Page 60 of Wicching Hour

I went down and saw the reason she’d left her last school, the reason for the move to a new town. She’d been cyberbullying a classmate, encouraging others to join in. Her target couldn’t take it anymore and tried to end her life. Thankfully, she’d survived and got the help she needed. It all came out then and Emily became a pariah, as everyone was more than happy to tell authorities about the things Emily had done to unmercifully harass the poor girl.

Emily denied it all and her parents were outraged by the accusations. They wanted the school administration to apologize. The principal laid out all the evidence, including all the text messages, emails, online posts. It didn’t matter. Emily swore she didn’t do it, and her parents backed her up.

When I opened my eyes, I was on the gross cafeteria floor. A teacher was talking on a walkie-talkie about calling my mom and Emily was staring down at me with a look of disgust. She took off the gloves and dropped them where she stood, while I tried to stand with a teacher hovering over me, afraid I was going to drop and hit my head again.

After that, Emily made it her life’s goal to make sure everyone knew what a freak I was. The joke was on her, though. My freak status had been established years earlier. I was no longer a hot topic. She got a little traction at first, because I hadn’t had an episode in a little over a year. So while everyone agreed with Emily, it wasn’t terribly interesting any more.

I still often felt her staring at me, but I was happier having her far away. Of course, since I’d developed early, by eighth grade Emily had a lot of competition from the boys in class who were fixated on my chest. Good times.

“The gallery opening is in just a couple of days, so I’ll get to see the inside soon. See what she’s been up to. She almost never leaves that place, though. It’s really strange. And now she has an old guy living in an RV, parked next to her gallery. He’s up all night and sleeps all day.

“Is he a part of it? Witches have those black cat familiars, right? Is he a human familiar? I don’t know. I’ve seen her talking to the water and raccoons. If she hadn’t cursed me, I’d think she was just independently wealthy and crazy.

“A woman contacted me right after the first episode aired. She left a message on the website with her phone number. I asked her if I could record our conversation, and she said yes.”

There was a soft hiss of white noise and then…

“Hi. You contacted me about the witch I’m going to call A~, is that right?”

“Yes,” she said.

It was Calliope. Fuck.

“Can you tell my listeners how you know A~?” he asked.

“Of course. We grew up together. I’m a distant relative. Ar—I mean, A~ has always been off.”

“Can you explain how?” he asked. “We want to hear it all.”

“Well,” she said, “there was a lot of speculation as she was growing up as to who her father was. Her mother never told anyone, so most of the family assumed he was a criminal or addict of some kind, once Ar—A~ started pretending to hear voices and started wearing gloves all the time like a germaphobe, we were all pretty sure her father was mentally unstable.”

“Interesting,” he interrupted. “Did you ever find out if that was true?”

“No. A~ lived in her own world, though. She drew and painted all the time. Her mom, who’s a huge bitch, would coddle A~, never letting anyone question the weird stuff she did. It was like she was trying to force all of us to like her damaged daughter, but it had the opposite effect. No one liked her. We just knew to be quiet about it, you know?”

“Did you ever see any signs of evil in her?”

“Absolutely. When she was little, we were all at the beach together and I saw what could have been the mark of the beast on her.”Cal was breathless to tell everyone the things I’d been hiding all my life. After a dramatic pause, she said,“She has scales.”

He sputtered. “Did you say scales? Like a snake?”

“Exactly like that. A line of scales went around her thigh, like she’d been roped and branded by a reptile.”

“Is that why she’s always covered up, neck to foot? Is she covered in scales?”

The giddiness in his voice was making me sick. I was a freak show. Yes. Got it.

“Probably. She hates being touched,” Calliope told him, “so I doubt that guy is her boyfriend.”

“Yes,” he said and there was a shuffling of paper. “A woman wrote in and said she went to school with A~ and that she refused to be touched. She said she got curious and did it anyway. A~ convulsed and hit the floor. She said A~’s eyes rolled back in her head and she acted like she was being electrocuted. The teachers moved everyone away from her. Did you ever see her pass out like that?”

“Too many times. They tell the family she’s epileptic, but that’s not it. It only happens if someone accidentally touches her. That’s why she doesn’t drive. She never knows when she’s going to hit the ground, writhing.”

“Do you think she’s been marked by the Devil and now if a godly person touches her, she has a seizure?”It was Christmas and his birthday all rolled up into one.

“Now that you say it, I bet you’re right. Sometimes she gets a glazed, vacant look in her eye. You just know she isn’t in there anymore. Maybe that’s when she’s communicating with her master.”

“That’s really?—”

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