Witchcraft: Ch. 01

A flock of dark-feathered birds gathered on the power lines, resting their wings in the cool evening air as they watched the wind blow a few fallen leaves across the asphalt lot, the occasional flickering of a streetlight illuminating the parked cars below. The last few people were shuffling into the auditorium of the local high school for an emergency church meeting; The few pews of the church itself not enough to hold the entire town at once.

Rows and rows of metal folding chairs were set up in what was usually a gym as people were gathered around a projector on wheels facing a wall where a school mural was obscured by a rolling sheet extended from the wall - only "CLASS OF '85" visible between the sheet and the short platform that was wheeled out next to it. A hastily-made transparent slide was being projected there with the words "SAVE OUR TOWN" illuminating the darkened room.

Eris sat near the front in her 'professional' dress clothes. She traded her usual baggy jeans for a long skirt that went down past her shins, a pair of black tights beneath her modest-length heels. Over that she had a long-sleeved sweater, one that completely covered her tattoo and blocked the judgmental eyes that usually lingered on her butterfly. Her shoulder-length hair was tied into a bun, though after a long day it was not quite as neat as it had been this morning.

She flexed her legs a bit, frustrated that she couldn't cross her legs on the uncomfortable seat without causing a ruckus for sitting improperly in a skirt.

Reverend Richards entered the room with an authoritative stride, the pomade in his slicked-back hair reflecting the fluorescent lighting of the room. Mayor Winstrom shuffled his feet behind him, the thin wisps of grey hair pointed forward as he seemed to struggle keeping his head upright. The difference in the two men was vast and their postures reflected that fact - it was a well-known secret that in his advanced age, Winstrom struggled to do any more than walk around, much less govern. Richards was quick to identify this weakness and swooped in to get de facto political power over the other man.

But Eris only paid attention to the third figure following in the shadows of the first two, her friend Shelby Bates who trailed by a few paces, her long brown braid bobbing slightly with each slow stride. She thought to ask why her friend was following in such great company, but kept that to herself when Shelby sat down in one of the empty chairs beside her.

"How did your interview go?" Shelby asked, settling in place with an old book in her hands. "I do hope you made a good impression."

"Not great." Eris clicked her tongue. "Knight seemed interested in my resume, but I felt like he had it in for me personally. I got the runaround on whether I could actually start working there or not. I think he's just looking for a polite way to say he doesn't wanna hire anybody with their hair dyed."

"I see." Shelby looked at the book in her lap. "Recently, there's been some discussion regarding the lack of qualified teachers in Fairhaven. I am unsure they have the luxury of being picky."

"Well, thanks for the vote of confidence." Eris smiled smugly.

"Oh! I didn't mean anything negative by that." Shelby looked nervous.

Eris tried to assure her that it was just a joke and she wasn't truly offended, but it appeared as though something else was bothering Shelby. Something about the book she was carrying. It appeared far too old to simply be called a 'book' - a word like 'tome' or 'artifact' seemed more appropriate.

"What's with the... book?" Eris asked, unsure if her word choice was proper.

"Oh this?" Shelby held up the object in question as if she'd only just noticed it. "It was requested that I help the church with a certain matter. The matter of - er - the two women they... discovered."

"Ah, the lesbians." Eris giggled. Shelby shushed her.

"Don't say that out loud." She looked around nervously to see if anybody was eavesdropping on their conversation, though in the crowded room it was unlikely anybody could hear over their own miscellaneous murmurs. "People around here aren't too... understanding of that sort of lifestyle."

"Sorry, the two naked girls discovered in the woods covered in sweat and hickey marks." Eris' voice was saturated in sarcasm. "Totally unrelated to anything sexual, I'm sure."

"Well, its' more than just those two... friends." Shelby sighed. "But people have been spreading other rumors, too.

"People have found their yards torn up, garbage strewn around neighborhood streets. Wild animals have been behaving erratically - it's as if they're not afraid of humans any more."

"Sounds to me like they're hungry." Eris smiled. "And so they're breaking into people's garbage and picking out what they can."

"Well, regardless of the truth, it has a lot of people very worried." Shelby picked at the corner of the book, scratching a bit of stray binding. "The Mayor had to call this meeting to get people to calm down to restore some civility."

"More like the Reverend called it." Eris scoffed. "The mayor can barely change his own diaper these days. I'm shocked he keeps getting re-elected but I guess nobody else wants the disgrace of managing a town full of idiots."

Their conversation ended there as the Reverend stepped up to a microphone stand that was behind the projector screen. Pulling it forward, he stepped into the glow provided by the projector and onto the elevated area just to the side of the image on-screen. The room echoed with the sound of him tapping the tip of the device twice - testing the audio as well as gathering the audience's attention.

"I thank you all for coming out tonight." He began in a solemn voice. "And I offer an apology that this meeting could not have been held in more optimistic circumstances.

"As many you already know, there is a panic seeping into our town over rumors of witchcraft and strange events surrounding witchcraft. Our local librarian Shelby Bates - who has been incredibly cooperative in our town's attempts to modernize our book selection - has been searching alongside myself and Ms. Crumfeld of our neighborhood watch for more answers to help assuage this panic.

"We have found most disturbing news. There is a witch living among us."

The crowd muttered among themselves for a while - The Reverend was an expert at letting people work themselves up for just as long as he needed them to. Eris wanted to roll her eyes, but the attention Shelby had just received meant it would difficult to do so without somebody noticing her attitude. She'd only come to this meeting to try and appear more involved in the community - something she hoped would increase her chances of getting a real job instead of skating around in a mini-skirt and pretending her boss really was touching her butt on accident five times a day.

The crowd grew silent as Reverend Richards raised a hand, his palm facing outward.

"Fairhaven was once a gathering place for dark arcane arts." He began.

"We have found an old tome in our library stating as such. It details their rituals, their habits, their methods of attack, and many more things about how to recognize and subdue a witch.

"This 'Tome of Witchcraft' was rediscovered by us for a reason! It is a sign from above that we are meant to take matters into our own hands! That our prayers have been answered! That we can drive out this witch once and for all!"

The crowd got to their feet, fervently applauding at the man who they now viewed as their savior. People cheered his name, jeered for the unknown witch, and began to wipe away tears that weren't there. Everybody except for Eris, who couldn't help herself. She scoffed.

Beneath the ruckus of the crowd, it would have been unlikely that anybody heard the noise or read her body language regarding the whole affair. But somehow, Richards was able to pick her out of the crowd - his eyes staring daggers into the girl near the front as he slowly raised a finger to single her out.

"Why are you not celebrating?" He asked. The crowd grew silent in an instant.

"It's stupid." Eris shrugged. There were a few gasps behind her.

"Ma'am, what is your name?" He asked. Richards' tone was totally neutral, no indication of what he was playing at.

"Eris." She replied. "Eris Alexander."

The reverend stepped forwards, briefly illuminated by the projector before he stepped fully into the light, shutting it off. At this, the house lights came on.

"Ms. Alexander." He spoke in a low voice, the microphone held further from his mouth, but not so far that the conversation was not still being projected. "Do you understand the extent of the danger we are facing?"

"Yeah." She said, taking the mic from his hands. "I know the danger damn well.

"There is none! Are you all serious? Witchcraft? Ancient tomes warning of dangers? Arcane secrets? What about logic? What about Occam's razor? You mean to tell me this hustler told you all we were being haunted by a witch and you all believed him? Calm down!"

The crowd had seemed to die down a bit, people were sitting once again and Eris swore she could even see one or two people turn to their neighbor and nod in agreement. It was good to see some sense come into the world, even if she had to raise her voice to make it happen.

"But what you fail to understand," Richards raised his voice, not bothering with the microphone. "Is that we still have unexplained phenomenon in Fairhaven."

He pointed to the crowd where the two girls who had been the center of every rumor for the last two days were sitting. They hastily let go of each other's hands when the some people started to face them and murmur.

"How do you explain the clear signs of possession that struck these two, young, church-going women? Is there any 'logical' explanation for them walking into the woods and removing all their clothes?"

"THEY'RE LESBIANS!" Eris wanted to shout, but she kept the words to herself. She thought back to her preteen years, when rumors of a young man being a homosexual had spread among the town and became the stuff of rumors, becoming more and more extreme before ultimately, that boy was driven out of the town after having been assaulted in his home. She was too young to understand what was happening and why until she was older, and the memory still lingered in her head.

Eris could not bring herself to risk the same thing happening to these two girls.

"Maybe they were just hot." She shrugged.

"Of course." The reverend shook his head. He reached out a hand to Eris, gesturing for the microphone which she handed over. Something was nagging her in the back of her mind that his calm expression was hiding something, but she couldn't get a read of it.

"Eris... Alexander?" He asked. "Is it not true that you have a pierced navel?"

She stepped back. How did he know?

She was usually careful not to flaunt her belly button in public around here. Back in the city it was much more acceptable, one of the reasons she had moved away from this small town in the first place. But when things didn't work out over there and she came back, she'd begun wearing longer, baggier shirts in public. Eris had always meant to remove the piercing one of these days and to let it heal, but she also didn't expect to stick around forever, just until she had the money to try to live in the city once again.

"That's... That's true." Eris nodded.

"Please present this to the town." He spoke with no hesitation, as though his command were completely normal to say.

Eris hesitated when she turned and saw so many eyes staring at her. Maybe the whole town was present, though she knew the local population was too high to all fit in the gym at once. It still didn't feel that way, though.

Eris grasped the hem of her sweater and slightly exposed her navel. A shiny pearl reflected some of the light as her stomach was exposed to the people. From this angle, most of the people near the back were unlikely to see it and many were leaning to the side to get a better view. She sucked in her stomach before putting down her shirt.

"And Eris." He said, familiarly. "Is it not also true that you have a tattoo of a butterfly on your right shoulder?"

She nodded.

"And would you show this to the people, too?"

Eris tried to roll up her sleeve, but the thickness of the sweater stopped her from getting any further than her elbows. After pulling a few times and worrying the fabric may tear, she tucked her arm back into the sleeve and into the shirt itself, reaching around to bare her shoulder through the neck of the sweater. Some of her bra strap was visible, but Eris forced herself to pretend not to care.

"And why a butterfly?" Richard asked as she fixed her sweater.

"I just... I like them." Eris leaned in. "They start out as these helpless caterpillars and then form a cocoon. Once they're inside the cocoon they melt into a liquid and after a few weeks, evolve into this beautiful creature."

The crowd gasped at the word 'evolve' and she winced at her choice of word. Eris had forgotten the audience she was speaking to.

"Evolution... Tattoos... Piercings... Black hair..." The reverend spoke slowly. "Eris, when did you arrive in this town?"

The crowd was growing tense, people shifted in their seats as they looked to one another and asked muffled questions. She could feel a tense energy in the room and felt her mouth grow dry.

"I was born here." Eris spoke. She had to clench a fist to stop her voice from cracking.

"But you left!" He said, his voice briefly showing some emotion - maybe excitement. Eris was beginning to realize that him asking her name before was merely an act, he knew far more than he ever let on.

"And when did you return?"

"This spring." She answered. "Late March."

"Late March..." Richard smiled. "The same time these events began. The strange behavior of animals. The noises at night. The incidents of people growing mad for no discernible reason.

"Could these things be connected?"

"Please!" Eris shook her head. "Animals are always acting strangely, the noises at night are common for any rural area, and the only reason people are going mad is because your sermons always scare them!"

Richard did not seem to hear her words, he only looked down solemnly, shaking his head.

And then somebody said it.

"She's the witch!" A bony finger was raised at the stage; Geraldine Crumfeld - the head of the neighborhood watch - was looking at her accusingly.

At first, nobody seemed to react. Crumfeld said things like this regularly. When a window was broken during a windstorm weeks ago, she was the first to accuse a local teenager of doing the deed despite the fallen tree branch still sticking out of the broken glass. But then another voice was raised. Two of them.

"She made us do it!" One of the girls from the woods before was looking at her, a finger raised. And after Eris had tried to protect them.

"A witch!" "She's a witch!" "Stop her!"

A whole chorus was raised against her as more and more people began the accusations. Eris looked for Shelby, hoping her friend might come to her defense. But Shelby was always meek in crowds and simply slouched in her chair, avoiding eye-contact.

"Silence!" Reverend Richard raised a hand but not his voice. But amazingly, the crowd stopped yelling all at once.

"Truly, the suspicious nature of our Eris cannot be denied." He stated. "But we have to be civil when deciding such things.

"It is possible she is a witch, but it is possible that a witch has merely been acting through her. It is possible she does not even know she is being possessed."

The audience was mumbling among themselves, calmer than before. Eris wanted to sigh in relief, she was terrified of what an uninformed, angry mob could do. But she wasn't able to relax - she saw Shelby sitting there, clutching the book in her hands as her eyes grew wide and her breathing sped up. Something about that reaction didn't sit well with Eris.

When Richard stepped forward to take the book from Shelby, she realized her gut feeling was right.

"What we know about witches, we have learned from this 'Tome of Witchcraft'!" Richard announced, holding the book in one hand and the microphone in the other.

"I am a firm believer in justice - that these things ought to be done in a proper manner! If she is a witch, then she must be treated as such. But only if we can be sure of that and there are tests!

"We have the tools to identify and fight back against such incursions on our fair town! Everything written here is a key to keep ourselves safe. Our town safe. Our eternal souls safe!"

By this point, people were leaning forward in their chairs, expecting some great revelation to occur before them. All eyes were on the Reverend as he spoke, the audience totally under his spell and hanging on every single word he said, even their facial expressions seemed to be dictated by his whims.

"You ask why these two young ladies were prancing around in the nude?" The Reverend pointed to his book. "One may say they were possessed, but to what end?

"This is the source of a witch's power! The connection to the Earth and our Moon is how they power their unholy arts! These women were possessed so that they could be used as fuel for the designs of a more powerful witch!"

Eris' jaw dropped at the Reverend's statement; Totally devoid of any logic or basis in facts. And yet, the crowd gathered there was still intensely gazing upon the stage - they must have really believed this!

"And so I conclude-" He raised his arms, shouting into the air, no longer needing the microphone to project his voice. "If this woman is a witch - we shall know it by the glow in her eyes, the magic visible in her naked body!

"Eris! I command you to prove your innocence and bare yourself upon this stage! In the light of whatever dark magics have taken hold here! In the light of Fairhaven! In the light of God!"

"What the hell?!" Eris stepped back in shock, half expecting the Reverend to start laughing. She looked out at the audience, assuming they would be covering their mouths to stifle giggles from the result of such an absurd prank - but she only saw harsh, judgemental gazes.

"Eris." The Reverend stepped closer, lowering his voice. "I know it's an uncomfortable thought, but a righteous woman has nothing to fear from shedding her modesty."

"What the hell does that even mean?" She stepped away from him but only found the edge of the stage, lurching away from it to keep her balance. "I'm not getting naked in front of everybody!"

"You understand why this only makes you look more suspicious." The Reverend turned back towards the gathering. "That by refusing a simple test - refusing to assuage the anxieties of this town - she is fostering greater fear and allowing the rumors of witchcraft to go unconfirmed!

"Who else would want such an outcome but a witch herself - fearing that she might be identified?"

"She's the witch!" "Have her arrested!" "Exile! Exile!"

The crowd was refusing to see the logic in her pleas - all they wanted was to see her strip. Eris was unsure whether most of them actually believed the witch rumors or if they were merely caught up in the fervor of potentially seeing a naked woman before them.

She felt a shiver go down her spine as she saw the looks in their eyes.

"Eris, I hope you understand." The Richards' voice was low as he placed a hand on Eris' shoulder. "You do not have to strip here, you do not have to confirm or deny anything. But...

"As much as I can hold off the crowd for the time being, this is a small town. These people know where you work, where you live - you do live alone, correct? - and if so many people drunk on suspicion were to leave in anger, I cannot promise your safety.

"Do you understand what I'm getting at?"