Page 14 of Witch
“Damn! Well, get me out first thing in the morning,” he said to the man.
“I will, but you need to understand that you are fast running out of money. You can’t keep this up, Marcus. I admire that you believe in what you’re doing, but the truth is, there is no proof that any of these women are witches or have any sort of witch-like powers. If you’re not careful, someone is going to claim that you are mad.”
“Are you threatening me?” he said into the phone.
“No. No, I’m just giving you a dose of reality. Find a real job, Marcus. Maybe teach about witches and the witch trials at universities or high schools, or something. But stop with the chasing. You can’t afford it any longer.”
The smell of piss made him roll to his side, seeing his cellmate urinating on himself. He wanted to gag but knew that it would only be seen as weakness. Instead, he rolled to the other side. He was mulling over the words of his attorney.
“Give it up,” he muttered. “Give up my life’s work? My family’s life work? No. No, I will hunt down the witches. The mother might be dead, but I will kill the daughters.”
“Shhhh,” said Pissy Pants. “They have cameras and stuff.”
He started to open his mouth but didn’t bother. Of course, in a backwoods city like this, they would have recording devices. It was clear they were friends with the Robicheaux family.
He’d done his research. He’d read the historical records. Irene Hebert Robicheaux was the granddaughter of a known witch. Her grandmother had been seen as a woman of special powers in her own community. Oh, there was nothing specific written down. Only mentions in history about what a wonderful woman she was, always able to help those who were sick, in need, even helping to birth dozens of babies who otherwise would have died.
Clearly, she was a witch!
When his own ancestor died, everyone said it was tuberculosis. But he knew better. A witch had cursed him and given him the disease. The man who’d felled more witches than anyone in his era was taken down by the very people he hunted.
He would be smarter than that. He would ensure that others died instead of him. Since his ancestor, only one other dared to take up the cause openly. Oh, there had been plenty who hunted under darkness, in disguise. But he was braver. He did it out in the open like his hero.
When he saw the two old women in the tree, trying to save a ridiculous tree, he knew that they were witches. The press even knew that they were both over one hundred, and yet they looked like they were in their forties or fifties. No amount of plastic surgery could accomplish that.
Come to think of it, her children looked incredibly young. If she were over a hundred, her children had to be between seventy and eighty, or more. Birth records had been impossible to locate, citing home births. But that made no sense. Legally, all births had to be recorded.
“Someone is protecting them,” he whispered to himself.
“Sshhhh!” said Pissy Pants.
“Oh, shush yourself!” he said loudly.
The entire jail echoed Pissy Pants with a loud sshhh. He let out an exasperated sigh and lay on his back again, staring at the peeling paint of the ceiling.
Once he was free tomorrow, he would formulate a plan to get to the daughters of the witch. He would test them all, proving that they were witches and vindicating himself.
Tomorrow would end the reign of the witch.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Gaspar was seated on the hand-carved bench on the island home of their animal kingdom. In fact, his mother had named it Royaume Animal de l'île du Bayou. Island of the Bayou Animal Kingdom. Only she really believed it was their kingdom.
It wasn’t that he didn’t love the animals and want a safe place for them. But why did there have to be so many of them?
“Man sad,”Semu signed to him.
“Yes, Semu. I’m sad. My parents are now ghosts and it has me thinking of my own mortality, and I’m supposed to take care of all you animals, and dear God, I’m talking to a gorilla,” he said, shaking his head.
“Semu sad for you too. Don’t be sad.”
The gorilla placed her hand on his knee, a loving, soft touch, and Gaspar could only smile, touching her soft head. Semu was well past her prime and well past the time she should have died. But as he’d learned, those things are not always the same at Belle Fleur as they are in the outside world.
“Human sad.”
Gaspar looked up to seeKaruna, one of the giraffes. He’d heard her thoughts. He’d heard it as clear as day.
“Human sad because white-haired woman and white-haired man spirits.”
