Chapter 12
In the next two weeks, Bryn began to feel a little bit more assured in class—so assured, she even brought her youngest students out to the stables to pet the ponies.
The school boasted a grove somewhere deep in the acreage, with a semi-feral herd that included both unicorns and wild ponies.
Bryn had never seen the unicorns and wasn’t entirely convinced they existed, though Piper said a specialty vet service came out once a year to check on the group.
There was also an elephant somewhere on the grounds, but he didn’t like company, apparently.
“He had a partner, but the partner died,” Piper explained in a low voice as their mingled classes petted the animals.
They’d planned this class period with a couple of school goals in mind, but for the moment, they were mostly letting the kids do what they liked.
Some had backgrounds in horseback riding or gymkhana, or even the horse polo—a thing Bryn still couldn’t quite picture.
Then, when they were starting to get restless, Piper clapped their hands together and called all the students back over. “Professor Delmar is going to talk about a few conventional uses for spells.”
This actually seemed to get the students’ attention, so Bryn delivered the lesson plan she’d come up with after she’d bewitched the dolphin figurine in the store to dive. “Have any of you ever written a spell?” she asked.
They all looked around at each other. “Are we allowed to do that?” one of the students asked.
“Nothing in the rules specifically forbids the—” she readied the most posh and snooty voice she could muster “—‘origination and experimentation of students as regards to spell crafting, providing no living creatures of any kind are the subjects or objects of such spells.’”
Scattered laughter at her accent. Piper said, “Wait, really?”
“I did some research,” she explained in an aside. Then, to the students, she said, “I wish I’d known that when I was in school here. I was desperate to make up spells at your age. I saw places all around me that required magic. None of you do that?”
A few nods, a few tentative hands in the air, which lowered immediately when no one else joined in.
“So, you’ve met some of our animals here at the school, and you’ve seen the stables. Now I want all of you to spread out, working together if you like, and think of some spells that might make life easier for the animals or for the people who take care of them.”
“Like what?” somebody asked.
“Like a muzzle for you,” the kid next to him said and was elbowed to the side. A few laughs, a few calculating glances around.
“No living creatures,” Bryn reminded them, smiling.
Piper clapped their hands again. “Go on. Come back when you have ideas.”
Since these two groups of first-years were going to swap at next period, they could essentially take both time slots, so that’s what they did.
It was a rousing success. When Bryn had first brought up this idea with Piper, the two of them hadn’t been sure the kids would be able to come up with anything, but in fact, they were imaginative.
Some of their ideas weren’t technically feasible by any means Bryn knew—you couldn’t bewitch a brush to brush a horse as well as a human caretaker could, for instance—but some of the others had potential.
She would have to reach out to magical folks with equestrian leanings about the spells and charms they used in their work.
Even if such things already existed, she suspected the students would find it validating to hear that their brilliant ideas were so smart they’d already been invented and were in use.
Maybe the school should be putting out books of its own—101 Spells and Charms for Your Livestock Stable. She laughed to herself at the idea.
When the older kids found out that the younger kids had gotten to go into the stables and play with spell ideas, they demanded to do so as well.
“We’re much smarter than they are,” Violet informed Bryn at the next after-school club meeting.
“I’ll try to work something out,” Bryn promised, wondering if her bright new idea could be put to use on more practical things.
She still wanted to come up with a good spellcasting way to clean all those pavers at the front.
Or the gardens? Were there spells to keep out aphids?
Enchantments one could do around berries to keep the birds from pecking them?
She was sure there must be, but it was odd that she didn’t know.
Maybe Grimoire Academy needed a student project website where they could post the things they came up with, though intellectual property laws were iffy when it came to under-age magic. She would need to send some emails.
She brought the fourth-years to the gardens, where they concocted, with surprising efficiency, a number of pest-prevention spells, including a rather clever way of keeping coyotes away from the chickens without harming them.
“It’s basically a car alarm, but for the garden,” the student, who was non-magically raised, explained with a grin.
The only class that Bryn was reticent to take out for an on-the-grounds field trip was the MSE class.
They were already so far behind and the tests were looming ever closer.
But, on the other hand, in terms of practical application, this kind of work was good for their brains.
And anything that was good for their brains would eventually be good for their test scores as well.
Probably. She was less certain about that than she wanted to be.
Still, she’d done it for all the other classes, and no one wanted to miss out on a treat.
She hadn’t failed to notice the way some of the older professors eyed her classes disapprovingly as they made their way outside.
Yes, it was unconventional, certainly, but it was hardly against the rules to take the students out onto their own campus.
Still, she felt awkward about it. Clearly Mr Wicks didn’t approve, though all he said to her was, “I know how tempting it can be to reinvent the wheel, but remember that our traditional ways of doing things have successfully produced witches for over a century.”
This was both undeniably true and also a vast oversimplification.
Producing witches from witch families, emerging from long lines of witchy tutors and with generations of wealth in their pasts wasn’t exactly the same as running an egalitarian school that provided witchy excellence to children from a variety of backgrounds.
Still, she thanked her old teacher because she found she was sincerely grateful for his continued interest, and his advice hadn’t seemed aggressive, only perhaps misdirected. Maybe Mr Wicks’s idea of success for their students wasn’t exactly the same as Bryn’s.
Despite her conviction that her methods were sound, by the time she’d taken the third- and fourth-year classes outside for a bit of practical magical troubleshooting, she was beginning to feel self-conscious about it.
Trooping them through the halls, even quietly, still made a ruckus, which had not gone unnoticed.
She reminded herself that even if the periods had been entirely without educational merit, it was only one period for each class.
Surely they hadn’t lost more learning potential through this than they had for the entire month when they’d barely had a professor at all.
All the same, she thought she’d run it by Amelia just to make certain.
Or, piped up some peppy unwelcome voice in the back of her head, maybe this is an elaborate excuse to go see Amelia.
Maybe you’d prefer to kiss her again and this is just the way you’re justifying it.
She told that voice to go away and tried not to blush.
After her final class of the day, she straightened up, stacked the day’s grading to be done later at the cottage, squared her shoulders, and went to Amelia’s office.
Maybe she wouldn’t be there. If she wasn’t, Bryn would leave a note, a long explanatory note—or, no, a quick note, because she was standing in the hallway.
Or she could return to her classroom and write a longer note.
Would any note be acting as an invitation back to her cottage?
She didn’t mean that, not that she was opposed to it …
Would a short note give enough information? Should she just text?
At this point in her mental debate, she reached Amelia’s office, neatly cutting off any further thought spirals. And when she knocked, Amelia opened the door.
“Oh! Bryn! Hi!” Were those chirps? They sounded suspiciously like chirps. Oh! Bryn! Hi!
Bryn felt the need to apologize again for the kiss, but then Amelia was swinging the door open and inviting her inside, and she was stepping inside because of course she wasn’t going to stand in the hallway.
And then they were standing too close again and she was looking at Amelia’s lips and completely forgot why she had ostensibly come to her office in the first place.
And then, realizing she was probably standing way too close, she stepped back.
But just as she did so, Amelia leaned forward and both of them laughed, and Amelia gestured to the chairs where they’d sat before.
“I’m really sorry, again,” Bryn said. “I promised myself I wouldn’t keep apologizing, but I’m so sorry. I don’t have any desire to make you uncomfortable, and if I did, or even if I didn’t, I’m really sorry.”
“I’m not,” Amelia said, eyes clear. “I’m not uncomfortable with you, Bryn.”
“Okay, good. And obviously if you want me to resign—”
“I don’t want you to resign. If I did, I would have asked you already.”
“Okay.” Bryn took a steadying breath. It was good, she told herself.
Amelia didn’t want her to resign. That was excellent news.
Amelia didn’t want to kiss her again or to be kissed again.
That was also very okay. Maybe a little disappointing, but she’d deal with her feelings later.
Professional Mode, totally fine, Bryn could do that.
She cleared her throat. “So, building on some of the ideas we talked about with regards to applied magic, I have been taking my classes outside.”
“I heard,” Amelia said with a smile that didn’t look disapproving at all. “Actually, Piper came and talked to me about it.”
“Oh, that was such a good idea. I didn’t think about it, but I’m glad Piper did.
We’ve been working together on some plans.
It’s obviously in the early stages, but I have felt very positive about it and I hope Piper has too.
” Why was she talking so formally, like she was giving a presentation? Did Amelia notice she was being weird?
“They’ve told me as much. I think this collaboration has been very effective so far.”
“Great.” Bryn let out a sigh of relief. She hadn’t realized she needed a release, but the second she had, she felt lighter. “Just, I know that some of the other teachers … don’t seem supportive, and I wanted to give you the option to shut it all down now.”
Amelia was still smiling, but the tiny muscles around her eyes tightened. “It isn’t my intention to shut down innovation, as I’m sure you know.”
“Is it innovation, or am I just screwing things up more?”
Amelia reached out, resting her fingers lightly on Bryn’s arm, where her skin smoldered with the touch.
“It’s innovation. You’re bringing in new ideas, you’re experimenting, and I really appreciate that, Bryn.
Not only because it makes me feel a little less like I’m mad to think change is vital, but also because it’s good for the kids to see us trying things. ”
“Even if we fail?” Bryn asked dubiously.
“Especially if we fail, yes. How else do we build resilience except by demonstrating that it’s better to try and fail than not to try in the first place?”
Which actually made a lot of sense. “All right,” Bryn said. “I just wanted to make sure it was okay. I didn’t want to do it without permission, or inadvertently bring any more negativity down on you because of some idea that I’d had.”
“You’re not. I am not worried about that. I promise.”
“How can you not be worried about that? I’m worried about it all the time, and it’s not even my job at risk.”
Amelia sat back and nodded in acknowledgement.
“Well, maybe it’s more accurate to say I’m trying not to worry about that, and intellectually I understand that if this school does not want to embrace change and innovation and experimentation, then this school is not the right place for me.
” Even as she said it, she winced, like it was physically painful to contemplate.
“That sounds …” Bryn didn’t want to be dramatic, but after a second she said the word that came to mind, dramatic or not. “Amelia, that sounds heartbreaking. You care so much.”
“I do, and if they don’t want me, that’s their loss,” she said with a confidence she clearly wasn’t feeling.
Bryn took both of her hands. “It seems like I’ve just made things worse.”
“No, not at all.” Amelia gripped them back. “Not at all. You never make anything worse, Bryn. Everything is better with you here. I just want you to know that.”
“Thanks.”
The pressure on her hands increased. Amelia leaned forward as she had by the door and kissed her.
Bryn kept her eyes open, watching as Amelia’s fluttered closed, the press on her lips so perfect—not too light, not too hard, just present. Unflinching.
And then Amelia’s eyes opened and they were looking at each other, and it was glorious. It was wonderful.
When they pulled away, there was no sense of urgency or fear. If Bryn was being honest, what she felt was a sense of excitement, the thrill of the unknown.
“Should I apologize?” Amelia asked softly.
Bryn grinned. “No, definitely not.”
“Good.” Then Amelia kissed her again.