Work Text:
It’s a game at first. They are children. Even knowing this, many years later, Agatha finds it difficult to forgive them. She was only a child herself, after all.
They play devil’s footsteps on the stairs of her mother’s home, taking turns daring each other to ascend a little closer to the locked door at the top each time. Will Sarah–Anne take two steps? Yes, easily - but will Sarah-Beth take three? Yes, Sarah-Beth will take three, skipping lightly and humming to herself, swishing her pretty yellow skirts as she goes. Now, will Margaret take four steps? And yes, Margaret giggles and blushes but rolls up her sleeves as if she is her mother bent over the potion’s hearth, and steps boldly up four steps and then down again.
What about Agatha? How many will Agatha do? This is her own mother’s home - surely five steps would be too easy for her. That would be cheating. Why not take six? That’s more than half way.
Agatha is eight, and yes, she is the daughter of Evanora Harkness, who is the leader of the great Salamite coven, and yes this is her mother’s house, but she is also the youngest of their group by a year and a day - all the other girls are nine already - and she doesn’t want to seem a prig or a fool or a coward. So, even though her mother has told her that she will beat her if she so much as looks at the locked door at the top of the stairs too long, she takes a deep breath, and holds it all the way to the sixth step. Once there, glancing back down at Sarah-Anne, Sarah-Beth and Margaret stood waiting for her at the bottom, she grows a little bolder, and dramatically sticks out her right leg, to set her foot upon the seventh step too.
The other girls shriek their outrage and delight at her audacity, and Agatha bounds back down, very pleased with herself indeed.
Of course the ultimate ambition is to whip themselves up enough to get so brave that they dare touch the door. Even over several days playing this, the most forbidden of their games, none of them have dared get closer than the ninth step, let alone then crossed onto the landing to reach for the door.
This afternoon though (was it an afternoon? Agatha isn’t sure, many centuries later - but it seems logical to assume that it was, as mornings and evenings in the house would have been too busy to leave four little witches unsupervised to get into mischief), Sarah-Anne has had a quarrel with Agatha over a doll which Agatha got a stain on. She didn’t mean to, though, if she’s very honest, she knows she should not have taken Sarah-Anne’s doll to play with without her permission.
As it is, Sarah-Anne will not be out done by Agatha, not today. She bunches her fists, places them on her hips, and then strides to the top of the stairs without waiting to be dared at all - on the ninth step, she stands still, and then dances a victory jig, and Margaret and Sarah-Beth both cheer and laugh. But Agatha feels slighted - her moment of triumph has been overshadowed.
So, without waiting for Sarah-Anne to descend, she picks up her skirts and begins to climb the stairs again - making herself go fast, so that she will not have time to get scared. She rushes past Sarah-Anne on the ninth step, feeling gratified by the indignant noise the other girl makes as she goes, and leaps onto the landing with what she hopes looks like a carefree toss of her hair.
“That’s not fair, you weren’t dared!” Sarah-Anne protests, and Agatha shrugs.
“Neither were you!”
Not to be left out, Margaret and Sarah-Beth also begin to scramble up the stairs, and now all three of them are stood on the ninth step, and Agatha is above them on the landing, three steps from the locked door.
Agatha hedges, sidling closer to the door again on her bare feet (the devil’s footsteps must always be played with bare feet, or else how will the devil be able to snip off your toes when you step on his shadow?)
Margaret clamps her hands over her mouth for dramatic effect. “Agatha, don’t!”
Agatha stretches out a hand toward the door, waggling her fingers.
“She’s not going to do it,” Sarah-Anne rolls her eyes, and she lifts her foot and sets it on the landing, daring to encroach on Agatha’s newly claimed high ground.
“I will!” Agatha retorts.
“You mustn’t, don’t be silly!” Sarah-Beth is trembling with barely contained glee at such drama, “come away from there, Agatha! You’ll get us all in trouble!”
“ She won’t ,” Sarah-Anne insists - and steps up, planting both feet on the landing now.
“I will! I will!” Agatha backs away from her again, and stretches out her arm once more - this time her fingers almost brush the grain of the wooden door, and she swishes her hand through the air for extra effect, drawing a gratifying yelp from Margaret. “I am Agatha Harkness, this is my mother’s house, I can do as I please!”
“Your mother will give you a thrashing when she hears of this!” Sarah-Anne retorts.
“And what will yours give you?” Agatha puts out her tongue - no one is actually going to tell tales, and they all know it; they would all get into too much trouble.
Sarah-Anne glowers, and then she lunges closer to Agatha, and Agatha isn’t sure if she is going to push her or if she intends to plant her hand on the door before Agatha can, beating her to her final victory. So she whirls and swiftly slaps her palm down on the door first, frantic that at the very least, Sarah-Anne will not claim to have beaten her.
And, from that day to this, Agatha isn’t sure if the door was never actually locked, or if some trick of her will and her as-yet untrained power - or Sarah-Anne’s, or all of theirs together - caused the lock to open spontaneously - but in the split-second she is stood there, triumphant, with her hand on the door, looking into her friends’ shocked faces and drinking in their terror and envy, she also realises that the door has swung ajar.
It is open. There are two clear inches of darkness between the door and the frame.
For a moment, they’re all too startled to react. And then Sarah-Anne lets out a shriek of rage and fear and shoves Agatha hard.
(Perhaps, looking back, it was an accident - perhaps when Agatha had thought she’d been trying to touch the door first, she had actually been going to push Agatha aside, and was already in motion when Agatha’s movement revealed that the door was open - maybe had always been open - and couldn’t stop herself. Perhaps the sound she made wasn’t one of glee at punishing Agatha but of shock at what was happening as her hands connected with Agatha’s shoulder and the momentum carried them both forward, forcing Agatha one, two, three steps over the threshold, through the doorway. Perhaps. Or perhaps Sarah-Anne was just a spiteful little girl whose temper had gotten the better of her).
What Agatha does remember, very clearly, is that her foot catches in her skirts and she tumbles forward onto her face - not simply over the threshold but into the room that has always been locked, the room whose door she is not even supposed to look at.
The other girls are shrieking - a note of real fear, now, in Margaret’s voice, the breathless scramble of Sarah-Anne picking herself up and darting backwards, her silence more emblematic of the urgency of the situation than anything else.
Agatha sits up. All the breath has been knocked out of her chest by such a sudden landing on the hard wooden floor, and she has to fight to pull in air even as she tries to turn back toward the door, blinking, not fully grasping what has happened.
Only then does she realise that she is inside the room - and that Sarah-Anne, Sarah-Beth and Margaret are outside of it - and that the door is swinging violently shut.
(Did Sarah-Anne slam it shut? Or kick it closed accidentally in her frantic scramble to get out? Or was it Margaret and Sarah-Beth panicking? Or a gust of air? Or some enchantment on the door itself?)
Whatever the case, Agatha looks up in time to see the door slam - and she is suddenly alone, in the dark, in a room she must not ever enter. And she is aware, immediately, that she is not alone.
Staggering to her feet, Agatha throws herself against the door, fumbling in the dark as she tries to find the handle (there isn’t one, not on this side), and then resorts to pounding on the wood with her fists.
“Let me out! Let me out! Let me out !”
Nothing. The room is so silent that Agatha can hear the blood whining in her ears.
“Sarah-Anne! I’m sorry! I’m sorry about your doll! I’ll fix her! Just let me out!” She presses her fingers against the crease where the door meets the frame. “Margaret! Sarah-Beth! Please! Please !”
Nothing.
Agatha sucks in a breath, her eyes stinging, her stomach churning, a cold sweat on her brow.
They are not going to let her out. (They can’t). She’s trapped. In here.
The room isn’t completely dark, she realises, as her eyes adjust. There is a window in here after all, though it’s shuttered - and a fine rim of daylight is creeping in around the edges of the shutters, where their hinges meet the wall. It’s not much to see by, but she can begin to make out lumpen shapes in the gloom. The solid rectangle of a table, a dim scattering of indistinct objects atop it; perhaps the faint lines of wooden shelves against the far wall, a pale shine here and there from a glass jar or pieces of mirror.
Her shins collide with the hard edge of a wooden crate and then another - she staggers, gasping, barely catching herself on something else - perhaps a dresser?
Then she can hear it - something softly dragging against the floor, like the hem of a skirt.
She is not alone. She is not alone in here .
At eight years old, one might already accuse Agatha Harkness of being a great many things, but she will never be accused of being unpragmatic. Even as the cold tide of panic rises in her throat and threatens to choke a sob from her breast, she remembers that, like so many children, she has practised hiding many times, and she allows instinct to carry her onto all fours, ducking low against whatever it is she initially steadied herself against. Creeping forward, she feels along its front edge and then tucks herself into the first gap that appears between this piece of furniture and a wall.
There she waits, holding her breath. But the sound does not come again.
Agatha swallows dryly. The room is growing more and more visible to her as her eyes adjust - everything in shades of grey and blue, but yes - she can see now - she is behind a work surface of some kind, and across the room is a desk stacked with books and parchments, and at least two walls are covered in shelves full of things for practical magic. There is a protection spell wreathed around the rafters with bundles of drying herbs and little charms - it has a familiar, faintly sweet smell to it. And there is an armchair only a few feet away - her mother’s armchair, she realises. The armchair that used to sit before the hearth in Evanora’s room, from which Evanora used to tell her stories before bed. Her mother’s shawl is even draped across its back.
And it is the presence of this familiar piece of furniture that gradually allows Agatha to calm herself. The smells, the shapes in here - they are all things she knows. This is still, after all, her mother’s house.
Slowly, carefully, Agatha cranes her neck enough to peer out from her hiding spot. And there, between the legs of a table, beyond the seat of her mother’s arm chair, hemmed into the furthest corner of the room, she sees a pair of feet.
If she looks very closely, Agatha can see a circle of white chalk on the floorboards and a scattering of runes she cannot read, and the pools of black wax caused by many candles left to burn themselves out. Powerful magic, of a sort she isn’t even allowed to bare witness to yet, let alone be taught to practice.
Piqued, as frightened as she is, she inches just a little out of her hiding space, trying to see what the spell was for.
And there, in the centre of the chalk circle, is a woman.
That is all Agatha can let herself register before she reflexively jerks back, behind the dresser, her stomach turning. A pair of big eyes under a hood as black as night, a jaw shining bone white in the gloom.
That is not a woman. It might not even be a witch. She should not be in here .
But that is a powerful spell, most likely cast by her mother, who is the most powerful witch in all of Salem and perhaps all of the world. And Agatha knows enough to know that a magical circle can be used to hold something like a cage holds an animal, and if whatever it is, is in her mother’s spell, then it should not be able to move from it, surely?
And what if, she finds herself thinking, very small and quiet even in her own mind, she never gets another opportunity to know what it is ? Because she knows already that if she leaves this room without looking a second time, she will wonder for the rest of her life what it is she has just glimpsed.
So she presses her feet to the dresser and pushes herself out of her hiding spot again, more firmly this time.
She gets to her feet, wiping her hands off on her skirts - and then clutching the fabric tight in her fists, to give herself something to hold on to, pretending that it is the hand of her doll or of a better friend than she truly has in real life yet. And she tip-toes closer.
What is sitting in the circle, however, isn’t what she first saw. At least - she doesn’t think so. But perhaps she was mistaken the first time? She did only look for a scant moment, after all.
It’s just a girl.
Her own age - or… perhaps just a little older. But not by much. Very neat and proper, in a pretty green dress, the bodice all embroidered with rabbits and flowers. Agatha wonders where she got such a fine thing - it must be very expensive. Perhaps this girl is the daughter of someone very important, like a king? Does her mother know any kings? It doesn’t seem unlikely, for Evanora Harkness is, after all, very powerful.
The girl has soft curls of ink-black hair, falling to her shoulders and tied back from her face with a green ribbon that holds a posey of little white flowers too. Her eyes are large and warm and ringed with velvety lashes, and her expression is only one of polite concern, her eyebrows raised as Agatha approaches, as if waiting to hear a question. And her delicate hands are folded in her lap as she sits in a pool of her fine skirts, in the middle of a spell-circle - with a pair of glittering green cuffs encircling her wrists, and a length of something that glows the deep purple of Evanora’s purest magical will goes from the cuffs of her wrists to a point beneath a candle on the floor.
This candle alone of the rest is still burning, perfect and bright, the flame barely wavering on the wick, no matter that Agatha can definitely feel a draft coming from somewhere.
“Well met,” says the girl, and her voice is sweet and gentle, and Agatha thinks this is the most beautiful girl she has ever seen. “Don’t be afraid.”
“I’m not,” Agatha lies, and the girl’s mouth curls into a gentle smile - though her amusement doesn’t seem to be at Agatha’s expense - it’s more as if she is sharing a joke with Agatha herself.
“What is your name?” The girl asks, though she doesn’t introduce herself.
“Agatha Harkness,” Agatha replies, before remembering that she is not supposed to give her real name to strangers - especially not magical ones who may not be what they seem. “Agatha Sarah-Anne Harkness.”
Hopefully the addition of a middle name that she doesn’t have will be enough not to get her a scolding from her mother - should she survive the thrashing she is certain will be coming.
“Harkness?” The girl puts her head on one side. “You are the daughter of Evanora Harkness? The leader of the Salamites?”
Agatha nods, feeling a little swell of pride, even here. This girl may be the daughter of a king, or perhaps a fairy, and even she knows her mother’s name.
“Then it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Harkness,” the girl ducks her head politely, and Agatha, not to be out-done, swiftly drops her best curtsy.
“And it is a pleasure to make yours, Miss…?”
The girl smiles again, as if she is about to tell a joke.
“Vidal,” she says, her gaze bright and warm and so very friendly, “but perhaps we are to become friends, Miss Harkness, and then you may call me Rio. I’m sorry I can’t get up, but you see…” she gestures with the fingers of one hand at the cuffs on her wrists, and the magical tether keeping her there.
“I’m sorry if you were upset, when you first saw me,” she adds, after a moment. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“I wasn’t upset,” Agatha asserts - another lie - and is greeted with another uncanny smile.
“Then you are very brave.”
“I am!” Agatha agrees, then bites her lip - it’s stupid, such a charade, because this girl definitely heard her screaming and beating on the door as she begged her friends to release her. “At least - most usually, I am. Today has been… a trial.”
“Such times can be hard,” the girl inclines her head sympathetically. “My days have also been a trial, of late.”
“Sarah-Anne pushed me,” Agatha frowns, “I know I dirtied her doll a little, but she oughtn’t to have pushed me, that’s very unfair.”
“It does sound it,” Rio replies, nodding sagely. “Agatha - may I call you Agatha? Are we to be friends?”
Agatha swallows - but Rio is gazing up at her so earnestly, her eyes so wide and warm… and she does, she thinks, want to be friends with this pretty girl in her fine skirts, who is being so gentle and polite. “Yes. Yes, we should be friends.”
Rio’s smile widens, and Agatha begins to feel very warm all over.
“Then, Agatha, I must apologise, but I wish to ask you a favour.”
“What is it?” Agatha is immediately suspicious again, her brow furrowing. Her mother’s stories are full of lessons about not doing favours for strangers - it’s one of the next most important things after not giving out your real name.
“My nose is quite itchy,” the girl says, “and I can’t reach it to scratch.”
She jerks her hands up, demonstrating - and sure enough, the magical tether attached to her cuffs isn’t long enough to let her hands reach her face. And when she moves to bend forward and bring her face down to her hands, the collar of her blouse falls open, and Agatha sees that there is another cuff, this one around the girl’s neck, attached with another tether to the wall behind the circle, keeping her from bending too far.
She is being held as such that she cannot stand, cannot lean more than an inch or so forward or back, cannot even lie down.
Agatha frowns. That seems dreadfully unfair.
“Can you just scratch my nose for me?” Rio asks, gazing at Agatha imploringly, “it would put me greatly in your debt. I’d forgotten what a bother it is to have flesh.”
Agatha licks her lips. Of course, she must not do favours for strangers - but her mother has never told her a story where the hero should not have taken the offer of a boon. To be owed a debt by someone very rich or strong or magical is often a very good thing indeed - the sort of thing that can lead a clever hero to triumph in the end.
“What sort of debt would you owe me?”
Rio seems to consider this question quite seriously. “It will be something fun.”
“Perhaps… a new doll?” Agatha looks at Rio’s fine dress and the silk ribbon in her hair. Certainly, whoever her mother is, she will be able to afford a very nice doll. “One with a real little dress, not just a petticoat made from my old pillowcase?”
Rio smiles widely. “Certainly, I can bring you a new doll, with a real dress. But you must scratch my nose first. Does that seem like a fair trade?”
“Yes,” Agatha nods, feeling quite certain of herself now. She has struck a fine bargain with her new friend. “But - you must be sure that it’s nicer than Sarah-Anne’s doll.”
Rio giggles. “How am I to know what Sarah-Anne’s doll is like?”
“If it has a fine dress, without jam stains, it will be nicer than Sarah-Anne’s.”
“Well, I shall make sure it is very fine indeed.”
Agatha meets Rio’s smile with her own. For a moment, it feels as if they are truly sharing something pleasant - as if they are two grown ups who have met at a crossroad and are passing the time of day as they journey on together (at least, this is how Agatha imagines grown ups make their friends).
She rolls up one sleeve, wary of her mother’s spell work, and carefully reaches over the threshold of the chalk circle, taking care to keep all of the rest of her body from passing that particular boundary - sees Rio’s slight nod of acknowledgement at her cleverness and caution. And then she uses one finger, and scratches the tip of the other girl’s nose.
Rio lets out a huff of breath, a sound of profound relief, turning her face into the scratch like a dog pressing its ear into her hand.
“Ah, thank you, yes, that’s much better.”
“You are very welcome.” Agatha declares, withdrawing her hand - she feels the faint sting of the magical boundary on her skin, but nothing else. Rio remains where she is, tethered to the floor, and Agatha does not immediately die or turn to dust. “You will not forget about my doll?”
“Of course not,” Rio looks quite affronted, and Agatha is immediately sorry for doubting her. “You shall have your doll, as soon as I am able.”
Agatha supposes that is as much a promise as she can reasonably expect someone who is stuck in one of her mother’s spells.
“Agatha,” Rio begins again, after another moment’s silence, “I think it’s quite likely that you are not meant to be in this room, is that right?”
Agatha really does consider lying to her again, but it seems fruitless. Besides, they are friends now. “No. But I think I’m stuck.”
“Ah, I sympathise,” Rio sighs. “Well - would you like the key to that door? So that you may release yourself?”
Agatha’s head jerks up with surprise, meeting Rio’s placid gaze. “You know where it is?”
“I do,” Rio nods, “I saw where your mother put it, the last time she was here.”
Agatha exhales, relief pooling in her chest. Perhaps she does not have to stay here until she is rescued - perhaps her mother never has to know she’s been here at all. “Then you must tell me!”
“I mean,” Rio lifts her manacled hands as far as she is able, “there is very little I must do, dearest. In fact there is only one thing I must do, and even that, I am currently prevented from.”
Dearest - Agatha swallows hard. Her stomach feels funny. No one has ever called her dearest before.
“Then - will you tell me? As a friend, for the goodness of your heart?” Agatha hedges, and sees Rio’s eyes sparkle with something close to mischief.
“Oh, but I don’t have a heart,” she makes a vague motion with her fingers toward her chest, “such as I am, I was born without one. Though, I suppose I could make one… from clay, or wood, perhaps. Just for you. Would you like that?”
Agatha wrinkles her nose. “I don’t want your heart! I want the key to this door! And my doll. You do owe me a doll.”
“I do,” Rio agrees, firmly. “But, owing to my lack of heart and your lack of wish for one, perhaps we should strike another bargain?”
Agatha nods - the first bargain seems to have gone relatively well so far. Why not make another?
(“You bitch,” Agatha groans, as Rio retells this same story, three hundred and fifty years later, for Billy’s benefit, “you could have traded the key to me for the nose scratch, and not spent half an hour manipulating an eight year old.”
“Ah, but then you wouldn’t have gotten your doll!” Rio retorts, “and it was such a fine doll!”
“It was,” Agatha sighs, “but that’s another thing I’m never forgiving you for.”
“So be it, my dearest heart.”)
“I would like you to give me something,” Rio says, from the magic circle, gazing up at Agatha - if she could stand, would she be taller than Agatha? Agatha thinks she might be. Her legs seem quite long, even folded under her skirts.
“What sort of thing?” Agatha asks, suspiciously. “I don’t have anything very valuable.”
“Oh, I’m not asking for something of yours,” Rio gently shakes her head, “I am only asking you to return something of mine. Something that was taken.”
“Where is it?”
“Just over there,” and Rio lifts one hand as much as she is able, and points with a single finger toward the desk covered in books.
Well - that was easier than Agatha was expecting. She’s almost disappointed - it would have been nice to be given some kind of quest, to go on an adventure. Though perhaps that would be a great deal more trouble.
“What is it?” Agatha sidles over to the table - amongst the books there are quills, coins, a handful of rusty nails, a rabbit’s foot, and an empty ink well.
“If you go into the top drawer, there,” Rio instructs, gently. “Open it up, and you will find a knife.”
Agatha does as she’s told - and gazes at the blade, small and wickedly curved, sitting in the drawer on top of another book. It… does not look like something that a little girl should have.
She glances at Rio, uncertainly.
“It’s mine,” Rio insists, “I only want back what has been taken.”
Agatha reaches into the drawer, taking the knife by its ornate handle - it’s meant to resemble a crescent moon, she realises, as she holds it up, catching the scant light coming in around the shutters - and there are folds and veins around the handle suggestive of leaves and roots, but also, somehow, of bones.
“That’s right,” Rio encourages, softly, “that’s mine. You need only place it in my lap.”
Agatha bristles a little, though she isn’t sure why. Something in Rio’s tone. “I don’t need do anything, dearest.”
And Rio throws her head back and laughs - a bright, wild sound that sends a shiver up Agatha’s spine. It’s not an unpleasant sensation.
“Tell me where the key is first,” Agatha insists, bringing herself to the edge of the chalk circle, the blade held carefully with two hands, “and I will put the knife in your lap.”
“And I must simply trust that you will do this?” Rio asks, her tone more conversational than accusatory.
“Well, you said there is only one thing you must do,” Agatha points out, “and that even that you are prevented from now. But it seems you have a choice, to trust me or no.”
Rio’s eyes are bright and warm, her mouth curving upwards. “Agatha Harkness. I do think we shall be very good friends. Will you give me your word?”
“Yes,” Agatha returns, curtly.
“And you are a witch of your word?”
A witch . She has never been called that before, either. But it strikes Agatha that this is very much a witch-ly thing to do - to strike bargains, to be true and brave, and to make strange friends in places she should not be.
“I am,” she says, “will you trust me?”
Rio inclines her head, her mouth quirking into a delicate smile. “Yes, Agatha Harkness, I will trust you. The key is on top of those shelves, there.”
She nods at the shelves against the far wall - behind the desk. They are very tall. Agatha eyes them doubtfully, then sets the knife on the floor - still outside of the circle, of course - and grasps the back of her mother’s armchair, dragging it across the floor.
“Does my mother often sit with you in here?” She asks, as she sets the chair against the shelves.
“Oh yes,” Rio replies, “she sits in that chair and speaks to me of many things.”
“Does she tell you stories? She has stopped telling me stories, of late.”
“No - no, she doesn’t tell me stories - only her opinions,” Rio shakes her head, disapprovingly. “Be careful now - I will not be able to help you if you break your neck. And neither will your mother, as it happens.”
“You don’t know what my mother can and can’t do,” Agatha hitches her skirts, and scrambles up onto the chair’s arm, and then onto its back, keeping her hands braced against the shelves behind so that it doesn’t tip her over.
“Oh, but I do,” Rio replies, “at least, in this instance. Your mother does not hold domain over all things, no matter how much she would like to.”
This strikes Agatha as rather an offensive thing to say about the mother of a friend who is about to be helpful to you. But also, there is something thrilling about hearing Rio be disparaging of Evanora - a perfect prickle of mischievousness, within it a vein of real power, that chimes with that quiet voice in the back of her head. She does not hold domain over all things . She will not always hold domain over you .
As she thinks this, her hand, stretched over her head to the very top shelf, touches something metal. She grabs at it - and finds herself holding a heavy iron key, the three heads of the triple goddess wrought at the top of its handle, as wide as her fist.
“There,” Rio remarks, as Agatha returns to the floor with the key clutched to her chest. “Well done.”
Agatha examines the key, then strides over to the door - even though there is no handle, there is, in fact, a lock for the key to fit to, which she must have missed on her entrance before her eyes got used to the dark. She glances back at Rio, still tethered to the floor.
She could leave now. She has the key. There is a lock. Rio cannot follow her. She could put the knife back where she found it and leave. That is, more or less, probably what she should do. It’s certainly the best chance she has of making sure that her mother will never know of this particular misadventure.
But Rio’s pretty eyes are on her, wide and gentle. And she has been funny and kind, and Agatha likes her a great deal, actually. They are friends.
She tip-toes back to the circle, picks up Rio’s knife - and then pushes her hand over the chalk circle one last time, delicately places the knife in Rio’s lap.
Rio’s gaze lifts to her face, and her eyes are full of tears, and her tears seem to be strangely black and full of stars, as if the night sky is bleeding down her face. “Thank you, Agatha Harkness. I will not forget this.”
And then Agatha takes up the key, sprints to the door, unlocks it with a single great wrench - the mechanism gives a satisfying c-clunk as it turns over - and wrenches the door open.
Of course she immediately collides with Evanora, whose hand is resting on the door handle from the other side, about to come in - Sarah-Anne, Sarah-Beth and Margaret are huddled at the bottom of the stairs with their mothers, looking suitably tearful and chastened.
“Agatha!” Evanora snatches the key from Agatha’s hand and wrenches her through the doorway back out of the room by her ear, “what exactly do you think you are doing?”
“Nothing!” Agatha gasps, reflexively. “Ow! Mother! Release me!”
“I will do nothing of the sort,” Evanora grasps her shoulders with fingers that feel as iron as the key, “why would you enter my study? Haven’t I told you, that you are never to so much as look at the door?! Haven’t I told you never to even set foot upon these stairs?!”
Agatha keeps her gaze on her feet, her face hot. She is used to being scolded, for a certainty, but the door is still open, and she doesn’t like that Rio must be able to hear her being shouted at. It’s embarrassing.
“Sarah-Anne pushed me,” she says, sounding small and whiny even to her own ears.
“That’s a lie!” Sarah-Anne shouts, from the bottom of the stairs, “she wanted to go in, she dared us to follow her!”
Agatha’s face is burning even hotter now, and her eyes are beginning to sting. “I did no such thing!”
Evanora slaps her, hard - Agatha gasps, reeling backward, her gaze swimming, the shock of it worse and more immediate than the pain. “Insolent child! Do you have any idea what you might have done? How many lives you may have ended with your wickedness?!”
“I hate you!” Agatha’s wrath comes up like water suddenly at a boil, the words out of her mouth before she can stop them - it’s too much, to be so chastened in front of the other girls and where her new friend will see, “I hate you! Rio says you don’t hold domain over all things! She will bring me a fine new doll and you will all be jealous!”
Evanora’s face has gone white as bone. “ Rio .”
“She is my friend! She is my true friend - she said she would make a heart just for me to have!”
“Agatha,” Evanora’s tone has dropped to one that Agatha has never heard before, even in all her eight years of being swatted and scolded and chased away from things she shouldn’t be reaching for, “ what have you done ?”
Agatha swallows, around the strange taste of her rage in her mouth - and is aware that there is a scent emanating from the open door now - overpowering the sweet of the protection charms in the rafters, this is a smell like a forest after a rainstorm, like damp earth, spring flowers, ash, blood. Things mouldering and growing a new and falling back into decay again.
Evanora shoves Agatha aside and strides back into her study, and Agatha, still trembling with her newfound anger, scurries after her, determined that she will ask Rio and Rio will say it is all true.
But Rio isn’t there. As Evanora throws open the shutters and leaves the room in stark daylight - there is no little girl. There is no circle. The chalk is faded, the candle wax scattered, the single burning one over Rio’s tether sits in two neat pieces on the floor, as if it had been cleanly sliced in half.
In what had been the magic circle, there is now only a mound of damp earth crowned with a cluster of mushrooms.
Evanora whips the backs of Agatha’s legs with a switch narrower than her little finger, until Agatha is bloody and her throat is too raw to keep screaming. Then she is shut in her room for a week. She isn’t even allowed out to piss - her mother coldly hands her a pot when she asks, and tells her to do her business in that and put it out the window when it gets full, like a peasant does.
Twice a day she is left a tray of bread and water. And once in a while, Agatha hears Sarah-Anne, Sarah-Beth and Margaret down the hall, whispering and giggling. Agatha would scream all her best insults if she could, but her throat still hurts too much to speak above a whisper.
She cannot sit and she can only lie down on her front. But it’s not that, or the bread and water, or the piss pot, or the other girls enjoying her misfortune that truly makes her cry - great, humiliating sobs muffled into her pillow late at night.
It is that Rio had left her. Rio who had said she was Agatha’s friend, who had promised . The funny, pretty girl with her fine dress fit for a princess, who had called her dearest , who had called her a witch. Rio who she had made a solemn bargain. Rio who she had chosen to help, because they were meant to be friends.
Stupid. She is a stupid, selfish girl, as her mother says. Too silly to see the tricks of a monster only trying to claw its way free of a trap.
Except that, on the last day of her imprisonment in her room, she wakes to a strange lump in her bed. And when she opens her shuttered windows and lifts the covers, she finds a doll she has certainly never seen before.
It is bigger than any of her other dolls, standing almost up to her knee - and it is much, much finer than Sarah-Anne’s.
Instead of being made from rags, her face, hands and feet are all of fine china, glazed and painted a warm olive brown, with little rings painted on each of her fingers, while her body is a softer linen, though firmly stuffed and wired so that its limbs can be moved and posed. She has leather shoes that lace up to her calves, and her face is painted with wide dark eyes and a neat red mouth, half curled into a benevolent smile. Her soft,dark hair feels startlingly real - certainly it is not made from yarn - touching her shoulders in delicate ringlets, and tied back from her face with a green silk ribbon.
And the dress - the dress is fancier than anything Agatha has ever worn - a purple brocade for the bodice, layers of real lace petticoats, a silk hat and three skirts of purple and green ruffles.There is a pattern of flowers and rabbits embroidered around the cuffs of its' sleeves, so tiny and fine that Agatha cannot imagine how a seamstress could have worked it. And a broach the size of Agatha’s smallest fingernail is pinned to the doll’s breast, where it is fashioned into the shape of a human heart.
Tucked under the doll in the bed, there’s even a real woollen overcoat and a thimble-sized hand-muff lined with some kind of white fur - perhaps it’s ermine?
Agatha is awestruck. Her mother would think it ugly and gaudy, but there is not an inch of her new doll that doesn’t delight Agatha to her core. Truly, this is the finest toy in all of Salem - perhaps in all the world.
She cradles her new companion to her chest, ignoring the burn of the still-healing welts on her legs to sit on her bed, smoothing the doll’s fine hair, toying with the ribbon.
And, because she is not sure how else to speak to Rio, she whispers into the doll’s little china ear. “Many thanks - I shall name her Miss Mushroom, in your honour.”
Perhaps she only imagines it, but for a moment she’s sure she sees a familiar star-like twinkle in the doll’s freshly painted eyes.