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It had been so long since Hecate had ventured up into the depths of the Cackle attics, but with the move, she needed to sort through her possessions. To call it a challenge would be an understatement.
This was where all of the staff, both young and old, would store the items they didn't want to lose in vanishment. That in turn meant that Hecate had to awkwardly maneuver through a very densely packed room full of ancient, moth-eaten furniture and endless cobweb covered boxes of knick-knacks.
Thankfully, her own items were all stacked neatly, albeit deep into the madness of the room. A thick layer of dust covered the chests. She hadn't retrieved them once since storing them there when she had first been employed as a teacher there. Everything she had came from her childhood home; and Hardbroom Manor was…
Well.
Some things were best left in the attics of the world.
But she was leaving. A pang hit her chest. Hecate was leaving Cackles so she needed to have all of her affairs in order. This was the last task. She had filled out the apropos paperwork, tendered her resignation and hollowed out the place she had spent over thirty years calling home. She had said her goodbyes to her colleagues, to students and friends.
She stilled in front of the first box.
Now it was time to greet the past.
The attic was silent. The air was stale. The light filtering in was warm.
With a slight grunt she lifted down the first chest, afraid to do its contents damage with her magic. Her hands smoothed over the worn leather, trailing down to press the brass latches open with a click.
She took a breath before opening the top.
It was files. Only files.
Of her previous work experience and education.
There was a list of tutors at the bottom.
She slammed the lid shut and sent the chest into vanishment without flinching. Then she moved on to the next one.
And the next.
And the next.
It was mostly old heirlooms from uppity nobles she never bothered to know enough to remember. Family that never bothered to know her. There was nothing immediately startling or disturbing save for a box of family portraits, which she quickly shut and set aside.
She would face them later.
Not—
Not now.
She carried on.
More files.
More heirlooms.
The light coming through the windows was beginning to dwindle by the time she reached the last chest. It was a small trunk, beaten and dented. Worn so much more than all the rest.
She paused in front of it. Slowly extending her hand to wrap around the taped up handle. For a moment the hand wrapping around it belonged to someone much younger.
She shook herself and pulled it closer to her.
It was her school suitcase. The one she used back when she was still a student at Cackles.
She had forgotten she kept it.
Back then…
Back then she had burned a great deal of what she had from that time.
After…
The confinement.
Her eyes fluttered shut briefly as a well of something, of so many somethings, swirled inside of her.
She opened her eyes.
That was the past. She was free now. She nearly transferred to the edge of the grounds just to prove it to herself, but she resisted. With help, she had created many memories that held root in her heart beyond Cackles in recent months. But now it had gotten to the point that working, living, existing for most of her life behind wall, stone and turret, was killing her slowly. Piece by broken piece. It was killing her just as much as the confinement had.
It all came to a head when Pippa had found her in her chambers, choking and clawing at her high neck dress, the walls pressing in on her. And she had held her. She had held her, and suddenly the world felt less suffocating. The thought of it alone eased her heart. She could do this.
She opened the trunk. The hinges groaning from decades of rust. She looked down. Something in her rigid posture, in the tensing of her muscles, gave in to a desperate reaching for what was inside. She picked it up and pulled it to her chest on instinct, the same way she had a hundred times before, cradling it as her eyes started to blur. Feeling an echo of warmth. A feeling of memory and of something she would only years later come to identify as love.
Something she would only identify after it had gone by. Long after she had locked away the worn and tattered stuffed rabbit Pippa had given her after catching her crying one night under a storm. Leaving it to be forgotten in the topmost attic after she put an end to being a child.
Pippa never knew it was the first piece of comfort ever handed to her.
Hecate sighed, bringing the mottled face up to her cheek. Cherishing the feeling of utter safety that surrounded her. Then her eyes drifted to the rest of the trunk. She set the rabbit gently down beside her, propped against a box before her hand slipped in and pulled out a polaroid.
She smiled.
Pippa had always been sneaking in Ordinary contraband. It was no surprise when, one day, she stunned Hecate with the flash of a massively obnoxious pink camera. She had been obsessed with it for weeks, but couldn't figure out how to get the images to appear. It took four rolls of exposed film and more than a few late nights spent after hours in the potions classroom to finally manage it.
Their first picture was of Hecate, passed out asleep on one of the potions classroom benches on a night they snuck in. There was a soft frown on her face. Even in sleep. But there was a softness to it. The sharp edges of her near always clenched jaw had eased for once, along with the slump of her shoulders. There was severity there, but also something more.
Hecate hated it.
To her, it spoke of unguarded vulnerability, but to Pippa… She had found it, in a locket in Pippa's vanity a few months ago. She had kept it after thirty years.
What fools they were.
She flipped it over.
Her breath caught.
Her hands froze.
It was them. Her and Pippa. One of Pippa's arms looped around Hecate's shoulder, supporting her lopsided stance. Both of them sporting matching black eyes. One of the girls in their year had taken the photograph for them. It was right after Petronella Wormwood had hexed one of the Potions room's scissors to cut her hair. She could see it in the picture. Strands and odd bits jutting out, the very opposite of composed.
She ghosted a hand over her bun and fought the awful twisting she felt.
It had been so violating, not to mention completely humiliating. She could still feel the hot tears and the burning sting of embarrassment as Petronella and her cronies laughed and jeered at her. That was until Pippa, her arrival signalled by the toppling of books from her arms, appeared.
"Hiccup?" was all she had said. Hecate could only look away in shame until the unmistakeable sound of skin colliding sharply with skin sounded through the room, quickly followed by the collective gasps of a dozen or so students. Hecate's head whipped round to see Petronella, clutching her nose, while Pippa stood frozen, sucking in heavy breaths as her tightly clenched fist hung suspended, held across her body.
That was the day she had punched Petronella Wormwood and all hell broke loose.
By the end of the day, Petronella was expelled for her scissors stunt and four suspensions were issued, including to her and Pippa. Hecate had nowhere to go until Mallory, Pippa's mother arrived, took one look at them, and flew them both home with her. They were good to her. Even when she and Pippa had cut off contact. Even after she spent years trying to shut them out. She still kept a framed photograph of them in her bedchamber, on her scarce wall. Scarce but unfathomably precious.
She stared down at the photo. A drop landed on it.
She brought a hand to her face. It came back wet.
She was crying. She was crying but she was smiling. Goddess she was smiling.
She couldn't stop.
Because that was Pippa. That was Pippa.
And now she's back in her life.
Now they have a life. Together. The band of silver on her finger served as a constant reminder of that.
She brought a hand up to cover the sobs escaping her mouth. But she was still smiling. Smiling until her cheeks hurt.
That was how Pippa found her.
"Hecate?" a familiar voice came from behind her. "Are you alright?" brows twisting in concern as she took in Hecate on the floor weeping. She put a hand on her back, rubbing it.
Hecate let out what sounded like a sob. Still smiling.
"What's that?" Pippa nodded at the photograph in her hand.
"It's you. That time you got into fisticuffs over me." her voice shook under the weight of her emotions.
"Oh." was all she could say. "Well it was a long time ago, and those bruises healed well before the scars of their words would have." she said softly.
Hecate shook her head and laughed.
"I'm not upset. Pippa it's you."
"I don't understand."
She clutched the photograph. "It's who you were. The person you are. You were always there for me. With your big bleeding heart. I'm sorry it took me so very long to realise it." she looked up at her with wide bloodshot eyes.
Pippa's own had started to water. She tried to brush it off. "Oh please, anyone would have done the same thing."
"But they didn't." she stopped her. "They didn't, and you did. You always did."
It was then that Pippa caught sight of what sat beside Hecate. She gasped. "Mister Rabbit! Oh Merlin it's been centuries." She scooped him up, rubbing the fabric of one of his long ears between the pads of her fingers. "I had forgotten about him."
Hecate got to her feet. "So had I."
Pippa's face turned soft and wistful. "You kept him." her voice shook. "After everything that happened—"
A hand covered hers.
"Until then, no one had ever given me anything like that." Hecate shook her head and tried to swallow the rawness away. "No kindness. No softness. No love."
Pippa's hand cupped her face. Thumb stroking her cheek. Hecate leaned into it.
"I didn't realise then. Didn't understand it. But I did. I do."
"Didn't understand what?" she murmured.
"I love you Pippa." She kissed her and tried to pour the depth of those words into it. She pulled back and stared into her eyes with a lovesick expression. "So very much."
Pippa gave her a wobbly smile.
"I love you too Hiccup. To the moon and back."
They both locked eyes and smiled together.
The clock chimed, breaking them out of the moment.
"It's time to go." Pippa said with an edge of sadness.
Hecate looked out the window, staring into the world outside. The bright, beautiful world outside.
It was hers now.
"I think it is." her words were heavy, but the hunch of her usually taut shoulders was absent for the first time in decades. Hecate slipped her hand in Pippa's.
"Are you ready?" Pippa asked.
Hecate brushed the tears from her face and straightened up.
"I am."
Together, they channeled their magic, energies mixing and becoming one. They were gone in an instant, transferred back to Pentangles.
Away from Cackles and the memories it's stone walls kept.
To home.
And the rest of their lives.
Together.