Chapter Text
The sun sinks from the darkness of the day. Parts of the wishing storm still lingers, and the clouds are purple against the coral sky, soft and unassuming, as if to beckon her toward her newfound freedom. For a moment she simply stands, rigid and perfectly straight, as the soft breeze sweeps around, brushing one stray strand of wavy hair that has fallen astray from the intricate bun into her eyes. The silence is comforting at last, no longer cruel, taunting her overwhelming guilt. Miss Bat was right, she thinks; she liked to impose misery on herself. Not liked, exactly, but found it reassuring, as if self-loathing was a higher form of penance.
She is free, and yet she doesn't know how to be. How to leave this place which is now dear to her, and no longer a tower of confinement. How to seek anything else but the routine she has adhered to out of necessity, but has now found familiar. How to seek happiness, as Miss Cackle has instructed her to do. The headmistress has always been a companion, at times a friend, but today she sees Ada Cackle's infinite wisdom, sees that it isn’t the position she holds that makes her worth listening to.
She has three days all to herself, now that she has made amends, and Indigo has forgiven her far too easily. “You know, Joy, there must be something you want to do, something you dreamed about trapped here all these years. You had friends didn't you, when you brought me here? I’m sure they still remember you, before you…” At that Indigo had trailed off, apologetic, but the meaning was there, plain and unrelenting in its brutality: before she became cold, and hard, and bitterly guarded.
She has three days, she realizes, and no one she is ready to face. She is not one for spontaneity; she can’t appear before people she had known thirty years ago and hope she can be comfortably affable. She knows that’s not possible, for thirty years is a very long time, and everyone has changed and gone on with their lives, all except her. She has nothing to show and nothing to talk about. In many ways the first year was not so different from this last one. No, she would rather those who had forgotten about her live on, as if these few days hadn’t upturned her life.
The orange sky moulded slowly into a salmon, and is now a distinctive pink, somewhere between a harlequin rose and strawberry ice cream from the park. She muses that pink is not a very magical color, and all these years she has only a handful of references since that day dancing at the park. For a moment she wonders why, why the non-magical world has colors that witches do not; why they have punting boats, and carriages, even though there are faster ways to travel; why they have dancing, and loud music, and pancakes for breakfast instead of gloopy porridge. She despised those things, they are nothing but frivolity, and that seems to be all non-magical people care about. But now she wonders, perhaps those things make them happy.
The color pink makes them happy. She tests this idea in the back of her mind, and finds it doesn’t rouse any annoyance in her at all. It just is, a fact that is inexplicable, and she finds herself not caring in the least about its irrationality. It is nice, she concedes, tilting her head slightly to feel the twlight on the tip of her nose. Something inside creeps slowly to the surface, and all at once she closes her eyes, her hands shake, and her mind quietens. Ah yes, of course, there is someone who knows her situation, who might be willing to take her in for a few days until Miss Cackle relents and allows her back for classes. But no, she can't possibly entertain the notion; there are a thousand better places to spend the nights than another witching academy. Perhaps she could stay at the park where Indigo did tricks for loose change, or perhaps she could sleep under the trees right on the border of Cackle Academy grounds. Perhaps it is enough, to take one step past the invisible walls that has kept her here, just to know that it is real.
What a coward you are. True witches are never afraid. Her mind is forcefully chastising today, and she has done far too many things against her instinct, but even so, she can’t help pondering that it is right, that she is a coward. Not only that, she is a liar, she is in denial. She has lied to herself since the afternoon, told herself that she wants to avoid embarrassment, awkwardness, stiff civility, and that is why she will not go. She loathes modernity, pretentiousness, full-throated laughter of children with nothing to fear, and nothing to lose. She hates Pentangle’s. That’s mostly true, but not quite, isn’t it? There is something there you do not hate.
She grits her teeth. Fine, she will go, but only for a bed, where magic is free to be used. With a burst of determination and impulsivity, she waves her fingers and transfers, leaving a slight imprint of her presence on the damp grass, and a smiling Ada Cackle watching from the window.