Bewitched Girl
They found her in her bed. She just went to sleep and never woke up . . .
Tap- tap- tap.
The rhythmic throbbing of the rain on the glass windowpanes awakens the young witch under her royal blue bed cover. Despite it being late May, the rain and damp herald in a spell of chill air. Instead of sunshine and days of lounging by the lake, late spring ushers in several days of rain. The storm broke on a Thursday with a cloud burst of wet bullets while they were outdoors during Care of Magical Creatures. Friday, a light, but chill, mist came from the over-hanging clouds. Saturday dawned with a bitter breeze in the air that brought another burst of equally freezing rain in the afternoon. The rain let up during the night, but now, the water pounds with newfound ferocity on the windows of the Ravenclaw dorm.
Tap-tap-tap.
Emaline Marberry sticks her head out of the blanket and peers over at the girl sleeping beside her. ‘It was that storm that made her sick,’ Emaline thinks as she gazes at the pale face of her roommate. A glass of cold tea sits on the nightstand, along with a couple slices of untouched toast. They linger there like harmless sentinels beside the sleeping girl.
Emaline remembers how they stood, side by side, studying a Knarl, which seemed more intent on destroying its little patch of garden than bothering with the two of them. The wind picked up, blowing their robes like black sails as the clouds rolled over the mountains, obscuring them in shadow. Not too long after the clouds descended, the sky tore open and let lose like a hose filled with foul, chill lake water.
Tap-tap-tap.
They ran to the castle, completely drenched when they reached the doors. All the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff fifth years stood in the hall, wringing the water from their robes. Later in the evening, sitting in the study, nothing seemed wrong. At least that is how Emaline remembers it. Nothing seems wrong.
Emaline rises from her bed and shivers as she treads across the stone floor in her bare feet. She vanishes the untouched food and cold drink with her wand. “Morticia,” she whispers, not wanting to wake the other sleeping girl. When the other girl does not respond, Emaline turns away to dress. Nothing seems quite wrong now.
Tap-tap-tap.
Emaline sighs as she pulls her light blonde hair back into a ponytail. “Morticia, I know you seemed a bit under the weather yesterday, but we can go to the Healer.” Emaline goes to shake her friend, but stops herself before her hands touch the girl. ‘I hope whatever she has is not contagious. That would be dreadful! The entire dorm would have it,’ Emaline thinks as she pulls a black robe over her lavender dress and leaves the room, resolved to get a Healer.
Tap-tap-tap.
Nothing seems wrong. Morticia Gregel has caught a cold maybe. After all, they were outside in that rain. Nothing seems wrong.
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Ravenclaw Fifth Year Girl’s Dorm, 1888
A group of three adults stand around the bed, which had the standard royal blue bed cover draped over a sleeping frame. None of them smile because there is no reason to smile. The dorm is empty of students. The Head of House has done her job, and now, the Headmaster and school Healer have been called.
Because something is wrong.
The pudgy, balding man examines the young woman with his wand. He passes a hand over her pale forehead, but she does not respond to his touch. Her skin feels damp and clammy, like the wet earth outside. Her breathing is shallow and chill, like the mist covering the grounds, as if her body is made of nothing more than chill vapors and soggy ground.
A tall, severe man wearing a green velvet robe folds his arms across his chest. “Healer Chumway, is she responding?” the man asks as his dark eyes survey the scene in front of him like a hawk searching the landscape for the slightest movements of its prey.
“No, Headmaster Black, she is not. Professor Viridian, please go and retrieve the girl who found her. I want to hear from her.”
The short, wiry woman with a sharp, beak nose nods as she turns and strides out of the room. The Healer watches her leave before he bends down and continues to examine the girl. Finally, he raises his head and looks up at the Headmaster.
“I have not the foggiest clue what is wrong with her.” He wipes his head with the sleeve of his robe. “Way too young to have any type of wasting sickness. No blemishes, no boils. She looks down right in prime shape.”
The Headmaster nods slowly. The door opens, and the Professor brings in a red-eyed Emaline. At the sight of the bed, the girl bursts into tears again. “Come on, silly girl,” Professor Viridian hisses as she drags the girl over to the Healer. “Tell Healer Chumway what happened.”
“S-She . . . she would not wake up!” Emaline begins to wail again.
“Get a hold of yourself,” Professor Viridian snaps.
The Healer puts a hand on the trembling girl’s shoulder. “Shhhh,” he coos. “Now, now . . . tell me what happened to your friend.”
“I-it was raining. We got caught in the rain. T-the next day she looked really pale . . . I mean, really pale. She . . . she did not want to eat. She seemed . . . out of sorts, but not really sick, you know? Then, today, she . . . she just . . . I waited all day. I-I shook her and she “ even when another girl started screaming! “ she just did not wake up! Then, I went to get Professor Viridian, our head of house, but no-nothing helped! She just “ ”
Emaline sobs into her hands, and Healer Chumway hands the girl a handkerchief. The girl blows her nose and dabs her blotchy cheeks. “Take her out and contact my sister, Elladora, and Lysander Gregel,” the Headmaster speaks for the first time in a clipped voice. The Healer stands up and ushers the girl out of the room.
Professor Viridian turns to Headmaster Black once the door slams shut. “You know what this is?” she asks as she makes a sweeping gesture towards the girl.
The Headmaster seems to stare through the wall. “I have an idea,” he replies a voice so low it is almost a whisper. The short woman crosses her arms and stares at the Headmaster, waiting for him to speak.
When it looks as if he would remain closed lipped, Professor Viridian says, “What is to become of her? If it is a jinx, surely, we could remove it . . .”
“You do not know what this is?” the Headmaster snaps. The woman raises her eyebrows at the unexpected outburst.
“I summoned you because I do not know what ails her. Morticia never so much as had a sniffle.”
The Headmaster crosses the room in several strides so he is standing over the girl’s bed. He reaches down, and with one hand, grasps her chin and turns her head from side to side. Her body complies, and when he removes his hand, the blood flows back into the white spots where he grasped her skin. With steady hands, the Headmaster raises the girl’s head and spreads her thick, raven hair out on her pillow. The image gives on the impression of a drowned body floating on the water.
“She has a curse upon her,” he mutters. “It is an old one, no doubt, and I have not the faintest idea who cast it upon her. No one knows the proper name of it, and for all intents and purposes, it was cast once, but who cast it is lost to time.”
“Do not be foolish!” Professor Viridian scoffs. “The ‘Sleeping Beauty’ curse? Phineas, that curse is a myth, plain and simple. Why, it was proved to be simply a wasting disease that some fanatical “ ”
“Look at her!” the Headmaster roars. “She is cold as the earth! Yet, she still lives! She is also as beautiful as any witch alive. She is, most notably, also of the purest blood. She has it.”
Professor Viridian casts a long, unblinking gaze upon the girl. “Then, she will not wake.”
Saint Mungo’s Hospital, The Office of Healer Malone Prewett, 1891
Cree-eee-eeek.
The tall, muscular man paces across the wooden floor boards. It takes him five steps to cross the office, which seems no larger than a standard broom closet. Then, he spins on his heels and turns to begin the short journey to the other side of the room.
Cree-eee-eeek.
The copper haired man at the desk runs his hand through his short, scraggly hair. With his head propped on one hand, he drums the edge of his chair with his other hand.
Da-dum. Da-dum.
Cree-eee-eeek.
“Lysander, I do not know what we can do with her,” Malone mutters with a little shrug. The tall, dark haired man whirls around and slams both hands down on the edge of the desk. Dust billows off the parchment in the aftermath, and Malone grabs the edge of the desk to keep himself from tipping over onto the floor.
“I cannot keep her!” the man roars. “My wife suffers a nervous breakdown weekly! She must go! What do you need from me to make this happen?”
The young Healer shrugs and seems to shrink in front of the glowering man staring a hole into his forehead. “When I say we have no place to keep her, do not think I am lying to you. The new hospital will be larger, but “ ”
“Ah! There we go! A new building! There will be room enough for her, will there not?”
Malone sighs and looks down at the floor. “I cannot say. We have already filled most of the floors “ ”
“If I donate a Ward, in her name, surely she can stay there?” Lysander Gregel interjects. “What floors still have space? Come now, it will be a generous donation. You can even be the Head Healer.”
Malone peers up at Gregel. Then, he begins to shuffle through the mound of papers on his desk. “Well, I would say the fourth floor, for unliftable hexes and such, would be the ideal place for her. We have two Wards there already, but I suppose we could put a third, smaller ward on the floor.”
Gregel claps his large hands together. “Excellent! I will bring her and the galleons together!”
He strides out of the room. Everything is wrong, but he is rich. He can sell his problems to other people.
The Morticia Gregel Ward, 1892
Healer Prewett pulls back the floor-length grey curtain. It swishes across the shiny, linoleum tiles that his shoes click across as he enters the room. The blue, iridescent orb casts an eerie light on the young woman. In the light, her skin appears to take on the same, ethereal blue tones.
‘Is she a ghost or a fairy?’ Malone thinks as he surveys his comatose patient. ‘She looks like I could just shake her and she would wake . . . but that’s a childish thought.’
Malone reaches down and arrays the girl’s hair behind her head so that some of it spills over her shoulders. Her lips seem unnaturally robust and lush for a girl that will never speak again. After a moment of studying the only patient on the Ward, Malone exits the room and pulls the grey, sound-proof curtain shut behind him.