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What Aunt Zelda Saw in the Duck Pond
We are back in the Young Army nursery
In the semidarkness of the nursery the Matron Midwife puts the baby Septi anxiously at the door as if waiting for someone to come in No one appears
A oes over to the cot where her own baby is crying and picks the child up At thatopen, and the Matron Midheels around, white-faced, frightened
A tall woman in black stands in the doorway Over her black, well-pressed robes she wears the starched white apron of a nurse, but around her waist is a bloodred belt showing the three black stars of DomDaniel
She has coot lost on her way to the nursery, and now she is flustered and afraid DomDaniel does not tolerate lateness She sees the Matron Midith a baby, just as she has been told she would She does not know that the Matron Midwife is holding her own child in her arms and that Septimus Heap is asleep in a cot in the dim shadows of the nursery The Nurse runs over to the Midwife and seizes the baby from her The Midwife protests She tries to wrest her baby back from the Nurse, but her desperation is more than matched by the Nurse&039;s determination to make it back to the boat in tier Nurse wins She bundles up the baby in a long red cloth emblazoned with three black stars and runs out, pursued by the screa Midho nos exactly how Sarah Heap felt only a few hours ago The Midwife is forced to give up her chase at the barracks door where the Nurse, flaunting her three black stars, has the Matron Midwife arrested by the guard, and disappears into the night, triu off the Midwife&039;s own child to DomDaniel
Back in the nursery the old wo and wheezing, she gets up and es One each for the triplets - Boys 409, 410 and 411 - and one for the newest recruit to the Young Army, twelve-hours-old Septimus Heap, destined to be known for the next ten years as Boy 412
Aunt Zelda sighed This was as she had expected Next she asked theelse she needed to know
The Nurse juststands at the stern of the boat and sculls her across the river using the old fishermen&039;s ith just one oar On the otber side she is e black horse He pulls the Nurse and the child up behind hi and uncomfortable ride ahead of them
By the tih up in the old slate quarries of the Badlands, the Midwife&039;s baby is screa and the Nurse has a terrible headache Do to see his prize, which he takes to be Septimus Heap, the seventh son of a seventh son The Apprentice that every Wizard and every Necroive him the power to return hihtfully his
He looks at the screa baby with distaste The screa baby for a newborn, thinks Doly one too He doesn&039;t like it very much The Necromancer has an air of disappointment about him as he tells the Nurse to take the baby away
The Nurse puts the baby in the waiting cot and goes to bed She feels too ill to get up the next day, and no one bothers to feed the Midwife&039;s son until well into the next night There is no Apprentice Supper for this Apprentice
Aunt Zelda sat by the duck pond and smiled The Apprentice is free of his Darke Master Septimus Heap is alive, and has found his fa Marcia often said: things do have a habit of working out Eventually