There was a brief silence after the doorway had vanished, and then Miss Drill said "Is it over?"

"Yes, Miss Drill, it's over." Constance sat down heavily on the log, feeling as if she might never get up again.

"Thank goodness for that." Miss Drill came over carrying Constance's broomstick, which she had fished out of the snow and brushed off as well as she could. "Here. I don't think it's damaged, but you'll know better than I." She cracked a faint smile. "That was a landing worthy of Mildred Hubble. I'm going to tell her all about it when I see her. She'll love hearing that the great Constance Hardbroom crashed into a snowbank."

Constance glared up at her, and Miss Drill laughed. "I'm winding you up, Miss Hardbroom. It was a brilliant rescue and I'm grateful for it. You saved my life. Thank you."

"Oh," said Constance, mollified. "Well. You're very welcome."

"You've both done a hero's duty," said Miss Cackle, closing the spell book and tucking it back into an inner pocket, "and the school and I owe you a great debt. As does the world, I dare say. Who knows what might have happened if the doorway had grown any larger, or if something else had come through it that was worse than the dark men?"

"The dark men were more than enough," said Constance.

"No one will ever know, though," Miss Drill said. "All the people in the village and round about. They have no idea what happened here, or that they were ever in danger."

"They rarely do," said Miss Cackle. "Part of being a witch or wizard is knowing about things of which the rest of the world is blissfully ignorant."

"Speaking of wizards," said Constance, "do you intend to inform them about this now that it's finished?"

Miss Cackle nodded. "There can be no question now that we had anything to do with the woman's death, and a doorway between the worlds is such a rare event that the wizards will need to know about it—not to mention that we now have two firsthand accounts from people who have crossed over and survived. I expect they will want to interview you both for their records."

"Oh, good," said Constance. "An afternoon in a stuffy room with a lot of pompous old wizards will be just the thing to make this unfortunate experience complete." Bracing herself against the log with both hands, she stood up, smoothed her hair and shook her cloak into place. "Perhaps I should lower the Sempiternum Shield, Headmistress. We won't be needing to preserve the scene anymore."

Miss Drill looked around, spied the dark end of a long stick poking through the snow, plucked it out and offered it to Constance like a gift. "Here, this can be your staff." She grinned. "See? I've made myself useful."

Against her will, Constance found herself smiling back. "I suppose you have at that." She faced the shield, stopped a moment to focus and compose herself, and then spoke the reversing spell. With a green flash, the shield vanished, and the first few snowflakes drifted lazily onto the clean carpet of leaves and the burnt outline where the dead woman's body had lain.

"It'll all be covered up by morning if the snow keeps on this way," Miss Drill said. "By springtime no one will be able to tell she was ever there, the poor thing. What will we say to her friends or family if they come looking for her? It's bad enough she's dead, but to tell them she was eaten..."

"If anyone asks, we'll leave that bit out, I think," said Miss Cackle. "We don't know for certain that she was, after all. It will be enough to say that she was taken through to the other world. The stories about it are so well-known that no one will question it."

"Fair enough," said Miss Drill. She paused. "There's one thing I was wondering about. Why weren't we attacked in the other world the way she and Miss Hardbroom both were in this one? We saw a whole crowd of dark men there, and I was expecting them to blast us with that blue light at any moment, but they didn't."

"I have a theory about that," Constance said, and both women turned to look at her.

"What is it, Constance?" Miss Cackle asked.

"Well," Constance said, "the dark men seem to have a few built-in drives that make them act of their own volition—hunger, obviously, and probably some sort of reproduction—"

"Ugh," said Miss Drill.

"But for the most part," Constance went on, as if Miss Drill had not spoken, "they react to what happens around them. The one I met in the wood came after me when it saw me moving, so I tried to stop it with magic. It seems likely that the dead woman must have done the same. Any witch would have."

"A light...the spell," Miss Cackle said. "Those were her words, weren't they?"

"Yes," said Constance. "When I cast spells at it, it struck back at me in the same manner. But in the other world, we never used magic against the dark men we saw—Miss Drill because she isn't a witch, and I because it hadn't worked when I tried before—and so they didn't respond to us in that way. For all we know, they may not even have any magic of their own; they may simply absorb and redirect the magic that's directed at them. I suppose somebody would have to capture one and study it to be certain."

"You won't catch me volunteering for that," Miss Drill said. She rubbed her hands together, then up and down her arms, trying to generate some warmth. "Can we go back to the castle? I'm half frozen. I left my coat in the other world and a dark man is probably wearing it by now."

"Yes, it's time to go," Miss Cackle said. "Constance, you too. The girls will be back in the morning, and we must be ready to greet them. I prescribe long, hot baths and early bedtimes for all three of us."

"Definitely," said Miss Drill. "I always have a hot bath after I save the world."

She and Miss Cackle both laughed, and for once, Constance got the joke and laughed too. It was a surprisingly enjoyable feeling.

The hired coach pulled into the courtyard just before noon and quickly disgorged its burden of sixty chattering girls, along with Miss Bat, twittering away and pulling twigs and pine cones from the birds' nest of her hair, and Mr Blossom, whose normally good-natured face looked rather shell-shocked.

Mildred Hubble was last out, struggling along with an overstuffed bag, a dirty, bedraggled bouquet of fallen leaves and dry plant stalks clutched in her hands. The sole of one of her boots had come loose at some point during the last two days, and flapped with each step like a mouth opening and closing. She flapped her way across the snowy courtyard to Constance, who put out an arm to stop her.

"What is that you're holding, Mildred?"

"They're to go in my room, Miss Hardbroom. Miss Bat says that bringing a bit of nature indoors is good for your psychic energy." She smiled hopefully up at Constance, all clear blue eyes and rounded, childish cheeks. "They're pretty, aren't they?"

"Not quite the word I would have used," said Constance. "But I suppose if you want to decorate your room with weeds, it's your own affair. Just don't expect any sympathy if they make you sneeze."

"No, Miss Hardbroom." Mildred bit her lip and gazed around the courtyard, seeming to take in the whole castle at once, before looking at Constance again. "Everything's all right now, isn't it, Miss Hardbroom? Here at school, I mean."

"I told you two days ago that everything was all right, Mildred. Are you insinuating that I am a liar?"

"No, of course not, Miss Hardbroom. It's just things feel better than when we left. Perhaps it's because it snowed while we were gone. I think everything always looks nicer in the snow, fresher and cleaner and—"

"Enough! Mildred, you do have a tendency to babble."

"Sorry, Miss Hardbroom."

"Hm," said Constance. She regarded the girl and found, to her surprise, that she felt a certain exasperated pleasure at seeing her again. She supposed it was just the relief of dealing with a familiar problem for a change.

"Well, Mildred," she said, "although I think we've agreed that nothing at all was wrong when you left, I can assure you that even less is wrong now, and that school shall carry on just as usual. Is that enough to satisfy you?"

"Yes, Miss Hardbroom." Mildred bent her head and studied the grubby treasures in her hands, but not before Constance saw the smile playing round the corners of her mouth.

"Good. Now hurry and get inside before you've missed lunch. Mrs Tapioca has been feeding the cats while you girls have been away, so be sure to thank her for looking after your Tabby when you see her. And for heaven's sake, go to the library after you've finished eating and look up the spell to repair your boot sole. You'll find the book on the third shelf to the left of the windows."

"Yes, Miss Hardbroom," Mildred said, and flapped away toward the castle door, lugging her bag and her bouquet. Constance watched her go, shaking her head at the walking disaster that was Mildred Hubble, and then shielded her eyes and looked up at the white winter sky, where patches of frosty blue were just beginning to appear between the clouds.

Mildred had spoken the truth, she thought. Everything was definitely all right now.

From the castle, she heard the familiar hubbub of girls running amok, as they always did after some special trip or treat. What they needed—what they all needed—was to get back to a routine, at the double.

With keys jingling at her waist and boots making a sharp, satisfying click on the frozen cobbles, she turned on her heel and strode back inside to begin imposing order on the chaos.

And that's the end! Thanks for sticking with it. I hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing.