The Price Guide to the Occult(62)
A rash of suicides had followed. The waters below the Golden Gate Bridge and Niagara Falls had been littered with the bloated bodies of those who couldn’t forgive themselves. The Manhattan subway stop at Union Square and Fourteenth Street had been another common spot for suicide attempts.
Anti-witch propaganda had flooded the media. Occult shops like the Witching Hour had become targets of vandalism. Schools banned the use of black nail polish. Owners of black cats kept them inside for their safety. The public was in a panic. How could they protect themselves and their families if they didn’t know from what, or rather from whom, they needed to be protected?
“Because,” as one speculative talk radio host insisted garrulously, “how likely is it that there is just one Fern Blackburn out there?”
In the hopes of calming a fearful nation, the president had held a press conference. In her plainspoken way, she’d reassured the public that their government would be diligent. She declared all “practitioners of conjuration” a threat to national security and urged citizens who had knowledge of someone practicing witchcraft to come forward.
Neighbor had quickly turned on neighbor. The bruja known for her homebrewed cold remedies no longer seemed so benign, nor did the local tarot reader with his eerily accurate predictions.
An organization calling themselves Families Laboring Against an Anti-Moral Environment (FLAAME) had staged a rally outside the capitol. “In Plain Sight” was their battle cry. Copies of the Malleus Maleficarum, a guidebook for witch hunters, had sold out in bookstores across the nation. It would have been funny if so many people hadn’t taken the 1486 text so seriously.
Truthfully, Nor had known it was only a matter of time before they targeted her and her grandmother. She just hadn’t thought it would happen this soon.
“What if we just deny that we’re witches?” Nor asked Judd. “Insist that it’s mere speculation?”
“Blackburn women have never been very good at covering their tracks,” Judd answered frankly. “It’s too late for us to start now. No, we’re going to cooperate. We’ll go with them willingly, we’ll answer their questions, and hopefully, once they see we’re not a threat, they’ll leave us alone. Just remember, girlie,” she said, peering down at Nor, “this is not the time to be stupid. Don’t go showing them something they’ll want to see.”
A few hours later, Nor was led through a sterile police station. The reek of disinfectant — a sickly sweet orange — turned Nor’s stomach. The officer she was following had seemed a lot nicer when he’d helped her into his car. Well, maybe nice wasn’t exactly the word. Maybe placid was better.
Officer Placid left Nor in a room, shutting the door behind him with an obstinate click. The room was bleak at best. There was a table and a hard metal chair that screeched against the concrete floor when she pulled it out to sit down. On one side, a window looked out into the hall, the blinds twisted and broken, the glass smeared with fingerprints and what looked like dried blood. On the other side, a window looked out into the street where the wind continued to blow and rain beat down on cars and pedestrians.
Why was it that disaster never arrived in the middle of the day, when the noonday sun was casting prisms across the kitchen floor? Why was it always dark — and raining?
Nor tried to hold on to what Judd had told her about not giving them anything worth seeing. Try to be unmemorable, Nor thought. Check. At least she’d had plenty of practice with that.
Officer Placid returned, carrying two additional metal chairs. He set them down on the opposite side of the table and settled heavily into one of them.
A woman in a crisp white suit and kitten heels came in next. She hesitated a moment before perching primly on the other chair, making sure to point herself away from the officer beside her. Nor didn’t exactly blame her. She could smell the officer’s unwashed hair and coffee breath from across the table.
Finally, a third person entered, so quietly that had he not been the one to shut the door, Nor wasn’t certain she would have noticed his entrance. His otherwise handsome face was scarred with pockmarks. Standing off to the side, he smiled at her with teeth so white they were practically blue.
The woman pulled a Kleenex from her pocket and held it to her nose as she examined the tablet in her hand, flicking her fingers across the screen in quick movements. The screen radiated an electric violet across her sharp features. “Let’s see then,” she mused. “Nor Blackburn? Born in 1998 on the thirty-first of October, which makes you —”
Officer Placid narrowed his eyes. “A Halloween baby.”
Superstitious piece of — Nor thought sourly. “It makes me seventeen,” she interjected.
The woman pursed her lips in irritation. “Yes. What I was about to say is that you are not yet legally an adult. However, in a few short months, you will be.” She clucked her tongue. “Incidentally, that also means you can be charged as an adult.”
“And what would I be charged with?”
“Nothing yet. Still, best to behave yourself, Miss Blackburn.” The woman consulted the screen again. “Let’s see. Daughter of Fern Blackburn and Quinn Sweeney, both deceased. Is that correct?”
Nor nodded, unable to forget the look on her father’s face as he sank beneath the water, or the gruesome image of her mother disintegrating before her eyes. Nor swallowed hard.