Chalk Dust & Broomsticks, Chapter 15

Althea gets a visitor.

Chapter 15 - Althea has a visitor

"Life may change, but it may fly not. / Hope may vanish, but can die not. / Truth be veiled, but still it burneth. / Love repulsed, but it returneth."

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Primrose Primary School was named for the flowers that used to grow behind the school, flowers that were now long gone. Althea had been in post for nearly four months, and already the Chairman of the Governors, Mrs. Catchpole, regretted their decision. The Governors were desperate to hide their mistake, still unaware that a plot was afoot to deliberately close the school..

Mary Pink was off sick with stress, and she certainly wouldn't be the last.
Althea's friend, Alex from the Local Education Authority (L.E.A.), came to visit to discuss the plot's progress.

"Stick in there," Alex encouraged. "It won't be long now. Think of that plum job you're heading for. I reckon that before this school year is out, it will all be over."

Althea frowned. "I'm being blackmailed, Alex. That bitch of a General Assistant, Dora, has the letter you sent me. She's demanding money. If this got into the press, I'll be ruined.

Alex frowned. "We must shut her up. The school has to close. It has to fail the inspection. We're depending on you to make that happen."

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The Vipers' Nest

Geoff Padstow, head of the top year on the Junior side of the school and previous headteacher on the junior side of Primrose, walked into Shirley's office, hands in his pockets. After expressing pleasantries, he walked across her office and, leaning heavily against the class lists, hanging on her wall, he began slowly to bang his head against the class lists hanging there.

"What's the matter?" asked Shirley, alarmed.

"I've just had a bit of a shock, that's all," he declared. "A cup of tea would be welcome. I don't suppose you have anything stronger?"

When Shirley returned with a steaming teacup, Geoff seemed calmer but withdrawn. He had decided against sharing his true concerns with her. All he said was, "I have just discovered a vipers' nest." Taking his tea, he disappeared into his office, then buzzed Shirley to connect him to his wife, Marie, clearly needing to share the extent of his shock with her alone.

Shirley stirred her own cup of tea and pondered on what Geoff might have discovered. She knew that Geoff or his deputy would have made an excellent headteacher for the combined school, but for some reason that had not come to be. A decision to appoint outside the school was taken instead and now they were paying for it. What Geoff decided to do in the long term remained to be seen, but it seemed unlikely that he would stay on at Primrose given the current state of matters there. Perhaps he'll take another post in the town or move away entirely, Shirley wondered.


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Shirley Flies

That night Shirley polished the handle of her broomstick vigorously at home. The wood, dark and seasoned, gleamed under her attention, ready for its nightly outing. She tested the balance, then slung one leg over it. "Just a bit more polish," she thought, running the cloth over the worn grip one final time. Satisfied with the finish, she carefully took a tiny phial from her pocket and anointed her wrists with a thick, semi-poisonous herbal unguent, a necessary ritual that lessened her physical weight and enabled her to lift off. She settled onto the handle, its familiar shape comforting beneath her.


Concentrating hard, she tipped her head back. She visualized a ball of emerald energy forming outside her head, gathering the latent power of the earth and the sky. Her ears buzzed and fizzed with the sensation of the energy coalescing, and her eyes, usually tired from a day of school administration, sparkled with pure excitement. With a slight tremor, the window of her upstairs room swung open wide, seemingly of its own accord, to let her pass through.

In flight, she and the broomstick were small and light, a tiny dart against the immensity of the night. Up and up she went, ascending rapidly. The terrestrial light faded, giving way to the brilliant, cold expanse of the twinkling stars above. They were sharper and clearer than she ever saw them from the ground, diamonds scattered across an inky-black velvet cloth, seeming close enough to touch. She soared, not over literal oceans and mountains this time, but beneath the cosmic geography of the heavens, past the familiar, comforting belt of Orion and the icy pinpricks of the Pleiades, which seemed to smile down upon her mischief.

She felt the Autumnal wind meet her, no longer a gentle breeze, but a boisterous, exhilarating gale lifting her and tossing her a little, so that she had to hold on tight to the polished wood. The sheer speed and the cold rush of the air stripped away the mundane anxieties of the school day. Shirley felt exhilarated, her cares leaving her body like the brown, crisp leaves leaving a deciduous tree in a sudden gust. Below her, the ancient, deciduous wood appeared as a vast, dark, textured quilt, the crowns of the oaks and beeches a deep, rust-red and ochre in the muted moonlight. She could just make out the intricate network of skeletal branches, swaying and shivering in the same strong wind that was propelling her.

Her witch's hat, a tall, conical black felt, flew off her head in a magnificent spiral. With a flick of her wrist, it was caught by a minor current she conjured and then blew back so she could catch it again and slam it triumphantly back on her head. She shrieked with laughter, the sound high and light, like tiny, crystalline bells, tinkling in the night sky. As she circled, she looked down and could just see the slate roof of her little cottage. Bast, her large black familiar, was perched majestically on the very peak of the roof watching her antics, casually washing a paw as if seeing his mistress cavorting on a broomstick against a backdrop of ancient stars was the most common occurrence in the world. Shirley knew her spirits were lifted, her magical core recharged, and she felt completely, wonderfully better for her flight.

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