Chapter 23

The next few weeks were surprisingly quiet after the spectacle of All Hallows’ Eve. Students returned to regularly scheduled classes on Monday, as directed, and everyone buckled down to prepare for end-of-term exams. Perhaps best of all, there was no further trouble from either George or Caliban. They hadn’t become friends, exactly—still terse with one another while passing in the halls, and both kept eating meals with their respective groups—but they were cordial now. And neither seemed to be trying to kill the other.

Alastair counted that as progress.

The air grew colder and, in the gardens, the leaves had begun to fall. From his office window, he could see the elemental staff working frantically. The air elementals blew the leaves together in a pile, while the fire elementals burned them up. Little by little, they were making progress, but there were a lot of leaves.

Part of him was displeased at this, since he enjoyed the crunch under his boots as he walked through the winding paths of the Natural Garden. And he was still the only person who spent time there. The Formal Gardens, likewise, emptied out of students as the season passed and the weather turned too chilly for outdoor studies.

Whenever Alastair had a spare moment and something to share, he wrote to the Glimmerglass students, enclosing casual photos of Emberstone in every letter. To his great joy, the students wrote back—though their letters grew shorter and sparser as time passed. Things must have been busy up at the school. Alastair understood how these things worked. Students forgot quickly. Now that he’d been gone for a full three months, it might be as if he’d never been up there at all.

In the meantime, he and the other faculty worked on strengthening the school’s lockdown spells in case there was more unrest in Watermere. Dueling practices bore new significance now too, as the House heads aimed to teach their students how to defend themselves if the need should arise. Alastair still thought Gold’s Dueling League was ridiculous—but he admitted it did provide a useful excuse for self-defense lessons. Most of House Primordium could barely cast a Shield spell, and he added extra Thursday sessions to their weekly practice schedule.

Tuesdays for offense; Thursdays for defense.

The rigor was working. Rachel could now cast a mean Explosive hex, and George Redding seemed to have learned to control his temper and keep a cool head in the heat of battle. Team Primordium still had a long way to go, but they were improving.

A week after All Hallows’, Alastair received a letter from the Board of Governors summoning him to the city to “discuss recent events.” In truth, he was surprised the request hadn’t come earlier. He had plenty to say to them as well.

On a chilly Monday in mid-November, he dug out his fur-mantled school robe and headed into town. The signs of the riot were still evident on the streets, though the neighborhood was trying to rebuild. A few local shops had secured cardboard to replace broken windows, and Jonny Pumpkin’s store was still a charred shell.

“Lad!”

Speak of the devil.

The man himself walked toward Alastair, looking surprisingly well given that his business had just been destroyed.

“What’s going on, Mr. Pumpkin?”

“Livin’ life, livin’ life.”

Alastair waited for him to express some kind of despair over the Haberdashery’s fate, but he appeared to be in good spirits.

“Uh,” Alastair said, “what are you going to do now?”

Mr. Pumpkin looked over at the ruined store. “Oh, that. It was insured. Got meself a pretty big payout from it. Sittin’ pretty, my lad! Sittin’ pretty. I ain’t a fool, ye know.”

“I would never suggest you were a fool,” Alastair said.

“Good.”

“Will you re-open?” Alastair had loved the Haberdashery as a student. Had many a fond memory of purchasing charms there, even if they’d been mostly useless. The set he’d purchased his first day as headmaster were still in the pocket of his summer robes.

Mr. Pumpkin shrugged. “I’ve been sellin’ worthless trinkets to kids for a long time, lad. Maybe it’s time for a change. I got the money now; got the time.”

Alastair was appalled. “You’d close the Haberdashery forever?”

“There’s always gonna be a Haberdashery of some sort ’round here. Students love that kinda thing. But do I gotta be the man who runs it? Maybe not, lad, maybe not. I’m thinkin’ it’s finally time for me to move south, spend some time on a beach somewhere. Watermere ain’t what it was.”

“Oh,” Alastair said, quietly heartbroken. He’d never felt so old. Maybe this was life: you watched the places you loved when you were young close one by one until, eventually, none were left.

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“Yer doin’ fine work, lad. Keep on, keep on,” Jonny Pumpkin said with a big smile. “Got a few charms left if ye wanna buy them. Ain’t got ’round to puttin’ them in the store yet.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Buying Mr. Pumpkin’s wares wouldn’t be the same without the large barrel of spells and the element of random surprise.

“I wrote you a check,” Alastair remembered. “From the school. To help you rebuild.”

“Aye,” Mr. Pumpkin said, reaching a hand into his breast pocket and pulling out an envelope. “Thanks for the reminder. Been carryin’ it right here, meanin’ to give it back.”