Beswitched (13 page)

A very practical and handy spell, particularly in warm weather. And the spell for making water boil would be most welcome at a picnic. I am hoping, however, to benefit humanity—to cast spells that will heal and help. Can I find a spell to help Celeste?

5
TH
J
ANUARY
1876

Girls return on the 10th. At last, a chance to prepare for an important experiment. The idea of a “summoning” fascinates
me. Dare I attempt to summon a “demon” from the future? Even supposing such a thing possible, what form might the demon take? I remember some highly questionable “occult” pictures left by Father, which I burned at the first opportunity. I cannot summon anything that might not be suitable for a girls’ school
.

6
TH
J
ANUARY

Feast of the Epiphany—not a day for sorcery
.

10
TH
J
ANUARY

First day of term. The usual chaos of half the girls weeping and the other half behaving as if still at home. And the noise! Too vexed to know whether I am running a school or a zoo
.

11
TH
J
ANUARY

A very strange thing happened this afternoon. I tried a spell to increase the amount of milk produced by cows on the estate farm. In the middle, realized I was being watched, and discovered Celeste H. peeping at me through the keyhole. I was very angry, and the poor child was terrified. Despite her terror, however, she could not help asking questions, and those questions were so intelligent that I thought of a perfect way to guarantee her silence. Celeste is now my assistant. Under my direction, she measured the herbs and read the incantation for the milk spell
.

What a peculiar little thing she is, with those eyes like round black buttons, and a perfect haystack of fuzzy black hair!

12
TH
J
ANUARY

I was right to enlist Celeste. Perhaps because she is young, she appears to have a natural gift for magic. Early this morning I walked to the dairy, and the dairyman told me the cows had yielded a great deal more milk than usual (exact words: “They’re spurting out this morning fit to drown you”)
.

In the evening, when Celeste came to my study for her Greek lesson, I told her about the “summoning” spell. She seized the idea eagerly, begging me to try the spell on her. I began to tell her of my doubts, but she would not hear them. Till the day I die, I shall recall her exact words: “If we summon a future demon to help me, I know it’ll find a way to let me stay at school!” I warned her that it would be difficult, perhaps dangerous, but there is a stubborn spirit inside that puny frame, and she kept on at me until I relented
.

We are to carry out the summoning during Celeste’s next Greek lesson, the day after tomorrow. I am curious, and a little nervous
.

14
TH
J
ANUARY

This was an experience to chill the blood. I have barely recovered, and will have to drink some brandy before I can face any of my teaching staff or servants
.

Celeste came to my study at five. I sat her down in a chair that faced due east and locked the door. The child was very still and very pale, but bravely determined to go through with it. I threw the hog’s bristle, milk thistle, et cetera into the bowl. I
could sense Celeste’s longing, and it made me call up my utmost strength and authority as I chanted the spell
.

A great wind rushed through the room, stirring heaps of papers on my desk and blowing Celeste’s hair across her frightened face
.

And then it appeared
.

I nearly screamed aloud
.

It was a dreadful figure, ghostly and transparent—a young woman in a man’s costume, who seemed to be shouting something and looking very surprised. She was in the room for perhaps three minutes (frankly I was too terrified to take note of the time), and then she melted away
.

Celeste fell off her chair in a dead faint. I saw then how selfish I had been, to use her in this way. How could I have done it, when I might have killed her? I revived her with smelling salts and water, assuring her that the demon had gone—but my nerves are at breaking point
.

15
TH
J
ANUARY

A queer development. The new teacher arrived today, a young woman named Elizabeth Mosse. The first sign that all was not well came after luncheon. Miss Craig told me Miss Mosse was causing an “uproar” in the Staff Common Room. She wants to cut her hair and to wear trousers like a man. She claims to be something called a “Veegan” and annoyed Cook very much by throwing a good pork chop into the bin
.

How my heart sank when I heard all this. I asked Miss

Craig to send the young woman to me. Miss Mosse barged in a few minutes later, without knocking. As I feared, she insists that she comes from the future. She is muddled about the details, but I am sure she is telling the truth. She kept using words like “Patriarchy” and “Oppression,” and says she teaches something called Women’s Studies at a University of which I have never heard. She was impertinent enough to suggest that I needed to “raise my consciousness.” I was firm, and told her that any more talk of this kind would force me to dismiss her
.

Truth to tell, I am afraid of her. Is she mentally unbalanced—or is she the “demon” I summoned for Celeste? Should I have told her why she is here? It is the Governors’ meeting tomorrow, and I must see that Miss Mosse is firmly kept out of the way
.

16
TH
J
ANUARY

Very nearly a disaster. Miss Mosse somehow managed to insinuate herself into my upstairs drawing room while the Governors were having tea. Hardly any of them noticed, thank goodness—too busy “scoffing” cakes, as the girls would say. To my horror, I found the woman deep in conversation with—of all people—my newest and most important School Governor, the young Countess of Matlock. Her Ladyship was gracious, and promised to pay a call on someone or other, but I was so annoyed, I nearly dragged Miss Mosse out of the room by her hair
.

I fail to see how this sort of thing can help Celeste
.

23
RD
J
ANUARY

A most astonishing letter this morning, from Mr H. He has changed his mind about education for girls, and now wishes Celeste to continue at St. Winifred’s. This was such joyful news that it took me a minute or two to notice the oddness of the rest of the letter. Mr H. says the “scales fell from his eyes” when he and his wife were visited by the Countess of Matlock. This brilliant young noblewoman spoke with great eloquence about Celeste’s excellent abilities, and he saw that it would be a sin to waste them. He is now such a keen supporter of female education that he has donated two hundred pounds to Lady Matlock’s Evening School for Laboring Girls. I must admit that I absolutely fell back in my chair when I read this. Two hundred pounds! Has this spell of mine made everyone mad? I was longing to talk to Miss Mosse, to whom I owe an apology. First, however, I had to give Celeste the good news. I sent for her after breakfast and it was wonderful to behold the happiness dawning in that pinched, miserable face
.

She admitted that she had poured out her heart to Miss Mosse, and it had been Miss Mosse’s idea to talk to Lady Matlock. Miss Mosse said that she had read about Lady Matlock in a book about women’s history—apparently, in the future, Her Ladyship is revered as a great pioneer
.

Naturally, this made me all the more eager to talk to Miss Mosse. But it was too late. Miss Craig came in, to say Miss Mosse was behaving “oddly.” When Miss Mosse herself was brought to my study, I saw at once that a profound change had come over her
.

She was no longer brazen and rude, but timid and dazed. She
told me she thought she had been ill with a fever, during which she had experienced a terrible kind of “living nightmare.”

In this nightmare she had been living one hundred years in the future, with a group of women who called themselves a “feminist collective.” Miss Mosse said she was most distressed to find herself with her hair cut short, wearing trousers and some kind of long vest with the words “Women’s Liberation” printed upon it. She also claims to have a met a lady who was a Member of Parliament
.

I made the poor creature a herbal draught, to persuade her that this had been nothing more than a bad dream. I told her never to speak about it again, but after she had gone I was in a great state of excitement
.

I have never seen why women should not have the same education as men, the same rights as men. I would like to be a Member of Parliament—but I do not even have a vote. These revelations from the future fill me with hope. Will I live to vote? Will my dear girls?

It is clear that the Miss Mosse from the future has returned to her own enlightened time, having set Celeste on course for a happier life. The Miss Mosse from the present now thinks she dreamed her stay in the 1970s, and everyone is in her right place. An entirely successful experiment—but an alarming one. It must be wrong to interfere with the workings of Providence in this way. I shall make no more experiments in this field
.

“And that’s all,” Pogo said, into the breathless silence. “There isn’t any more.”

“Poor Celeste!” Dulcie whispered. “Imagine hating your home so much that you’d rather be at school!”

“Maybe her home life was happier, after her dad turned into a feminist,” Flora suggested.

“Well, I think it’s a bit of a swizz,” Pete said crossly. “There isn’t anything about how to get rid of a demon—the one Dame Mildred summoned vanished all by itself.”

“Only when her task was completed,” Pogo said. “Don’t you see? That’s the whole point. Celeste’s demon helped her to stay at St. Win’s—and once she’d done that, she went back to her own time.”

“Why haven’t I gone back to mine?” Flora asked wistfully.

“Because you haven’t done your task yet!”

“What task?”

Pogo shrugged. “I don’t know. Let’s assume you were sent to help Pete, since she was the one who chanted the spell. I suppose you’ll know what it is when you see it. And when you’ve done it—saved Pete from a runaway train or something—you’ll simply go home.”

Flora thought about this. Deep down, she had dreamed that they would find a spell to send her home to the future that very night. It was disappointing that this was not going to happen. On the other hand, she now knew she would be going home eventually, and that was a great weight off her mind. She could concentrate on school without constantly worrying that she would never see her parents again. The other Elizabeth Mosse had gone home to her 1970s feminist collective, and she would go home to twenty-first-century Wimbledon. How clever the summoning spell
had been, to know that the best demon for Celeste would be a feminist historian, who knew about Lady Matlock being a brilliant pioneer, or whatever.

Why had the magic chosen Flora for Pete? And when would they know what Flora had come to do?

12
Half-term

I
n the meantime, the evenings were getting lighter, and it was coming up to half-term. At home in the future, half-term lasted for one week. Here it was just one day. Parents and friends were allowed to take the girls out. Pete’s parents were driving all the way from London. Pogo’s brother Neville was coming from Cambridge, and Dulcie’s granny was coming from south Devon with Dorsey, who had once been her maid and was now her housekeeper. The entire school fizzed with anticipation, and it was hard not to feel left out. Flora had had four postcards and a long letter from the other Flora’s mother, but of course it wasn’t the same.

“The two years will pass sooner than you think,” Mother had
written, “before you even know it. And I’ll be thinking about you, every single minute of every single day. When we love each other so much, nothing can really keep us apart.”