Miss Ellicott's School for the Magically Minded

by Sage Blackwood

Lord Rudolph nodded to the sentinels. They retired.

  “Very well,” said Miss Flivvers. “Chantel, Anna, let the nice gentlemen in. And Leila.”

  Chantel did not want to let Leila in. The snake inside her head was so furious at the thought that he was positively banging on the inside of her skull. Grudgingly, she took down the ward long enough for Lord Rudolph, Mr. Less, and Leila to slip in. Then she and Anna redid the ward, strengthened it, and restrengthened it.

  By the time they finished this, Miss Flivvers, Lord Rudolph, and his clerk were seated in wing chairs in the parlor. Leila was on a stool at Lord Rudolph’s feet. Chantel wanted to kick the traitor right off her stool. The snake had grown so much Chantel felt as if her head would explode.

  Nonetheless she and Anna stood beside the door and waited respectfully for Miss Flivvers to tell them what to do.

  Miss Flivvers flicked a glance at them. “How terrible, Lord Rudolph,” she was saying. “I’m absolutely horrified to hear that my students have behaved in such an unladylike manner. I’m afraid it reflects very poorly on the school. I can assure you they will face the most dire consequences.”

  Mr. Less turned an amused gaze on the girls. The snake in Chantel’s head thrashed; she suddenly felt she hated the clerk.

  “Although of course the school was not in my control at the time that it happened,” said Miss Flivvers. “I’m afraid that dear Mrs. Warthall isn’t much of a manager of girls. Had I been in charge—” she turned to the girls. “Chantel, Anna, go and help the boys. They’re fetching refreshments.”

  Furious, Chantel went.

  “What refreshments?” she asked Anna as they went down the hall. “There’s nothing to eat or drink in the house.”

  “I think that’s probably the point,” said Anna.

  The boys seemed to think so too. Bowser and Franklin and several of the smaller girls had arranged a tray with a steaming teapot and the best china cups. They were laughing.

  “What about to eat?” said Bowser. “What’s in the bread box?”

  “Mouse droppings!” said Daisy gleefully.

  Bowser shook his head regretfully. “She wouldn’t be able to cope. The Fliv, I mean. She’d weep, and it would ruin everything.”

  Holly banged open a cupboard. “Candle stubs!”

  Bowser whipped out his pocketknife. “Give ’em here.”

  He cut a candle up into discs, and Daisy and Franklin arranged them carefully on a plate.

  Franklin eyed the result. “Can’t we just sprinkle them with mouse—”

  “No,” said Anna firmly.

  “It would look like—”

  “No,” said Bowser.

  Chantel went ahead to open the doors as Bowser proudly bore the tray into the parlor.

  He set the tray on the tea table. Miss Flivvers, with a sweet smile, poured out cups of brown liquid, and Chantel handed them around. Anna passed the candle-wafers.

  Leila refused the wafers. She set her cup down on the floor beside her stool. The clerk, Mr. Less, had a plate of wafers balanced on his knee and a steaming cup in his hand. He looked down at the latter in amusement.

  “I hope you gentlemen will forgive—” Miss Flivvers began.

  Lord Rudolph lifted the cup to his lips and took a deep drink. “Waugh!” He spat it out on the floor and jumped up. Cup, saucer, and candle-wafers fell to the floor. The handle broke off the cup. The wafers bounced.

  “It tastes like mud!” said Lord Rudolph.

  “I believe it is mud,” said Mr. Less. “And the cookies appear to be wax.”

  “Oh dear.” Miss Flivvers turned to Bowser. “Did you bring the nice gentlemen mud to drink?”

  “There wasn’t any tea,” said Bowser.

  “And wax to eat?”

  “There weren’t any cookies.”

  “Well, couldn’t you have made sandwiches?” said Miss Flivvers, sweetly exasperated.

  “There wasn’t any bread,” said Bowser. “Or anything to put in the sandwiches.”

  “What a shame,” said Miss Flivvers. “Still, you know you shouldn’t serve people mud, young man. Go to your skullery at once.”

  Bowser went, cheerfully enough.

  “I’m terribly sorry, Lord Rudolph,” said Miss Flivvers. “I’m afraid Mrs. Warthall doesn’t seem to have laid in any provisions at all, although I’m sure you must have provided her with ample means to do so.”

  “Of course we did! Didn’t we?” Lord Rudolph turned angrily to his clerk.

  “Not really,” said the clerk. “Enough to feed a hutchful of rabbits, possibly. Or a rather abstemious reindeer. But not a school. No.”

  “See to it, then,” said Lord Rudolph. “Now then, Miss Flivvers. Obviously the school needs a manageress, so I—”

  “I shall do the best I can, Lord Rudolph.” Miss Flivvers bowed her head modestly. “Thank you for your confidence in me.”

  “I meant—”

  “Wonderful,” said the clerk. “That’s that settled, isn’t it, sir?”

  Lord Rudolph glowered at his clerk. “I had intended to close the school, and disperse the students.”

  Sell the students, you mean. The effort Chantel had to expend in not saying this made Japheth even more restless. She thought she ought to be given a medal for deportment.

  “Oh, we may not want to do that just yet, sir,” said Miss Flivvers. “The children were telling me that you were interested in perhaps finding a spell . . . ?”

  “The Buttoning. It is vital to the defense of the nation,” said Lord Rudolph.

  Miss Flivvers nodded and smiled and blinked. “If I may humbly venture an idea—”

  And Miss Flivvers told him about Chantel’s ability to see the Ago.

  Lord Rudolph directed his piercing gaze at Chantel. “Do you think you can find the Buttoning in the past?”

  Snake or no, Chantel had to reply. She used all the magic of her deportment and managed to force the snake down into her stomach, where he slithered around nauseatingly.

  “I can but try, sir.” She was surprised at how even and grown-up her voice sounded.

  “Hm. ‘Try,’” said Lord Rudolph. “‘Try’ isn’t good enough. It needs to be done by Midsummer’s Eve. That’s when the Marauders threaten to kill Miss Ellicott.”

  Chantel used her deportment to put all the confidence into her voice that she could. “I can do it.”

  Miss Flivvers showed Lord Rudolph and Mr. Less out. Leila went with them.

  “I just hope he remembers to send the money,” said Anna, as soon as they were gone.

  “Anna, how can you think that a gentleman like Lord Rudolph would go back on his word?” said Miss Flivvers.

  Anna shot her a disbelieving look.

  “The clerk will remember,” said Chantel. “If he doesn’t, we’ll go and remind him.”

  “Chantel!” Miss Flivvers looked shocked. “I am—”

  “Concerned about my deportment. Yes. I beg your pardon, Miss Flivvers.” Chantel curtseyed, the snake swirling angrily.

  “You have interrupted me,” said Miss Flivvers. “It is absolutely necessary that you comport yourself in the manner of a decent young lady, Chantel. We are all counting on you to find the Buttoning. And on Anna, of course,” she added as an afterthought.

  “Miss Flivvers, I beg your pardon,” said Chantel. “But did you not understand what I told you before? The Marauders have Miss Ellicott and they won’t give her back unless we bring down the walls.”

  “Are you actually suggesting bringing down the walls?” said Miss Flivvers.

  “No, of course not,” said Chantel. “But—”

  “Things may not be as they seem,” Miss Flivvers interrupted. “We are counting on you. You must not fail us.”

  The snake churning in her stomach gave Chantel the resolve and bad manners to say what she said next. “Miss Flivvers, we were counting on you. And you did fail us. You let Mrs. Warthall take control of the school. You can’t let anything like that happen again. If I’m going t
o be busy searching the Ago, you’d better be busy protecting the little girls.”

  Miss Flivvers reddened. “Is it your place to correct your elders?”

  “No, Miss Flivvers, it’s not. I beg your pardon,” said Chantel. “Do we have a deal?”

  Miss Flivvers looked furious. She looked as if she was about to demand that Chantel recite the 172 Rules and 38 Corollaries for Knowing One’s Place. Then she, too, called on her deportment.

  “You will search the Ago,” said Miss Flivvers. “And you will find the . . . the lost lore, if that’s what it is. And while you search, we shall all do our duty.”

  The snake in Chantel’s belly sighed. That was probably as close to a promise as Chantel was likely to get. “Yes, Miss Flivvers.”

  12

  IN WHICH CHANTEL OBTAINS THE ADVICE OF A PERSON SOMEWHAT OLDER THAN HERSELF

  Chantel decided to do the Ago spell at Dimswitch itself. After practicing for a few days, she set off early one morning. Anna and Bowser had gone ahead to set up the brazier and basin. Franklin walked with Chantel, to help her carry supplies.

  They took a short cut through the Green Terraces. They followed a stone walkway that led under arbors of vines that held clusters of tiny green grapes. They climbed down several staircases, past a terrace of peach and apple orchards, and one of dark green potato plants. Chantel wished the potatoes were ready to eat. The crops weren’t coming along quite as well as they should. There were no sorceresses’ cultivation spells to help them.

  She pointed out the orchards to Franklin.

  “I had a peach once,” she said. “I won it as a prize for memorization and deportment.”

  “Once?” said Franklin.

  “Well, they’re very expensive, of course.”

  Franklin looked at her like she was crazy. “They grow all over the plains. In the summer you can buy them for a penny a peck at the markets.”

  Chantel figured he was making this up. Obviously he was still overwhelmed by the magnificence of Lightning Pass, and it was natural he would want to talk up the Roughlands a bit.

  They passed through a tunnel formed by melon vines just beginning to work their way up wrought-iron frames.

  “When the vines have finished growing,” Chantel told him, “they’ll form a tableau of the treachery of Queen Haywith. You can see if you look—”

  “Is there anything that we can eat right now?” said Franklin.

  “Of course not!” said Chantel. “It isn’t ours. And anyway, you can see it’s guarded.”

  She pointed out the guard towers to him.

  “Oh, of course,” said Franklin. “You people would guard gardens, wouldn’t you.”

  The snake in Chantel’s head twitched with fury. On the one hand she quite liked Franklin. She appreciated that he had many good qualities . . . none of which were his annoying twangy accent, his arrogance, or his air of Marauder superiority.

  “What have the Marauders done with the sorceresses?” she demanded. “You must know something.”

  “I don’t,” said Franklin.

  “Well, it could have been your people. Charles the Bloody?”

  “Karl the Bloody,” Franklin snapped.

  The snake squirmed happily at having annoyed him.

  “We wouldn’t take them,” said Franklin. “We don’t—”

  “We who?” said Chantel.

  “We, the tribe of Karl,” said Franklin. “The Sunbiters.”

  “But you ran away.”

  “I’m still a Sunbiter,” said Franklin. “We don’t take hostages. We just kill people. Properly, you know. We give them a chance to die a noble and honorable death, so that they’ll go to their ancestors in glory.”

  Chantel’s stomach gave an unpleasant lurch. “You mean you killed the sorceresses?”

  “I doubt it,” said Franklin. “I’m sure we never had them in the first place.” He started to step over a stone wall. Chantel caught him just in time.

  “You can’t walk there. That’s a Monday lawn.”

  Franklin raised an eyebrow and looked amused. “Meaning it can only be walked across on Mondays, I suppose.”

  Chantel was relieved not to have to explain this, as he was looking more and more sardonic. “We do have Thursday lawns, if you want to walk on one,” she said, leading the way across an arched stone bridge.

  From the highest point of the bridge, they could see out over Seven Buttons to the Roughlands. The distant smudges of sea and land looked different to Chantel now that she actually knew their smells and sounds.

  “There’s a lot of Karl the Bloody’s men out there,” said Franklin.

  “How can you tell?” Chantel couldn’t see anyone.

  “They’ve placed their camps to be invisible from most of the city. But you can see tracks. They’re watching Dimswitch, probably, because those scouts saw it open.”

  “Won’t we drop something on them?”

  “Nah. Things are probably still at the negotiating stage,” said Franklin. “We—Karl the Bloody is probably making demands.”

  “There’s nothing to negotiate,” she said. “The Marauders can’t get through Seven Buttons.”

  “Would you stop calling us that?” said Franklin. “We’re not Marauders. We’re Sunbiters.”

  Chantel didn’t answer. She led the way down the bridge to the Daisy Pond.

  It was a nice, orderly pond, the sort that Lightning Pass approved of. It was round, contained in a stone wall, with algae-covered stone sides that went down as far as the eye could see. It was said that the Daisy Pond had no bottom.

  They followed a flagstone path that skirted it.

  “If your tribe didn’t take the sorceresses, who did?” she asked.

  Franklin frowned. “I don’t know. It couldn’t have been the Walatoni. They think women are sacred, so they would never bother sorceresses.”

  “Think women are what?” said Chantel.

  But Franklin wasn’t listening. “The Haramats wouldn’t have done it, because they’re like us—they let prisoners die honorable deaths. That is, the Haramats might have taken them, but if so, they’re not hostages. The Elestorians will take hostages sometimes, and exchange them for Elestorian prisoners—do you have any?”

  “I don’t know,” said Chantel.

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Franklin. “The Elestorians are famous for not keeping their word, and only delivering their prisoners in pieces.”

  “Oh,” said Chantel. “So isn’t there any kind of Marauder who takes hostages and doesn’t kill them?”

  “Not that I ever heard of,” said Franklin with a shrug. “And none of us call ourselves Marauders.”

  Chantel did like Franklin, but she was feeling a certain urge to push him into the Daisy Pond.

  Still, she thought . . . if what Franklin said was true, then the Marauders weren’t holding the sorceresses. Either Franklin was lying, or the patriarchs were.

  They had reached the steep stone dropoff that marked the edge of the Green Terraces. Chantel led the way down a stone staircase to the lanes and alleys below.

  Lord Rudolph had ordered the cobbled square beside Dimswitch cleared while Chantel did the Ago spell. Barriers were up, and city guards were stationed around them to keep people out.

  Chantel had never actually done the spell herself, only watched Miss Ellicott do it.

  Anna and Bowser had kindled a charcoal fire. Anna had set a small pot of water to boil; magical brews and potions were her thing. She dropped ingredients into the pot.

  She filled a bowl with ice magically made from the Daisy Pond. She set the bowl down on the cobbles, right in front of those few green threads from Chantel’s robe that marked Dimswitch.

  Chantel stood before the bowl, facing Seven Buttons. She concentrated on clearing her mind of all other thoughts—like the fact that the Marauders—Sunbiters, rather—were now camped outside the wall, and that, according to Franklin, they did not really have the sorceresses. To do magic you had to free your mind of
distractions. This was difficult with a snake wriggling around in your head. She told the snake to be still, and it slithered down and settled somewhere in her left leg, clearing her mind.

  She thought about the question she wanted answered. The one about the long lost lore for the Buttoning spell.

  What do we need to do to protect the city? she asked.

  And then she asked another question. Can you show me how to find the sorceresses?

  And just in case the answer wasn’t hidden in the past, she added Or can you at least show me something that will help?

  Carefully Anna lifted the pot from the flames and poured it into the ice.

  There was a hissing sound, and a billowing column of white steam rose. It smelled of tea and hay fever and late October. The others backed away. Chantel held her braids away from her face and leaned into it. For a moment, she saw nothing but steam, which was almost too hot to breathe. She closed her eyes against the heat. She didn’t remember the spell being this hot when Miss Ellicott had done it.

  Consider the girl now.

  The girl? She has a snake in her innards.

  A girl who will let a snake into her head is neither shamefast nor biddable.

  Shamefast or biddable? Does that matter?

  Matter!

  It matters more than anything.

  It has been a long time since a girl has let a snake into her head.

  But will anything come of it?

  She works great magic.

  She works a summoning.

  No, it is not a summoning. It is simply a spell for seeing the past.

  The past?

  Perhaps.

  When she does it, it is a summoning.

  Chantel gazed through the steam at Seven Buttons. Then the wall faded slightly, becoming transparent, and she saw the swamp beyond. There were no Marauders there. There was just swamp.

  And someone was walking toward her, from a great distance, along a path that was suddenly there. As he came closer she saw that he was wearing brown trousers, a loose green tunic, and a cap with a feather in it. A tree popped up beside the path. The man climbed onto a low branch, and beckoned to Chantel.

  Hm.

  Before, when Chantel had looked into the Ago, the Ago hadn’t seen her.