The Questions

Katelyn shivered. The question was too close to her mind, to her heart. Why did everyone have to be thinking of the murder perpetrated by her own parents? She wanted justice for Victoria, but was that really the paramount interest of the party? Of course, it is, she chastised herself. Why wouldn’t they be concerned about the loss of their own party leader due to anti-witch hatred?

Brittney brightened, however. “First, I would like to mention that the Party is taking steps to bring publicity to the ongoing trial of the Valedettes.” She turned towards the three candidates. “Go ahead.”

“We must shut down the young witch mentorship program,” Sylvan declared. A collective gasp filled the room. “It has become too dangerous to allow our members into the homes of staunch conservatives. They call us dangerous, but they bear that same threat they fear from us towards us.”

Katelyn turned away from Sylvan’s answer. She knew she should listen but the questions about Victoria were making her uncomfortable. Any of the members might identify her just as Brittney had when she had first seen Katelyn. Katelyn knew that Brittney had distrusted her, and from her earlier conversation with Sylvan, it seemed Sylvan distrusted her even more. Brittney had even seemed to suspect that the program would turn out poorly. Even Victoria had seemed to know more. She had joined the program, even knowing she would fall one day.

Victoria had thought it was a necessary risk for the youth of the future, but Brittney and Sylvan did not agree. Nevertheless, Katelyn found her worry and curiosity draw her back to the candidates.

“I think we should continue to focus on the publicity of the trial,” Zara answered. “We should continue the mentorship program to ensure the wellbeing of our youth, but only in families who might be neutral or friendly towards our support. They should know that they are dealing with witches.”

“The Valedettes did know who we are,” Sylvan interjected.

“The mentorship program was designed to support youth who might be overwhelmed in their own homes by their powers,” Kristyn emphasized. “If you take the program away from those with the most oppressive parents, you deny Victoria the very cause she died for.”

“So, you would rather put our members in danger of death?” Sylvan demanded. “Victoria does not need to be a martyr.”

“If we raise publicity around the trial and the equality witches hold as human beings, people should not think that it is acceptable to murder our members,” Kristyn responded. “We must counter the negative propaganda the wizards are spreading so people begin to question The Constant.”

Katelyn felt her breath dissipate. The Constant. Kristyn was blaming The Constant for Victoria’s death. Katelyn’s parents read The Constant every night. Her father had even been reading the paper just before Victoria’s death. But why would a well-known paper be responsible for a murder? It was anti-witch for sure, but surely it was not quite so negative as to incite hatred to the level of causing murder. Part of Katelyn wished something so simple could be responsible, so that her parents could be released, but she doubted that the paper could be entirely responsible. Victoria was the only person who had died. Her parents had to have acted on the motivation.

Katelyn’s parents had committed a murder, and they were claiming that they were not guilty, even though that really only left Katelyn to have done it. Who could she trust if she could not even trust her own parents?

They were denied bail and sent to a remand facility. Apparently, the one murder of Victoria made them a danger to the public. The prosecutor wanted to charge them with a hate crime. It was all so strange in a country that never cared for witches. If it was a hate crime, they were hardly a danger to the rest of the public. They had otherwise been upstanding citizens, but the Crown was determined that there was strong evidence that it had been them. The Crown was concerned with the role of the newspaper. It was strange, as if the Crown prosecutor had the same ideas as Brittney, although they were embedded in a different system. Why did they care now?

Another thought pierced Katelyn. Sylvan had claimed that her parents had known that Victoria was a witch, which meant they had known all along, but had only decided to kill her at the very end. Victoria had been participating in a program designed to help witches, so her parents and Victoria must have known that she was a witch, too, yet her mother had been so angry, so outraged. Katelyn froze. Her father had hired Victoria. Her father had known that Victoria was a witch. Her father had sent Victoria to find Katelyn the night Katelyn had run away. Her father had put Victoria in the position to be killed, and she had trusted him, despite the warnings of everyone around her.

Katelyn’s mother had planned the murder. Katelyn’s mother had given Victoria the tea laced with Katelyn’s own magic. Katelyn’s mother had prevented Victoria from reaching her inhaler, all because Katelyn’s mother had found out that Victoria was a witch and Katelyn’s mother had been afraid. Katelyn’s mother read The Constant, but not as much as Katelyn’s father. No, it was not The Constant. Not entirely. It was the indoctrination of anti-witch beliefs through the generations. Mrs. Valedette’s family had always been more anti-witch than Mr. Valedette’s family. That was when Katelyn realized, her parents still had family, and that family could take over her supervision.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

She exhaled, shaking slightly. Maybe, she should have been relieved by the prospect, but instead she was terrified. She could not trust anyone anymore.

People were asking more questions, and the candidates were offering more answers, but they buzzed over Katelyn’s head. She should have known more about the candidates. She should have done more research beforehand, probably, but her head was spinning. Dizziness swam around her, and she had no idea why. She stepped further from the stage and leant against one of the tables that had been set up for the candidates. If only she could regain her balance, regain her train of thoughts and let her distraction fade away.

Katelyn did not understand it. She had been interested in the speeches, but then Victoria’s death had been mentioned, and she had fallen to distraction. She had lost herself. She had to hold herself together, so that no one would see what was wrong, but instead she found the room fading away from around her.

“Hey, you’re Katelyn Valedette, right?” The soft voice shook Katelyn from the emptiness of her mind. She glanced up to see Kristyn Marshadow standing before her.

Katelyn shivered. “How do you know that?”

“Well, the Valedettes are well-known…” Kristyn replied, trailing off as if there were other reasons that she would know who Katelyn is that she would rather not mention. It irked Katelyn how both Sylvan Ecclestie and Kristyn Marshadow seemed to know more about Victoria and her parents than she did, as did Brittney. Sylvan and Brittney had been friends of Victoria, though. Her eyes shone a bright gold under the artificial light lining the walls of the hall—that or they shone like the lights on the walls, brighter than Ki’s green eyes or Hanna’s blue eyes. Their brightness was unnatural. At the same time, Kristyn’s eyes held swirls of white that misted over the gold in light feathery clouds, and dark lines swirling around the edge of her irises. “You should vote for a candidate,” Kristyn commented, almost offhandedly. “It is one of the only ways youth have to influence the vote.”

Katelyn did not even want to think about how Kristyn knew her age group. She thought it was odd that Kristyn thought voting for a candidate for a fringe party would have any effect on the vote. Katelyn wished she could talk to Sylvan or Kristyn to get answers on what they knew about Victoria, but instead she walked to the polling booth and voted for Kristyn. She liked Kristyn’s dedication to all people and her confidence despite whatever challenges she might face, at least in words.

Katelyn glanced back towards Kristyn’s table, but she could not find the candidate. Sylvan was talking to more party members, and she did not seem to like Katelyn. A tremor ran through Katelyn. She clutched her heart pendant tightly in her hand and turned away from the hall. She had had enough of the night. It would take a few hours to finish collecting ballots and then count up the winner, and Katelyn did not truly want to know who would win just yet. She wanted to talk to the candidates, but she feared she would never be able to have them listen to her. They would never care, and she was a fool to think they would. If anything, they would resent her for having resulted in Victoria’s death. Kristyn was just being nice to encourage Katelyn to vote for her.

Katelyn walked back to Naji’s apartment. “You decided not to stay for the party’s whole vote?” Naji asked when Katelyn walked in. Katelyn flinched. It seemed everyone knew something about her recently and it was unnerving, even if she knew Naji, as an Elections Officer, would know about the schedule of the Social Unity Party.

Katelyn shook her head and attempted to brush past Naji.

“Now that they are in remand, your father has asked your aunt to look after you,” Naji informed Katelyn quickly. She had thought that her parents had their families who could look after her, but the reality that it might actually happen still shocked her. Her family was known as opposed to witches under her father’s name, and her mother’s family was even more opposed. They would never accept her.

“My aunt?” Katelyn questioned.

“Your father’s sister,” Naji clarified, “Twinkle Valedette.” Katelyn could not recall seeing her aunt recently. She had seen her grandparents on both sides and her uncles, but not her aunt. Her aunt did not live as close to the rest of her father’s side of the family, and her father did not like speaking of his sister in his wife’s presence. There was something unusual about that. “She will be coming tomorrow,” Naji finished.

Katelyn inhaled quickly. Her aunt was coming here to live? Her breaths came rapidly, rushing to her mind. Her aunt would hate her. Her aunt would know that she was a witch, and she would be angry, and then she would try to convince Katelyn somehow to change and stop being a witch. Katelyn would have done it if she could. Katelyn’s aunt could also try to force her to live somewhere else. Katelyn did not want to move. She knew some of the members in her party and she was not quite ready to leave, not while she was still in high school. The party had nothing to do with high school, she realized, but in her mind, they were connected. She could not leave the party until she entered university. She might never succeed at another high school.

Katelyn turned away from Naji and disappeared into her room, letting her tears drift onto the pillow on the bed. The tears eased her momentary panic, but they brought a deeper hole forward. She was pathetic, terrible, and she would always fail, always, always, always. She would never be good enough. She did not know why she even bothered trying. She hated her life.

Sylvan would probably win the party’s leadership, because she was the cofounder, no matter how much she irked Katelyn. Katelyn closed her eyes as her tears fell faster.