Maria is writing a letter to Beatrice that night. Maria writes to Beatrice at least once or twice a month--sometimes more if she has a lot of news. Then she sneaks into Mama's at-home office when Mama is away on business and steals a stamp and posts it to Rokkenjima care of Kumasawa-san. Kumasawa-san is very nice about making sure Beatrice always gets her letters.

Someone told Alice about Sakutaro, so she made a friend for me. His name is Tomosuke and he's a turtle. When Mama takes me to Rokkenjima next will you use your magic on him like you did Sakutaro? Alice says one of her ancestors was a witch. Do you think Maria has any witch ancestors? Maya-oneesan's ancestor Ami Fey was maybe a witch. She knew Shigetsuna-sama, who I told you about before.

Hiroshi is still giving off a lot of anti-magic toxin I'm afraid but he's trying to be nicer. He took Maria and Osaka on a field trip yesterday and told us about moss and things. It was a lot more interesting than his usual lectures.

Maria didn't stay at school very late today. Alice took me home before the club meeting could start. She said there'd been an accident at the sch--

It's at this point that Maria's pen skitters and drops because there's someone coming through her window!

"Who are you?" she whispers, staring at the new person. "You better not do anything bad to Maria. Maria's a witch! Kihihihi."