Brian had been Obliviated.
Alexandra spent the next week in a state of desolate, righteous, and silent fury. Claudia and Archie could hardly miss that something was wrong. They assumed she was upset about Bonnie's disappearance, but they also noticed Brian's sudden absence.
Claudia asked her if she wanted to talk about it. "This is a terrible time for him," she said sympathetically. "We're all hoping Bonnie turns up, but not knowing… it has to be very hard for them."
For a moment, Alexandra was tempted. She could unburden herself to Julia without censoring herself, but Julia was now back in Roanoke, and sympathy by Owl Post wasn't what she needed.
But she also needed to be angry. And if she told Claudia why she was angry, she'd have to tell her about Brian's Obliviation. For the Confederation to strike so close to home was the nightmare Claudia had lived with all her life, the very reason she had been so distant and evasive with Alexandra all of hers. If the Confederation was Obliviating innocent Muggles now, what might they do to a Squib who they already despised?
And Alexandra had brought that to their neighborhood.
So she let Claudia believe it was just a break-up, and Claudia was a little nicer to her that week, and even Archie walked lightly around her.
Alexandra felt more bereft than she had since losing Max. The loss of Brian as a boyfriend wasn't the most painful part. Combined with Bonnie's disappearance, it felt like the wholesale loss of much of her childhood. And the sense that she had been punished.
She supposed she deserved it, but Brian didn't.
Of course she knew she wasn't really being punished for what she'd done in the Ozarks. The punishment was for not taking Diana Grimm's warning seriously. The Special Inquisitor had told her it was dangerous to let Brian know too much, but somehow Alexandra hadn't thought her aunt would actually do this.
The thought of Diana Grimm made her fists knot together. Her anger brought her to the Regal Royalty Sweets and Confections warehouse every day, walking past the Clockwork golems to practice with her basswood wand on the third floor. It felt like funneling her fury through a straw, but she rarely dared to try using the yew wand.
She was angry, more angry than she had been since Maximilian's death. If her father appeared right now, she might well agree to anything he asked if only he would give her the power she needed to strike down her aunt — the very aunt she had saved from Abraham Thorn last year. She wielded her wand with a ferocity that would have been impressive if the goat feathers didn't make such a pitiful core.
Right now, she couldn't even face a witch her own age, let alone someone like her aunt. But she would, she vowed.
She spent many evenings walking the streets of Larkin Mills, as summer came to an end, and discovered something in her wanderings: the town was invisibly split in half.
A great crack in the world ran through Larkin Mills, right along Sweetmaple Avenue, coming close to, but not quite touching, her own house, and directly through the Regal Royalty Sweets and Confections Warehouse.
Alexandra followed it to where it vanished into the corn and soybean fields outside town. Then she followed it in the opposite direction. She wandered through the rougher neighborhood of Old Larkin, where trailer parks filled the lots between old houses and cheap apartments, and she became more aware than she ever had been as a child of the looks a girl walking alone got. Even her basswood wand was protection enough, though she never had to use it, but it opened her eyes to how rough some parts of her home town were.
The magical seam crossed the Interstate, invisible to all the drivers driving through it, and Alexandra was unsurprised to find that it followed precisely the small channel through the fields that led to Old Larkin Pond.
Here, at the dirty little pond where so many unusual things had happened, she almost didn't have to use her Witch's Sight to see the breach, where some other world was practically a splash away.
One night, a week later, she stood by the edge of the pond just after sunset, knowing that Archie and Claudia would be annoyed at her for getting home so late. Archie had somehow heard about her strolls through Old Larkin at night, and told her to stop doing that. Alexandra almost hoped one of the creeps Archie was always warning her about tried something, though she knew this was irrational and foolish. She would undoubtedly be punished for using her wand, even in self defense. But she still wanted to curse someone, badly.
She found herself lost in thought, contemplating the crack between worlds. She didn't exactly feel a temptation to pry it open, but she did wonder what would happen.
She heard a voice calling her name. No, it wasn't her name: it was a voice calling "Troublesome!"
She looked around. No one else was in the area. Sometimes other teenagers came to Old Larkin Pond at night, but less often since she'd given it a reputation for being "haunted" a couple of years ago.
"Troublesome!" called the voice again, high-pitched and demanding.
Alexandra walked over to the water's edge. There was a reflection in the water, which was impossible, because the moon wasn't out and the sun had fallen below the horizon, so there was nothing to reflect. And yet the water shined.
Alexandra leaned over, and saw Granny Pritchard staring back at her from the surface of the water.
"Well, it's about time you paid mind to yore surroundin's!" Granny Pritchard snapped. "I have been assayin' to get yore attention for three nights now."
"How was I supposed to know that?" Alexandra asked. "You could have sent an owl."
"I do not rely on critters to convey messages," Granny Pritchard said, "and particularly not wands."
"Have you finished crafting my wand?" Alexandra asked excitedly.
"Aye."
"Are you going to Apparate here?"
"You're a far cast from the Ozarks, girl. Too far for an old woman like me."
Alexandra doubted Granny Pritchard's age had anything to do with it, but she asked, "What am I supposed to do, then, come back and get it?"
"In a manner o' speakin'. You perceive the ley in that little spit o' water you're at?"
Alexandra frowned. "If that's what you call it. I don't understand what you want me to do."
Granny Pritchard's reflection in the pond held up a gleaming, polished shaft of black hickory. It was beautiful. Alexandra reached for it before stopping herself.
"Reach for it, girl," Granny Pritchard said, eyes no longer lidded, but wide open and staring at her. "Reach for it." She held out the wand, as if taunting her, and Alexandra did reach.
She felt Granny Pritchard reaching from the other side. She could feel the wand — her wand — almost within her grasp. She knew she shouldn't be doing magic here. But her wand was so close! She reached, and pushed through the crack between worlds to the other side. For a moment her fingers brushed Granny Pritchard's calloused hand, and then they closed around the stick of wood, and she snatched it back. The air glowed as brightly as the pond for a moment. Alexandra held the wand in her hand, and felt it reacting, not just to the hand that held it, but to the yew wand in her pocket.
The yew wand, still secretive and uncooperative, growled in the darkness. The black hickory wand fairly purred a challenge.
Alexandra drew the yew wand to test them both together, then remembered where she was.
"You spoke true," Granny Pritchard said, with something like awe. "You can open the World Away."
"I didn't know I could… reach through it like that," Alexandra said. But now that she'd done it, she knew what it felt like. She could do it again, she thought.
"I did help a bit," the Granny said. "I reckon you couldn't've done it on your own, not knowin' what you was about. But all you needed was a push. Stars Above."
"I'm going to get in trouble with the Trace Office!" Alexandra said.
Granny Pritchard shrugged. "Maybe, or maybe on account o' you bein' by a ley, they'uns won't know better."
"Easy for you to say! You set me up!"
Granny Pritchard said, "I crafted yore wand for you, Missy. An' now you have three. Hain't you pleased?"
Alexandra held up the hickory and yew wands. Her eyes gleamed. "Yes." She looked down at Granny Pritchard. "Thank you."
Granny Pritchard nodded.
"Now I have to go," Alexandra said.
She ran home, hoping she'd beat whatever owl or Howler the Trace Office sent. But none came. Perhaps Granny Pritchard was right, and the crack between worlds that ran through Old Larkin Pond kept the Trace Office from knowing what she'd done. She had done other magic there in the past.
She could barely sleep that night, and almost got up to go to the Regal Royalty Sweets and Confections Warehouse in the middle of the night. She rose at dawn, surprising Archie and Claudia, who were normally up and dressed before she awoke. As soon as she could leave the house, she did, carrying three wands in her backpack.
The black hickory wand was, as Granny Pritchard had told her, solid and reliable. All the spells she'd been struggling to muster with the basswood wand, or which the yew wand would expel grudgingly and violently if at all, the hickory wand allowed her to call forth with the same ease as her old pecan wand of chimaera hair. It was hers. It demanded her respect, and she knew so long as she did not fail to give it, the wand would not fail her.
Livia returned at the end of August. She invited Alexandra and Claudia to the grand opening of the Pruett School, and picked them up at their house.
For Claudia to come along and see wizardry in her own town, blocks from her home, had to require courage, Alexandra knew, and so did Livia. But they cruised through the streets as if they were just going to a movie, until they reached the corner of Third Street and Livia steered into the lot that still, to Muggle eyes, appeared to be the abandoned Regal Royalty Sweets and Confections warehouse.
Claudia gasped when Livia drove her car into the chain link fence, right through the big red "NO TRESPASSING" sign.
"It's not real," Alexandra said. "You should've warned her, Livia."
"I'm fine," Claudia said. Then she jumped when a robed figure appeared with a "pop" outside her window.
"There's Madam Erdglass," said Livia. She got out of the car.
Two more figures Apparated onto the gravel lot. Claudia didn't react again, but her hand hovered reluctantly on the door handle.
"You can stay here," Alexandra said, her voice uncharacteristically soft.
"No," Claudia said. She undid her seat belt. "That's what they want, to keep the Squib cowering in the car."
"If anyone gives you any crap at all, I'll light 'em up," Alexandra said. "Literally."
"Don't be ridiculous, Alexandra." Claudia got out.
Livia had taken a robe out of the trunk of her car and put it on. Her condition was beginning to show a little, as the robe draped around the bulge in her middle.
Claudia wore a blouse over jeans. Alexandra was dressed in slacks and a short-sleeved shirt. The three robed figures standing in the gravel lot eyed them with disapproving scowls.
A chill washed over Alexandra, and she stepped closer to Claudia. One of the robed figures was Ms. Erdglass, the ancient, half-asleep crone who'd attended her appeals hearing earlier in the summer. Bent over a long, knotty, polished cane planted on the ground between her feet, it was impossible to tell through the sagging mass of wrinkles that practically hid her eyelids if she was even awake.
But the other two wizards were Franklin Percival Brown and Richard Raspire.
The enormous tented girth of Mr. Brown reduced Ms. Erdglass and Raspire to satellites in his orbit. If a facial expression could be an expletive, his reaction to Alexandra's Muggle garb would have peeled the paint off the exterior of the Regal Royalty warehouse. He held an old teacup in his hand, which he dropped on the ground before waddling over.
"I realize you are accustomed to tramping about like a Muggle in these Muggle surroundings," he said, waving a hand as if to indicate the whole of Larkin Mills, letting his voice catch disdainfully each time he said "Muggle," "but a witch with any breeding whatsoever would at least have the common decency to put on a robe when seen in public in wizarding society!"
He didn't even look at Claudia.
"It's my fault, Mr. Brown," said Livia. "We didn't realize this little ceremony was going to be attended by such distinguished guests, so I didn't tell my sisters to dress for it." Livia's voice was cool and professional, like the way she might speak to a patient having a meltdown, but Alexandra didn't miss her sarcasm. "Speaking of which, why are you gentlemen here? I was expecting only Madam Erdglass."
Raspire, clad only in black robes without his red Auror's vest, said, "I came to determine whether you or your sisters are engaged in activities that might constitute a threat to the secrecy and security of the Confederation, which means inspecting the charms and wards around this… school personally. The Governor-General was not in favor of permitting this institution, as I'm sure you're aware."
"I certainly am," Livia said. "I'm sure if he could have found a legal pretext to forbid it, he would have — but he's not quite an absolute dictator, yet, is he? And the Governor of Central Territory isn't as much in Governor-General Hucksteen's back pocket as his predecessor was."
Raspire smiled thinly. "I suspect it cost the greater portion of your family's fortune to buy his approval. He may regret every Lion."
"Your entire clan takes a perverse delight in degrading and subverting every institution it can touch," said Mr. Brown. "Well I assure you, Madam Pruett —"
"That's Doctor Pruett," said Livia.
"— that no such degradation or subversion will take place under my watch!"
"Your watch?" Livia asked.
Raspire's creased lips opened to show teeth. "We did prevail upon the Governor to make a small change in the Department of Magical Education. Mr. Brown will hold a superintendent's role at the Pruett School. He will be empowered to drop in at any time, and to supervise all student and instructor activities, question students, and ensure that they are in full compliance with the WODAMND Act."
Alexandra's face fell. Mr. Brown was going to be at the school, looking for excuses to bust her and cause trouble, maybe for Claudia too. She seethed.
"I'm sure Madam Erdglass will see to it that all classes are fully in accordance with the law," Livia said. "You aren't questioning her competence, are you, Mr. Brown?"
Mr. Brown glanced at his colleague, who looked as if she might fold into a heap on the ground if given a nudge. "Carmela has a long, distinguished record as an educator," he said, "but I do worry that she might not be prepared for the savage behavior she can expect from these sorts of students."
"What sorts of students?" Alexandra demanded. Claudia put a hand on her elbow. Livia gave her a warning look.
Mr. Brown didn't deign to answer her. Neither did Madam Erdglass, who still showed no sign she was even aware of the discussion going on around her. Alexandra was a bit dismayed at this too — Erdglass was going to be her teacher?
"Well, Dr. Pruett, I understand you have the authorization for the Floo connection," said Raspire, "so feel free to perform whatever little ceremony you had in mind. I'll just take a look around." He turned and in a swirl of robes, walked inside.
"I shall also inspect the premises to ensure they meet each and every requirement as stipulated by the Central Territory Department of Education's Day School Regulatory Board," said Mr. Brown. "I can assure you, this school will not be opening if it is in violation of a single code!" He followed Mr. Raspire, much less gracefully, robes not so much swirling as flapping where they weren't stretched across his immense back and thighs.
"Those codes, incidentally," said Livia, once the two men were out of earshot, "forbid students living in Muggle neighborhoods from using school facilities for magical practice without adult supervision."
Alexandra thought about the burned, scorched, shattered wood and glass she'd left in the upper floor of the warehouse after her last visit. There were spell-marks all over the place, abundant evidence of her illicit activities.
"I spent last night with the Clockworks, cleaning up after your mess," Livia said, as if reading her mind. "But it ends now. This is no longer your private clubhouse. Understand?"
Alexandra nodded, disappointed but not surprised.
Madam Erdglass cackled, startling all of them. Even with her somnambulist posture, Alexandra was aghast to realize they'd been talking right in front of her about her illegal activities. It was as if the creepy old lady ceased to exist if you stopped paying attention to her.
"'Screw all of you,' eh?" Madam Erdglass said. And she turned and doddered into the building.
The massive boiler that had once heated the building would now serve as a destination for anyone on a connected Floo. Alexandra was excited by the possibilities, notwithstanding Livia's warning. It was a direct connection to Chicago! According to Livia, the Chicago-Larkin Mills Floo was one of the longest connections in North America outside the East Coast.
Mr. Raspire and Mr. Brown were incensed that they hadn't been able to find any faults in the building. Well, Mr. Brown always looked incensed, thought Alexandra, and you could hardly tell with Raspire, but his black coal eyes radiated venom.
Livia removed Goody Pruett's portrait from the wall, and had two Clockworks carry it downstairs for the connecting of the Floo and the dedication of the school. Goody Pruett protested in a steady stream of curses and complaints: "First all manner of wights and gnolls and wretched creatures scurrying about like rats in a place once known throughout the Confederation for its cleanliness and dedication to wholesome pureblood values, then these infernal, lifeless, spring-and-cog daemons, and now every sort of foreign witch and warlock and their miscegenated offspring tromping about poking their bearded faces into every corner like wicked-minded schoolboys hoping to find dirty scribblings —"
Normally Livia would probably have silenced Goody Pruett's diatribe, but the old painting's words enraged Franklin Percival Brown into new swellings of outrage, causing his bearded cheeks to blush purple, so Livia let her ancestor ramble on.
"Floos!" said Goody Pruett. "Floos! Diabolic inventions if ever there were such! In my day we used brooms, Livia Justina Pruett, or for very, very rarified occasions, Portkeys, and not these cobblepots of enchanted cast-off junkyard leavings —"
The big iron boiler rattled, shook, and belched green flames. Smoke poured out of it, instantly coating everyone with emerald soot.
"You might have warned us," Claudia said, but Mr. Brown was coughing and sputtering so volubly that Alexandra could hardly hear her.
"Sorcery!" cried Goody Pruett from her portrait. "Blackest sorcery! I've been blinded! Now look what your Dark Arts have brought upon us, Livia! You've brought darkness and ruin —"
Livia pointed her wand at the portrait and said, "Tergeo!" The green powder scattered away from the canvas, leaving Goody Pruett blinking and befuddled.
"Stupid painted old crone," Alexandra muttered, while brushing dust off her clothes. It was no use; green powder covered her from head to foot. And Raspire would probably arrest her on the spot if she took out her own wand and cast a Cleaning Charm.
Out of the iron boiler clambered a small wizard in overalls and a striped shirt and cap, with enormous white muttonchop whiskers. He tipped his cap — which was mysteriously free of green powder, along with the rest of him — to Livia and the others.
"Fenwick P. Farris, Esquire, LFE," he said. "Sorry for the mess, folks. I'll just spin a few dials, adjust a few chokes and screw a few knobs —"
"Oh!" exclaimed Goody Pruett. "Is that what passes for acceptable language in the wizarding world nowadays?"
Livia said, "As Mr. Raspire and Mr. Brown have kindly inspected the premises, I trust we are ready to open on schedule? Madam Erdglass, thank you for agreeing to teach the first class of Pruett School students. I look forward to seeing the Pruett School expand and serve the needs of more wizarding students throughout Central Territory."
"Expand!" Goody Pruett exclaimed, as if the word described some awful indignity she was going to be subjected to in a dimly-lit basement.
"That remains to be seen," said Mr. Brown. "That remains to be seen indeed! I daresay your starting class of thirteen will prove all that Madam Erdglass can possibly manage in this shabby farce of an educational environment, and whatever ambitions you are harboring of rivaling Charmbridge Academy, no doubt fueled by the same megalomaniacal delusions of your father —"
"Rivaling Charmbridge?" said Livia. "Goodness, you flatter me, Mr. Brown."
"Thirteen?" Alexandra murmured. There were hundreds of students at Charmbridge.
While Mr. Ferris made some "adjustments," which seemed to involve hitting the boiler with a wrench the size of his arm that he magically pulled out of a pocket in his overalls, Livia waved her wand. A banner unfurled across the interior of what had once been the main warehouse floor:
THE PRUETT SCHOOL - Established 2011
In Memory of Priscilla and Caleb Pruett
Alexandra glanced at Claudia, whose eyes became cold and shuttered at the sight of the dedication to Livia's grandparents, who had adopted Livia after her mother's death but refused to take in her Squib half-sister.
"Shame, shame! Shame and woe!" cried Goody Pruett. "Oh, Caleb, the last of my descendants!"
"I'm the last of your descendants," Livia said.
"You certainly don't act like a Pruett!" Goody snapped. "Your grandparents would be heartsick to see their legacy 'honored' like this!"
"Would they really?" asked Claudia. Did she sound pleased? Alexandra couldn't read Claudia's expression; remaining impassive with Raspire standing there with his creepy, cold stares must have required most of her energy.
Goody Pruett continued ranting, but her words were drowned out by a thump followed by a cloud of smoke from within the boiler, then a screeching sound that deafened everyone until the diminutive Fenwick Ferris tightened a valve in the mass of pipes and pressure gauges attached to its great iron belly.
"That's enough, Goody Pruett," said Livia, when they could be heard again. She put a hand on her stomach. "There will be another Pruett bearing their legacy, and I told you I will not put up with your pureblood cant. Get it all out of your system now, because if you speak one word of it in front of the students, I'll have cement poured over you in a pit in the basement."
Goody Pruett's painted cheeks turned sallow. Mr. Brown sputtered while turning away from Livia. Raspire just raised one nearly hairless eyebrow.
Mr. Ferris pulled himself out from under the boiler. Alexandra marveled at how he remained as clean as a shirt popped out of the laundry, despite the dirt, dust, and grease he was crawling around in. "That should be it, ma'am. This Floo Station is connected, serviced, and ready to go."
"So, like, can I take the Floo to school?" Alexandra asked.
"It's only four blocks from our house," said Claudia.
"Yeah, but it gets really cold in the winter," Alexandra said. "Of course next year I'll be old enough to drive…"
"No," Claudia said.
"I wish you luck running this school, Dr. Pruett," said Raspire. "We'll be watching."
"Madam Erdglass will be running the school," Livia said. "I'm just paying for it."
"So it's free to attend?" Alexandra asked.
"No, but it's a sliding scale and half of those who've enrolled are unable to pay the full tuition. We're starting with a small inaugural class, but I expect the school to grow, and I've established an endowment to ensure that no one is turned away. That was what I spent the last of my family's fortune on, Mr. Raspire."
Goody Pruett gasped, but kept her thoughts to herself.
Raspire smiled. "As I said, we will be watching. Closely. And as for you, Miss Quick —" He turned his attention on Alexandra, who seethed as she noticed Claudia turn rigid. "I am sure I'll be seeing you again, sooner rather than later. Your years of running around like a hellion, free to break the law with impunity, are over. But you won't be able to help yourself. It's only a matter of time."
"You really shouldn't threaten her," said Claudia.
"Why?" asked Raspire pleasantly. "Because your father will strike me down for it? In case it's escaped your notice, Mrs. Green, I've been dealing with the Enemy's spawn for many years now." He stepped closer to her. "You know well that none of you is beyond the reach of the law."
Claudia trembled. Alexandra's eyes blazed, and even Livia turned white with anger.
"You don't say his name," Alexandra said. "Why don't you say his name?"
Raspire turned on her again.
"The Enemy. My father. Why don't you, you know, call him out?" Alexandra met Raspire's dark, unblinking stare.
He sneered, whipped his cloak up over his face, and vanished with an almost inaudible pop.
Fenwick Ferris cleared his throat. "Er, well. I'll be going then. Here's my card." He handed a small white business card to Livia. "Call us if anything goes amiss, but this is a fine piece of 19th century craftsmanship, I'm sure it will almost never cause problems. Toodle-loo!" Hurriedly, he opened the metal grill door to the main boiler chamber and tossed a handful of Floo Powder into it. "Chicago Floo Junction #17," he said, and leaped inside. With a thud and a tumbling sound like someone somersaulting down a slide, he disappeared, leaving another cloud of green dust behind him.
"Well, there is no further need for me to remain in your company," said Mr. Brown, as if he thought he was depriving them of something with his departure. "But I assure you, I will be back often. To make sure all standards of wizarding education are being met and no special allowances are being made in some foolish liberal-minded effort to make life easier for Muggle-borns on the assumption that —"
"Oh my God, would you just shut up and go?" Alexandra said.
The rest of Mr. Brown's speech vanished in one big breathy gasp of outrage. His eyes were white pinpoints of rage nestled in folds of angry red flesh. He actually took a heavy step toward Alexandra. She reached for her wand, but Claudia shoved her back, and Livia stepped into his path.
"Mr. Brown, I've familiarized myself with the Department of Magical Education's regulations on equal opportunity and non-discrimination based on blood status," said Livia, "and you're coming dangerously close to making prejudicial statements indicating an intent to create a hostile educational environment."
"A what?" Mr. Brown sputtered.
"I won't hesitate to file a formal complaint and take you to a Wizengamot," Livia said. "So why don't you take my sister's suggestion, and leave?"
Mr. Brown snarled, "If you think bureaucratic games will intimidate me or prevent me from doing my duties and exercising my authority to the utmost, and that this petty bullying will protect your sister from the consequences of her inevitable misbehavior, then I say Hah! Hah!"
Alexandra, Claudia, and Livia all stared at him in amazement. Mr. Brown was casting himself as the victim of bullying?
He eyed the big metal boiler suspiciously. "I will not be using that."
"You couldn't fit your fat a—" Alexandra was cut off when Claudia seized her elbow and squeezed.
"But I will have it shut down if anyone misuses it or if it ever fails to pass every single inspection. That would of course be very unfortunate for your school." Mr. Brown withdrew a paper-wrapped bundle from his robes. He unwrapped it, revealing another old teacup. He placed his fingers on it, almost daintily, and disappeared.
Through all this, Madam Erdglass remained motionless, still leaning on her cane, and once again Claudia, Livia, and Alexandra only noticed her now that she was the only one left. She had not said a word, or changed her expression once, during the entire series of arguments and tirades. Alexandra wondered if she was asleep.
"Madam Erdglass," said Livia gently. "I hope everything is to your satisfaction. And I'm sorry about the shouting. Mr. Brown won't really cause trouble for you, will he?"
Erdglass didn't react for so long that Alexandra was tempted to suggest that Livia shake her. Then the old woman cackled softly.
"Franklin won't trouble me. If he does, I'll turn him over my knee." She cackled again. The image this brought to mind almost made Alexandra cackle, but abruptly the old woman turned to her, and for the first time, both her eyes were open and focused. "You, though. He'll cause plenty of trouble for you."
Madam Erdglass shuffled over to the boiler, and rapped against it with her cane. It clanged and echoed. She made a sort of "hmph" sound. "Need to teach Cleaning Charms. Won't have Floo Powder tracked all over the place. Goody Pruett, you'll help me keep an eye on things."
Goody Pruett, who had been sulking in silence, twisted in her portrait frame. "Oh yes! I certainly will!"
Without looking at Alexandra, Madam Erdglass wagged a finger at her. "Watch your mouth." Then she snapped her fingers. Nothing happened. Her creased face wrinkled up even more, and she snapped her fingers harder.
"Perhaps the Floo…" Livia said.
"Bah!" said the old woman. "You modern witches, born five minutes ago. Won't be seeing me give up my Apparition license any time soon." She lifted her cane. Her shoulders rose and the loose flesh of her cheeks wobbled a bit. Then she brought the end of the cane down on the floor with an anticlimactic tap, as if the strength of her arms had given out just before gravity took over. As the cane touched the floor, she wobbled — her entire body — and then not with a pop but a snap, she disappeared.
Everyone was silent for several seconds.
"Seriously?" Alexandra said. "She's going to be my teacher? Like, for all classes?"
"She's highly qualified," Livia said. "And she was the only one who would take the post."
They cleaned up the Floo Powder. Or rather, Livia cleaned most of it up, and the Clockworks commenced sweeping and dusting. Then they walked out to the car, all of them somber and quiet.
"Class starts Monday," Livia said. "Alexandra, please be on your best behavior. This school isn't just for you."
"I know that," Alexandra said.
"And you aren't the only one Mr. Brown and Mr. Raspire can cause trouble for."
Claudia had not yet spoken. She was completely silent as they all got into Livia's car, Claudia in the front seat next to Livia, Alexandra in back.
Alexandra said in a quieter tone, "I know that too."
Claudia suddenly raised her hands to the sides of her face, and screamed.
Alexandra and Livia both jumped. They turned to her, alarmed, and Claudia just screamed and screamed, one long, agonized outpouring of rage that left her face as red as Mr. Brown's.
After what seemed like a long time, but was only a few seconds, Claudia subsided and seemed to shrink into herself. She breathed in and out rapidly.
Alexandra and Livia sat motionless. Neither said a word.
Alexandra raised a hand and tentatively slid it over the edge of Claudia's backrest, toward her shoulder. Livia opened her mouth.
"Take us home, please," Claudia said, in a perfectly calm voice.
Livia swallowed and nodded. She started the car, and no one said anything during the short drive back to 207 Sweetmaple Avenue.