Whipping Up Support: Day 27, and 48,175 Words

Writing as a lot of fun today. I am barrelling towards the end of my novel! I think I will actually have to slightly exceed 50,000 words tomorrow so that I can wrap up a bunch of the plot.

Be warned: A LOT happens in this excerpt. I wasted so much time and didn't make a lot of stuff happen that needed to. This excerpt is doing a lot of work to rectify that. I hope you like it!

Perhaps Eliza might have known that something was amiss when Sorceress Catherine de Bergstein—that’s right, the Sorceress Catherine de Bergstein—requested a private audience with her in her office in the Selkie Suite of the Grand Supreme Court of Magic. The request arrived via telegram from her assistant, Yair Levitatingmann, whose fear of his boss leapt from the page.

Eliza, of course, wrote back to Mr. Levitatingmann and declined, but by that time Sorceress de Bergstein already had a new assistant. It was the end of the spring semester at the Spellberg School of Magic and she did not have the time to rush off to the capital to meet with a woman who was truly unpleasant and offensive. Not to mention, a woman who was very plainly on the wrong side of history with her pro-caste system worldview—and the authority to bring that worldview into being through her important position in society.

No, if Sorceress de Bergstein wanted to meet with Eliza, she would have to come to her. And Eliza was able to rest easy under the assumption that Sorceress de Bergstein was never going to debase herself by seeking Eliza out herself. She continued with her work as usual, and the invitation remained forgotten.

That is, until the impossible happened.

Eliza was summoned in the middle of the night by bell charm, indicating that she had a guest waiting for her outside of the Spellberg Castle entrance. She was sure that it was some kind of mistake. No one had ever visited her in this manner, let alone at this ungodly hour. After throwing a cloak over her nightgown, she rushed downstairs with possibilities of emergencies multiplying in her head.

When she opened the large wooden door to the Castle, a man who she did not recognize stood on the other side of the threshold. She eyed him suspiciously and grabbed her wand, refusing to open the door beyond a small crack.

“Miss Eliza Witchman?” he asked.

“Yes,” she replied cautiously, considering which hex she should hit him with first if he launched an attack.

“Sorceress Catherine de Bergstein is here, and would like to speak with you.”

“Okay,” Eliza said, “but where is she?” The pair of them were alone, aside from some pixies who were having an argument about a game of snapcards.

And as the words left her lips, Sorceress de Bergstein appeared beside the man who never introduced himself, and he promptly disappeared.

“Aren’t you going to invite me in?” Sorceress de Bergstein asked rudely.

“Of course,” Eliza said as she opened the door widely and stepped to the side, more out of habit than a genuine desire to be polite to the woman.

“You must have an idea of why I am here,” Sorceress de Bergstein started, as she eyed the main hall of the castle with distaste.

“Unfortunately, no, I’m not sure why you are paying us a visit, Sorceress.”

“When you insolently declined my invitation for a private audience, I assumed that you wanted to avoid the conversation between us that you must know to be inevitable.”

“I’m sorry, Sorceress, but I am not pretending to be ignorant of your visit. I wish to be as included in this conversation as you appear to be.”

“Did you really think I would take the rumour that you are engaged to my nephew William Wandstein laying down?” she demanded.

This news, that she was allegedly engaged to the man that she had turned down, stopped her short.
“I didn’t think about how you would respond to the rumour, as I was unaware of it myself.”

Sorceress de Bergstein laughed cruelly. “You are pretending, quite poorly, that you are not the one who started the rumour in order to try to make it so.”

“I was not aware of the rumour, and I can assure you that I most certainly did not start it. If you came here to hear it contradicted, then you can rest assured now that we are not engaged.”

“Will you promise me that you will not enter into an engagement with Mr. Wandstein?” she asked angrily.

“I will not.”

The words surprised Eliza as they came out of her mouth. She did not realize that she was unwilling to foreclose the possibility of an engagement to William Wandstein until she found herself unable to refuse it in this unwelcome conversation.

A lot had changed in the months since he had first made his feelings for her known and had asked for her hand in marriage, and she had unceremoniously refused him.

Obviously, there was the letter. The letter that revealed that Wandstein did not seek to ruin the lives of Wizards for his own pleasure. That he no longer held the opinions on the caste system that she had found to be disqualifying.

A series of fortunate events soon followed, and Eliza was initially not aware of the connections between them. First, Jeanette wrote to her to share the news that Headmaster Merlinfield had asked her to return to her post as Professor of Potions and Elixirs at Spellberg. Jeanette, after consulting with Eliza, had turned him down. She did not wish to return to a school that had dismissed her so callously to protect an outdated caste system. Soon after Jeanette was surprised again with another job offer: to join the special task force in Wizarding Parliament to address issues in international bat bile trade. Bat bile was indeed a passion of Jeanette’s, and she happily accepted the position. Soon after she joined the task force, and much to her shock, Jeanette’s name had recently been submitted to a group that identifies potential candidates for office who will oppose the wizarding caste system, and they had asked Jeanette to run for office to oppose her local candidate who endorsed it. Jeanette had never been happier.

Well, at least until the weeks that followed, when she ran into Charles Charmfinkle in the hallway outside of the special task force meeting in the Selkie Suite, a departure from their typical meeting space. He must have known that the meeting was in an unusual location, somehow, because he had an engagement ring in his pocket and explained to her that he had been a right fool and pleased with her to give him another chance. He spoke at length about her passion for justice and how this was what had attracted him to her in the first place. He hoped that they might serve in Wizarding Parliament one day, and be husband and wife, side by side.

As with many of the offers that she had received recently, she declined. She said that it was because she wanted them to spend more time as a couple and build trust between them before taking that next step. While this was true, even more on her mind was the work of the bat bile task force, from which she did not wish to be distracted by the demands of planning a wedding.

The connection between these happy events in Jeanette’s life, while previously thought by Eliza to be an unrelated series of events, was soon elucidated. Charles, who was not supposed to divulge any details, told Jeanette, who was sworn to secrecy, told Eliza: it had all been Wandstein’s doing. He confronted Headmaster Merlinfield about Jeanette’s dismissal, and pressured him into re-hiring her. When she declined, he learned of her recent interest in bat bile, and convinced the head of the special task force to bring her on in an advisory role, as they would never find a more passionate and knowledgeable witch on bat bile anywhere. Finally, he had encouraged Charles to propose to Jeanette, and had even given him the information that he needed to find her. The things that he had done wrong, and the things that were done wrong in the name of a cause that he no longer believed in, were single-handedly righted by the man who Eliza had previously believed that she could never be convinced to consider marrying.

When Jeanette revealed the influence of Wandstein in so many facets of Jeanette’s good fortune, something welled up inside her heart that she did not recognize. Was it admiration? Was it respect? Was it love? No, it couldn’t be. She dismissed the thought at once.

Eliza spent more time with Jeanette at Wizarding Parliament and in the City on her weekends. She had only agreed to do so because she believed that Wandstein would be away on weekends, visiting with his constituents. At least, this is what she told herself. She was still looking for his signature cloak, turning a corner.

The turning point in their relationship was when they saw each other outside of the Apple Spidery Restaurant. Each had decided to dine alone that Saturday evening, and much to Eliza’s surprise—and she could no longer deny it, pleasure—he told her that his family owned the restaurant and invited her to dine with him. She happily told him that she would be delighted.

This was the first time that they had faced each other since their horrible encounter at the Hotel Golem when he gave her his letter. It also marked the first occasion that they were together after Eliza became knowledgeable about everything that he had done for Jeanette. She could scarcely allow herself to consider the possibility that his opinion of her might not have been lost forever.

Her memories were interrupted once again by Sorceress de Bergstein.

“Do you mean to tell me that you had nothing to do with the bill that my nephew is sponsoring to abolish the unequal distribution of privileges based on classification? He has been quietly whipping up support for the bill and it appears likely to pass. An abomination, truly.”

Wizards in Parliament often used whips as a way of convincing people to vote for their bill.

This news astonished Eliza. “Classification” was the preferred term for subjugators like Sorceress de Bergstein, who loved the wizarding caste system but were worried about the image of the word “caste.” She had not heard of a proposal to abolish the caste system.

“Again, I can tell you that I had nothing to do with this because I do not know what to what you are referring.” Eliza’s pulse was quickening with rage. This woman, Sorceress or not, had roused her in the middle of the night to confront her about a series of events of which she had no clue. She was also being quite rude while she was at it.

“You must think I was born yesterday,” the Sorceress spat. “I am familiar with your ill-conceived political agitating, Miss Witchman. Have you no regard for history? For tradition? The goal of the wizarding classification system is not to marginalize, it is to empower! People are empowered when they are aware of their abilities, and those with more natural ability are able to yield that power for the good of society!”

“This is how you justify a system of distributing benefits and burdens based on one’s rank at birth? As empowering? There is a word for that system, Catherine,” Eliza said emphatically, refusing to bow down to her authority. “And there is also a word for people like you who use their power to oppress. I don’t think you would like either of those words very much.”

“You insolent, stupid girl,” she shouted. “I had hoped that you might be reasonable, and recognize the impropriety of a connection to my nephew. If you cared about him, you would never agree to lower his status in such a shameful manner.”

“I think you should leave,” Eliza asserted confidently, despite her knees shaking underneath her cloak.

“You will not be marrying my nephew,” the Sorceress said angrily, before disappearing into thin air.

Eliza was left alone in the castle, completely dazed and speechless. What was this feeling that was overcoming her, as her fury subsided? Was it hope that the rumour that Sorceress de Bergstein had sought to clarify, might in fact be true?