Chapter Thirteen

"Are you sure this is the right place?"

Cassia sighed. "Yes, Hermione," she said. "For the five hundredth time, this is right place. We've been here before. We scaled that wall just last week."

Hermione looked unsure. "Maybe we got lost. If we go back now-"

"Are you afraid?" asked Cassie.

Hermione shook her head, but had no time to reply for the door to the Cullen Castle presently opened, and Jacob Black himself, a picture of masculine beauty, stepped aside to allow the two girls entry. He was suspiciously quiet that afternoon, for usually, when in Cassie's presence, he could be quite vocal indeed. It would seem that he was on his best behaviour, and didn't even return the glare she offered him by way of a greeting.

The Cullen Castle, in all its gothic glory, was, as always, a dark and miserable place to be. Yet, as they walked through the hallway together, the two girls heard the soft notes of Shostakovich's Second Waltz drifting forth from the basement. Upon enquiry, Jacob Black explained that Dr Cullen had taken up the piano, and Hermione indeed noticed how the music did so well in drowning out the screams that usually emanated from down there.

"Cassie!" Bella stood from her throne as they entered the room, and wrapped her arms so tightly around Cassie that she wondered if the White Witch had finally changed her mind and decided to kill her after all - but, not a few moments later, she had already detached herself and was offering the same horrifying greeting to Hermione.

"I'm so glad you came!" Bella gushed. "Sit down. Sit! Quickly, quickly! What are you waiting for?"

She grinned, and Hermione was forced to shield her eyes for fear she might be blinded by her dazzling white teeth. The three sat around the table. Hermione folded her hands into her lap, and stared at them for some moments, for they apparently had become quite interesting. Cassie smiled at Bella. Bella smiled at Cassie. Cassie smiled some more. Bella smiled some more. The point being that it was a relentless, painfully awkward way to pass the time, but no one present knew what to say. The point of the exercise for Cassie had been to ascertain the location of Edmund prior to the Ball, which would occur in only a few days, and which was to be an excellent opportunity to implement the rescue of Edmund.

"So..." said Cassie. "Carlisle has taken up the piano?"

Bella smiled, though her expression remained quite blank. "He has?"

"Apparently," said Cassie.

"Will you be having casserole?" Bella asked.

"Excuse me?" said Cassie.

"Casserole," she repeated. "I made it myself. To go with the tea."

"You made casserole?" said Cassie. "Isn't that a little heavy for a tea party?"

Bella blinked, but did not reply, and hereby occurred several more moments of silence in which the White Witch happily stared at her two guests, both of whom were now examining the table.

Thankfully, just as Cassie thought she might be on the verge of insanity, Edward Cullen entered the room. Hermione, having explored every inch of the table before her, looked up at last. Her brow creased. Cassie had not realised it before, but none of the Hogwarts gang had yet met Edward, and now Hermione was staring very carefully indeed. She seemed on the verge of a discovery.

"Excuse me," she said softly. "Don't I know you?"

Edward, whose eyes had been fixed on his wife ever since his entry into the room, now looked at Hermione, and Cassie thought said eyes might pop from his head so wide were they at that moment. There was a moment of silence. Hermione thought long and hard. A single bead of sweat appeared upon Edward's brow, and, just as Hermione came to her conclusion, just as she held up a hand with the words "Oh, I know!" escaping her lips, Edward leapt across the table and gripped Hermione's shoulder in a Vulcan Nerve Pinch that would have made Lucy insanely proud.

Hermione's head dropped onto the table with a thump. Bella looked at Edward with a somewhat quizzical expression, but surely could not have looked more horrified than Cassie, who froze still in her seat and simply stared at her unconscious friend.

"There was a fly on her shoulder," said Edward quietly to Cassie. "I got it. Don't worry."

"Thanks," was all Cassie could think to say. She was sat back in her chair, as far away from Edward as she could possibly get, and forced a smile to show him that there were no hard feelings.

"Cake!" he said suddenly, clapping his hands. Cassie yelped and jumped in her seat, but Bella only clapped her hands excitedly. "Do you like cake, Cassie?"

"Yes!" she said quickly. "Yes. Yes, I do. Yes. Cake. I love cake. Everyone loves cake, right? I mean, who doesn't like cake?"

She was suddenly aware of the high-pitched, hysterical tone to her voice and stopped talking.

"What kind of cake?" asked Edward. "Sponge cake, cream cake, cupcakes, muffins?"

"Sponge cakes," said Cassie.

"What kind of sponge cake? Chocolate, vanilla, chocolate and vanilla, strawberry, red velvet, blueberry, raspberry-"

"Just vanilla! Vanilla is fine."

"But is it? Do you want vanilla, or do you want vanilla with cream or icing or chocolate sprinkles?"

"Anything. Cream is fine."

"Okay, what flavour cream?"

"Edward!" Bella cried, and Hermione's head lifted suddenly from the table with a snort.

"What happened?" she asked.

"You had a fly on your shoulder," explained Cassie.

Edward, fearing his secret would soon be exposed, fled the room immediately, with the promise that cake would follow soon.

"So, Bella," said Cassie, "Hermione here has something very special planned for you."

Bella clapped her hands. "She does?"

Hermione forced a smile, and said drily, "Oh, yes. You see, I have written a song for you to the tune of Bette Davis Eyes by Kim Carnes. I believe it sums up the love I have for you."

Bella clapped even more and giggled happily. "Sing it!" she cried. "Sing it now! On the stage!"

"Oh, you have a stage," said Hermione, without the slightest hint of horror. "Marvelous."

As she stood up, Cassia squeezed her hand. "Thank you," she whispered.

Hermione could not say anything. She looked as though she was about to be sick. She took the stage slowly, Bella taking a front row seat and whooping wildly as she did. Cassie lingered by the back as the microphone was set up by Alice Cullen, who had happened to pass by the drawing room at that moment and entered to see what all the squealing had been about. Soon, all Cullen ladies had gathered in front of the stage, excitedly waiting to hear Hermione's performance.

Cassie, meanwhile, had slipped out of the room and was currently running along the corridors. She had no idea where anything was in this maze of a castle, but soon the sweet notes of Debussy's Clair de Lune filled her ears and she knew herself to be close to Carlisle's dungeon.

Back in the drawing room, however, Hermione's song was just starting, and thus began the first verse:

'Her hair is chocolate gold

I know it sounds like a lie

She swears it's au naturelle

She's our queen of Anarchy High.

Her eyes like sparkling diamonds

Inside a wicked fire

She's got sweet cherry kisses

She's our queen of Anarchy High.'

Bella screamed over the music, and Alice, Rosalie and Esme clapped in their appreciation. Hermione, thoroughly getting into the swing of things, blew a kiss into the audience.

Cassie had found the dungeons. They were not far from Carlisle's basement. It was poorly guarded, with only one of Jacob's werewolf friends standing by, but he was far too interested in chewing on a chicken leg to notice Cassie passing by - and, at the same time, Hermione's chorus began:

'She's a beauty

Perfect cutie

Hot damn, she got dat booty

She's ferocious

And she'll turn on whoever happens to be the closest

She's got all the friends money can buy

She's our queen of Anarchy High.'

Cassie creeped her way through the shadowy passageways of the dungeons, squinting through the darkness as she peered through each of the barred cages. There were at least twenty cells there, but each were empty of any living souls, containing only the bones of the long deceased... Only one was inhabited was a human, and that belonged to Edmund.

He looked up when he saw her, and crawled over to politely enquire who the devil she was.

"Who the devil are you?" asked Edmund.

"I'm Cassie," said Cassie. "Peter and Lucy and Susan all sent me to find you."

"Jolly good show!" Edmund hissed. "Frightfully sensible of him, seeking help from such a strapping young lady! Shall we be trotting along then?"

"Well, the thing is, I'm not actually supposed to rescue you right now," Cassie explained as she backed away (and rather rotten it was of her too; poor Edmund could only watch her in horror!). "I'm just supposed to find your whereabouts."

"Poppycock!" said Edmund desperately. "You can't leave me here, old chap!"

"Actually, I can. Sorry. I don't have time right now, and it's kind of important to the plot, so..."

"Miss Cassie!" Edmund cried, violently shaking the bars of his prison. "Come back here, you caddish fiend! Come back for meeeeee!"

Cassie felt terrible, and so she ought to have, but she would be back for Edmund in only a few days. The Halloween Ball provided an excellent diversion. Almost all members of the house hall would be occupied with the festivities. Releasing Edmund and escorting him to safety would be almost like child's play.

In theory.

In the drawing room, Hermione's second verse had ended:

'She's such a modest thing

Blowing on her horn

Hope she don't split her lip

She's our queen of Anarchy High

She'll set her hound dogs on you

She loves to hear you cry

And then she'll drink your blood

She's our queen of Anarchy High!'

However, from Carlisle's basement, Greensleeves could be heard to all who graced the adjoining corridor. It came booming through the door, despite being a most gentle piece of music.

Cassie's curiosity got the better of her, and she, with cat-like stealth, cracked open the door of the basement and took a peak inside. Indeed, as she had suspected, Carlisle Cullen had not taken up the piano, but was blasting a recording of the music from a boombox. Dr Cullen was far more busy with his own work. The moment Cassie saw it, she wished she had never opened the door, for the doctor's work was inescapable to someone with such sharp eyesight.

Were the screams not enough to alert your attention, no doubt the numerous writhing bodies strapped to table ought to have been. They were grotesque, inhuman in all but general shape. Indeed they had all of their limbs and most of their features, but their skin was a dirty yellow, their eyes sunken, their teeth sharp and bared. They seemed incapable of speech, and moaned through the semi-darkness of Carlisle's workshop. They had been created, the thick wire that had been used to sew their parts together obvious even from a distance, though who or what had been their origins Cassie was unsure.

What was certain was that they were monsters, indeed the sort that Dr Frankenstein himself could recognise. Queen Bella had built herself an army. Perhaps, beneath the horror and disgust, lay a little pride in Cassie's heart, which recognised the extent to which she and her friends had terrified the White Witch, but it was too deep within her. It was buried beneath her nausea, suffocated by her terror. A war was coming, that much was obvious now, even if Cassie, deluded as she was, could never bring herself to believe it.

Upon returning our attentions to the drawing room, however, we find that the performance has been ceased with an ear-piercing cry from the queen herself.

"WAIT!" she screeched, and all parties present were forced to cover their ears as she did so. "Where's Cassie?"

Hermione dithered on the stage. "She went to the toilet," said she, but Bella only glared in her direction, standing from her throne with a dramatic sweep of her dress, the skirt billowing around her like a skirt billows in the breeze. Her eyes darkened, her face, previously angelic and serene, now set with demonic undertones. And, dear reader, if it is at all possible that you might bear to hear yet another poorly executed similie, it should be noticed that her lips, grieved as they were, set themselves straighter than a very straight plank of wood.

The White Witch contemplated murder most foul, for she was certain, and entirely accurate in her assumptions, that Cassie had not excused herself from the room to relieve herself at all, but to snoop; and if there was one thing Queen Bella hated more than anything, it was snoopers.

Hermione leapt from the stage with all the graze of a drunk rhinoceros, and attempted to plead with Bella. It matters not what she said, for her words were of little consequence; Bella took no notice of them, and, in any case, the sudden arrival of Cassie, Edward by her side, silenced all mysterious questions as to her whereabouts.

Bella raised an eyebrow. Edward held up a box with the usual imbecilic grin plastered across his face.

"I brought cake!" he cried, and Alice clapped and cheered.

Hermione, despite now realising exactly why she had recognised Edward Cullen, stayed silent. Bella seemed as interested in listening to Hermione's serenade as Hermione had in continuing it, and she greatly feared a repeat of her earlier attack. Cassie took her place beside her friend, and both forced a smile as they each received a slice of cake.

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