again, nearly letting out a scream as she caught movement on the edge of her vision. The fox that was out on its evening prowl paused momentarily to stare at them before deciding they weren't all that interesting afterall and padded off into the lengthening shadows.

"Got it!" There was a soft click and Amelia turned round, her face beaming with pride. "We're in."

Imogen indicated that Amelia should hurry up and get inside and was rewarded with a heavy sigh.

"No-one appreciates quality magic these days," Amelia huffed as she pushed open the door to the shop, and winced as a bell jangled loudly above her head. She narrowed her eyes and muttered something beneath her breath before holding out her hands and catching the offending item as it magically broke loose from its fitting.

"Never could stand the things," she confessed to Imogen as she placed it down on top of a pile of books. "Can completely understand why cats don't like bells on their collars for the self same reason."

Imogen eased past her and threaded her way through the small shop, making her way towards the living space at the back. It was the very sort of shop that she couldn't imagine Constance ever willingly setting foot in. Everything about it screamed 'new age'. It was the sort of wishy washy approach to witchcraft that seemed to get the potion teacher's back up. She pulled back the plastic strip curtain that acted as a boundary between the two areas.

The downstairs living area was in an even smaller space than the shop. The remnants of a fire were visible in the grate, but it had been several hours since it had been tended. It looked as though they were at least two steps behind. She turned her head as she heard Amelia clatter into a rack of postcards and utter a stream of very un-headmistressy words as a number of them cascaded to the floor.

"Why would a magical witch choose to live and work in a place like this?" She let go of the curtain and picked up a crystal, turning it over in her hands, watching as it caught the light from the streetlights outside.

"There's a certain amount of security here," Amelia noted as she extricated herself from the postcard rack. "There's no real magic to pose a threat to anyone, but there's the company of those who want to believe in something greater than themselves."

"You think Alice has abandoned her craft?"

"I think it may have scared her a little," Amelia conceded as she lifted the crystal from Imogen's hands and placed it back on the shelf. "A little less browsing and a little more investigating is in order." She pushed aside the curtain and moved into the next room. Imogen pulled a face and then followed.

There was an air of gloom about the living area, It wasn't just cramped, it was also lacking a degree of natural light. There was a solitary window with thin curtains pulled across it, but Imogen imagined that even in the middle of the day, not a great deal of light would cut through the dust motes that turned and spun in the air. She snapped on the small lamp that sat on a side table and took in the small collection of mis-matched furniture.

"It's not much to call home, is it?"

She shot a look in Amelia's direction; the older women had already lifted the latch on the wooden door that led to a twisting set of narrow stairs. She listened intently for any signs of life and then pushed the door closed again. "One thing at a time," she resolved. "Let's see what we can learn from down here."

"Alice certainly had a guest," Imogen noted as she took in the tray that was set out on the table by the fire.

"And a guest who was apparently not taken with any of the treats on offer." Amelia came to stand beside her and pointed down at the two plates. One of them was liberally sprinkled with crumbs, the other was untouched. "Whilst it's not what you'd call cast iron, I'd hazard a guess that Constance was the guest." She paused for a moment and then, on a hunch, reached out and picked up the cup most likely to have been used by the guest. She tipped the dregs of the tea into the saucer and then looked at the small collection of leaves that remained.

"I hardly think there's time for that!" Imogen grumbled but Amelia ignored her, scrunching her nose up and sniffing at the residue of damp leaves. There was nothing at first, and she was about to berate herself for being so suspicious, when she caught the briefest hint of the scent she'd been searching for. "Imogen. I want you to check the drawers and work surfaces in the kitchen. See if you can't find a small tin…something airtight."

Imogen was about to argue when she caught the worried expression on Amelia's face. "What is it?"

Amelia waved the cup in her direction. "I need to check the other cup to be certain, but I'd say the tea had been laced with something."

"But this is Constance we're talking about."

"She's not infallible Imogen, whatever you may think."

Imogen rummaged through every cupboard and drawer she could find, and was on the point of giving up when her hand closed over a small brass tin. There was something embossed on the lid, and her fingers ran over the uneven surface. There was a hinge along the length of the tin; exactly the sort of item that Miss Cackle had spoken of. She gave the tin an experimental shake and then stopped. What if it was something that was affected by agitation? She put the tin down very gently on the chipped formica worktop and stepped away from it, calling out to Miss Cackle.

"What is it?" came the slightly muffled reply.

"That's rather what I was hoping you'd be able to tell me." Imogen couldn't swear to it, but thought she caught a whiff of powdered sugar as Amelia came to stand at her side. She glanced at the woman out of the corner of her eye in time to see her dab a blob of what looked suspiciously like strawberry jam from her cheek. She pointed down at the tin. "Is this what you're looking for?"

"Hmmm." Amelia lifted the tin up and popped the lid; taking a tentative sniff of the contents. "This is it alright," she confirmed. "Almost tasteless when mixed with fresh tea leaves but…" she tailed off.

"You'd expect someone of Constance's ability to pick up on it?"

Amelia nodded. "Perhaps she wasn't fully on her guard around her former friend."

Imogen took in the words, but found she couldn't quite believe them. Constance was naturally suspicious of everyone and everything. She put her hands on her hips and glanced around. "There must be something we can find here that will help us track them down."

"Hmm," was all she received by way of a response. She turned her head to find that Amelia was pacing around the room, arms held out, palms pointing down at the floor. "If you were trying to hide something away from the eyes of the non-magical, you'd use magic to do so." She stopped. "Ahh hah!" She waved her hands over a blank space between the chair and the wall and muttered the words of a reveal spell. Where there had only been a patch of darkness, a battered wooden trunk appeared. It was the sort of thing that Imogen associated with children in books who were sent off to boarding schools; she didn't think she'd ever seen one for real before. Certainly none of the pupils at Cackles used them; they were all matching suitcases and rucksacks.

She moved across to kneel down next to Amelia as the older woman released the catch on the trunk and lifted up the lid. Inside, the trunk was packed full of clothes and large dog-eared scrapbooks. Amelia lifted the pile of scrapbooks free and handed a number of them to Imogen. "I think it's time we learnt a little more about Alice Wellspring."

Imogen turned the page of the scrapbook. She was on her third now. Amelia had restarted the fire in the grate with the deft point of a finger, and the two of them had settled into the armchairs to look through the belongings that Alice hadn't had the courage to look at, or the willpower to throw away. There were photographs in this one, each one held in place by small half moons of paper at the corners. She stared at the young innocent faces that smiled out of the pictures at her. It took her a few moments to realise that Constance was among their number. She'd grown so used to seeing a frown, or disapproving look on the woman's face, that it came as something of a shock to see her smiling with the others. In all the pictures her hair was worn either down, or pulled back in a loose pony tail. She looked so relaxed, so at ease with the others… so happy.

"Imogen, we don't have much time."

Amelia's gentle reminder pulled her out of her reverie, and she carefully removed one of the photographs and handed it over. "Is this the coven?"

Amelia took the photograph, and pulled her glasses down her nose as she squinted at the young faces looking out at them, "Yes," she said finally; her voice heavy with regret.

"That's them alright." She tapped the girl who was standing next to Constance; her hand casually thrown around her friend's shoulder. "That's Audrey."

Imogen looked at the image again and tried to square away the young girl in the picture with the skeletal woman she'd seen lying in a hospital bed. "Such a waste."

"I know," Amelia agreed gently, "But we can't allow ourselves to get caught up in this sort of melancholy. What happened, happened and made those girls the women they are today. We need to find them in case they're thinking of doing anything foolish." She tucked the picture into the bag that sat at her feet. "We'll need to find the others, and this should help."

Imogen glanced around at the bare walls of the place. There were no pictures of anyone to be seen. "You think she has anything more recent of herself or her family anywhere?"

Amelia shook her head. "I get the impression that Alice shies away from such things."

Imogen turned her attention back to the scrapbook on her lap. "Did you know anything about any of the other girls?"

There was a long pause; the sort that she was getting very used to being on the receiving end of. "There was a lot of coverage at the time," she finally said, handing over the scrapbook she'd been looking at. "If you want to read a little about it, then you'll want this."

Imogen took the book in both hands and turned her attention to the article that had been carefully pasted inside; the date and the publication written beneath it in tiny, but perfect handwriting. She scanned through the narrow columns of type, taking in every word and trying to get her head around the fact that this was a real thing. She'd listened to Amelia and Mistresses Buckweed and Broomhead talk about it, but for some reason it hadn't seemed completely real. Now; reading through the report it became solid fact. "There was a formal trial?" She glanced up from the book.

"It went on for weeks," Amelia revealed. "Each girl had to take her turn on the stand and was duly questioned by a panel of senior witches."

Imogen scanned back through the article. There was no mention of individual names in this one, but the tone of the piece made it very clear just how disgusted the writer was with the actions of the group. "It mentions removing the magical ability from each of them…" she broke off as a line in the next article caught her eye. "Charged with being complicit in the death of a fellow witch?" Her voice rose up an octave. "The council really had it in for them."

"You have to remember just how seriously we witches view the oaths we take. We are granted the ability to wield magic, and with that gift comes great responsibility. To misuse the craft, to seek to use it for ones own advancement, ones own ends…" Amelia shook her head. "I have no idea who was teaching them, but it was something that should have been well and truly nipped in the bud."

Imogen read through the rest of the article, and then turned the page to take in another. She let out a gasp as she saw Constance's name in print for the first time. There were other names printed after it, but she found it hard to pull her attention away from the mention of her colleague. "This really happened. She was really on trial."

Amelia pulled her chair around as Imogen turned another page.

"There they all are," she breathed softly. This time the article was accompanied by snapshots of all the girls. She stared at the quiet, lost expression on Alice's face; the poor girl looked scared, as though she didn't understand what was going on. Her eyes sought out Constance next. The young girl had already lost the vibrancy that had shone out in Alice's scrapbook photographs. Her eyes were cast down as though she wished the world couldn't see her. Her eyes took in the remaining girls. "Eliza Moonsong," she read the name aloud as she stared at the girl. Her face was also downcast, but there was something about her that engendered sympathy. "Stephanie Crowsbane, Clara Spellsmith, Andrea Raven," she carried on, putting a name to the remaining girls. There was no Audrey; she was already in Ash Vale. Printed next to them and framed with a black border was a picture of a young, dark-haired girl, smiling out at the camera. "So you're Veronica Quickthorn." She looked into the young girls eyes and felt a wave of sadness wash over her. "Such a waste."

"I know," Amelia agreed with her quietly as she scanned through the articles. Her eyes widening as she took in the names of those who had sat on the panel. She was going to say something about it to Imogen, but the young woman's voice broke across her thoughts.

"There's no mention of her family," she pointed out. "Alice's get a mention, as do Eliza Moonsong's. They were present at the proceedings, but no mention of anyone being in Constance's corner."

"I can't tell you anything about that Imogen, and now is not the time to dwell on what happened. We need to find the others, and there's only so much we can learn from these."

"But someone should have been there for her."

Amelia found that she couldn't argue with the statement.

"They sat and they judged these girls." The anger and disbelief in Imogen's voice was palpable and, with a sigh, Amelia knew it was her job to redress the balance.
"As Constance would be quick to tell you, our girls are not ordinary girls. Magic isn't just a gift, it is a lifetime responsibility. It is drilled into you from an early age that it's not to be misused, that it's to be venerated and treated with the respect it deserves. There are arguably more destructive than constructive things you can achieve with magic."

"But still…" Imogen, it seemed, wasn't willing to let go of the thought.

"These girls did something that could have killed them all. They went against pretty much every tenet of the witches code. You mustn't place the Constance you know now into this picture. She was a very different young witch to the one she became."

Imogen sat back in the chair and let her hands drop onto the arm rests. "They were such young girls. How did they manage to go so spectacularly off the rails?"

Amelia saw her chance. She leaned across and tapped at the small block of text beneath one of the pictures. "We have someone who was there for every day of the trial."

Imogen read the article for herself, her eyes widening as she took in the name. "Hester Buckweed!" She looked at Miss Cackle for affirmation. "The same Hester Buckweed who came to the school, the one who practically drove Constance out of the school and away to here?"'

Amelia crossed her arms. "The very same."

"You think we need to have a word with her?"

"Well that would be rather difficult considering you appear to have turned her into a snail." Both women leapt to their feet in shock as a third voice entered into the conversation without warning.

Standing just in front of the faded strips of plastic was a stick thin woman in her early fifties with closely cropped white hair. Her arms were folded and she was looking decidedly less than amused at the current situation. She was dressed in jeans and a black hoodie, but there was something about her bearing that told Imogen immediately that she was dealing with another practitioner of the arts.

"Can I help you?" Imogen wasn't sure why Amelia was trying to maintain the rather rocky moral high ground that they definitely had no right to inhabit, and it was an attitude that wasn't doing anything to impress the newcomer.

The woman glanced idly at her well bitten nails, and her mouth twitched in annoyance. "Perhaps you'd like to tell me what you're doing here?"

"Why should we?"

"Because as things stand I'm the only thing between you and the full force of the witches council." She fixed Amelia with a steely gaze. "I suggest you start talking…. Now."