Mind Games (11 page)

“Sam,” Pastor Roberts said. “He burned my hands.”

Sam, the fire chief, looked from the pastor to Nicolas. “Back away,” he told my brother. Then, louder, “Sheriff!”

“Pastor,” I said, looking at his injured hands, “you need to get that looked at.”

The pastor seemed to notice me for the first time, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. “You’ve brought this curse upon my house. You and your entire family. Everyone knows fire is your specialty.”

“What’s going on here?” came the commanding voice of Sheriff Adams.

“Nicolas assaulted the pastor,” Sam said. “Look at his hands!”

“Look at the heat he’s radiating from his body,” Sheriff Adams said. “Only an idiot would go near him.”

Sam’s hands balled into fists and the two men faced off in a pose that made me think they had done so before. “Isn’t it interesting how quickly he got here, sheriff? He lives almost twenty minutes outside of town.”

“What, exactly, are you suggesting?” I rounded on the purple-faced fire chief, barely even noticing when the frame of the house behind him shuddered and collapsed under the weight of the fire.

“He’s been a menace his entire life! How many fires have we had to put out because of him?”

Admittedly, a few, but that didn’t give him the right to accuse Nicolas of deliberately setting this fire today. Childhood accidents are a far cry from intentional arson and murder.

“Stop!” The sheriff’s voice boomed.

Everyone stopped. Even a few of the firemen spraying water on the remnants of the house turned to look.

“Now is not the time,” the sheriff said. “You have a job to do so I suggest you do it.” He turned to the pastor. “You need to get to the hospital before that gets infected. Get someone to drive you there.”

The pastor looked like he might protest, but he winced in apparent agony and turned back toward the church.

“Can you get him out of here?” Sheriff Adams asked me, waving a hand toward my brother. “This situation is volatile enough.”

“But, Sheriff–”

Sheriff Adams lowered his voice so Nicolas couldn’t hear. “I know he meant well, but he may have done more harm than good here tonight, especially since the woman’s probably going to die anyway.”

I had no argument, so I turned away and dialed my parents’ number.

B
Y THE TIME MY FATHER CAME
to collect him, Nicolas was cool enough to touch, though his exertions had clearly exhausted him. The watching crowd never took their eyes from him, my father, or me until we reached our separate cars and drove away. They didn’t shout. They didn’t even say a word, but their eyes screamed with accusations.

I knew I would never be able to sleep after all that I’d seen, not when I’d been suffering unexplained insomnia for days, so I gave my mom a call and asked if she had any suggestions.

“You’ve tried the sleep potion?” she asked.

“Yes, but the only thing that works when I get like this is a sleep spell. And I can’t exactly have you drive out here every night, can I?”

“No,” Mom agreed, “but what about a stronger sleep potion? I’ve got one that mimics the sleep spell, but I hardly ever use it because it’s a real pain to brew. You have to add about a dozen ingredients at precisely the right time in precisely the right order… warm it up, cool it down, and stir.”

“So the goal is to work yourself to sleep?” I asked.

She chuckled. “Probably. Actually, each step is done in order to capture the various types of dream energy. It’s for a dreamless sleep.”

“I see.” I hesitated. “Is there any chance you can brew it?”

She sighed. “I tell you what. I only need to infuse magic into this brew at the very beginning and again at the end. How about if I just drop the book off and let you spend the next six hours brewing the potion? Then I’ll drop by again in the morning to finish it off.”

“May as well,” I said. “I’ll be up anyway.”

I tried to sound casual about the whole thing when in truth, I hated asking favors from my mom, even if I would be the one doing most of the work. I’d rarely worked on magical potions before, even though many potions only required magical energy at specific points in their creation, because it always reminded me of the part I couldn’t do. But I did need sleep if I had any hope of getting through the rest of the week or of figuring out what had happened to the Robertses’ home that night. Was it even possible that it had something to do with the pamphlet Cormack McClellan had found? I didn’t know, and if I wanted to find out, I needed to find a way to stay sharp.

* * *

I crawled into bed around four in the morning, so exhausted from my many hours of taxing work that I drifted into sleep without the aid of the potion, which wouldn’t be finished until Mom stopped by to add the final flourish. No wonder she hadn’t wanted to do it. Aside from adding the right ingredients at the right times, I had to maintain a harmonious emotional state throughout, sometimes even slipping into my quiet place for small stretches to keep my mind focused and at peace. With so many non-harmonious things on my mind, I spent a good portion of the night doing mental math.

After catching three hours of exhausted slumber, I headed for the station, where I had to stop and wonder if my sleep-deprived brain was playing tricks on me. At least a hundred people stood outside the building, waving homemade signs that said things like, “Burn, witch, burn!” and “Out, Satan!” At least three signs boasted the familiar Exodus quote, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”

I approached the sheriff’s department on foot, since I didn’t even live a mile away, which gave me the opportunity to slip behind the row of buildings along Main Street and approach from behind. A narrow alley ran the length of the street, allowing businesses to take deliveries at the back. Though the alley received only light traffic, the pavement was in disrepair and it had a gloomy, neglected feel.

It wasn’t until I drew close to the back of the sheriff’s station that I saw a smaller group of men, not much older than me. I recognized two of them from the high school football team, though I couldn’t recall their names. I did know they attended the Gateway Christian Church, which just at that moment made me wary of them. That, and their posturing. The way they stood, smoked their cigarettes, and slapped one another on the back gave the impression of a group of men showing off, making them far more dangerous together than any of them would have been alone.

They didn’t see me. I came up short, backing up a few paces to hide around the corner of another building. Then I weighed my options. There are times in a person’s life for bravado and times to call for backup; I decided this was one of the latter. Quickly punching buttons into my cell phone, I got the sheriff on the line.

“Just go through the front,” the sheriff said without letting me speak. “They’re not blocking the door. I almost wish they were so I could arrest them.”

“You don’t think, ‘Burn, witch, burn!’ counts as assault?” I asked.

“I’m looking into it,” Sheriff Adams said.

“By the way, there are three men at the back who shouldn’t be there.”

“I’m on it. Just come around front.” He hung up.

Groaning, I made my way back to Main Street, where a large body of protesters immediately spotted me. They almost seemed to notice me at once, as if they had one mind among them. Maybe they did, but I think the first to spot me simply called out so quickly to the others that I had no time to prepare.

“Witch!” they cried. “Burn the witch! Witch! Witch! Burn the witch!”

I almost told them I wished I were a witch, but decided better of it. What I wouldn’t have done for a spell of invisibility right then. The hostility rolled off of them, and I didn’t think for a minute that they were shouting euphemisms. They wanted me dead. They wanted me to burn in hell for all eternity. They believed God hated me.

“Murderer!” One woman called. “You killed my mother. Don’t think I don’t know.”

“And she called up that tornado last spring!” shouted another.

“She gave me boils.” That accusation, which came from a particularly loathsome ex-boyfriend of Kaitlin’s, actually managed to be true. I felt no remorse, however, especially not amidst the chanting and death threats.

“Witch, witch! Burn the witch! Witch, witch! Burn the witch!”

I continued pushing my way through the crowd, my head lowered. They tried to get in my way, despite what the sheriff had said, so I wasn’t polite as I tore open a path for myself. Neither were they. I wondered how many bruises I would have later on.

“Your brother killed Sarah!” someone shouted.

“You got my daughter pregnant!”

That last one made me pause, and it chipped away at the tension. “Virgin pregnancy, huh?”

The woman scowled. “Someone led her astray! She never went anywhere except school and church. And she was talking to your sister Juliana at school.”

“My sister is about as well equipped to get a girl pregnant as I am.” With that, I slipped into the station.

A heavy tension had settled over everyone inside the station by the time I walked in. Three deputies, including Wesley, dragged the three men who had been blocking the back door in the direction of the jail. Jane, manning the reception desk, was having a spirited discussion with Pastor Roberts about whether or not his people were crossing the line by protesting outside the station. Sheriff Adams, accompanied by Mayor James Blair, walked out of the sheriff’s office and crossed over to the reception desk to confront the pastor.

“Mr. Blair,” Roberts said in a carefully polite tone, “how nice to see you again.”

“Mark, I was so sorry to hear about your wife. You have my condolences and I hope you will let me know if there is anything I can do.” James held out his hand and the pastor shook it, solemnly.

“Thank you, but I’ve got my church family around me. I think we’ll be fine.”

“There’s nothing more important than friends and family at a time like this,” James said.

“Amen.” Roberts eyed the mayor warily. “This is a legal protest.”

James hesitated. “Your people need to back a few more yards away from the station and leave a clear path from the sidewalk to the door.”

“They aren’t keeping anyone from getting in,” Roberts said.

I began to protest, but the mayor shot me a silencing look.

“Maybe not directly,” James said. “But they could be seen as a barrier, especially in an emergency. You protect yourselves as much as anyone else by backing away and making sure there’s a clear path to the door.”

Roberts opened his mouth as if to protest again, but he suddenly switched gears. “Fine. Anything else?”

“I don’t want to see any signs making direct threats.”

“There are no–” Roberts began.

“What about, ‘Burn, witch, burn!’?”

“It’s just a figure of speech.”

“Not when you then point out a specific member of the community and call her a witch.” James gaze shifted briefly to me.

Roberts followed the flicker and frowned. “All right, fine.”

“I told the sheriff you would be reasonable,” James said. “You are, of course, understandably upset and have every reason to demand justice for your wife. You have my personal assurance that we will get to the bottom of this.”

“Thank you, but I think we all know who did it.” The pastor’s gaze slid in my direction.

The mayor shot me a look that clearly said,
Let me handle this
, then he turned back to Roberts. “The sheriff’s department will follow every possible lead.”

“Oh yeah?” Roberts said. “Even if that lead takes you to one of the older and more powerful families of witches? The Scots have funded your family’s political campaign for years, haven’t they, Mr. Blair?”

James’s face darkened. “If you have a specific reason for accusing the Scots, a clear motive, perhaps, then we’ll hear it. Otherwise, you might want to be careful who you accuse.”

Pastor Roberts turned to face me. “You came asking questions on Monday and now she’s dead.”

I didn’t see the connection, but knew better than to say so. I hadn’t forgotten James Blair’s earlier warning to let him handle this.

“I understand that Ms. Scot was following a lead on another case,” James said. “I don’t see what it had to do with your wife.”

But it did. Somehow, the look in the pastor’s eyes told me it did, or at least, that he thought so. Roberts scowled, turned away from the reception counter, and headed out the door. A silence hung in the air for a moment. Apparently, everyone had stopped what they were doing to watch the confrontation. As soon as the door closed, the station resumed its normal business.

“See you later, David,” James said to the sheriff.

“Later,” Sheriff Adams replied.

I stepped between James and the door, daring a whispered question, “Was he telling the truth?”

James, whose gift was to detect lies, glanced around quickly before answering. “I have no idea.”

I covered my momentary shock with a cough. “Um, I’d like to know that trick.”

“No, you wouldn’t. I don’t know if he’s telling the truth because he’s lost sight of what truth is. He’s too utterly convinced of his own twisted reality.” With that, James pushed his way out the door.