Chapter Text
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Silently, Noah approached the statue that was once his real mother. Ethel Hallow glinted under the light. Everything about her was transparent from her long hair to the frills of her shirt. She stood frozen in time, a unmoving marvel to the young wizard and the three witches behind him. As he got closer, Noah was surprised to find that, whilst it looked like ice, there was no coldness radiating from the statue whatsoever. He pressed a hand on her skirt. Warmth greeted his palm.
When he looked up at Ethel again, he noticed her lips curled slightly upwards, showing the hint of a smile. A faint line ran down her cheek. Had she been crying before she was frozen?
Without thinking about it, Noah placed a hand in Ethel’s own. Like the skirt, it was warm to the touch, and her skin wasn’t a smooth surface but as soft as any human hand would be. He considered whether this was a sure sign that she was, and possibly still is, a living, breathing, feeling human being. Perhaps, he thought, this time spell, which could be the one he was thinking of, was proof that magic could be cruel as well as magnificent.
“We found her along with Malais,” Enid said behind him. “It was almost by accident. We were on an assignment, seeking a dragon’s egg in Braemer. That’s where we found them, near the top of a mountain. It was the biggest shock of my life, I can tell you! I mean, a spell this powerful, even I don’t take it lightly.”
“Do you know who actually cast the spell?” Noah asked, not taking his eyes away from the statue.
“Ethel did, cariad.”
“And she froze in time because it used a lot of energy.”
“That’s right.” Enid sounded surprised as she said this. “How did you know?”
Noah squeezed his mother’s still hand. “My friend Felicity and I found it in a book. I didn’t think it would be like this. Like…creepy.”
“Magic can do that,” Maud said.
Letting go of Ethel’s hand, Noah stepped back, taking in the sad, almost lifeless presence that was before him. The words that stuck in his head at that moment were ones he had heard over and over again: Magic is not to be used for selfish and trivial ends. Perhaps this was what that meant. Magic was a serious tool, a powerful tool, and one that must be treated with great respect as well as great passion.
Noah lowered his head and exhaled a long sigh.
“What’s the matter?” Mildred asked, stepping next to him.
“Nothing,” Noah said. “Just wish I could talk to Felicity right now. I wanted to tell her something.” Looking up at his mother’s statue, Noah added, “Is there any way to bring her back?”
Enid stepped forward, observing the statue as she spoke. “Yes, but it’s tricky.”
“Tricky like how?”
“Well,” Enid went on, “in order to unfreeze time in this way, you have to get someone to relive a past memory. Someone who has a deep connection to the frozen being.”
Noah blinked before lowering his brow.
“Look,” Enid said, her voice becoming more serious than usual, “take Mildred for example. If she, heaven forbid, was frozen in time, Maud could come along and relive a past experience with her. They are best friends after all.”
“Same goes for you,” Mildred told Enid.
“Well, yes, but you get my point. There has to be someone who has a connection to that person in some way. Not just being related either. Like a bond nothing could break, that sort of thing.”
“A memory is, in itself, part of time,” Maud said. “You’re breaking the spell with time because someone took the time to be in your life.”
“And that’s the tricky part,” Enid told them all. “A bond is such a delicate thing, it could mean anything and everything.” She let out a heavy sigh. “We’re hoping that Sybil will be able to do it, but even that isn’t saying much.”
“But isn’t she my mum’s sister?” Noah asked. And unbeknownst to him, hearing her adopted son say that made Mildred’s heart ache. She knew he was referring to his birth mother, but it wasn’t a good feeling at all.
“That’s not enough,” Enid said to Noah. “There has to be a strong connection. If we can’t find anyone with that, then there’s…there’s…”
“There’s no hope for her,” Noah finished.
Enid nodded with a sorrowful expression. “I’m sorry, cariad. I wish there was something more hopeful. But, well, magic can’t fix everything.”
“Why did you bring me here then,” Noah snapped, “if you knew it would be for nothing?”
“Because you have a right to know.”
Noah’s body burnt with anger, with disdain, with questions he couldn’t answer or even ask; before he could stop himself, he shouted, “If magic can’t fix everything, then there’s no point in using it! If magic can’t fix this problem with a bunch of stupid rules, then I don’t want it! I don’t want anything to do with it!”
In righteous fury, Noah stormed out of the cavern. He paid no attention to either Maud or Enid who tried to call for him to come back. He went to the edge just underneath the hole where the sun beamed in. He slumped down, folded his arms and let his feet dangle over the water which was shimmering a few feet below.
Magic never seemed to go right, Noah thought. It never went right for him and it never went right for either Mildred or Ethel. It was just a lot to take responsibility and something Noah didn’t feel in any way he could grasp it, control it, learn to use it selflessly. Magic was just not for him.
Someone sat by him just then as he finished that thought. Noah turned his head and saw Mildred by his side. She smiled, the way she always does: shy and kind. It always made him smile, too, when he saw her do this because it meant they had no barrier between them. No matter what, they could both smile warmly.
“I know you’re angry,” Mildred said, her voice calm and gentle. “No one meant any harm.”
“I know,” Noah said with a long sigh. “I just don’t get why it can’t just be fixed.”
“Life doesn’t work that way, sweetheart. If it did, things would be easier.”
“Is that such a bad thing?”
Mildred shrugged. “Maybe a little stress makes us see what we’re capable of.”
Noah looked down at his dangling feet over the water. Mildred put her arm around his shoulders and hugged him.
“It’s not fair,” Noah said. “None of it is. Especially not with how people think of you.”
“Me being the worst witch at Cackle’s Academy?”
“Yeah. Like can’t people just let go of that?”
“Can people let go of their feelings of superiority to see me as anything but a terrible witch? Not really, no.”
“How can you stand it?” Noah asked.
“Well,” Mildred said, “for the longest time I couldn’t. And I ended up walking away from magic altogether, even after I was Head Girl.”
“But that’s such an amazing thing to be, Mother Millie.”
“It is. But I was just so tired of being the worst. Even some of my brighter moments felt empty. I know that makes me sound pessimistic, but every time I did something right, it felt like I had to prove something. It was like being a dancing monkey for a grumpy crowd: even the things I did wonderfully weren't enough for them.” Mildred sighed. “So I gave it all up. I was unhappy with it all.”
Noah looked at Mildred. Her eyes twinkled like the water below; her gaze wandered across the lake, remembering times that perhaps she wished to forget, and reminiscing over moments that should have been amazing yet never felt right to her.
“Did my mum cause you to feel that way too?” Noah asked.
Mildred snorted. “Ethel? I should thank her, now that I think about it.”
Noah furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”
“It was because of her,” Mildred explained, “that I managed to even find out I could do magic in the first place. I remember it was Halloween night and she lent me her broom. But she enchanted it and it made me go out of control. I had turned her into a pig just a week before, so that was her revenge on me.” She shook her head. “I cried and worried, and I just ran away. But then I came across a witch coven. Their leader was Miss Cackle’s sister.”
“Agatha.”
“Yes. They were planning to raid the school and turn everyone into toads. Or was it frogs? I forget which. Anyway, that spell I cast on her at the ruins? That’s the spell I used on them that day. I didn’t think I could do it, but there you go. So your mum, whether intentionally or not, got me into a position where I correctly cast a spell.”
Noah blinked, thinking, Doesn’t sound like the healthiest way to look at that, but okay.
“Oh,” Mildred went on, “there’s more to it than that. Most of it for when I became Head Girl. I expected her to make a snarky comment, to get revenge, to be petty and spiteful. But she didn’t. In fact, when I came back to school on my first day as Head Girl, Ethel, your mum, gave me a textbook. It was a huge thing, over a thousand pages. She said it helped her a lot through school, so I would probably find it useful somehow.” She looked at Noah and rolled her eyes. “She even got me a Christmas card.”
“But wasn’t she your-”
“Bully? Yeah. I don’t know why she was suddenly so friendly. Well, maybe not friendly, but better. It’s like she was trying to make up for things. I don’t know if anything she did would have, but she tried.”
“Maybe she just wanted to be helpful?”
“Maybe. Or she wanted to act like she helped the Head Girl. Maud’s words, not mine.”
Noah shook his head. “It’s so weird. It sounds like she was always around when things went right for you.”
“In some way, most of the time.” Mildred’s smile widened. “I suppose she wasn’t as bad as I thought she was.”
Before Noah could answer, a loud shriek came from the room behind them. Mildred and Noah got to their feet quickly and ran towards it. Inside, Maud and Enid stared in a mixture of bewilderment and uncertainty at the statue. Maud pointed.
“The statue!” Maud yelled. “Look at the statue!”
Mildred and Noah looked and saw exactly what the shriek was about.
The statue that was once Ethel Hallow was now lined with several splints and cracks, the clear ice layer seeming ready to burst and spurt out a flood of water from underneath. The lines split higher and higher, bringing it up to Ethel’s face. The head screeched and scraped as it appeared to break apart.
“What’s happening?” Mildred shouted. “Why is it cracking?” No one answered, which was the answer she needed.
The head was now covered in lightning bolt splints and there was a sound like the wind whooshing down hard. Then the head burst into a rain of snow which fell quickly down like sparks before disappearing into thin air.
And what shocked everyone most, after all this, was only one thing.
Ethel Hallow’s gasp for air.