The Witchfinder Wars (9 page)

A voice behind me interrupted just as I
finished the correction. "Miss Blanchett, what are you doing?"

My English teacher, Ms. Lofton, stood behind
me with her hands on her ample hips. I shrugged as I recapped the
pen and tossed it back in my bag.

"Making a correction. The least they could
have done was get it right." I tried a smile as she continued to
stare at me incredulously. Perhaps she was in shock because of the
message behind me. Or because I had dared to answer her.

It turned out her surprise was from
neither.

"You come with me at once, young lady! Out
of all the students here, I never would have suspected I would
catch
you
defacing school property!"

Wait...what?

I followed her, no doubt with the same look
of disbelief on my face she had on hers only moments before. We
entered the administrative office and I saw Michael Pitts sitting
in his mother's desk chair, flipping through a magazine as he
waited for her to finish her secretary duties for the day so he
could go home. A grin crossed his face as we passed into Principal
Fisher's office, and as the door shut behind me, I could hear the
sound of his chair scraping across the floor as he moved it
closer.

"Good afternoon, Ms. Lofton. Anya."
Principal Fisher nodded to both of us as he gestured to the seats
in front of his desk. "I'm surprised to see you in here, Anya. I
wasn't going to call you in until tomorrow."

"What?" I unhooked my bookbag from my
shoulder and dropped it on the floor beside the chair before I sat
down. "Why would you need to speak with me?"

Ms. Lofton took the chair next to me, but
she may as well have disappeared. My shock over her reaction was
nothing compared to what hit me when the Principal began to
speak.

"Anya, we've received several reports you've
been cheating in your classes during your time here at Cothran.
Now, I know you are going to deny this. That your exemplary grades
are nothing but a product of your hard work. But we must
investigate these complaints."

"They
are
a product of my hard work."
I spoke slowly, wondering just where all this was coming from. I'd
always been at the top of my classes at Cothran. In fact, I was
slated to be the valedictorian for the upcoming graduation in May.
How, why, was anyone questioning it now? I watched as he glanced
over to Ms. Lofton, who nodded, before he walked around the desk
and sat on the edge of it.

"Can we ask you something, off the record,
Anya? And will you be honest?"

"Off the record. Sure, why not? I don't have
any reason not to talk to you."

Principal Fisher smiled, and I got the
feeling it was the same one he gave to all the students he
questioned when they had been sent into his office. His thick hands
clasped in his lap and he nodded.

"Good. Now, Anya, you know the rumors about
your family. Did...well, did you ever call upon the Devil to help
you with your grades?"

I was afraid I was going to start laughing.
Turns out, I couldn't help myself. It came out so suddenly I almost
missed the blush spreading across his shiny bald head. I leaned
down to snag my bookbag, moving to stand, before I responded.

"Even off the record you can't ask me that,
Principal Fisher. Separation of church and state and all that. You
know, all those messy constitutional rights we have. I'm sorry, but
I'm not going to justify such a
question
with a
response."

I had almost made it to the door before Ms.
Lofton spoke up from behind me. "There is still the matter of the
locker, Ms. Blanchett."

"What matter? I didn't do anything
wrong."

She filled Principal Fisher in on how she
had walked up on me drawing on my own locker, marking out the
numbers and replacing them. He nodded, listening to her before
turning back to me.

"Is this true, Anya?"

I clenched my teeth as I shifted the weight
of my books on my back. "Yes. I did mark through those stupid
numbers. But I didn't put the drawing there in the first place. Nor
did I write my own death threats."

"Very well. But since you were the one seen
drawing on school property, you will be the one to suffer the
consequences. Starting tomorrow, you will have two weeks of
detention. And your first day will be spent scrubbing the markings
off."

"You can't be serious."

"I am very serious. I will come by tomorrow
after school myself to ensure you are there."

I walked out of the room before I responded
the way I wanted to. As I crossed the threshold, I saw Michael must
have heard every word. He was laughing until he caught sight of me,
and then he started singing under his breath.

"Ding dong, the witch is dead...the witch
is..."

I stopped long enough to grab the vase
sitting on the edge of his mother's desk, ripping the flowers out
and tossing them aside before throwing the dirty water in his face.
Michael's shout brought both Lofton and the principal out of the
office I had just left. They looked stunned as I set the vase back
down.

"Add that to my list of sins too."

I left, crossing through the now empty halls
to head toward the sidewalks leading me home. I was so angry I
don't remember most of the walk. All I could think of was how
unfair the whole thing was.

When I reached Evie's gardens, I squared my
shoulders and put it behind me. I was a good student, the best in
school, but I would get better. I was more determined than ever to
prove myself to the idiots who surrounded me. No matter what it
took.
Who
it took. I grinned as I headed upstairs. They
thought I could call upon the Devil to help me. But I knew Satan
didn't exist.

I had access to something much more
powerful, much more dangerous, than any devil.

My Great Mother. My Goddess. She would lead
me down the path I was supposed to take, while I destroyed anything
and everything that got in my way.

And the rest could go to hell where they
belonged.

Chapter Six

Tommy

I was sure I wouldn't be able to sleep a
wink after Grand told me, well, everything she told me, and she
told me a lot I couldn't believe. But I surprised myself. After we
talked until almost two in the morning and she left, I crashed and
fell into the deepest sleep I could ever remember. But not a
restful, soothing sleep, the kind of sleep I really could have
used. I kept having dreams and waking from them, my heart pounding
like a drum, covered in sweat yet shivering with cold.

Or maybe it was fear. 'Cause some of those
dreams were strange. Falling rocks I could understand. The
sensation of being crushed alive. But the sense there was something
I had to do, someone I had to get to, before it was too late, that
was the worst. I'd wake and my legs would be trying to run, and my
hands would be grabbing out at the emptiness above my bed.

The dreams began as soon as I was
asleep.

I was standing in the middle of a long
straight stretch of highway. It unrolled in front of me forever,
until I couldn't make out where it ended. At first there was
nothing on either side of the blacktop—blacktop with a blood red
line running down the middle of it—just misty, cloudy
nothingness.

Then the clouds began to group together and
rise up on one side of the road, clumping and getting less and less
hazy and more and more dense, until finally rough jagged rocks
loomed high over the road on my right. On my left, the clouds
collapsed like some giant was sucking them away through a
straw.

A deep rumble shook the earth, like thunder
but louder and stronger than any storm I'd ever heard or
experienced. I looked up, craning my neck back to see the sky, but
there was no sky—only dense blackness without even a sprinkle of
stars.

The rumble of almost-thunder came again and
this time, the blacktop beneath my feet shook and trembled with it.
I looked down. My feet were bare. Then the skin began to peel away
and I could see the bones of my toes, white against the black road.
I jerked my head up away from that terrible sight and there, off in
the distance, were two bright eyes racing toward me like a lion
after a zebra.

The lion howled.

But they weren't eyes, they were headlights.
I could hear the lion's growl change to the roar of a big racing
engine.

A car was coming straight at me.

I tried to move, but I was stuck. I didn't
want to, but I looked down. The bones of my feet had grown into the
asphalt, pushing it up and twisting it like the roots of trees tear
up the streets in a town.

The roar grew louder, the headlights
blinding me as they got bigger and bigger.

I threw up my right hand to shield my eyes
and, as if I had somehow told them, forced them, commanded them,
the rocks that reared above the right side of the road began to
tumble down. Slowly at first, then faster and faster. Fast as
sound. Fast as light.

The first rock, not a very big one, hit the
roof of the car racing toward me. It bounced off, but more
followed, more and more, piling over the car, covering it and
raining down on it.

Suddenly, I could move. My feet were just
feet again, with their regular skin; no bones showed. I ran toward
the rocks.

Ran because I knew that car, as red as the
line running down the center of the road.

My dad's Ferrari.

I climbed up over the rocks, yelling "Dad!
Dad!" as they shifted beneath me like living things. I tried to
move them, to dig down to the car, but as fast as I could fling one
aside, more rolled into the empty spot.

"Tommy?"

I stopped. "Dad?"

"Tommy." The voice was my dad's, but he
didn't sound scared or hurt.

He just sounded sad.

"Dad! I'll get you out! Hang on, okay?"

But the rocks kept coming, hitting me,
covering me as everything grew darker and the air filled with
bitter grit forced itself into my mouth and throat. I tried to call
Dad but I couldn't.

"Tommy," I heard him say, quietly, calmly.
"Tommy. I'm sorry, son. I'm sorry I have to leave you. But it's my
only hope."

I woke up coughing, my face wet with
tears.

After that, I figured I'd never get to sleep
again, even though I was so tired I could barely move.

I was wrong.

Almost at once, I was asleep and dreaming.
Funny thing, though. This time I knew I was asleep; knew I was
dreaming.

I was walking through woods. It was night,
but a pale blue-green light filled the spaces between the trees and
I could see where I was going with no problem. I came out of the
woods into a little clearing. Now I could see where the light was
coming from—a blue moon, full and fat and about three times normal
size, rode just above the tops of the trees across on the other
side of the clearing, almost like it was balancing on their leafy
tips. I could see the man in the moon, his face cocked sideways,
smiling down at me.

I smiled back.

Then a voice asked, "Are you Tommy?"

I looked around but didn't see anyone, which
I would have if anyone had been there. It was almost as bright as
noon under a fat blue moon.

"Noon, moon," laughed the voice. "Spoon,
June. Words are power, Tommy. Be careful how you use them."

"Who are you?" I asked.

"Your doom. Doom, broom, loom."

There was a pile of rocks about as high as
my waist in the middle of the clearing with something sparkly on
top of it. I walked toward it, saying, chanting almost: "June,
moon, broom, loom."

When I got closer, I could see the sparkles
came from a shallow silver bowl. There were shapes and symbols
carved or etched into the cold metal; some I recognized but most I
didn't.

I looked inside the bowl. Right in the
center was a small puddle of water, like someone had dumped a cup
of ice in it after drinking all the soda and it had melted. That
thought was so strong I looked around the pile of rocks for a
crumpled paper cup. I didn't see one.

When I looked back in the bowl, the water
was gone, like it had drained out while I was looking for the
cup.

"Behold your doom, Thomas Carlisle Matthew
Hopkins," said the voice. It didn't sound as scary as the words
were, more like cheerful, almost happy.

I shrugged. "Okay. Sure. Show me."

I leaned over the bowl.

Inside was a little red car. Beside it was a
coil of silver wire that looked both cold and smooth and sharp
enough to cut flesh. Next to the wire was a blue stone gleaming
like a tiny chunk torn out of the moon above. And beside the stone
was a small doll, like I'd seen my sisters fight over plenty of
times. The doll had red hair underneath a pointy black hat, and its
tiny hand held the handle of a broom.

I reached into the bowl to touch the car,
the doll.

At the instant my hand moved, the coil of
silver wire rose up like a striking cobra and stabbed right toward
my heart...

I rolled out of bed and hit the floor.

Hard. My knees hurt.

"Okay, that's it. That is most definitely
it," I said as I climbed back up on the bed.

I didn't stay there long, though. I didn't
dare chance going back to sleep, even as tired as I was, not with
dreams like the one I'd just had waiting for me.

I grabbed a couple of pillows and the bottle
of water from my bedside table and wandered over to the window
seat. I had a big corner room right above Grand's, with windows on
two sides. I settled myself on the cushioned seat, took a swig of
water and looked outside.

It was either really late or really early.
Night was fighting a losing battle with day; little fingers of pale
pink, just the color of Jos's favorite t-shirt, were inching into
the sky. I looked down into our front yard and got a sudden image
of Jordan What's His Name trimming the bushes with his dad while
they waiting for this big house to sell.