Chapter 7
The headmistress’s office had not changed location in the last five years.
Amelia was now residing in the same rooms where the headmistress had resided when Bryn was in school.
A four-room suite located in the non-ostentatious far end of the third level of the main castle.
She wondered if Amelia wouldn’t rather have her own little cottage somewhere instead, but presumably she’d had a choice in the matter and, as far as Bryn could tell, Amelia was fully residing in the official chambers.
Feeling a spark of trepidation, even though she was now a teacher and she had good reason to be here, she knocked on Amelia’s door.
The woman who opened it was not Amelia.
“Ms Delmar.”
Oh gods. “Madame Schneider. Hello.”
Schneider looked her up and down with the usual sense of disapproval.
It seemed to be her only mode. She had taught the science courses when Bryn had been in school, and it was kind of a miracle she hadn’t gone off the sciences altogether afterwards.
Madame Schneider had made it clear that hardly any of her students were smart enough or magical enough to benefit from her teaching.
Well, Bryn thought as she stood there paralyzed in terror. At least I have a good model for the kind of teacher I don’t want to be. Not that she could imagine ever being like Madame Schneider.
“Ah, Bryn,” Amelia said. Her relief was clear not just to Bryn but also, judging by the tightening of her lips, to Madame Schneider. “How good of you to come. Make yourself at home.” She turned to the professor and said, with finality, “Governor.”
That was a dismissal. It might not have been the strongest dismissal Bryn had ever heard, but it was clearly a dismissal, and Schneider just as clearly knew it, which was satisfying in its own way.
“Mind what we spoke about,” she said to Amelia.
“I always do,” Amelia replied cooly.
Well, that seemed tense as hell.
The professor—or, Bryn supposed, the governor now—stalked off down the corridor. Amelia pulled her inside.
Oh, her touch— No, focus, you’re here for school reasons. But Amelia didn’t immediately withdraw her hand, so Bryn thought it was fair she should enjoy the moment while it lasted.
Then Amelia shut the door and leaned against it, as if she had to hold it closed against another onslaught from Madame Schneider.
For a long moment she stood there, eyes shut, just breathing.
Bryn felt as if she was watching a transformation; Headmistress Hexford was morphing back into Amelia, who was a complicated woman, but not a superhero.
It was too bad she wasn’t wearing her cape, so she could symbolically hang it up to mark the difference.
“What was that?” Bryn asked after a moment, when Amelia’s breathing seemed to be settling into a slower rhythm. Maybe stop looking at Amelia’s … breaths … She drew her gaze up to Amelia’s face, where her eyes were just fluttering open, looking strangely vulnerable.
“My ongoing nightmare. Sorry, I don’t mean to be dramatic.
It’s just, it’s a lot sometimes, this job.
I’m grateful for it. I’m really not taking it for granted, but …
” Amelia took a long breath through her nose, then exhaled, blowing the air through pursed lips, the way Bryn breathed when she did Pilates.
“It’s a lot,” Bryn echoed, feeling helpless, but also a bit honored by the fact that Amelia had allowed her to see this moment, when she transformed back into herself.
“Yes, but come in, um, let me make tea,” Amelia said. She glanced at her watch. “Or … I guess it’s probably still too early for a glass of wine?”
“Probably,” Bryn said. “And I don’t drink. Something about the siren side of my genetics and alcohol not really mixing well.”
“Oh, of course, sorry, I didn’t even think. Actually, I don’t know much about siren genetics.”
“Nor do I, though I’ve always thought I should really study it. That’s just what my mother tells me, and my few experiments have borne it out. But I would love a cup of tea.”
“Wonderful. I would love to make you a cup of tea.” Amelia paused, cheeks flushing just slightly pinker.
“That sounds kind of weird. I do not have a tea-making fetish, I swear. Not that I judge. I would happily engage someone’s tea-making fetish.
It’s just been a long few days and it would be nice to do a task with a clear beginning, middle, and end, and share that task with another person. ”
“I’m not too worried about your tea-making fetish,” Bryn said, smiling, and noticing that the pink tinge to Amelia’s skin had, if anything, deepened during her talk about fetishes.
Internally, she was rejoicing. A long few days!
So Amelia hadn’t been avoiding her or not interested in her—she’d just been busy.
Which was exactly what Bryn had kept telling herself.
But it was still nice to have it confirmed.
She should launch directly into the reason she’d come.
She needed to tell Amelia exactly what she’d discovered and then ask for help dealing with it.
What she wanted to do was sit in an armchair and share a table with this beautiful, incredibly smart witch and chat.
Oh gods, stop this. She isn’t really your boss, but she’s definitely someone you work with.
So be chill. Chill had never exactly been Bryn’s default position, which seemed to vacillate between completely stone-faced and completely jubilant.
“Busy?” she asked in an attempt to bring things around to, well, anything that wasn’t her current lovesick crush on a woman she kept reminding herself she didn’t really know, even though they had gone to the same school with each other for four years.
“Oh, the governors. They have it out for me. I know I keep saying that and I know it sounds paranoid, but they really don’t want me here.”
“Why?” Bryn asked. “I mean, that doesn’t make sense, does it?
The professors seem okay with you.” Though she wasn’t sure she’d know if that wasn’t the case.
Everyone seemed to assume they’d been friends in school and that’s how she’d gotten the job, which probably should be more hurtful, except it kind of felt like an excuse to be bad at it.
Maybe there was less pressure if it was nepotism? That seemed backwards.
Amelia poured tea into two mugs, then led the way back through to her sitting room, where she gestured Bryn into a seat and sat down herself.
Her eyes were bright and intent, but there was a betraying puffiness beneath them.
She looked like someone who needed a cuddle, and boy did Bryn want to be the person who could give her that cuddle.
She momentarily wondered if she could pull off the line, Hey, you look like you could use a hug …
But no. Amelia could probably deliver that without sounding either awkward or like she was inappropriately propositioning someone.
Bryn definitely could not pretend that her interest in hugging Amelia was merely to provide comfort.
“You know, I really was so excited to be here, even after I discovered that the only reason was because Professor Herringbone essentially blackmailed the governors into giving me the job. I still thought I could make a difference.”
“You are making a difference,” Bryn said, with a confidence that wasn’t exactly earned because, to be honest, she didn’t know—but it was impossible to imagine Amelia Hexford not making a difference.
“I hope so, but in reality, I’ve just made changes that most people weren’t really on board for, and even the people who were willing to give them a chance won’t be surprised when I’m proved wrong.
Like Mr Wicks, who has made it very clear that when my technology initiative fails, he will not say I told you so, or at least not to my face. ”
Bryn felt an immediate rush of disloyalty for having actually sort of enjoyed Mr Wicks’s company when he stopped by her classroom.
He seemed to have changed so much in the intervening years, but surely if one of them had changed, it was Bryn herself.
Was her perspective so different than it had been as a student?
And everything Amelia was saying now completely jibed with both versions of him: the version that thought he knew everything and was kind of a jerk about it, and the version that thought he knew everything and was compassionate to someone who admittedly knew less.
“And the athletics program,” Amelia continued. “Which, despite my best efforts, I can’t figure out how to explain in a way that makes sense to anyone but me and Piper. Even the kitchen staff think it’s a joke.”
“The kitchen staff?” Bryn asked. “What do you mean?”
“It’s so silly. I went in the other day just to pick up a snack because I hadn’t eaten breakfast, and I heard them talking about the kids playing—I don’t even know what they were playing, and how it wasn’t proper to witches.”
“Proper to witches?” Bryn paused, then decided to risk a little bit of teasing. “I mean, was it baseball, though? Because baseball is not proper to anyone, and yet so many people seem to irrationally enjoy it.”
This got a slightly startled laugh out of Amelia. “Right? Hit ball with stick. How many sports come down to hit ball with stick? It’s funny how much people build around these things. Hit ball with stick. Or put ball through hoop, or goal, or basket, or hole.”
“We may not be sporty people,” Bryn said after a second. “Piper would probably have some other ideas here.”