Chapter Text
Under the cover of Connie and Millie, a mother-daughter duo traveling across abandoned countryside for survival, the two witches spent a week living amongst Aspenville's survivors. They did well to hide their magic. Each slip-up on Constance’s part resulted in Mildred waving it off as her mother’s obsession with fantasy. Each spark of magic that flew off Mildred’s fingertips was quickly covered up by Constance’s assurance of it being a reflection from the sun. Lying had become a routine at this point. And to lie even better, Mildred spent her nights educating Constance on ordinary culture. Mildred would even be proud to say that her mentor could now sing along to the Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine” during campfire songs.
They hadn’t gotten word from Cackle’s Academy in a long while. It was nothing too concerning, really. Constance had simply informed Miss Drill that she and Mildred were in dangerous territory, and communications must be halted until Constance reached out and gave the all clear. It had come to their attention that Aspenville owned a radio of their own, which could pick up Cackle’s signal and place the school in danger.
As for calling Miss Hardbroom ‘Constance,’ well Mildred had gotten comfortable. Maybe a little too comfortable. To commit to their disguises as mother and daughter, they agreed to make a show of being used to one another. That included hand-holding, head pats, and gentle back rubs.
At some point, that led to Constance being tackled in a hug whenever she returned from scavenging with the others.
And when Mildred would run around with the few other children of Aspenville, Constance would tell her to stay in her sight and be home before dinner.
Mildred didn’t know when it began, but one day, Constance had taken to plaiting her hair every morning. She did it much neater than she, and much faster. In front of the rest of the town, Constance even joked that Mildred had inherited her mother’s hair.
That night, in the privacy of their room, Mildred remembered asking her about it. “You have hair like mine?” She wondered, prodding the French twist Constance wore. The woman only laughed and looked at her over her shoulder. “Yes, Mildred. When I was your age, it was quite a hassle to comb through.”
A week turned to two weeks. Two weeks turned to a month. Constance would start the morning by waking Mildred (who needed an extra five minutes to actually get up), cleaning their room with her girl’s help, plaiting Mildred’s hair, and finding their day’s breakfast. Once the two had finished their meal, Mildred would run errands for her mother and townsfolk in exchange for certain items: Food, clothing, water, et cetera. Meanwhile, Constance would head out with a team to scavenge for food.
Aspenville had two teams: Scavengers and hunters. The latter, which was more heavily armed, attempted to search for witches and signs of magic. It could be anything from two perfectly cut tree stumps to a rabbit with six legs. The more signs they found, the closer they believed they were to a witches’ academy.
Mildred hated these hunters. The nearest witches’ academy to Aspenville was Pentangle’s Academy, which housed her dear friend Ethel. Whenever the hunters' truck was left alone, she liked to stuff the barrels of their guns with as much dirt as she could to stall them a little longer. Constance attempted to discourage her behavior, but like the girl did with most of her instructions, Mildred didn’t listen.
· · ────── ·𖥸· ────── · ·
“Why don’t we all go around and say what we’re grateful for?”
The group of survivors, seated in a circle around a roaring fire, all groaned at the old man’s words. The elderly woman beside him playfully smacked his shoulder. “Robert does this every time we gather ‘round. Sappy is what he is.”
Despite half-hearted mumbles of discouragement from his peers, Robert puffed up his chest and proudly declared, “I’m grateful for me wife, Clara.”
“Grateful for me food is what he means,” the woman joked.
The little boy on his right continued the chain. “I’m grateful for uh… The sun,” he spoke, clutching the worn teddy in his lap. His father grinned and ruffled the boy’s hair. “I’m grateful for my own son.”
A woman with a cigarette between her lips coughed up smoke and said, “Why do y’all have to be so mushy? I’m not doing this. Rather hunt witches than be with you all.”
“Oh, humor this poor soul!” Robert cried, dramatically placing his hand over his heart. The woman sighed and muttered a small, “I’m grateful for Aspenville.”
The next soul was Constance, who had been so busy fussing over a cut on Mildred cheek that she didn’t realize the group was staring at her until someone let out an awkward cough.
“Right,” Constance offered them an apologetic smile, removing her hands from Mildred’s sulky face. “I suppose I’m grateful for…” And really, she had to think for a moment. At first, she considered commenting on something ordinary, like a television show or automated vehicles. Then she remembered the young girl sitting by her side. “I’m grateful for Millie. My beloved daughter.”
Mildred, embarrassed by the cooing and teasing from the rest of the survivors, grumbled into her hands and wished to disappear into the floor.
· · ────── ·𖥸· ────── · ·
That night, Constance found herself sitting on a log before a fire. It wasn’t a roaring fire, but a gentle one. The kind that was warm, comforting, and emanated embers that resembled the stars glinting above their heads. The wood crackled and snapped in the quiet of the spot they’d found, in a little backyard behind the deli that no one, not even Aspenville’s survivors, had discovered.
Mildred was seated on the grass in front of her, fidgeting with her fingers in her lap and watching the flames dance. She had a bit of hair falling over her eyes and Constance took it upon herself to tuck it behind her ear.
“Mum?” Mildred said quietly. She didn’t know why she called her that even now. Perhaps she was being careful of eavesdroppers. Perhaps it was something else.
“Yes, dear?” Constance replied. She didn’t know why she called her that, either. The term had slipped out so easily, she couldn’t stop herself.
“Did you mean what you said?”
At this, the woman bent down a little to look Mildred in the eyes. “What did I say?”
“Well— I don’t know.” Mildred blushed. Her cheeks puffed out slightly. “You called me your 'beloved daughter' in front of the others. Did you mean that or um… Or was it pretend?”
Was she pouting? Constance’s lips curled into an adoring smile. Oh, by Merlin, the girl was actually pouting. She had never seen her like that before.
Focus, Constance, focus. You cannot get distracted just because the little hellion looks cute.
“I meant every word, Mildred,” Constance gently pinched the girl’s chin and tilted her head up. Her gaze roamed over her face as if she sought to memorize it. The freckles on her cheeks, the doe eyes, the fringe that covered her forehead.
“I love you.” She told her, tapping Mildred’s nose with her finger. “And if you ever doubt that, well… We can just have another chat like this. Anytime. Do you understand?”
Mildred nodded wordlessly, her heart fluttering in her chest. What was one supposed to say to that? Her voice didn’t seem to work. “Um,” she began, her mouth opening and closing strangely. “Thank you.”
Constance’s smile softened a little. Her black-painted nails began to run through Mildred’s hair, scratching at her scalp with the lightest of touches. The girl sighed and slumped against her mentor’s knees.
“Oh, wow, that feels good,” she mumbled. Her eyes were half-lidded in two seconds. “If you keep doing that to my head, I’m going to fall asleep. And you’ll have to carry me back to our room.”
“That doesn't sound too bad, does it?”
· · ────── ·𖥸· ────── · ·
As Constance slung her rifle over her shoulder, she listened to the buzz of life around her. In a month, Aspenville had gotten a few more survivors and their trading post was thriving. She readied to climb into the back of the scavengers’ pick-up truck, when she felt someone crash into her back and wrap a pair of arms around her stomach.
“RAHH!” Mildred cried out, squeezing her midsection. “I’ve got you!”
“It’s four-to-two, Millie.” Constance smirked. She pried the girl from her and patted her shoulder. “I still have the upper hand.”
“Not for long. Soon enough, I’ll have learned the art of silent running.”
Constance burst into soft laughter at her words. “Of course you will. Now, what do you have to do today?”
“Wash our laundry,” Mildred counted on her fingers. “Gather berries from our bush, trade those berries with Mary for socks, and trade those socks for a warm hat.”
“Good girl.” Constance patted her head with a smile and joined her fellow scavengers in the back of the pick-up truck. “I’ll be back soon. You behave yourself while I’m gone, and finish your chores before any play with your new friends.”
When the engine roared to life and the truck began moving away, Mildred waved ecstatically at Constance until she could no longer see her past fences and forest.
· · ────── ·𖥸· ────── · ·
This was not how Deirdre Swoop thought her day would go. She was gagged and tied, thrown in the back of a vehicle during what should have been a routine scavenge through the woods near Pentangles. With her voice silenced and her hands bound, she was unable to cast any spells. All she could hear was the boisterous cheers of the people who had caught her.
They had seen her start a fire with one of her spells. It was a simple mistake. They were never supposed to see it.
But Deirdre was a strong girl. She struggled against her restraints and squirmed on a dirty metallic floor. Above her, tree branches did well to block out the sky. It was dizzying to look at, so she only squeezed her eyes shut and hoped to end up somewhere safe.
Suffice to say, she was mistaken. They had brought her somewhere, somewhere called Aspenville. It was an isolated street of witch hunters and their families, walled off from the rest of the world with spiked fences and—
Mildred.
It was that girl. She’d last seen her when the Witching Hour visited Cackles, and since then, Mildred had earned begrudging respect from Deirdre. Word had it that Mildred and Miss Constance Hardbroom had gone silent.
Had they betrayed— No, that was ridiculous. She’d seen the care Mildred had for her school. It was the same kind Deirdre had for Pentangles. A witch would never abandon her family for those who hunted them. There was more to the story, Deirdre was sure of it.
The other girl was staring at her from afar, a basket of berries in her arms. When their eyes locked, the fear in Mildred’s eyes was reflected in Deirdre’s own. As Deirdre was dragged away towards the town's police station, she caught the way Mildred’s hands trembled.
“Hey!” Mildred yelled, rushing over to the two men who held Deirdre’s arms in a vice grip. “Who’s this? What are you going to do with her?”
“She’s a witch, Millie,” one of them replied. It was Jonathan, the old bastard. Jonathan pulled Deirdre along as if she were nothing more than an animal. “We’re gonna interrogate her, find out where she came from.”
“And how are you going to interrogate her?”
Jonathan smiled. “A young girl like you shouldn’t have to hear about it.”
When he and his men walked away. Mildred paled. She and Constance hadn’t even stolen one of the trucks yet. They had gotten too comfortable here. She couldn’t forget who these people were.
Constance wasn’t here. She needed her to— Well, she didn’t know what, really, she just needed her there. With her. Standing by her side. Maybe holding her hand. Doing anything to comfort her and slow her breathing— God, Mildred couldn’t breathe— Focus, you fucking—
She had to gather her thoughts. Break. Take a break. Take a break, right, take a break. Breathe. Breathe, but it smelled of Deirdre’s blood because she’d been dragged away in too-right ropes and— Breathe, Mildred.
Radio? Radio. Constance had her own radio. The one she clipped to her belt. Yes, maybe Mildred could borrow Aspenville’s radio, put on some puppy dog eyes and say she missed her mother. But what if— It’s okay, everything’s fine, it’s fine. First Sybil, then Ethel, and now Deirdre but young girls in peril was normal at this point. Right? Wrong. Wrong, it was all wrong— This was all wrong.
She wanted Constance.
Mildred wanted her mum.
· · ────── ·𖥸· ────── · ·
“Mum?”
Constance had been busy trying to recall Miss Bat’s words as to whether these red berries were poisonous or edible, when Mildred’s voice whispered from the radio on her belt. Her words carried an element of fear and urgency, which sent Constance fumbling for the communications device. “Mildred? Mildred, is everything alright?”
“They uh…” The girl sniffled on the other end. “They captured a witch, Mum.”
…A witch?
“It’s— Well, I can’t exactly tell you her name because they haven’t told me.”
Of course, Constance thought bitterly. Mildred wasn’t able to speak freely at the moment. The girl didn’t have a radio of her own, and was most likely borrowing someone else’s. “I’ll be home soon, dear.”
“Alright, Mum. Just…” Mildred’s voice cracked. “Come quickly. Okay?”
Constance’s hand tightened on her radio. “Okay.”
· · ────── ·𖥸· ────── · ·
Mildred could do nothing but loiter outside the door of Aspenville’s police station, listening for word of Deirdre. It just wasn’t fair. Deirdre was barely older than her, and she was being ‘interrogated—‘ Whatever that meant. Her ears seemed to perk up at every sound. It could be her fellow witch. It could be a soldier. Maybe it was just the sound of her foot anxiously tapping on the ground.
Eventually there came the sounds of a truck engine. Mildred wasted no time in running up to the vehicle and scanning the group of scavengers for Constance. Familiar black hair heralded her return, and Mildred threw her arms around her in an instant.
“Where is she?” Constance asked, her hand threading through the girl’s hair.
“In the police station,” Mildred stammered. The moment she felt the woman’s touch, she felt as if she could break down into tears. “I don’t know what they’re doing to her. She’s been in there for too long.”
Constance’s eyes flicked up to the battered doors of the police station. No sound drifted from the building. Just when she was about to open her mouth to speak, the doors flung open and out came Deirdre Swoop herself, bloodied and bruised from head to toe, dragged by the arms towards an old street lamp surrounded by dry branches and leaves. Behind the young witch was a constant trail of red from the station.
Constance felt her heart leap into her throat. She held Mildred closer to her chest. The girl in her arms was quivering, holding back her tears lest she be questioned about them. Constance hated to see her that way. A girl should be able to cry when she wanted to.
With rope, the Aspenville survivors tightly bound Deirdre to the broken street lamp. Children were hiding behind their parents. Some of the townsfolk cheered at the sight of the wounded girl. It was their first witch, and they hoped there would be many more to come.
“This stubborn girl,” Jonathan announced, walking in circles around the witch, “won’t tell us where her academy is. We know it is called Pentacle’s Academy! We know it has supplies! But its location is still a mystery.”
“Unless she tells us that crucial piece of information, we will burn her.”
Mildred turned her head to peek at the scene. Deirdre’s clothes were torn and dirty, with spots of dark red spreading where she’d been tortured. Her wrist was bent in the wrong way. And yet, she gazed at the witch hunters with an element of determination. She looked at them as if they were pathetic.
“We will give you to the count of three.”
Deirdre’s jaw remained locked on those who hurt her. Her eyes sent shivers down Mildred’s spine.
“One.”
Mildred’s eyes widened. She couldn’t look away.
“Two.”
Her heart beat faster. Her hands felt like they were tingling.
“Three.”
One of the men got on his knees and struck a match. Before he could flick it into the wood, the flame turned to a shade of blue and spread down the length of the match. It crept onto his fingers, his hand, his arm, and up towards his head. He panicked— Leaped to his feet and frantically tried brushing the fire off his skin with his hands. It only spread the fire to his other hand, and his other arm. His skin boiled and blackened, charred and chipped away. He screamed, but at that point, the fire had entered his mouth and crawled down his throat.
The townspeople shrieked and shouted. Some scrambled for their guns.
Constance looked down at the girl in her arms. Mildred’s hands held the same blue fire that engulfed the man.
The townspeople were staring at them, now. They barely seemed to notice how the blue fire jumped from the man’s corpse to the ropes that bound Deirdre.
“Witches!”
“Traitors!”
There was gunfire. Constance was quick to duck her head and shield Mildred with her body. There was no time. It was a mess of shouting and bullets, of blue fire that spread across Aspenville and into the trees surrounding it. It was hot. The people were sweating and armed and angry. Constance and Mildred managed to hurry to Deirdre’s side and support her arms.
The girl swatted them both away. “I’m fine,” was all she said, rising to her feet and running alongside them.
The three witches continued to run under the cover of protection spells silently cast by a flick of Constance’s wrist. Constance led the way, knowing where the Aspenville survivors kept an extra vehicle.
They hurried into a small auto shop. As Mildred shoved a chair against the door, the other two looked around. Tools, tables, nothing of— Car. There was a car, there was a car— Where was the key? Right, where—
“Found it!” Deirdre shouted from the corner, tossing the keys to Constance. The older witch grabbed it from the air and unlocked the car.
She happened to unlock the truck at the same time the hunters had managed unlocked the auto shop’s garage doors. The barrier rolled up to the ceiling. The armed folk shouted their cheers and hollers and fired a few shots into the cement floor by Constance’s feet.
Constance screamed. A few of the hunters seemed to be having fun with it. They outnumbered the three women. The odds were in their favor.
“Let's make the witch dance.”
Bullet holes appeared on the ground where Constance stood. Constance tried to jump, raise her feet, run to a different area— But the bullets seemed to follow her heels. It was a cruel thing. It was cruel to make someone like Miss Hardbroom afraid.
“Stop it!” Mildred pleaded. “Stop it, stop hurting her—!”
Thud.
Her mentor had tripped over her own feet and fallen onto the ground.
She was no longer moving.
Deirdre rushed to Constance’s side and pried the keys from her hand. With the press of a button, the car doors clicked and unlocked. And once that was done, Deirdre dragged Constance’s limp body behind the cover of the car, and tugged Mildred down to crouch with her.
“I reckon she’s fine,” Deirdre told her, her words quick and breathless. “Get her in the vehicle and drive.”
“But—“ Mildred’s hands trembled. “What about you?!”
“I’ll hold ‘em off. I’m a liability to you, beaten as I am.” Deirdre held out her hand. “Give me her gun.”
“Deirdre, I can’t let you do this.”
And the other witch smiled.
“I’ve always wanted to be a soldier. Now I finally get to be one, eh, Hubble?”
Footsteps were getting closer. They were slow and patient. The hunters wanted to savor it.
Mildred reluctantly took the gun from Constance's holster and handed it to Deirdre. The other witch gave her a single pat on the back before standing. She fired her first shot. Her second. By the screaming, she did quite well. It wasn’t like Mildred could focus on that, not now— She had to get Constance in the car.
She threw open the back door and shoved Constance into the backseat. She couldn’t quite get her upright, much less buckled down, but it was the best Mildred could do.
Keys, keys, keys— Here. Mildred slipped into the driver’s seat and shoved the car key into its slot. She turned it, though the car only whirred and creaked.
“Oh, come on, come on!” The girl turned the key again. And again. Fourth time’s the charm? Maybe fifth—
The car purred at the fifth turn of her key. Mildred breathed, turned the gear to Drive and slammed her foot down on the pedal. Disregarding the people in her way, she sped down the street to the gate of Aspenville and rammed through its defenses.
In the rearview mirror, she saw Deirdre run out of bullets. The other girl walked backwards and held her hands over her head.
But between those hands, there appeared a purple sphere. It thrummed with light and possessed a heartbeat of its own. The sound was loud and heavy, shaking the very ground.
Deirdre threw down the sphere, consuming the whole of Aspenville in heat and violet light. Wood chips bombarded the back window of Mildred’s car. A plume of clouds drifted into the sky. In seven seconds, the survivors and their town had been reduced to rubble and dust.
It was only then that Mildred stopped the car.
Suddenly, it wasn’t so loud anymore.
The sky was a brilliant blue, the sun shone between tree branches, and a spatter of dried blood was smeared on the corner of the windshield.
It all happened too fast to feel like anything other than a horrible dream.
She could hear Constance breathing behind her, but her breaths were slow and ragged with each inhale.
Surrounded by silence and death, Mildred could only curl into a ball and weep into her arms.
· · ────── ·𖥸· ────── · ·
Come nightfall, the car was parked in a clearing. An untouched field of grass and wildflowers lay before her, glinting in the light of the full moon. Mildred stepped outside and held her mentor’s radio to her ear.
“Hello? Is this the right channel for um… Cackle’s?”
Static. Then came Miss Drill’s voice, slightly garbled through the noise. “Mildred? Is that you? Oh my God, are you alright? What’s happened, where’s Miss Hardbroom?”
Mildred didn’t know how to answer her questions. She stared at the grass for a moment, the wind breezing past the foliage. A fly buzzed over her arm, but she didn’t feel the need to swat it. “We’re okay,” she mumbled.
“What’s going on? Mildred, you have to tell me—“
The girl sat down on the hood of the car. “There were… Um. Witch hunters. I don’t know. It was… Yeah.”
“That’s…” Miss Drill sighed, knowing that was all the information she could get from her. “Thank you, Mildred. How is Miss Hardbroom?”
“She’s been unconscious for a while. I think she’s hurt, Miss Drill.”
“I see. Listen, I’m gonna go talk to Miss Cackle. Miss Bat’s going to come on the radio in the meantime, okay? Stay with us."
When the radio turned to static again, Mildred moved around the car and opened the back door. Constance remained sprawled over the backseat, just as she had left her. There was an ugly purple bruise on her temple and a shallow cut on her shoulder, which Mildred had bandaged with the sleeve she’d torn off from her own shirt. Positioning Constance so she could sit upright, Mildred sat down beside her and curled into her side. The older witch's arm draped over her shoulders, like it had done several times before. Except it didn’t give Mildred the same comfort it usually did. The girl felt utterly alone, which was strange because she wasn’t alone. Not really.
“Mildred! Hello! It’s Miss Bat.”
Mildred wiped her eyes on the palms of her hands and muttered into the radio. “Hi.”
“Miss Drill told me you were in distress? I’m not a very good counselor, but you could… Talk to me. Only if you want to, you know.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay!” Mildred could hear the forced smile in her voice. “Okay, that’s completely fine, sweetheart.”
“She won’t wake up, Miss Bat. I want her to wake up. It’s dark and cold, and she promised we could talk whenever I needed it.”
“She’ll wake up on her own time, Mildred, I guarantee it. But for now, you have to calm yourself down. Alright?”
“Alright.”
“My mother taught me a trick when I was your age. When you’re scared, and there’s too many feelings to count, you can sing a happy song! Mother would sing ‘Daffodils, Daffodils, Grow Grow Grow.’ Do you have a song like that, Mildred?”
Mildred glanced up at Constance. The older woman’s lips were parted in her sleep, her head leaning against the glass of the window. It felt as if Mildred were hugging a doll.
“Yellow Submarine,” the young girl fidgeted with Constance’s fingers, running her thumbs over her skin. “Miss Hardbroom and I liked to sing it together.”
“There we go! Just um… Sing that. I guess. And if your voice is too tired, well, you can hum it out. Or whistle. Just focus on the melody, and don't think about anything else.”
Mildred nodded.
In an old car in the middle of nowhere, the young girl began to hum a little tune, her voice muffled in the soft fabric of Constance’s bloodied clothing.
