Netherby Halls

Miss Graves observed Sassy looking at Delia and said, “Humph, that one looks like an angel but is quite a tyrant over her friends. They all seem to bow to Delia.” She made no attempt to hide her dislike of the girl.

“You don’t approve of her?” Sassy asked cautiously.

“Approve? No, I do not. She is not the sort of girl the others should look up to.”

“She had a friend—Beth, I think was her name?”

Miss Graves looked startled. “Mary Beth? Heavens! What makes you ask about her?”

“Idle curiosity. I overheard one of the girls mention how Delia and Beth had been friends,” Sassy said, boldly telling a lie.

“Mary Beth was older, but Delia was—is just as wild.”

“I suppose they found Mary Beth a position when she completed her term?” Sassy pried gently.

Miss Graves sneered. “That is what we were told.”

“Don’t you believe it?” Sassy felt she was getting somewhere—though she wasn’t sure she was going to be comfortable with the answers.

“Listen to me, child, for you are little more than that. I don’t have a choice. I am too old to start looking for another position, so I don’t ask questions, but I am not deaf and dumb.”

“Meaning?” Sassy probed.

“Meaning there are things we don’t have answers for here at Netherby, and we look the other way because, in truth, we don’t want to know.”

Sassy had nothing to say to this. Instead of learning anything additional from this conversation, it had only served to put more questions into her mind. She needed the truth.

She wondered if a ‘talk’ with Delia would get her closer to that truth?

* * *

As it turned out, the opportunity to speak with Delia did not present itself, forcing Sassy to summon the courage to use a spell. She was breaking her mother’s rule, she knew, but what was the use of having the so-called ‘power’ her mother spoke of, if she wasn’t allowed to use it?

She placed Beth’s note on the table, lit a candle, and rubbed her ring as she whispered the words of the incantation, amazed at how much more she had stored in her mind than she realized. Not all of it had been taught to her by her mother—some had come with her transition into a full white witch.

The candle flickered, went out, and relit itself as a vision formed in a transparent and yet three-dimensional form.

She saw a young woman she presumed to be Beth running away from the school, looking behind herself as though she were being chased. She heard the thuds of heavy footsteps on the lawn behind the girl. She saw a man’s hands—tattooed hands—reach out, and then it all went blank.

What should she make of this? Had the girl been abducted? Was there a reasonable explanation? She didn’t think so. The girl had appeared terrified, and the man?

??s purpose was shrouded in darkness. She was going to have to find a way of speaking to Delia privately without drawing attention to herself.

Friday arrived with Sassy’s class all a-thither because of their expected treat of the theatre expedition. An incident occurred to mar the outing slightly: the older girls complained to Miss Sallstone regarding what they saw as ‘favored’ treatment of Miss Winthrop’s class.

In the end, it was decided that the older girls, accompanied by the Tyler sisters and Miss Graves, would go into Bristol for the Saturday matinee at the school’s expense. With peace restored and her colleagues quite pleased about their unexpected outing on the following day, Sassy withdrew to her room.

She spent some time over her toilet and emerged from her handiwork to look at herself in the mirror. She had piled her hair into a semblance of curls at the top of her head, and they cascaded down her neck to her back.

She wore a dark green velvet gown that, though old, was still in very good shape. Her mother’s pearls dangled from her ears and around her bare neck. The thought came to her unbidden that she wished the marquis could see her. She blushed and immediately chided herself as she picked up her serviceable black wool cloak, draped it around her shoulders, and slipped on her lacy black gloves.

She rounded up her charges, who were all talking at the same time, giggling and in high fettle. When they reached the main entrance they found Dr. Bankes, hat in hand.

He took a moment to stare at Sassy before he managed to murmur, “Exquisite.” He then waved his hat at all the assembled young girls. “All of you are so very lovely.”

He certainly was adroit, thought Sassy as he led them outdoors, where he said, “Your coach awaits.”

One of the girls giggled convulsively and remarked that the ‘school wagon” was hardly a coach.