Alexandra Quick and the Deathly Regiment

Ghost Sickness

Alexandra spent most of Saturday and Sunday evening in the basement. It was huge and labyrinthine, so Ms. Gale believed her when she said she hadn't finished checking every room and side corridor yet. Innocence was right -- Ms. Gale never checked what students serving detention were doing, so as soon as the custodian retreated back into her office, Alexandra returned to the door leading to the sub-basement, and then began checking every other doorway to the lower levels she could find.

By Saturday night, however, the 'spectral residue' around the door she had discovered the previous night had faded, and as hard as she looked, she didn't find any more green spectral traces in the basement that weekend.

She spent a long time standing in front of that door, staring at it, and thinking about opening it. But Ms. Gale had said they were warded and alarmed. (Now they think of doing that, she thought bitterly.) There was no point getting herself into more trouble... yet.

Alexandra didn't see much of her friends over the weekend, except at mealtimes. When she wasn't in detention, she was reading the books she had checked out. She didn't realize that she had been practically ignoring Anna until Sunday night, when she returned from another fruitless evening spent in the basement.

"Did you find any ghosts?" Anna asked. She was sitting at her desk, writing on a piece of parchment with a slender quill.

"No." Alexandra felt guilty about not telling Anna about the spectral traces in the basement, but she didn't want to voice the thoughts that had been stirring in her head since Friday.

Anna nodded. She hadn't looked up from her parchment. When Alexandra walked over to look over her shoulder, she saw neat lines of Chinese characters flowing across the page.

"A letter to your mother?" Alexandra asked.

"My father told me I should write in Chinese more," Anna said quietly. "He said he doesn't want any letters from me in English. And my mother said I could write to her in Chinese, too, to practice, even though usually I write to her in English. But Father wants me to practice my Chinese..."

The hand clutching her quill trembled, and Anna lifted it from her parchment. She kept her face turned downward, but Alexandra saw her shoulders shake a little.

"Have you heard anything?" Alexandra asked, now feeling even more guilty.

Anna shook her head. "I already sent letters to the Wizard Justice Department, and the North California Governor's Office, and to the Governor-General, and even to some of our neighbors in Little Wu-- in San Francisco. Not that I think anyone will answer me."

Her voice trailed off. Alexandra saw a tear fall onto the parchment, staining the wet ink. Anna sniffled, and then Alexandra put her arms around her.

"Shh. It's all right," Alexandra whispered, as Anna began crying. Alexandra sat there holding her as her friend struggled to control her tears. It was difficult to look at Anna's face.

Anna's breathing gradually became less labored, and after a minute she was able to speak. "I'm sorry."

"For what? I'm sorry. I wish I weren't stuck in stupid detention all day."

Anna's eyes fell on her letter, where her tears had turned an entire row of Chinese characters into blurry, black squiggles. She let out a horrified little moan.

"Anna, it's okay." Alexandra held out her wand, and said, "Yumo shui niuzhan." The black smears of ink squirmed and reformed into the neat symbols Anna had written. "See? No problem."

Anna wiped at her eyes. "I can't believe you remembered that." She smiled tearfully at Alexandra.

Alexandra smiled back at her. "You made me practice it enough."

"Alex," Anna murmured. She looked down. "You remember when Governor-General Hucksteen gave you a card, to contact his office?"

"Yes, but I told you, I burned it."

"But Dean Grimm's sister gave you another one, right?"

Alexandra nodded slowly. "Yes..."

"Do you think --" Anna mumbled, still looking down. "Do you think if you used it to contact her that she could...?"

"Tell me about your father?" Alexandra sat down as she thought about that. "I don't know, Anna. She gave it to me so I could report any contact from my father -- like I'm actually going to do that!"

Anna looked up quickly. "Has he contacted you again?"

"No." Alexandra frowned. "Anyway, I can use the card, I guess, but if I don't have anything to tell her..."

Anna shook her head. "No, you're right." She looked away. "It was a stupid idea. I just --"

"It's not a stupid idea." Alexandra put her hand on Anna's shoulder. "But I don't trust Ms. Grimm. I think she'd just be all, 'Help me catch your father, and I'll help Anna's father.'"

"You're right," Anna said softly.

"They can't keep him imprisoned for no reason. They have to let him go sooner or later."

Anna nodded, looking unconvinced.

Alexandra got ready for bed, knowing she'd need to get up before dawn. She didn't fall asleep for a long time, though, because she was thinking about Anna's situation. She wished there was more she could do for her friend, and she felt a little guilty that she'd been preoccupied with her own problems.

I need to do something about that, she thought, but as she drifted off to sleep, she was thinking about Maximilian again, and the ghost in the basement.

---

It was raining the next morning, but Ms. Shirtliffe still made the Junior Regimental Officer Corps run two laps around Charmbridge Academy, before bringing them into the gym to finish their morning exercises.

Alexandra had hated JROC for most of the previous year -- and then, seeking her brother's approval, she had begun to excel, despite resenting the discipline and regimentation. She wasn't any happier about the regimentation now, nor about being involuntarily 'enlisted' again, but she went through morning calisthenics with weary resignation. She'd become used to the sweating and yelling and drills last year, and it was something she could endure, if it meant staying at Charmbridge and getting what she wanted.

"My, you've all gotten soft and lazy over the summer," Ms. Shirtliffe said, as they did Deadweight Drills. The students ran, climbed, and jumped over obstacles that Ms. Shirtliffe conjured, while the new Mage-Sergeant Major, Eric Strangeland, cast Deadweight Spells on them. The weight was light at first, but as he continued to add more magical weight to each of them, movement became more difficult and they slowed more and more, until they were shambling about with leaden feet and limbs. One by one, the students collapsed and lay panting on the hard-packed dirt.

Alexandra was the last to fall. Strangeland frowned at her, as if he couldn't quite believe that she was still standing, and when she finally did collapse, it was only after he had added as much weight as he could to her.

She smiled smugly, despite the crushing weight pinning her to the ground. Every time Eric had cast the Deadweight Spell on her, she'd waited until he wasn't looking, and then cast the counterspell Maximilian had taught her.

"Wipe that smirk off your face, Quick." Alexandra opened her eyes, and saw Ms. Shirtliffe leaning over to look down at her. "I saw you slipping your hand into your pocket every time Strangeland Deadweighted you. Would you like me to confiscate your wand before exercises?"

"No, ma'am," Alexandra wheezed.

Shirtliffe shook her head, and then began pointing her wand at the prone students, one by one. There were groans of relief all around the gymnasium as she removed the Deadweight Spells from each of them -- Alexandra last of all.

"On your feet, wands!" the teacher barked. "Are you a bunch of flobberworms?"

"No, Witch-Colonel!" everyone answered loudly, as they sprang or staggered to their feet.

Next to her, one chubby young boy looked as if he might fall over again. His face was red and sweaty, and he was grimacing in pain.

"I thought this would be fun!" he groaned. "Like Cub Scouts."

Alexandra recognized him as the Muggle-born boy who'd been so terrified of walking across the Invisible Bridge.

"It gets easier," Alexandra said to him. "And Ms. Shirtliffe is probably just being extra tough because it's our first day back from summer vacation."

He smiled at her. Then Mage-Sergeant Major Strangeland bellowed: "Quit whining and moaning and fall in!"

Morning exercises three days a week and JROC drills on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, added to detention every evening, left Alexandra with little time for anything else but eating, sleeping, and homework. Despite her resolution not to neglect her friends, she found it easy to beg off invitations to play board games in the rec room after dinner -- there were only a few precious hours in the week available to her to read her library books. She did homework with Anna some evenings, before going off to detention, but she saw little of her other friends outside of class. David had made Reserve Seeker for the Quidditch team again, and usually ate with the team in the cafeteria, though he walked between classes with Angelique. The Pritchards joined Alexandra and Anna for meals sometimes, but to Alexandra's dismay, they chose to sit with Benjamin and Mordecai most evenings.

"We'uns is just tryin' to keep the peace -- we can't have the Rashes nursin' a grudge," Forbearance said.

"They hain't gonna speak no more ill of you'uns," Constance assured them.

"But they is our kinfolk," Forbearance said, sounding less than enthusiastic.

Innocence muttered something under her breath.

"What was that?" Constance snapped.

Alexandra wasn't sure what Innocence had said, but her sympathies were with her. She didn't understand why Constance and Forbearance still felt a need to appease the Rashes. She was glad that at least the Ozarker boys had been humbled badly enough that they were no longer trying to control who the girls spoke to.

Alexandra spent Monday night's detention in the basement again, but after that, Ms. Gale told her to move on to the main floors. Walking around with the spectrescope strapped to her head made Alexandra feel silly when other kids saw her -- it was dorky-looking and she could barely see where she was going, and she heard snickering as she walked up and down the main school corridors. But she was genuinely trying to find evidence of ghostly activity now, though Ms. Gale had told her that a ghost would be unlikely to haunt the well-trafficked parts of the school. Furthermore, the portraits hanging at the entrances to all the dorms would surely report it if they saw a ghost. Nonetheless, a sweep of every floor was necessary, and Alexandra dutifully did as she was told -- albeit for her own reasons.

Occasionally, she crossed paths with Benjamin and Mordecai, who led Clockworks to and from the basement while serving out their own detention. Benjamin stared at her hatefully, while Mordecai maintained a sullen, impassive expression. Neither boy ever spoke a word to her, so Alexandra said nothing to them.

Thanks to her forced participation in JROC, her schedule had once again been changed: instead of Magizoology, she now had sixth period Practical Magical Exercise, a required class for all JROC students. Her only consolation was that she was no longer a 'new wand,' and only had to wear the JROC uniform on drill days.

In the little free time she had, she pored over books about ghostly cotillions and ghostly advisors to Governor-Generals, and spells for revealing or barring or confining ghosts. None of this seemed useful, and she was likewise very far from having any idea how to go about managing time travel.

She resorted to asking Mrs. Minder about Time-Turners, making her inquiry seem harmless by telling the librarian about some particularly ridiculous Muggle movies she'd seen.

"So, I always thought time travel was just fantasy," she explained, her expression one of earnest curiosity. "I really want to know how wizards actually do it."

Mrs. Minder smiled indulgently. "Well, of course Muggles can't be expected to know how something that complicated actually works."

Alexandra nodded. "Of course not." She kept the sarcasm out of her voice, with difficulty.

"Time-Turners are among the most difficult artifacts to enchant." Mrs. Minder was now pointing her wand at the Card Catalog, itself a magical artifact which Alexandra occasionally found useful, but which she suspected had enchantments to obstruct overly-curious students who were delving into subjects it deemed 'inappropriate.' When the librarian asked it for help, however, cards flew out of its drawers as if being dealt by an invisible hand, and lined up neatly in the air before Mrs. Minder's eyes. "Very few students research such things, even in Advanced Magical Theory. It's unlikely you'd ever actually be able to use one, after all; there are so few Historicists..."

"Historicists?" Alexandra repeated.

Mrs. Minder nodded. "There are a few Historical Departments in the Confederation, but it's an almost impossible field to get into..." She smiled at Alexandra. "Of course, you're years away from thinking about career choices."

Alexandra nodded.

"Oh, dear, these books are all much too advanced, I'm afraid." The librarian tut-tutted, scanning the cards before her.

"That's okay," Alexandra said quickly. "I'd like to check them out anyway."

Mrs. Minder looked at her. "Really, you won't understand any of it..."

"Maybe some of them have pictures." Alexandra didn't succeed in hiding her sarcasm so well this time, but Mrs. Minder didn't notice.

"Well, they're not restricted..." Mrs. Minder seemed to be considering, while Alexandra held her breath, and then the librarian sighed. "All right, I don't see the harm."

Alexandra walked back to her room that evening with an armful of books, and dumped them on her bed without looking at them, before rushing off to detention. She didn't think she was going to learn how to time travel just by reading books, but suddenly, the possibility of getting her hands on a Time-Turner seemed much closer.

She had thought her half-sister Valeria was just a wizarding historian -- reading books and visiting old monuments and battlefields. But when Valeria had first told her what she did, she'd said she was a Historicist. Alexandra hadn't understood why Valeria had said she was unable to do that in America -- now she cursed herself for not having asked more questions. It all made sense now.

I'll bet Valeria knows how to get a Time-Turner, she thought excitedly. Maybe she even has one! Maybe she knows how to make one. Or she knows time-traveling spells...

She thought about this all night, as she continued her search for ghosts. Ms. Gale was now sending her up to the attics, another maze of lost passageways and forgotten rooms where one could easily get lost -- and another place where Ben Journey had tried to kill her. But Alexandra was so preoccupied with thoughts of time travel, and just what she would do once she acquired a Time-Turner, that it never even occurred to her to be wary. And she found no spectral residue up in the dusty labyrinth of plumbing and old furniture and moldering books and dried-up potion bottles and pieces of quods.

It was when she returned to the basement, and did a quick check of the usual egresses to the levels below, that her ruminations about time travel ground to an abrupt halt. Because once more, she saw a green glow through the spectrescope, by the same door that had betrayed evidence of ghostly passage before.

She walked to the door, and pulled the goggles off her head. She was alone in the corridor. The Rashes hadn't returned yet with their Clockwork crews, and Ms. Gale, as usual, was secluded in her office.

Alexandra reached a hand out, and touched the door. Nothing happened.

She licked her lips, as she stood there with her hand pressed against the door. Her throat felt very dry.

She opened her mouth, and whispered, "Max?"

There was no answer.

"Max?" she repeated, very softly. "If you can hear me..."

She didn't know it was Maximilian's ghost. She reminded herself of that, trying not to get her hopes up, knowing that it would be better if it weren't, but still, having actually given voice to her deeply suppressed desire, her heart was now pounding unbearably in her chest, and she could barely force more words out.

"You wouldn't hide from me, would you, Max?"

"Who is Miss talking to?"

Alexandra jumped and almost yelled in surprise. She whirled around, looking wild-eyed and a bit mad.

The house-elf standing behind her jumped back, and stared at her with alarm.

Alexandra felt blood rushing to her face. Shock was replaced by embarrassment and anger.

"Is Miss all right?" asked the elf.

"You snuck up on me!" Alexandra snarled.

The elf took another step back, looking nervous. "Em is sorry."

Alexandra took several deep breaths, trying to calm herself.

"Is Miss stricken?" Em's eyes were wide, now, and concerned.

"Stricken? No. What do you mean?"

Em shook her head. "Never mind," she mumbled. "Miss is just... upset."

Alexandra ran a hand through her hair. How much had the elf heard? "I'm sorry, Em. You startled me, is all."

Em nodded.

Alexandra looked at the wrinkled old elf. Em was the one who had sent her and Maximilian to the Lands Below -- though not willingly. Alexandra had summoned her, and forced her to accept a magical coin as payment.

Em had warned her. Em had not wanted them to go.

"I should never have gone," Alexandra blurted out. "You were right. I shouldn't have given you that obol. I'm sorry, Em. I'm so sorry, for everything --" Her voice choked.

Em's expression twisted into amazement, concern, and then pity.

Further conversation was cut off by the sound of clanking and tromping in the stairwell to her right. Benjamin and Mordecai appeared at the bottom of the stairs, and gave Alexandra dirty looks before leading their mop-and-broom-bearing Clockwork brigade down the hall to Ms. Gale's office.

Alexandra turned around, and saw that Em had disappeared. She took several more deep breaths, until she was sure that she was once more fine -- she could not face Ms. Gale or the Rash twins if there were still stray emotions threatening to surface. But she had them under control again. It was a moment of weakness, she told herself, and she wouldn't let it happen again.

---

"Merlin, would you get your fat behind in step?" snapped Adela Iturbide. The JROC was marching with brooms and wands, and William Killmond, the Muggle-born sixth grader, had almost stumbled over his untied boot laces.

"How many of those Muggle-fried grease-burgers do you eat every day, Killmond?" sneered Theo Panos.

William was getting better about not making a face like he was about to cry, but the unfortunate new wand had quickly become the butt of jokes in JROC, and a target of abuse whenever Ms. Shirtliffe wasn't looking.

He turned red, but it was Alexandra who snapped, "Why don't you shut up, Panos? You don't look like you miss too many meals yourself!"

Snickering rose from the marching students, until Mage-Sergeant Major Strangeland yelled at them. They fell silent and finished their drills, but no sooner had Strangeland dismissed them than Alexandra saw Theo waving a wand at William. The sixth grader, who had almost broken into a jog back to the academy, took a dive and went flat on his belly as his boot laces magically whipped loose and wrapped themselves around his ankles. Theo and his friends laughed. A few of the older students noticed, but they rarely intervened when junior wands were harassing each other. Supriya Chandra just smirked, and Charlotte Barker and Ermanno DiSilvio shook their heads.

Alexandra walked over to William, and undid the knots around his boots with a gesture from her wand.

"Poor Muggles -- no magic, they can't even tie their shoes," sneered Jordan Klein, one of Theo's friends, a fellow Mage-Private First Class.

Alexandra glanced right and left, and then flicked her wand while uttering a curse. Jordan's jacket twisted and squirmed around him. He let out a muffled yell, tried to resist the sudden constriction, and then fell over as his uniform became a straitjacket, squeezing the breath out of him.

"Help!" he screamed.

"That was Dark magic!" Theo shouted, as he ran to Jordan's aid.

"No, adding Envenomation would make it Dark magic," Alexandra said, in a threatening tone.

Even the older kids blanched at that.

"No more Muggle cracks," she warned, pointing her wand at Theo and Jordan, as Theo fumbled with a counterspell. She looked down at William, who was staring up at her with his mouth open.

"Keep your boots tied," she said to him.

"Yes, Witch-Private!" he gulped, as she helped him to his feet.

Even knowing that it was unwise to risk getting caught throwing curses, Alexandra couldn't find it in herself to feel any regret. In fact, she had rather enjoyed cursing Jordan.

She barely gave William another thought, until she found him waiting for her as she left her American History of Magic class the next day.

Thanks to her schedule change, she was now taking the class fifth period, instead of sixth period with all of her friends. She exited the classroom alone, snubbing and being snubbed by the other eighth graders in the class (and the two ninth graders who were repeating it), and was surprised when she almost walked into a very nervous new wand. William stood at attention, in his blue and gray JROC uniform, and announced: "Good afternoon, Witch-Private Quick, ma'am!"

Snickers echoed up and down the hallway.

"Don't do that," Alexandra said. "I'm not even in uniform."

Assuming the encounter was accidental, she walked past him, proceeding towards the gym and sixth period Practical Magical Exercise, but she was surprised when the sixth grader fell into step alongside her.

"I... I was wondering if I could ask you a favor, ma'am."

"Stop calling me 'ma'am.'"

"Yes, uh, Witch-Private --"

"Just Alexandra, okay?" She shook her head. "What do you want?"

William looked around. The hallway was filled with other students, including other sixth graders and older JROC members heading into the gym, and many were looking at the pudgy boy who was talking to Alexandra Quick. He lowered his voice, and whispered, "Can you teach me hexes and jinxes?"

She stopped walking and stared at him. "What?"

"Ms. Shirtliffe says we're not supposed to know those kinds of spells in sixth grade, but practically everyone else does. And everyone says you knew all kinds of curses when you first came to Charmbridge."

"Right, because my father supposedly taught me all his Dark magic?" Alexandra gave William a sour look.

He swallowed nervously. "N--No. But you do know how to duel!"

"Do you know how much trouble I've gotten into for it?"

"But at least you can fight back."

Alexandra studied the boy, feeling conflicted, sympathetic, and annoyed. "If I teach you to throw hexes, you'll only get in trouble, and then when Ms. Shirtliffe asks you where you learned them, I'll get in trouble."

"I won't tell!"

Another voice broke in: "Tell what?"

Alexandra groaned as Innocence walked directly up to them, separating herself from the other sixth graders who were coming into the gymnasium for their mandatory P.M.E. class.

"I heard you'uns talkin' 'bout hexin'!" Innocence said, eyes sparkling. "I been waitin' for us to do hexes in P.M.E.!"

"Shh!" William said frantically.

"You don't learn hexes in P.M.E." Alexandra shook her head at the girl. "I have to go change. Straighten your belt, William."

She left the two sixth graders standing at the entrance to the gym, with William grimacing as he cinched the leather belt around his belly.

He seemed a little more cheerful that day during JROC drills, though, and he hurried away after they were dismissed, without asking Alexandra about hexing again.

---

Alexandra devoted Friday afternoon to spending time with Anna, Constance, and Forbearance before dinner. She didn't feel she was really making a lot of progress reading library books. As Mrs. Minder had warned her, the level of theory and jargon in A Guide to Observing Past Epochs and Rules and Principles of Temporal Apparition made her eyes glaze over. Some parts were -- barely -- comprehensible to her, enough for her to realize that waving a wand wasn't going to send her back in time. The magic was much, much more complex than that. Most of it, however, was gobbledygook. There were Arithmantic calculations measuring how many Motes of Impossibility accrued for each hour of transtemporal repositioning, astronomical and astrological calculations for determining Observable Epochs and Conflict Times, the Thirteen Mutually Exclusive Laws of Paradox that every Historicist had to memorize and simultaneously avoid, the Cat-In-The-Box Failsafe Principle that apparently had nothing to do with either cats or boxes, and so on.

The one thing that was clear, because it was repeated over and over, was that you couldn't actually change the past. Readers were admonished that it was impossible, forbidden, and a disaster even to try.

Alexandra took this as a prohibition, not a statement about what the laws of magic would allow. 'Prohibited' was different from 'impossible,' and she refused to accept that what she wanted to do was impossible.

"Alex? It's your turn."

Alexandra blinked, and sat up in her chair. They were playing Heart of Three Kingdoms in the recreation room. In front of her, Constance's columns of fire and air were blasting at Forbearance's metal pyramid, while a sheet of flames tried to boil away Alexandra's L-shaped incursion of water into Anna's territory, guarded by wood and metal.

Alexandra couldn't even remember what her plan had been. She conjured air to battle the flames, and then Innocence entered the room, followed by William Killmond, still in his JROC uniform.

"What are you doing here?" Alexandra asked William.

Immediately, he stood at attention and locked his eyes straight ahead. "Helping Miss Pritchard find her familiar, Witch-Private Quick, ma'am!"

Alexandra groaned, as snickers echoed around the recreation room. Innocence, despite looking quite distraught, put a hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle. Even Anna smiled.

"I told you not to do that," Alexandra said. "Especially when I'm not in uniform."

"Have y'all seen Misery?" Innocence asked.

Constance and Forbearance both sighed.

"Where'd you leave her?" asked Forbearance.

"In my room, but I bet Ouida Noel left the door open purposefully just 'cause she's a wicked l'il --"

"Have you tried a Finding Charm?" Constance asked.

Innocence gave her sister a scathing look. "Of course I did! But Misery hain't in my room nor anywhere's a Findin' Charm could find her!"

"Alright," Forbearance said. "We'll help find your toad."

"We're terrible sorry," Constance said, giving an annoyed look to Innocence.

"No, it's okay," Anna said. "We'll help, too." She glanced at Alexandra, and Alexandra nodded.

They walked down the corridor to Innocence's room in Theta Zeta Kappa Tau hall. William was made to wait in the intersection by the hall monitor, an extremely old witch who looked as if she'd already been near death when her portrait was painted. From there, they spread out, looking in every corner and doorway where a toad might hide. William and Innocence ran ahead of Alexandra, falling to their hands and knees to look under display cases and benches.

After half an hour, Misery had yet to turn up. Innocence was almost in tears, and threatening to hex her roommate.

"We haven't searched the restrooms yet," William said, exuding helpfulness. "I'll check all the boys' bathrooms."

"Good idea," Alexandra said. He beamed, and ran off to the nearest one.

"I think he's sweet on you," Innocence whispered conspiratorially.

Alexandra looked askance at her.

"I told him he prob'ly hain't your type, though," Innocence added.

Alexandra almost asked Innocence what she thought her type was, and then thought better of it. "Could Misery have jumped out your window?" she asked.

"T'weren't open when I came in, but I wouldn't be surprised if Ouida Noel done that." Innocence's hands flew to her mouth. "But there's snakes an' owls an' cats an' other critters out there! She'll get et!"

"There are snakes and owls and cats in here, too," Alexandra pointed out.

That was a mistake. Innocence made a frantic keening sound as she ran to the entrance.

Since Innocence was checking outside, Alexandra began looking in girls' bathrooms. She even tried holding her wand out in each lavatory she visited and calling: "Accio toad!" This did not produce any flying toads, however.

Constance and Forbearance had moved upstairs, searching the hallway above. William had begun investigating the stairs going down to the basement. Alexandra was becoming annoyed that a search for a toad was taking away from time with her friends, or studying. Soon, she would have to report for detention. But she wouldn't have abandoned a search for her own pets, so she continued looking for Innocence's familiar.

She was about to check one last girls' lavatory, near the front entrance, when she heard Innocence sobbing dramatically. Fearing the worst, she turned away from the door and saw Innocence coming down the hallway, with David accompanying her, grimacing uncomfortably.

"-- she's the best toad ever and I'll just die if somethin' awful done happened to her!" Innocence wailed, clinging to David's arm.

"Yeah... I'm sure she'll be fine," David said. "Don't cry, okay?" He looked up to see Alexandra standing there with her arms folded and a bemused look on her face.

He silently mouthed a plea for help to her, but Alexandra just smirked at him. Then a high-pitched shriek emanated from the girls' bathroom behind her.

She turned around as Angelique came hurrying out of the bathroom, shivering and scrunching her face up in disgust. Darla followed her, holding a large toad in both hands, with her arms extended away from her.

"Misery!" Innocence exclaimed. Her tears stopped abruptly, and she released David's arm as she rushed over to Darla.

"Yours, I take it?" Darla said coolly.

"Oh, thanks for findin' her!" Innocence took the toad from her. "I don't know how she got all this way down here!" She hugged the amphibian to her chest. Misery let out a disgruntled croak.

Alexandra was squinting at Darla. Darla caught the look, and their eyes met for a moment, before Darla looked away.

Angelique cleared her throat nervously. Anna started to say something, and then they heard another shriek -- this time from downstairs.

Everyone turned around as William came running up the stairs from the basement, looking white as a sheet.

"I saw a ghost!" he said, in a quavering voice.

"A ghost?" Angelique said. "You couldn't have. Ghosts aren't allowed here at Charmbridge."

But Alexandra didn't hear the rest, as she pushed past William and dashed down the stairs.

By the time she reached the basement corridor below, it was empty in both directions. She ran back and forth, looking around frantically, but she was alone -- there was no soul to be seen, living or dead, until Anna and David joined her.

"Alex, what's going on?" David asked.

She pushed past both of them and ran back upstairs.

Ignoring the confused expressions on her friends' faces, she reemerged into the hallway above and made directly for William, who still looked shaken.

"Who -- what did the ghost look like?" she demanded.

He stared at her. "Uh, ghostly? I saw it float through a wall and I ran! I didn't get a good look..."

She gritted her teeth in frustration. "Ghosts can't hurt you!" she snapped. "You don't need to run from them!"

William looked confused and a little hurt.

"That hain't true," Innocence said. "You can get ghost sickness if'n a shade touches you!"

"Ghost sickness?" William turned even paler.

"There's no such thing as ghost sickness," Angelique said. "That's an old superstition."

Innocence glowered. "Oh, I s'ppose it's just an old superstition 'cause Ozarkers say it's so?"

Angelique gave the younger girl an exasperated look. "Our family mansion is haunted. I grew up with ghosts. They brush against us all the time. Sometimes we walk right through them -- accidentally, of course. It's rude to do it on purpose."

"Well, maybe it don't affect Dark families," Innocence said, as Constance and Forbearance joined them.

"Dark?" exclaimed Angelique, offended.

"What did you just say?" David demanded, also offended.

"Innocence!" Constance was actually brandishing her wand. "Do we'uns need to put a Glue Spell on your unmannered tongue?"

Forbearance just sighed and looked apologetically at Angelique and David.

"I have to go to detention, now," Alexandra said, not sorry to be walking away from yet another 'fraction' instigated by the youngest Ozarker. "See you later," she murmured to Anna, who nodded and looked as if she wanted to escape herself.

Alexandra could hardly wait for Ms. Gale to give her the spectrescope that night, or for Benjamin and Mordecai to take their Clockwork cleaning crews upstairs. As soon as Ms. Gale disappeared into her office, Alexandra hurried to the basement corridor where William claimed he had seen a ghost.

Sure enough, there was a faint glow at one end of the corridor, in the direction of Ms. Gale's office. Alexandra was a bit confused, as the spectral residue was not near one of the sealed stairwells to the sub-basements.

She didn't go upstairs at all that evening, but spent the entire time rechecking all the corridors in the basement. Nowhere else did she find spectral traces of a ghost's passing. Once again she found herself standing in front of the door that she had last gone through with Maximilian, on their final, fatal journey to the Lands Below.

She stared at it for a long time, before reaching out to lay a hand on the handle. She gently tried it; it was locked, of course.

"What is Miss doing?"

Alexandra jumped, then whirled around, to find herself once more facing Em.

"What are you doing, stalking me?" she demanded.

The house-elf shook her head. "No, Miss. But Em thinks children should not be in the basements by themselves." Her old eyes narrowed a little. "And," she added softly, "Em thinks Miss especially should not be here." She raised one hand and pointed a stick-like finger at the door behind Alexandra.

"I was just... wondering if the door was locked."

Em blinked at her slowly. Alexandra knew the elf didn't believe her.

"We elves has told Ms. Gale that the basements is not safe," Em said. "Mubble and Tam-tam has been ghost-struck."

"Ghost-struck?" Alexandra stared at her. "Are they all right?"

"They is feeling very awful, but they will be better."

Alexandra leaned closer. "But ghosts... they can't really do that, can they?"

"That is what Ms. Gale says. She thinks Mubble and Tam-tam is just elf-struck."

Alexandra ran a hand through her hair, frustrated. "And what's elf-struck? Did Mubble and Tam-tam see any ghosts?"

Em shook her head. "Wizards used to blame elves when they got sick, but we gets sick, too. Wizards calls it elf-struck, but Mubble and Tam-tam was so cold when we found them..." The old elf shivered, and looked at the spectrescope on Alexandra's head. "Has Miss seen ghosts with Ms. Gale's goggles?"

Alexandra licked her lips. What if ghosts really could hurt people? Or elves?

"I haven't seen any ghosts." That was true -- technically. "I've met ghosts. I don't see how ghosts can make you sick."

"Em should not expect Miss to believe her," Em sighed. She wagged a finger. "Stay away from doors going down, Miss. They are all locked, and we will know if Miss unlocks them." She disappeared with a pop, leaving Alexandra feeling relieved and guilty at the same time.

She spent almost all her time that weekend, when she wasn't in detention, reading about ghosts. She looked up 'ghost sickness' in the library, and found that belief in ghost sickness had fallen out of fashion in recent years, and many modern wizards shared Angelique's belief that it was nothing more than an Old Colonial superstition. Simon Grayson referred to it as 'vile phasmophobic slander' in his book. But the Cassadaga Clinic for Spiritual Afflictions reported dozens of cases every year, and detection and treatment of ghost sickness was still part of Auror training in many Territories. The Incorporeal World mentioned several types of magic involving ghosts -- all of which, naturally, were classified as Dark Arts.

She knew she should tell Ms. Gale about finding evidence of a haunting in the basement. Yet she wanted to find the ghost herself, to confirm for herself that it wasn't her brother. If it were Maximilian... Alexandra couldn't stand the thought of the Bureau of Hauntings coming to forcibly relocate him, like some unwanted vagrant.

Maybe he'd be happier at Croatoa, she told herself. He could see Julia and his mother.

And so her conscience warred with itself, while she delayed saying anything to the custodian.

Other students had heard about William's panic when he supposedly saw a ghost, and Monday morning during JROC exercises, Witch-Corporal Chandra conjured ghostly mist-like shapes to spring out at him and chase him during their run around the academy. As they headed back inside, the teasing continued from the other boys. Alexandra didn't see the ensuing confrontation, but apparently William tried to jinx his tormenters, and received a nasty Wizard Wedgie from Theo. Only intervention by Witch-Corporal Barker and Mage-Sergeant Keedle saved him from worse retaliation.

At least he's trying to fight back, Alexandra thought, but she realized guiltily that she was the only one who knew that he really had seen a ghost. She wasn't sure that speaking up would actually help him, but her silence made her feel complicit.

And so she decided to admit to Ms. Gale that she'd found spectral traces -- after one more attempt to find the ghost in the basement herself. That evening, after dinner and more reading, Alexandra descended the stairs to begin her final week of detention.

Unfortunately, Ms. Gale directed Benjamin and Mordecai to stay in the basement with their Clockwork crews that night and scrub the old stone corridors. Alexandra was supposed to go up to the attics again.

When Ms. Gale gave her the spectrescope and then went back to her office, as usual, Alexandra went upstairs. Then she walked to another wing of the academy, to take a set of stairs she knew led to the basements from near Mr. Grue's alchemy classroom.

The Clockworks made enough noise, as they moved about and mopped the floors, that Alexandra thought she could avoid the Rashes. She was more concerned about being caught by one of the elves again, so she was wary as she crept up and down the basement corridors, flipping the goggles on and off, and trying to be stealthy.

As the evening wore on, and she found no green glow in the corridors or near any of the locked doors to the lower levels, she became anxious and a little desperate.

"Hello?" she called out in a very low voice, hoping that a ghost might hear her while an elf would not. "If there are any ghosts haunting the basement, you should really... appear, now."

She turned a corner, and walked down another dark hallway.

"Please," she pleaded. "I'm going to have to report you. Just talk to me."

There was no answer. She circled back to all the previous locations she had found evidence of ghostly passage, but there were no traces now.

And so she was drawn back to the same door she had returned to, again and again. She stood in front of it, holding her wand, thinking hard about simply going through it and charging downstairs, to ask -- to demand -- that any ghost hiding down there appear before her. Let Em report her. Let her get in trouble --

Then she heard a scream.

It was high-pitched and girlish, followed by a horrible strangled cry that was cut off abruptly. Alexandra jerked her head around, and then took off running in the direction of the sound.

A crew of Clockworks was cleaning one of the corridors at the foot of a stairwell up to the main floor. The Magic Band rehearsal room was just down the hall, and there were two bathrooms side by side next to the stairs. Lying on the floor in front of the bathroom doors was a body.

Alexandra was still wearing the spectrescope goggles over her eyes, and couldn't make out much except that there was a green glow all around the crumpled form. Then she pushed them up to her forehead, and saw that it was one of the Rashes. His eyes and mouth were open; he was lying on his back staring at the ceiling, and his face was deathly pale.

All around him, Clockworks continued to mop the floor and scrub the walls, oblivious.

Alexandra ran over to the boy. For a moment, she thought he was dead, until she saw that he was shivering a little. He didn't seem to recognize her, or even be aware of her presence. His lips trembled.

His twin came dashing around the corner and saw his brother lying on the ground -- with Alexandra standing over him holding her wand.

"Benjamin!" he cried. He pointed his own wand.

"No, wait!" Alexandra said, but Mordecai was already throwing a hex. Alexandra ducked as a blue bolt went over her head and impacted against the wall, sending a cloud of blue dust billowing around her and the Clockworks.

"Wait!" she yelled. "I didn't --"

Mordecai threw another spell at her. She ducked behind a Clockwork this time, and his hex struck the golem. It shivered and rattled, and then its arms fell off.

Alexandra had no time to wonder what that hex would have done to her, as Mordecai was still trying to blast her. She shouted, "Protego!" and let him continue to pelt her Shield Charm as she backed away.

Then Em and half a dozen other elves appeared in the corridor between them. They all shrieked and scattered as one of Mordecai's hexes rebounded off of Alexandra's shield and then against the floor in their midst.

"Stop fighting!" cried Em. "Stop this at once!"

"I'm trying to!" Alexandra said, but then Em and two other elves pointed at her. Three more elves pointed at Mordecai. Both of them went flying in opposite directions, landing hard on the stone floor.

"Behave!" Em yelled shrilly at them. Mordecai sprang to his feet and Alexandra did likewise. They both pointed their wands, and then several elves clapped their hands, and Clockworks skidded across the floor as if being jerked on strings. One after another, they crashed into each other directly between the two would-be combatants, piling up in the middle of the corridor.

"Do not make us become vexed!" Em said, with one hand on her hip and another wagging a long, spindly finger at her.

"Help!" Mordecai yelled. "That sorceress cursed my brother!"

"I did not!" Alexandra yelled back, as Ms. Gale came huffing up the corridor. Her eyes became wide and panicked when she saw Benjamin lying on the floor.

"Go get Mrs. Murphy and Dean Grimm and Dean Ellis!" she commanded the elves, and several of them disappeared with a pop.

"Do something!" Mordecai said, as the custodian stood over his inert twin, looking fearful.

"I'm not a mediwitch," she mumbled. "Wait until Mrs. Murphy gets here."

Alexandra started to move towards Benjamin, thinking perhaps she could try one of the first-aid charms her brother had taught her, but Mordecai raised his wand to point it at her again.

"You're gonna pay for what you done!" he snarled. "You used your Dark sorcery on my brother, sure as I'm standin' here!"

"No fighting!" said Ms. Gale. "Or I'll take your wands away!"

Mordecai bared his teeth, glanced at the anxious, uneasy elves, and reluctantly lowered his wand.

Alexandra kept her hands at her sides, with an effort, and waited.

Ms. Shirtliffe arrived first, dressed casually in clothes students were forbidden to wear -- jeans and a leather jacket -- followed immediately by Mrs. Murphy, carrying a small case of potions. Last came Vice Dean Ellis, a tall, red-faced man whose thinning blond hair was still tousled by sleep, and Dean Grimm, wearing a long black robe. She didn't look half-awake, like Dean Ellis, but her expression was ominous.

As Mrs. Murphy knelt next to Benjamin, Mordecai and Alexandra both immediately began shouting their respective version of events, until Dean Grimm said, "Silence!"

"He's not cold, but otherwise it's almost as if he'd been frozen," said Mrs. Murphy. "I've never seen anything quite like this." She rose to her feet, and gestured with her wand. Benjamin levitated off the floor.

"Please, ma'am, you have to help him," Mordecai said. For a moment, Alexandra almost forgot her animosity for the Rashes. Mordecai was genuinely scared for his brother.

"You can come with me to the infirmary, Mr. Rash," the nurse said. As they proceeded upstairs, Mordecai gave Alexandra one last look of hatred and fury.

With Mordecai gone, Alexandra was able to tell the other adults how she had discovered Benjamin lying on the floor.

"I didn't curse him or anything, I swear," she said, as Ms. Gale, Dean Grimm, Dean Ellis, and Ms. Shirtliffe all listened to her with grim expressions. "I didn't do anything to him. I heard him scream, and he was like that on the floor when I found him."

One of the elves mumbled something.

"What was that, Jimmy?" Dean Grimm asked.

The other elves all covered their mouths and stared at the unfortunate house-elf, Jimmy. He looked at the Dean with eyes that seemed about to pop out of his head.

"Young master was s-s-s-stricken, D-D-Dean Grimm," the elf stammered, trembling violently.

Dean Ellis rolled his eyes. "I do not want to hear more nonsense about ghost sickness!" he snapped. The house-elves all flinched.

"Well, something clearly happened to Mr. Rash." Dean Grimm eyed Alexandra, who met her gaze uneasily. "I don't suppose you've actually found any traces of ghostly activity, have you, Ms. Gale?" the Dean asked, still looking at Alexandra.

Ms. Gale shook her head. "No, Dean Grimm. She -- that is, we, have been searching all over the academy. No signs of any spirits."

Alexandra shifted uncomfortably, and dropped her gaze for a moment.

"Miss Quick?" Ms. Grimm said. "Do you have something to tell us?"

"I, umm..." Alexandra looked where Benjamin had been lying. "I might have found some spectral traces."

The elves gasped. Everyone stared at her. Ms. Gale's mouth dropped open.

"Around Benjamin." Alexandra slowly took the goggles off her head.

"This was the first time you saw spectral traces, when you discovered Mr. Rash?" Dean Grimm asked, as Ms. Shirtliffe snatched the spectrescope from Alexandra and looked through the lenses herself.

Alexandra shuffled her feet a little, and looked down.

"I might have seen some before," she mumbled.

"You might have?" Dean Grimm repeated, while Ms. Gale flushed.

Alexandra was silent, as she thought about what had just happened.

"Why didn't you tell Ms. Gale?" Dean Grimm asked.

"Why didn't Ms. Gale see them herself?" asked Ms. Shirtliffe.

"She told me she hadn't seen anything!" Ms. Gale said, pointing accusingly at Alexandra. "I asked her every night --"

"Weren't you with her while she was helping you hunt for ghosts?" Ms. Shirtliffe demanded.

Ms. Gale opened her mouth. Alexandra frowned, but said nothing.

"Ms. Gale, am I to understand that you sent an eighth grader searching the basements and attics for ghosts by herself?" Ms. Grimm asked.

"It -- it's perfectly safe!" the custodian stammered. "There's no such thing as ghost sickness! Everyone knows that!" The look on her face belied her conviction, though. She was sweating profusely.

"Maybe not, but you still don't send students on their own into the basements and attics!" Ms. Shirtliffe said. "What if she'd found a Boggart, while she was all alone?"

"Mr. Journey let us go into the basements and attics by ourselves," Alexandra said.

Ms. Shirtliffe gave her an incredulous look. "Mr. Journey was trying to kill you!"

Alexandra closed her mouth. It was a fair point.

Ms. Grimm's expression had become, if anything, even more unpleasant. "I am most displeased, Ms. Gale. Tonight, you will commence a thorough search of the basements, and you will continue that search nightly until you have personally inspected every room and corridor in Charmbridge Academy. Do you understand?"

"Yes, ma'am," Ms. Gale said, trying not to cringe.

"Until we've resolved this, no more students will be left alone in the basement." Dean Grimm fixed Alexandra with a chilly stare. "Your failure to report a possible haunting is mitigated only by the fact that you weren't supposed to be doing that job in the first place, Miss Quick. And once we determine just what befell Mr. Rash, I may have another talk with you."

With that, she turned and swept back upstairs. Dean Ellis shook his head and yawned. "Terrible mess... you elves see that it's cleaned up, yes?"

"Yes, sir," Em replied. She and the other elves had been completely silent since Jimmy's outburst.

The Vice Dean followed the Dean, leaving Alexandra with Ms. Gale and Ms. Shirtliffe, as the house-elves began standing the Clockworks up and tidying the hallway.

"If it were up to me, I'd fire your lazy ass!" Ms. Shirtliffe growled at the other witch. She looked at Alexandra. "I don't know what's going on in your head, Quick, but you couldn't possibly be skating on thinner ice."

With that, she spun on her heel and followed the deans. Alexandra glanced at Ms. Gale, who looked queasy, and decided her detention was over for the night. She retreated up the stairs and returned to her room.