Lovesick Witches

Sly, Stubborn Secrets

As I entered the potions lab with Mildred, Maud and Enid, I felt a drop of water drip down from my forehead. I suddenly noticed how warm and flustered I was. I refused to look at Ethel when I took my seat in the classroom. Hecate was yet to appear, making me even more nervous. 

"It really isn't that big of a deal, Ana," said Enid, quietly so that Ethel wouldn't hear. "So what if Ethel has told HB things? HB hates Ethel. Whatever Ethel could have told her, HB will obviously believe you over her." 

"And even if she doesn't," said Maud, "it really doesn't matter. You can get another teacher to help you with your studies if Miss Hardbroom doesn't want to. Or we can help you and you won't even need a teacher." 

I nodded my head, desperately trying to hide my fear. 

Ethel was smart. A dreadful person, but smart. And she was jealous that Hecate was helping me with my studies rather than her. She told me that soon, she would be HB's favourite. What did that even mean? Ethel was very stubborn and when she had an intention, she would always follow through. That was why I was so nervous. She could have told Hecate anything and she wouldn't stop until she found a way to end my study sessions with her. What no one knew about though, was my feelings for Hecate and our relationship. 

My friends said it wasn't a big deal. That I didn't need Miss Hardbroom and could easily study with someone else. But I didn't want to study with anyone else. I had already been apart from HB and it was awful. I couldn't go back to not having her in my life. 

Hecate was my life. She was all I truly cared about. She was my happiness. And I wasn't going to let Ethel take that away from me. I was determined to fight back and keep Hecate in my life, no matter what Ethel did to try and break us apart. My feelings for Miss Hardbroom were so much stronger than Ethel's selfishness, which was a very hard thing to top. 

Only problem was, I had no idea what Ethel was going to do to break us apart. So I couldn't do anything to stop it if I didn't know what she was going to do. But I knew that Hecate would believe me over Ethel, regardless of what Ethel told her. What scared me, was that I was sure Ethel knew that too. Ethel knew that Hecate would always believe me over her. Which is why I was worried that she would find a different way to break us apart. Something unexpected. 

"Good morning girls," Hecate said in her usual stern, classroom voice as she appeared in the potions lab by a transfer spell. She sat down at her desk and told us all to practice our levitation spells, so we did so. I watched her very closely as I half-heartedly practiced my spells, and I studied her behaviour. If Ethel had already said something to her, she would have acted differently around me and I would've had to have spoken to her after the lesson. 

But she didn't seem angry at me, at all. She wasn't acting any different to her usual, strict on the outside, soft on the inside, self. In fact, she had noticed my lack of concentration and when I was out of my seat, picking up ingredients from the shelves, she walked over to me, quickening my heart rate as she did so. 

"Are you okay, Ana?" she asked quietly, under the noise of everyone's chattering, to make it less obvious. "You seem distressed. And distracted. Are you ill, my lovely?" 

Much to Miss Hardbroom's confusion, I breathed a sigh of relief and beamed at her. Hearing her say "my lovely" after all that stress I had been feeling that she would be angry at me made me so joyful. I wanted to wrap my arms around her but then realised that we were in a lesson with lots of other people. So instead, I just spoke. 

"No. I mean yes. I'm okay. Not ill. Thank you, Miss Hardbroom." I had to call her 'Miss Hardbroom' rather than 'Hecate' when we were with other people in case anyone heard. She smiled, kindly, at me before walking back over to her desk, me walking back over to mine. 

"What happened?" whispered Mildred. 

"Everything's fine," I replied in relief. "Ethel hasn't said anything." I paused. "Well, not yet, at least." 

As I continued practicing my levitation spell, with concentration now that I knew Hecate was still on good terms with me, and I shifted my focus towards Ethel. She was standing at a front desk, on the other side of the classroom to me, brewing her potion. Felicity stood brewing her potion next to Ethel, but both witches stood in silence as they were still not talking from their fall out. 

Ethel didn't seem any different. She didn't notice me observing her actions as she carefully weighed out some of her ingredients. 

I was watching her in case she did anything unusual, anything involving HB. But to my surprise, she didn't. She was just her normal, unpleasant self. As I brewed my potion and practiced my spells, I started to think. 

It was strange that Ethel hadn't said anything to Miss Hardbroom. But I knew I was right in that when Ethel said she would do something, she would do it. But if she was just going to talk to Hecate to try and break us up, she would have done that already. But she hadn't. Meaning that talking to HB wasn't her plan. She was going to do something else to try and break us apart. I was right. Ethel was smart. And she knew that making up lies about me and telling HB wasn't going to work. She knew that HB was going to believe me over her, no matter what lie Ethel came up with. 

So it wasn't over. Ethel still had a plan. I knew she wouldn't have just given up. She was sly, but tactical. And as I watched her stir her ingredients around in her cauldron, I was sure that her ingredients weren't the only thing she was stirring up. 

She had a plan to get what she wanted. And she would follow through with that plan at all costs. All I needed to do was to figure out her plan. And stop her, before it would be too late.