Page 59 of Wicching Hour

I’d been on the phone with Mom when he’d appeared, and I’d kept the call live so someone would know what was happening. Apparently, she’d called Declan because when I released the man and he’d turned to run, he bounced off the chest of a very angry werewolf.

Declan, eyes wolf gold, had picked up the stalker by his neck with one arm and shook him, threatening him if he ever came back. The stalker wet himself. Declan threw the creep off the deck into the dirt along the side of the gallery and waited until he got up and ran away before he stopped glaring, his muscles bunched and ready to attack.

“It was like she’d been waiting for me to approach her, like a spider in a web. I said ‘excuse me’ so as not to startle her.”

Nope.

“I asked if I could just have a moment of her time.”

Like hell.

“And then she dropped her bag and put her hands on her hips, pulling her clothes tight across her chest, trying to distract me. I didn’t give in to the temptation, though. I looked into those dead green eyes and said again that I didn’t want to bother her. I only wanted to talk.”

How much of a liar did he know himself to be? Had he convinced himself of this alternate history or was this whole thing fabricated to soothe his hurt pride, to blame me for his predatory impulses?

“And then she cast a spell on me, trying to kill me. What she couldn’t seduce, she had to destroy. I couldn’t breathe. She was a good ten feet from me, but she choked me with an invisible hand. I felt her evil hold on me.

“When I finally escaped, her guardian—this seven-foot demon—picked me up off the ground with one hand. I told him she was a witch, and he growled that he was something much worse. I’m telling you. The hair on the back of my neck stuck straight up. I was in the presence of the Devil’s own.”

He blew out a breath.“It’s all true. I got free of them that day and have been going down rabbit hole after rabbit hole, trying to figure out what happened to me. In hindsight, it’s all perfectly clear, but at the time I was trying to convince myself that witches and demons weren’t real.

“I know the truth now. They’re walking among us. On the next episode, I’ll get more into this witch’s background. I’ve been digging and found some very interesting stuff. I’ll even have a few friends and classmates on to discuss what they’ve seen. It’s disturbing as hell. She should have been locked up a long time ago.

“Okay, that’s it for the first episode. Go to my website to let me know what you think and keep your torches lit. We’re going to need them.”

TWENTY-SEVEN

A Burnt Witch

It felt like the walls in the studio were closing in on me. The next episode was titled. ‘A___ is a Witch!’ This had to be illegal. I’d ask Mom to talk with the family lawyer. No. Better. I’d sic Mary Beth on his ass.

I wanted to let it go and let someone else deal with the problem, but I couldn’t. He was fixated on me, and I needed to be prepared for what he was sending my way. I considered my beautiful gallery that I’dfinallyopened. Was this why I’d had that vision of someone trying to burn down the gallery?

I needed air. I put on my fleece jacket by the back door and went out to the same bench I’d used earlier so I could watch the waves in the moonlight while I listened to his unhinged ravings. I hit play again and put my phone, speaker side up, in my breast pocket so I could hear the podcast over the roar of the wind and waves.

“Welcome back to A Witch Burning. I’m going to be honest here. I wasn’t sure how many people would listen or care, but my inbox is already flooded with witch identifications. We’re going to get to them all.

“It’s great too that so many of you are seeing the signs as well. When I posted the first episode, it got sixteen listens. Now, there are thousands. We’re doing something important here, and we’re doing it together.

“So, let’s get back to the witch that started this journey for me. I’m going to call her A~. We gotta be careful, right? I don’t want witch lawyers harassing me. Right? Okay, she lives in this old cannery that she remodeled into an art gallery. First of all, she looks like she’s in her twenties. Where the hell did she get that kind of money to buy oceanside property and then remodel this gigantic space?

“She works, but artists are usually too poor to afford a cheap studio apartment. Where did she get all this money to buy prime real estate? I think someone made a shady deal or she’s got some demonic sugar daddy setting her up.

“Speaking of which, I told you about that seven-foot monster guardian of hers. He sure acts like her boyfriend, showing up at all hours, often not leaving until morning. Maybe it’s sex. Maybe it’s Satanic rituals. I don’t know. That gallery of hers is locked down tight. There are tons of windows on the ocean side of the building, but they’ve all been blacked out.”

Gee. I wonder why. I had no idea he’d been slinking around this much—because I was working! Shit, I was going to need to go through the security footage so I could give Osso the stalking and trespassing evidence.

My stomach twisted. I hated this so much. This is why I’d been living on my own for years: the weird obsessions some people developed and then blamed on me. They weren’t all sexual either. There was a new girl—Emily—in eighth grade who’d stared at me constantly. She’d just moved to town and almost immediately started following me from class to class or positioning herself behind me on track runs in PE. I stopped once to talk with her, but she turned away, trying to pretend she hadn’t been following me.

Finally, one day I came out of a bathroom stall and Emily was there. She tried to open the door and flee, but I flicked my fingers and kept the door from opening. She panicked and I tried to calm her while asking why she’d been following me. She was like a deer in headlights, but as she stared at me, her panic subsided. She told me she thought we should be best friends.

Recalling it now, perhaps it was sexual, and she just hadn’t come to terms with that yet. What I felt radiating off her in that moment was loneliness, fear, and adoration. Her obsession scared me, but I didn’t want to hurt her, so I said she should start walking with me, not behind me, so we could talk.

It had been exhausting. She projected her emotions so loudly, my head was killing me by the end of the day. I also couldn’t take all the negativity. I already had so many dark visions and nightmares in my head, the last thing I needed was constant hissing in my ear about how so-and-so likes someone who hates her and how ugly some other so-and-so was.

I could do no wrong, though, and a couple days in she’d started wearing gloves too, like it was a fashion choice on my part, like we were twin trendsetters. Emily was new to town, though, new to school. She didn’t know about me, so I was—in her mind—the most popular girl.

I’d told her I didn’t like being touched and she was good about not touching me, though she got as close as she could without making contact. We were in the cafeteria at lunch one day and she was unusually quiet. That part was great, but the staring was starting to feel more aggressive. Trying to ignore her, I ate my yogurt, feeling a little sick to my stomach because at some point, that yogurt container had been touched by a deeply depressed person. I’d been happy Emily was leaving me alone so I could work through someone else’s depression when I felt a hand on my cheek.

---