Autumn light fell over all the sprawling stones and long grass lawns of Castle Grimnalghast, where a young woman had just recently begun her schooling. When her father shipped her off to a Catholic reformatory, her first visitor had been a being from beyond the stars. (That, we will discuss later.) Her second visitor was the headmistress of a school for the ancient and reclusive people who called themselves "wizards", and whom others called various names. "Those people"; "foreigners"; "vagrants"; and other things we dare not say.
Tzipporah aït Salem was a peculiar girl. The existence of magic was no problem for her. For, it was always her suspicion that language was the only power of all that could make sense of a world of hidden things; ambiguous things; terrible things.
Blue-bound tomes of spells. Alchemical recipes scrawled in illegible scripts. Creatures brought to being through the strange powers of her ancient coethnics. All of these were measures in a single composition, sung by a voice no less reasonable than science, but far more wonderful.
In the winding walkways tucked away in the lower levels of the castle, drenched in the shadow of the towers and forts above, the voices of students and professors alike dwindled away, until Tzipporah was all alone, with only the crows and the decorated bones of ancient wizards as her company.
All alone, except for the girl in the corner of her eye.
As a young child, in that little room in that big house, they were faint. Black, spindly forms crouching in the parts of the room you never looked at long, darting away like frightened things. She had shivers in her neck in the quiet corners of the city, or by the wide and grey ocean. Tzipporah had long been, in the frankest words, mad. A girl who suspected her adoptive father intended to poison her. A girl who could not be up at night without the curtains drawn, lest the world outside disappear. A girl who sobbed over things she hardly believed in.
In the hall outside the chemistry room on the third floor, the other girl watched from the stairwell.
In the little supply closet beside Professor Hermippe's office, Tzipporah glimpsed a sliver of her eyes through the reflection of a divining mirror.
On the lawn where the fourth year girls from Scorpius and Sagitta gathered after lunch, watching smoke rise from the chimneys of the research station on the cliff, the girl too watched from a window on the second floor. Always at a distance, but always watching, just out of sight, just where she could disappear from if ever Tzipporah asked another student if they could see her. (She never did anyway.)
So, in the dead of night, while the other students slumbered in the dormitories, Tzipporah walked the silent halls of Castle Grimnalghast. Past ossuary niches and medieval masonry she trespassed, with nothing but her nightgown and her wand. Rows of portraits and suits of armour glared down at her, and at this hour, Tzipporah almost wondered if their eyes were more living than not.
As the moon hid behind dark clouds, she tapped her wand against the air and whispered phos. A bright, milky substance leaked out from the tip of her wand and shaped itself into a will-o'-the-wisp that fluttered about her head. She and her wisp searched every dead end and odd-angled turn that Tzipporah could recall having seen while walking to class.
At moments, the worry dawned on her that she was chasing little more than faces in shadows. Just how many of the great mysteries across history could be put down to pareidolia? She peered through the hallway windows of the class in which she had English. The chairs sat empty in their rows, as chairs did for most of their existence, but the mere imagining of the students who in the day filled them was enough to charge them all with another kind of emptiness. Something uncanny and all too substantial. When she glanced away, she almost swore she saw someone sitting down.
As she turned the corner to ascend to the fourth floor, she jumped backwards before she could even register the sight before her.
Close enough to touch, a ghost, as solid as ice and as nothing as air.
It waited, stood by the windows laced with metal. Even in the dim light, she could see the ghost's face, as if lit by its own glow – it was a girl, as tall as Tzipporah herself, but older – and she could see her sleeved black dress, patterned with stars and crescents, that might now have hung on a little display in a museum.
The ghost looked at her, and Tzipporah's heart sank, but she swallowed her fears with a bezoar. Nothing ventured, nothing learned.
— Who are you? — Tzipporah asked, her voice a harsh whisper.
The girl turned to her, and spoke in a murky, humming voice, like a tuning fork:
— I am sorry for what I did.
That wasn't a very helpful answer, Tzipporah thought.
Something echoed through the hall. A clang, a thud. The girl's pale face fell in panic. She passed through the window in her ghostly immateriality, and disappeared. As Tzipporah rounded the corner fully to look for her, she slammed into some great hunk of metal and was thrown to the ground.
As she drew her curly, peroxided hair out of her eyes, servos whirred in her ears. She looked up at the thing staring forward with its glassy eyes. She looked up at a robot.
— What are you doing here? — Tzipporah cursed lowly.
— YOU. THERE. WIZARD STUDENT — it groaned digitally, each word coming out as if prepared far in advance. — TELL ME. WHERE IS OPHELIA?
Tzipporah got to her feet and pointed her wand at it. Even when students threw rocks at the robots that marched by the fences around the station, they would never cross over that delicate line between the two worlds. They were forbidden. Yet here this one was, pockmarked with rust and tangled up in vines, as if it had been trapped in a greenhouse.
— OPHELIA IS. NOT. IN HER BED. SHE SHOULD NOT LEAVE AT NIGHT.
— Who on earth is Ophelia? — Tzipporah asked.
A cabinet sprung open on the robot's chest. A printer whirred inside and spat out a sepia-toned photograph. Tzipporah tore it from the port. It was the girl she had been seeing, in the flesh. The robot stared blankly at her.
— Tin man, when did you last turn on? — she pushed further.
— INTERNAL CLOCK IMPAIRED. ASTRONOMICAL DATA INDICATES. SEPTEMBER. 10TH.
Only two days ago. It was beginning to make sense. A tattered old robot from the research station, wandering the halls in search of a dead wizard girl. She had heard rumours about students going missing if they strayed too far into the station's grounds, but she had assumed they were little more than bogeyman stories...
Tzipporah thought for a moment. At last, she said to the robot:
— I know where Ophelia is. I'll take you to her.
— THANK. YOU. COOPERATION BY. EVIL WIZARDS. IS. APPRECIATED — the robot said.
Its legs came to life and clanged along behind Tzipporah. She led the tin thing out of the long hall, down the lesser travelled spiral staircase to the first floor, past all the suits of armour, and out into the hedge rows and flower beds where the night insects creaked and chittered.
— You're very loud, you know. You're going to wake someone.
— A. RECONNAISSANCE. MODE IS. AVAILABLE. I WAS DESIGNED WITH. SOUND DAMPENERS.
— Oh? Activate them, then, please.
The robot stopped in place. Its motors and fans ground even more fervently. Tzipporah braced in case it might explode. Before she was even old enough for secondary school, her father had tried to teach her to take care of electronics – it was a hobby of his. But Tzipporah doubted that faint knowledge would help if Ophelia's jailer disappeared into a cloud of smoke and scrap metal. Something banged against itself internally. Something snapped.
— ACCESS. DENIED — the robot beeped.
— I hate technology sometimes.
The garden narrowed and gave way to the shaded cobble walkways closer to the sea. As Tzipporah and the robot walked, crowds of crows gathered on the roofs and walls above, watching with their oxblood eyes. Somewhere far below, she could hear the sea crash against the rocks.
— Traitor girl! — the crows began to squawk in a chorus of inhuman voices.
— Why are they shouting at me... — Tzipporah muttered, then she yelled at them: — Leave me alone!
— Collaborator! — croaked one sat on the corner of a wall.
She picked up a pebble and threw it at them, missing, but nevertheless scaring them from their perches. They erupted into their usual caws as they fluttered away into the air, disappearing into the reaches of the school.
— THEY ARE. NOT TALKING ABOUT. YOU ... OPHELIA — the robot hissed. — YOUR PEOPLE EXILED. POOR. POOR. POOR. POOR.
Something in the robot's head popped and fizzed with sparks.
— “Poor Ophelia”. Yes, I understand. Hurry up.
— WE WEPT. WEPT. AND. WEPT. WHEN SHE ... ERROR.
— Stop malfunctioning, you stupid machine — Tzipporah said dully, smacking her wand on it. — What did she do?
— YOU ARE. MEAN.
— The headmistress will be far meaner when she learns a robot was found on school grounds without her knowledge.
— I MEANT TO SAY. YOU ARE. MY ALLY.
— What did Ophelia do? Did she fall in love with some stupid boy like Chava and Fyedka?
— SHE SAVED. HER. PEOPLE.
— How? — she asked, brow furrowed. — What was going to happen to the w– to us?
— INFORMATION CLASSIFIED.
There was nothing to be read in the robot's still, geometric face. Tzipporah gave up on it.
She rubbed her aching eyes, and then looked back to the castle, rising up in the shadow of the night as it must have for centuries, all black angles against a blue-tinged sky. She did not know if the ghost girl was watching now, somewhere in all the flame-lit windows across the sprawling edifice, but she could not help but feel her gaze cut through the cool, dark air.
— CONTINUE PROVIDING INFORMATION ON. OPHELIA LOCATION — the robot screeched.
Something resolved in Tzipporah's mind. She glanced about the ginnel, and settled upon an alley so drenched in darkness that anything could have dwelt within it. She gestured towards it with her wand and said:
— ...I saw Ophelia over there the other day.
She was almost bored by her own lie.
The robot carefully turned on the spot like a tank to look.
— THANK YOU. HUMAN WIZARD GIRL — it screeched, marching into the darkness.
Once the robot had passed out of sight, Tzipporah escaped.
It was no matter if her socks became drenched with dew and mud as she ran, padding up the lawns and the hard stones that banged against her feet. Past the suits of armour. Up the spiral staircase, hand on the wall to keep her steady. Barrelling down the unending halls as if the sun might rise at any second.
She came to a bounding stop as she saw the ghost girl there by the window again, staring out over the sea, and the ancient fortifications, and the station on the cliff. A writhing mass of pipes, and steel chimneys, and buildings with thick, black windows, lit by whining neon lamps and harsh, blinking bulbs.
The ghost girl fixed her gaze on Tzipporah as she drew heavy breaths through her nose.
— Thank you — the ghost said softly. — But you don't need to help me any more.
Tzipporah ignored her, and simply asked:
— What did you sacrifice?
Ophelia drew herself inwards. Even in death, her heart could not suffer the words.
Tzipporah went on:
— The robot said that you saved wizardkind, and yet you were exiled for it. We were not “saved” in a metaphorical sense – wizards have not embraced the gospel or submitted to the rightful rule of Her Majesty – and so we must have been in danger somehow. — She took a breath. — So: you did something that prevented this danger but which was itself wrong. You must have sacrificed something. Something that the station wouldn't want anyone to know about, which is why the robot would not tell me what. A black mark against their legacy. A founding sin. Most likely: giving up another wizard to them under threat of extermination.
— No — the ghost said straightforwardly. — I am proud to see such intelligence in a student of this school, but there is a singular flaw in your reasoning. It is true that those men from London would not want you to know what I did, but it is not because it was reprehensible. No, not at all.
Tzipporah's mind raced, turning over the riddle in her head.
— ...Then you sacrificed ... not a person, but a secret.
— I told them what they demanded to know. I made a deal with the devil.
Some remembrance flashed in Tzipporah's mind.
— That was over a hundred years ago. Don't you think you're forgiven by now? I've heard a rumour that one of the professors once worked at the station before being accepted as a wizard.
— But who can forgive the dead? Even my ossuary has been forgotten ... Soon I will forget my mind.
— I could forgive you — Tzipporah said, throat like brambles.
— Why would you forgive me?
— Because I understand.
Her voice diminished to a whisper as she told the ghost something that none else knew.
Days passed. Tzipporah knocked twice on a large, gilded door, and then waited on the chair beside it with a little red cushion. The anteroom smelt like lacquer, and like her memories of her mother. She stole a lolly or two from the glass bowl glimmering in the light of the turquoise flames dancing above. Blackcurrant. Tzipporah enjoyed blackcurrant.
Far out of sight, she could hear the echoes of two girls chattering to one another. So much could be learned from eavesdropping. So much that Tzipporah never let herself listen to the voice telling her it was wrong. Did you hear? They found a robot outside the teachers' places. Apparently the station people don't know where it came from. Well, did you hear? They found an old ossuary above the chemistry lab near the dorm. Apparently if it had been abandoned any longer, it would have been haunted by a ghoul. It belonged to some girl named Ophelia...
In the corner of her eye, Tzipporah still saw the ghost girl. Forgiveness had not freed her, nor had grave-tending. But in the golden hours before night, the light caught the corners of her mouth in just such a way ... To the untrained eye, it just might have been a smile.
The door of gold creaked open of its own accord, ever a servant to the master of the castle. A woman with olive-dark skin stepped out, dressed in neat office attire. Careful, inaudible words were exchanged through the door. As she left down the stairs, she glanced at Tzipporah with the thinnest sliver of her sharp eyes. Uncanny eyes. It was a gaze that Tzipporah would not soon forget, though she did not yet know how soon it would meet hers again.
The headmistress of Grimnalghast placed a hand on Tzipporah's shoulder, at which she jumped. In the doorway, she stood taller than any other person Tzipporah had ever met, rising up from the ground and enveloped in robes and fabrics, like a dancing lion.
— Come in, dear — she said, in her clear, deep voice.
The doors creaked closed, and the world of schoolgirls and errands was sealed away behind them.
The headmistress made Tzipporah sit in a wide, low armchair by the desk, as she always did, while she poured her a cup of tea. Far above in the ceiling, comets streaked across a false night sky; a living orrery. Headmistress Hephzibah placed her hand cautiously over the cup so that stardust would not fall in. She passed it to Tzipporah, and asked:
— How have you been?
— Fine, headmistress.
— Have you made any new friends?
Why the headmistress had any interest in her remained a mystery to Tzipporah. Another of the many mysteries she would find at the school, in time. Tzipporah began to answer, staring into the swirling tea:
— No. Not yet...
And so passed her third week in Castle Grimnalghast, as uneventful as any other.
🪬7.00 a.m. — Wake up
8.00 a.m. — Breakfast
8.45 a.m. — Registration
9.00 a.m. — Morning lessons
9.00 a.m. — 1st period
10.00 a.m. — 2nd period
11.00 a.m. — 3rd period
12.00 p.m. — Lunch
12.45 p.m. — Free time
1.15 p.m. — Afternoon lessons
1.15 p.m. — 4th period
2.15 p.m. — 5th period
3.15 p.m. — Clubs (games, etc.)
4.00 p.m. — Afternoon tea and free time
6.00 p.m. — High tea
7.00 p.m. — Study
8.30 p.m. — Free time
9.00 p.m. — Bedtime
Tuesday and Friday are half days, on which afternoon obligations are replaced by 2 hrs of club time. Saturday is a free day. Students may attend longer club meetings, visit the station village or nearby towns (by ferry), or simply relax on the grounds. In total, students have approximately 16½ hrs of free time per week, not including Saturday. Of course, more is available to students willing to lose a few hours of sleep and risk detention.