Thanks muchly for the lovely reviews! Mwah! Keep 'em coming, that's the important thing.

Liane: Well, once a Chalet School author... ;) Besides, that's very HBish too, don't you think?

Guest: Thank you! I hope you enjoy this bit!

Guest: I'll always have a certain amount with the girls. Partly because this IS a school story set in term time and they're thus inescapable! But also because Mildred's story is very central to this, even if it's secondary to HB's.

Phantomlistener: Aww, thanks. Always lovely to hear when people enjoy your stuff. Hope this bit pleases you too.

ZeOneAndOnlyIncomparableEm: The first part was written just for you. It better suit!

Four

'Don't even think about it,' Amelia warned when Constance impatiently tried to bat her away. 'You've taken a nasty blow to the head—'

'—and that's all it is, Headmistress, so please, let me get up ...oh.' As she spoke, Constance attempted to stand and her knees buckled. Amelia caught her before she hit the ground and prodded her back into the armchair.

'That'll teach you,' she scolded, planting fisted hands on plump hips and glaring at her deputy over the top of her horn-rimmed glasses. 'You are not infallible, Constance. Believe it or not, a severe knock on the head will affect you just as it would anyone else.'

Thwarted, Constance allowed her abused cranium to sink against the deeply padded back of the chair—only to wince as her (by now seemingly inebriated) bun got in the way. Once again, it was the Headmistress to the rescue.

'Let's make you more comfortable.' She came forward to pluck the long industrial-strength pins from Constance's hair, freeing the tightly wound braid from its constraints. Constance let out an involuntary sigh of relief as the tension on her painful scalp eased, and Amelia gave her shoulder a gentle pat.

'There now, isn't that better?' She settled herself in the chair opposite. 'You may as well take it all out, Constance, it'll have to be done again anyway—and I want to get a closer look at that bump of yours.'

'Oh, but—' Constance protested and Amelia held up a hand, gently inflexible as only she could be, and the younger woman conceded, running her fingers through the long plait until it lay in wavy dark lengths around her.

Then the Headmistress insisted on feeling for the bump she seemed certain would be the result of Mildred's collision with her form mistress earlier. Constance mentally sniffed but knew better than to do so openly; without her own swift reflexes she knew perfectly well that the incident could have been more serious and Amelia's concern was perfectly justified.

As it was, Miss Drill had escaped largely unscathed, Constance had sustained the head-blow Amelia was fussing over (never to mention bruises on other parts of her anatomy that she flatly refused to mention, even to her employer and friend), and they hoped that Mildred's injuries would heal without a trip to the local hospital. The first year had fared the worst of the three and was now lying comfortably in the little room off the kitchens that served as an infirmary of sorts.

'It's not as bad as I feared,' Amelia announced, several uncomfortable moments later. Amelia took her duties as the staff's primary first aider seriously. 'However, this should help.'

Constance looked in horror at the proffered packet of frozen peas. 'Amelia!'

'What?' The older woman pulled her cardigan tighter , her mouth puckering in the defensive purse her deputy knew so well. 'I know it's not traditional but we do have a freezer now, Constance. We must keep up with the times and we can't expect Mrs Tapioca to work without electricity. And, um, Maud tells me that this is a very popular solution to injuries like yours … outside.'

'In the non-magical world,' Constance grumbled, holding the packet to the sore spot and finding it unexpectedly soothing. 'Although how a Moonshine knows that—'

'Her mother's family aren't magical,' Amelia explained, fishing out a rolled bandage that made Constance eye her askance. 'And Maud's like a little magpie; she picks up bits and pieces all over the place.'

'She's nosy, you mean.'

'Hmm.' Amelia studied her over the top of her glasses. 'You must be feeling better if you're criticising the girls.'

'Well, really, Miss Cackle—' but Amelia was shaking her grey head.

'Don't you "Miss Cackle" me, Constance Hardbroom. I know you too well. And I know that you are perfectly capable of dealing with this injury yourself. You came to me for a reason; what was it?'

Between pain, shock, her own insomniac tendencies and the sickening anxiety that had blossomed in the aftermath of the collision with Mildred and her runaway broomstick, Constance was more worn out than she cared to admit. Amelia's gentle question unlocked the accumulated tension and her entire body seemed to sag in the armchair, her eyes drifting closed.

'When you're ready, Constance,' Amelia urged, and the younger woman sighed.

'I know, I'm just …' Her eyes popped open. She wanted to see her employer's reaction in full. 'I don't think that … escapade of Mildred's was entirely her fault.'

'Well, of course it wasn't! Poor child, she shouldn't be condemned for never sitting on a broom before!'

Constance shifted, wincing as her head throbbed. 'That's not what I'm getting at, Amelia. I mean it quite literally; whatever happened with that broom … it was not Mildred's fault. This was deliberately orchestrated to cause maximum harm—'

'—and would have, if you hadn't been there,' Amelia cut in with an appreciative pat, but Constance ignored her.

'… and also, seemingly, to get Mildred into trouble. I noticed the broom seemed to take on a life of its own every time the child was about to master it. It—it was like a horse testing its rider.'

'Horse?' Amelia echoed blankly and Constance shook her head impatiently.

'Forget the horse, it was just an example. The point is, a broom hasn't got a brain of its own. As I told the girls, it doesn't have magic of its own. Mildred certainly wasn't responsible for her broom's gyrations; even I could see she could barely sit on it, let alone pull off such a trick.'

'If it wasn't for the magical power required I'd put money on Ethel Hallow,' Amelia said, frowning. 'She's taken quite a dislike to Mildred and she's a catty little piece, I fear. And that's an insult to cats!'

'Still, Ethel could not do this. No first year could. I doubt that even Fenella and Griselda, working together, could achieve it. No, Miss Cackle. This was the work of an adult, fully trained witch or wizard.'

'Someone within the castle?' Amelia whispered, as though suddenly afraid to be overheard. 'But Constance, who could it be? Surely you don't think it's one of the staff!'

Constance privately agreed; with the possible exception of Amelia she considered the rest of the staff to be so much dead weight and as incapable as Mildred herself of perpetrating this particular stunt. Before she could express this—more or less diplomatically—Amelia was pulling her cardigan tighter and leaning forwards, her glasses perilously close to falling off the end of her nose.

'Here's another question,' she said, still in that near-whisper. The sharp afternoon light highlighted every line on her face, turning her suddenly old. 'Assuming you're right and this was deliberate, who was the intended target? Mildred? You? Or both?'

Mildred was lying in bed in the sick room, her covers pulled up over her head—or as pulled as she could manage, with one injured wrist. Miss Cackle had frowned horribly over it and eventually pronounced it badly sprained ... but there was possibility of a hairline fracture, she said, and she wanted Miss Hardbroom to look at it to see if a potion was necessary. When she recovered, of course, the Headmistress had added with a meaning look, and Mildred had burst into tears.

She wasn't crying now. She didn't think she had more to shed—and besides, tears wouldn't change anything. She would still be lying here with a wonky, incredibly painful wrist, her form mistress would still have concussion, and someone was still out to kill her. Of that last she was absolutely certain. The more she thought about it, the more convinced she became; her broom had not simply acted as if it had a mind of its own—it did have a mind of its own. Someone else's. It sounded impossible but after a week at Cackle's, Mildred had become accustomed to impossible things.

'Millie? Millie, are you awake?' came from behind her in the softest of murmurs, and she turned slowly to peer at Maud.

'How are you feeling?' her friend asked, letting herself into the little room and closing the door behind her. 'There's all sorts of rumours going round.'

'I bet they're wishing I'd died,' Mildred said with a mournfulness that might have been comical under other circumstances.

'Well...' Maud approached, her manner confidential. 'It's funny you should say that. Me and Ruby and Jadu, we were talking. We think someone is trying to hurt you. Because, you're Mildred Hubble!'

Mildred eyed her sceptically.'What's so great about being Mildred Hubble?' She patted the bed and Maud curled up, mumbling appreciatively about cosy blankets and non-lumpy mattresses until Mildred cleared her throat and the other girl took the hint.

'I told you. Your mum was one of the best witches of her year.' Maud's glance was furtive as she leaned forward to hiss, 'I don't want HB to hear but ... maybe even the best! And not just that, but she's a hero. She saved all of us. Without her, we wouldn't be here now. Cackle's, our world, it wouldn't exist! It'd be like ... like ... concentration camps!'

Mildred blinked. 'You know about those?' For some reason she'd thought witches didn't learn history the same way as everyone else. Or at least, not the same history.

'Hitler was evil to everyone,' Maud said with an air that made her resemble a pig-tailed owl. 'But what non-magical people don't know is that we had another war of our own. Only no-one realised it was a war until it was almost too late. It wasn't fought in fields or planes, it was fought in schools and classrooms and courtyards like ours. But people still disappeared and people still died. Families were split up ... even my mum and dad,' she went on. 'I was just a baby and they took my dad away and when he came back, when it was all over ... he wasn't the same. My mum ...' Maud shook her head. 'She never got over it. That's why Aunt Tilly lives with us.'

Thoroughly chilled despite the relative warmth of the sickroom, Mildred pulled her covers to her chin as well as she could with one hand.

'What did my mum do?' she asked very quietly.

'No-one knows for sure. She went to the High Council one day ... and she never came out, not alive. But the bad stuff, it stopped.'

'How do you know it was her?'

'Well, the only other person we know was in the High Council that day was HB. I can't see her saving us, can you?! She prob'ly supported the other side anyway, they were all about sticking to the old ways and raising standards and we know HB's nuts about those.'

Under her covers, Mildred began to shake. 'That can't be right. Miss Cackle wouldn't let her teach here if that was true.'

'Maybe Miss Cackle doesn't know.'

Mildred shook her head. 'I don't believe it. You said she was my mum's best friend.'

'They could've rowed and it turned her to the other side.' Maud's eyes were huge, nearly as round as her spectacles. 'It happens, and it happened a lot then. Imagine, Aunt Tilly's best friend at school was Ethel's aunt. I mean, a Moonshine and a Hallow!'

'It's just a name,' Mildred protested. 'Ethel's horrid because she's Ethel, not because she's a Hallow.'

'Believe me, Millie, she's horrid 'cos she's a Hallow,' Maud insisted with an emphatic nod that set her pig tails to swinging. 'The Hallows have never liked us 'cos we're poor.'

'Maybe it was Ethel today,' Mildred suggested, relieved at the chance to turn the conversation away from their form mistress. 'You say she doesn't like you but she hates me.'

'She thinks Miss Cackle plays favourites with you.' Maud shook her head. 'Did you ever? I mean, Ethel complaining about favourites when she's like, the biggest suck-up to HB?'

'I don't suck up to Miss Cackle!' Mildred was offended. 'She's just as nice to me as she is to everyone else. And HB doesn't play favourites with Ethel either—not exactly. I—I think it's just she annoys her less.' She sighed. 'I am awfully clumsy, I used to drive my chemistry teacher nuts at my last school, and potions is sort of magical chemistry.'

Maud was giving her an odd look. 'I don't understand you, Millie. Why are you defending HB? She's horrid to all of us and she's horrider to you. Who knows, maybe she's the one who jinxed your broom—' She paused, her jaw dropping. 'Oh my god, what if it really was her?!'

Whereupon Mildred, whose stomach was still upset after the alarums and excursions of the day, was promptly and horribly sick.

Several days later and Constance was finally released from the durance vile of her room. It was not that Amelia could keep her locked up (they both knew Constance was capable of breaking any lock Amelia could devise); rather, it was that the Headmistress was bound and determined that Constance should keep her head swathed in strips of cotton until she deemed otherwise. Constance protested, Amelia insisted, and after a testy exchange on Constance's part and a touch of emotional blackmail on the Headmistress's, they reached an agreement. Constance would remain in her room and have a few quiet days ('That does not include catching up on your marking, Constance!) and in return the Headmistress would cease pestering about the bandages.

In truth, Constance did not regret the rest. The concussion was a severe one and for a couple of days keeping upright was a challenge, let alone walking or (horror of horrors) ingesting actual food. Amelia forced some of Mrs Tapioca's tomato and basil soup down her; Constance put up a token fight until she realised the soup wouldn't upset her and ... Mrs Tapioca's tomato and basil soup wasn't to be sniffed at, even by persnickety eaters like Constance Hardbroom.

Now, however, she was in fine form and better rested (and nourished, Amelia would say) than was usual by this point in any given term. Her keys jangled pleasingly at her waist as she stalked the halls towards the staffroom, their music an ever-present reminder of the authority she wielded within these walls; the clack of her heels provided a counterpoint, telling everyone within earshot that their Deputy Headmistress was back to her usual self, and as ready as ever to put the fear of herself into all troublemakers. Constance caught more than a few strangled yelps as she passed, but for once she let it go.

She even managed to open the staffroom door gently, instead of flinging it back in her usual manner. She wanted to observe her colleagues for once, and sending Davina into hysterics and Imogen into apoplectic rage wouldn't be a good start.

'Constance,' Amelia greeted from her favoured spot at the head of the long table. 'Good to see you. All better now?' She beamed maternally and her deputy narrowed her eyes in response; Amelia knew perfectly well how she was, none better.

All the same, she took her seat and attempted to smile with some degree of sincerity. 'Much better now, Headmistress, thank you. And all of you, you are well, I hope?'

Imogen and Lavinia exchanged a look while Davina stared open-mouthed, clear liquid trickling out of it. Constance repressed a shudder and refrained from suggesting that Davina mop up.

Amelia leaned forward to push the chanting teacher's jaw back into place. 'Everything's going beautifully, isn't it, ladies? The girls have behaved like—'

'—angels, the little dears,' Lavinia gushed and Constance rolled her eyes despite her best intentions.

'They have been very good, Constance,' Ephreda added, glancing up from her eternal knitting. 'I think they were worried about you.'

Davina spluttered. Imogen snickered. Constance glared. Amelia sighed. Davina screeched and retired to her cupboard in a flurry of black organdie ... and the wound-up atmosphere in the little room suddenly relaxed, as if things shifted from their accustomed positions were now put back.

'How's Mildred?' Constance asked once she was seated and Lavinia had supplied her with her coffee. 'Did she need the hospital after all?'

'Hard to say.' Imogen plonked her elbows on the table and cradled her face in her hands, fair brows coming together in a straight line. 'I had a look at her wrist this morning. Miss Cackle thinks it's sprained but ... It's still causing her a lot of pain.'

'Didn't anyone try to reduce it?' Ephedra asked. 'Poor child, if it's been broken all this time—'

'I checked whilst she was unconscious,' Amelia said curtly—so curtly that Constance sent her a startled glance. 'There was no indication of anything that needed reducing and trying the spell anyway could've done more harm than good—as you should know!'

'It was just a suggestion,' Ephedra murmured, sending Constance a conspiratorial smile the latter did not appreciate. Allied disciplines or not, her loyalty would always be to the school and Amelia before her colleagues.

'I will look at it myself,' Constance promised. 'Is the girl back in school?'

There was a pause before Amelia said, 'Ye-e-s. Although I would have preferred she stay out for longer, Constance. I don't like the looks of her at all; she's turned into a frightened mouse, afraid of her own shadow.'

'Which is odd,' Imogen commented with a frown. 'Because whatever the kid's faults, I don't think a lack of courage is one of them.'

'Of course not!' Constance flared, anger erupting at the suggestion. 'She's Ermen's daughter, of course she's—' She broke off, clamping her mouth shut and clasping her hands in her lap until the sharp edges of her nails dug painfully into her palms.

Imogen had gone white. 'D'you think I could forget that, Constance Hardbroom? D'you think I could ever forget it?' She jumped to her feet, slamming her hands on the table with such fierceness that it rattled. 'I was there too, remember? She told me where she was going, not you, Madam Bloody High and Mighty. I was the one who told you what was happening!'

'You shouldn't have,' Constance gritted. 'You should have stayed. If you hadn't left her—'

'We'd all be dead, that's what it comes down to.' Imogen was no longer shouting; her voice was quiet. Weary, even. 'All of you talk about what Ermen did, how it saved our world. The truth is, she was as arrogant as our dear colleague here, believing that only she knew how to fix everything ... She came within a whisker of killing not just herself but all of us so do not talk to me about Saint Bloody Ermenburga because I—'

'Miss Drill.' It was all Amelia said, but it was enough. The Games mistress left without another word, and the remaining four stared fixedly at the gouges in the table, the silence stretching painfully.

'I—I think I'll check on my hogweed,' Ephedra mumbled, bundling her knitting into her bag and vanishing swiftly. Lavinia did likewise, leaving only Constance and Amelia sitting at the big table.

Once they were alone Constance carefully put her own elbows on the table and buried her face in her hands, struggling for composure and praying that Amelia would leave her be.

Naturally, Amelia did no such thing. She sat and waited as she always did, and Constance experienced a pang of resentment at the older woman's unfailing concern—never to mention her enormous capacity for patience.

'The worst of it is ... Imogen's right,' Constance confessed at last, when it was a choice between speak, sob or scream. 'Ermen ... Ermen did bring it on herself. When she found the Register and realised what it meant ... How many would die ... She wanted to act then and I discouraged her, but when Edmund was killed—She was unstoppable, Amelia.' Constance dropped her hands and met her employer's eyes. 'I only left her for—' She couldn't go on and Amelia laid a hand on hers; a touch so light it stroked like a feather.

'It wasn't your fault, Constance. Remember, I knew her as well as I know you, you were both my girls, for better or worse. When Edmund died, Ermen—' Amelia shook her head. 'I knew she was unhinged with grief. I worried she was neglecting Mildred, that's why I asked you to stay with her. Ermen was your best friend, practically a sister, and Mildred your goddaughter. But my dear girl—' Amelia's voice caught and her hold on Constance's hand tightened. 'I never meant that you should feel entirely responsible for her, or that you had to watch her all hours of the day and night.'

Constance gently withdrew her hand and sat back, her shoulders squaring. 'You didn't ask me to do that, Miss Cackle. I owed Ermen. She loved me, you see. She was the only person who had ever loved me. I would have done anything for her, Amelia ... anything.' She closed her eyes against the memory of the green flash of a killing spell; it was delivered with love, delivered unwillingly and as a last resort—but a killing spell all the same.

'And you did.' Amelia's gaze was steady. 'When Ermen realised things had gone wrong ... that she couldn't control the Register's power in the way she thought... She did the right thing, Constance. Imogen couldn't have helped. Even then, Imogen was only a very average witch.'

Constance studied her hands for a long moment before looking up. 'Her name was on the blacklist. If Ermen hadn't acted when she did, Imogen would've been rounded up and ...' She gave a tiny shake of her head.

'It was a good, good thing you did, both of you. Not perhaps done in the wisest or safest or best of ways ... but our world owes you both a debt, although only one is acknowledged. Constance, why won't you tell people the truth?'

'What truth, Miss Cackle? That Mildred's mother essentially abandoned her? That I killed my best friend? That you helped me cover it up to get our world back on its feet as quickly as possible? I don't think anyone's ready for the truth. In any case, I don't wish for the attention. It is easier being hated, especially when you are used to it.'

'It doesn't have to be that way.'

Constance stared at the older woman, her eyes narrowing. 'Amelia, I'm Mildred's godmother. I stood up and swore I would care for her if anything happened to Edmund and Ermen and ... I broke that promise. I'm forsworn as it is. I will not allow you or anyone to damage that child further. The truth does not always set you free.'

The Headmistress's gaze had turned steely. 'Even if it puts her—and you—in danger?'

Constance swallowed. 'We will deal with that if it happens, Headmistress.'

'I see.' Amelia's eyes were still that disconcertingly hard shade of grey. 'In that case, Constance, I must ask you: what did you do with the Register eleven years ago?'

TBC

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