Miss Ellicott's School for the Magically Minded Read online

“Frenetica doesn’t want any magic in the pots,” said Bowser. “Because of those frogs that one time.”

  Frenetica was the cook.

  Chantel did not think Miss Ellicott had mistaken her for Anna. Anna had yellow hair, and skin the color of raw chicken. “What did she tell you about being the Chosen One?”

  “She said I was left in a basket made from oily grasses that don’t grow in Lightning Pass,” said Anna. “And woven into the basket were the words THE CHOSEN ONE, in red-dyed reeds.”

  “Hmph,” said Chantel. Anna’s story had a nicer basket in it.

  “I don’t think I’m the Chosen One,” said Anna. “The only thing I’m much good at is brewing potions.”

  “Maybe she was trying to encourage you both,” said Bowser, his voice ringing from deep inside an iron kettle. “You know, give you something to shoot for.”

  Chantel and Anna looked at each other. They shook their heads.

  “I don’t think so,” said Chantel. “She doesn’t encourage people exactly.”

  “No,” said Anna. “I wonder if she means we’re going to be two of the Six?”

  Six sorceresses—the very best in the city—were tasked with the Buttoning, the spell that kept the wall called Seven Buttons strong. Miss Ellicott was one of the Six.

  Most of the girls from Miss Ellicott’s School would grow up to be jobbing sorceresses. They would keep the Green Terraces growing, and they would mind shops that sold potions, small protections, and conjurings. But Chantel had hoped—and sometimes rather confidently expected—to become one of the Six.

  She had to admit she hadn’t really thought about Anna.

  “If she was talking about you being part of the Six, she wouldn’t have said the Chosen One,” said Bowser, inside the kettle.

  Chantel and Anna and Bowser more or less forgot about Chosen Ones after that, up until the day a mysterious stranger appeared at the door, uttered the word “Dimswitch,” and changed everything.

  2

  THE WILL-BE

  Chantel grew tall and thoughtful. She excelled in summonings, spells, wards, and, as time went by, deportment, at least until the day the snake crawled into her ear. But that comes later.

  Her life began to change one ordinary day when she was thirteen, and enduring an unnecessary magic lesson from the utterly unmagical Miss Flivvers.

  There were many kinds of magic it would have been quite useful to learn, Chantel thought. Like flying. Or turning into something—a cat, for example. Or turning invisible. Chantel could do a self-abnegation, of course; most of the older girls could. But that didn’t make you invisible, just hard to notice.

  Instead, the magical maidens were learning to summon small and useful household objects. And Chantel had been able to do that since she was five.

  Nonetheless, there they all were, a dozen magical maidens, lined up in front of Miss Flivvers—the little girls like Holly and Daisy, who hadn’t even learned to make light-globes yet, and big girls like Chantel and Anna. Only Leila, the oldest student in the school, was missing.

  “First,” said Miss Flivvers, “recite for me the two principle rules of summoning objects.”

  “One,” chorused the girls. “Do not summon anything that does not belong either to you, or to the person for whom you are performing the summoning. Two—”

  At this point Holly faltered, forgot her lines, and burst into tears. Anna took her hand and led her from the room.

  “Two?” Miss Flivvers demanded.

  “Two,” the girls said. “Do not summon anything likely to frighten, upset, or offend any of those present.”

  “Correct,” said Miss Flivvers. “Now, for this spell we use what signs?”

  “Sixth, fourth, and nineteenth,” chanted the girls.

  “Very well. First, you will show me your sixth sign. Left arms up, and—if Chantel will deign to join us?”

  Chantel curtseyed quickly by way of apology and raised her left hand with the others. The fact was she had already summoned the scrub-brushes and sponges that were waiting at the other end of the room several times while Miss Flivvers’s back was turned. Then she’d sent them back again. She would be asked to summon them again, of course, after the little girls failed to do the spell the first time. Which was very—

  Leila stuck her head in the door. “I beg your pardon,” she said in a deportment-y tone. “Miss Ellicott wishes to see Chantel and Anna. And me.”

  Leila swept out.

  “You may go, Chantel,” said Miss Flivvers. She looked worried. Maybe because she would have to finish teaching the lesson without Chantel’s help, or maybe because worried was just an expression that sat naturally on Miss Flivvers’s face.

  Chantel knocked on the tall, stern door of Miss Ellicott’s office.

  “Enter,” said Miss Ellicott.

  Anna and Leila were already there, sitting in severe, straight-backed chairs, with their faces to Miss Ellicott and their backs to the shelves that held jars of useful magical supplies. Chantel curtseyed and took a seat beside them.

  Miss Ellicott stood and surveyed them somberly. “Circumstances change.”

  This was a surprise. One of the fundamental lessons of life in Miss Ellicott’s School was that circumstances did not change.

  “Regrettably, the future may not be like the glorious present. The present is a pinnacle that man has achieved by overcoming the trials of the terrible past.”

  Miss Ellicott looked at her students to see how they would react to this pronouncement. Her students looked back and blinked.

  “Although, in general, a girl is best off memorizing the wisdom of her elders and seeking to be worthy of it, there are times when originality and creativity may be unavoidable,” Miss Ellicott went on. “We find ourselves now in difficult times, interesting times, times when what is may change. Perhaps for the better, perhaps . . . not. Therefore, it becomes necessary to teach a few of my more advanced pupils the more difficult branches of magic.

  “Later, I will teach you the spells by which you can help the patriarchs and the king. The Gleam, with which you can make a man feel and appear ten feet tall. The Contentedness spell, which brings peace to our city. But we will begin with principles of prognostication. We will see if any of you has the least aptitude for seeing the Will-Be or the Ago.”

  Her tone conveyed that she did not expect they would.

  “Prognosticatory magic is slippery stuff,” Miss Ellicott went on. “It is difficult to see the Will-Be, and even the Ago can be wavery and uncertain.”

  Chantel was surprised by this, as she had always assumed that once something happened, it was done and was known. Miss Ellicott now told them this was not the case. It all came down to missing information, lost perspectives, and points of view.

  Points of view are funny things.

  Miss Ellicott showed them the spell for seeing the Will-Be.

  It was important, Miss Ellicott said, to burn the right herbs, and then put the fire out suddenly with blood from a mortal wound.

  They did this. There was a terrible burned-blood smell. Eye-watering purple smoke rose from the ashes, glowing, and formed itself into . . .

  “Well?” said Miss Ellicott, looking from the smoke to the girls with eyes as sharp as a toothache.

  Well, Anna said the smoke formed into a dog digging its way under a fence to escape from its yard. And Leila said there was indeed a fence, but a fearsome beast (possibly a dragon) was burrowing under it to attack the city.

  Chantel was embarrassed to say that she didn’t see any animal at all, though she did see a fence. The fence was made of iron palings. A girl was walking along, pushing them over, one by one.

  The other students looked at her in confusion. “So the girl’s the monster?” said Leila. “That’s stupid.”

  “The girl’s trying to escape,” said Anna, clearly trying to be supportive.

  “If she’s trying to escape, she should run as soon as she’s knocked down enough palings,” said Leila. “The girl’s st
upid.”

  Miss Ellicott looked at all of them and shook her head. “I expected better.”

  She didn’t say what she’d seen, and naturally no one dared to ask.

  For the next spell, they looked at the Ago. They peered into a mist made by boiling seven herbs and then dashing the hot brew onto ice cut from a pond in which seven maidens had drowned, tragically, while washing out their socks.

  “Well?” said Miss Ellicott.

  “I see a king sitting on a throne, bestowing justice on everyone,” said Anna.

  Leila gave her a pitying look. “I see a mighty king leading men into battle. With each swipe of his sword, he knocks off two enemies’ heads.”

  “Which king?” Miss Ellicott demanded.

  “King Mergaunt the Meticulous,” said Anna.

  “King Wiley the Warmonger,” said Leila.

  “Hm.” Miss Ellicott turned to Chantel and waited.

  Chantel was embarrassed to say. “I just saw, um, a crown. And it was, um, bleeding.”

  Leila rolled her eyes expressively.

  “Which king wore the crown?” said Miss Ellicott.

  “Nobody wore it,” said Chantel. “It was just sitting there. Bleeding.”

  She felt like a hideous failure. She was the one who was supposed to be good at things. If it was the Ago, she ought to have seen a king from the past. Leila and Anna had. Leila’s king had been fairly recent.

  The year Chantel was eight, King Wiley the Warmonger had died of a sudden case of daggers in the back. Two years later, his successor died of a surfeit of lettuce, and was replaced by King Rathfest the Restless. It was soon after this that Miss Ellicott had been visited by a royal messenger.

  “The king wishes prognostications,” said the messenger. “He wishes to know if he is likely to fall victim to the same sort of misfortune as his predecessors.”

  Chantel thought it extremely likely, but nobody asked her.

  So Miss Ellicott went to the palace to prognosticate. And when she returned, Chantel heard her talking to Miss Flivvers.

  Miss Ellicott clearly approved of the new king. “This is a new era for sorceresses. King Rathfest doesn’t blame women for the treachery of Queen Haywith five centuries ago. King Rathfest puts women on a pedestal.”

  “It seems to me,” said Miss Flivvers, who had been in a sour mood, “that once you’re up on a pedestal, you can’t take a step in any direction without falling.”

  “It is better than the alternative,” said Miss Ellicott. “Mark my words.”

  I give you now Chantel Goldenrod, magician, age thirteen.

  Dangerous?

  Yes, of course. All people are dangerous, especially when they think and act for themselves.

  And does she?

  Not yet.

  Not entirely.

  But there are signs.

  And the girl is certainly magical, and she is training to be a sorceress.

  Therefore, there are dangers. She is carefully watched.

  We have seen nothing to alarm us yet. She is a model of deportment. She speaks when spoken to and otherwise maintains a proper silence in the presence of her elders and betters.

  She can’t possibly be planning anything.

  Nonetheless, she is thirteen, and she is a magician, and she is female.

  We will keep an eye on her.

  3

  THE HALL OF PATRIARCHS

  Considering how badly she’d done in her first prognostication lesson, Chantel was not exactly happy when Miss Ellicott decided to tutor her alone. She went into the close, candlelit study at the appointed time, feeling nervous.

  “Now then,” said Miss Ellicott. “Describe to me exactly what you saw last week. First, the Ago.”

  “I saw a bloody crown. But I’ve been thinking about it,” said Chantel. “And I don’t think the crown was empty. I think there was a king in it. I think it was one of the ancient kings, and that I just didn’t recognize him.”

  A stony silence followed this remark. Chantel shifted uncomfortably, and Japheth the snake flicked his tongue. It occurred to Chantel suddenly that she had never seen Miss Ellicott’s familiar.

  “You do not think that,” said Miss Ellicott.

  Chantel was reluctant to contradict, because of her deportment. “I beg your pardon. I think it was King Fustian the First.”

  “Oh? And what did King Fustian the First look like?”

  “Uh, square,” said Chantel. “His face was kind of square, and his ears were kind of square, and his eyes were kind of—”

  “Square, because the sculptor who carved the bas-relief on his tomb was incapable of curves,” said Miss Ellicott. “Do not lie to me, Chantle. It is useless, annoying, and a waste of time.”

  Japheth gave an angry twitch. “I thought it might have been King Fustian,” said Chantel, controlling her temper.

  “You mean, you thought that was what I wanted to hear,” said Miss Ellicott. “That is not how prognostication works. You see what you see. You make yourself an empty vessel into which the vision pours.”

  “Well, I guess I can’t do it, then,” said Chantel.

  “Not with that attitude, certainly,” said Miss Ellicott. “If you wish to be of service to your king, so that he may defend our country from the evil Marauders Without the Walls, you must put aside these adolescent vaporings. You do not matter. But at least your vision sounds like a real one. Tell me again exactly what you saw.”

  “A crown with blood coming out of it,” said Chantel, her neatly folded hands clenching angrily. “That’s all.”

  “Good. You must never let anyone convince you that you have seen something other than what you have seen,” said Miss Ellicott. “And that means you must never convince yourself that—”

  There came a tapping at the chamber door.

  “I am engaged!” said Miss Ellicott, to the closed door. “Never convince yourself that—”

  The knock came again, timid but determined.

  “Whoever is at the door had better think very seriously about whether she wishes to remain within my household!” said Miss Ellicott. “Chantle, you must never—”

  The knock came a third time.

  Miss Ellicott stalked to the door and tore it open.

  Bowser stood trembling in the doorway. He looked, Chantel thought, as if he’d been staring into his own open grave.

  “M-Miss, there’s somethi—someone to see you.”

  Miss Ellicott fixed on him the look that students got when they should not have dared to speak. “I am engaged.” She turned back to Chantel.

  “I told him that,” said Bowser. “He said you’d want to see him.”

  “He was mistaken.”

  “The man said—”

  “If he must see me, he may come back tomorrow at nine o’clock,” said Miss Ellicott.

  Bowser looked as if he was caught between two terrifying things. “M-Miss. He said to tell you ‘Dimswitch.’”

  Miss Ellicott stared.

  Then she turned to Chantel. “Chantle—” She opened her mouth, and closed it again. She did this three times, as if she was thinking of things to say and then discarding them.

  “Chantle,” she said finally. “Whatever happens, I expect you to do your duty.”

  Chantel was startled. “Do my—?”

  Miss Ellicott swept out of the office. Chantel and Bowser heard her hurrying down the stairs.

  They looked at each other in confusion.

  Chantel took Japheth from her neck and let him slither from one of her hands to another. “Why did you almost call him a ‘something’?”

  “Because he was.” Bowser was looking at the jars of magical ingredients on the shelves. “What are all these things?”

  “Stuff for spells,” said Chantel. “What did he—”

  “What’s this?” Bowser picked up a jar.

  “Screeching mandrake roots harvested on the night of a blood-red moon,” said Chantel. “Never mind them. What did he look like?”


  Bowser put the jar back. “Like death, I guess. He looked . . .” Bowser frowned. “Like something that was going to happen no matter what, and nobody was going to be happy about it.”

  Chantel looped Japheth back onto her neck and went out into the hall. She looked down the stairs. The front door was shut, and the hall was empty.

  Up above they could hear the chatter of the other girls, reciting rules for spells or sweeping the dormitory. Down in the kitchen, they could hear Frenetica clattering pots.

  “Did he say what that meant?” Chantel asked. “Dimswitch?”

  “No,” said Bowser. “He just said ‘Dimswitch.’”

  “Hm,” said Chantel. “Maybe we’ll find out more when she comes back.”

  But Miss Ellicott did not come back.

  It was only late that evening that it began to become clear that something was wrong. And when she was still not back the following morning, it was clear that the something was very wrong indeed.

  The day after the mysterious stranger spirited Miss Ellicott away, none of the jobbing sorceresses showed up to teach. There was only the non-magical Miss Flivvers. And Miss Flivvers went into a tizzy.

  Chantel had always thought of Miss Flivvers as a grown up, and she’d expected her to behave in a grown up way, which up to now she always had. But it seemed that without Miss Ellicott to tell her what to do, Miss Flivvers had no idea. She gathered all the girls into an upstairs classroom. And she gave them lists to memorize, and that was that.

  Chantel and Anna slipped away. No one said anything. They were suddenly freer than they had ever been. Chantel and all the other girls could have sledded down the streets on pot lids; there was no one to stop them.

  But it was late spring, and anyway the situation was too serious for sledding. Chantel and Anna went down to the skullery to confer with Bowser.

  “Could Miss Ellicott have gone to do the Buttoning spell?” said Anna, without much hope.

  “That’s done every second Thursday,” said Bowser. “And she always goes really early in the morning—more like night, actually.”

  “Maybe she just went away on a visit . . .” said Anna.

  She trailed off as the others shook their heads. You could walk anywhere in Lightning Pass in an hour. There was no need for overnight visits. And she couldn’t have gone outside the wall. People didn’t.