The Truth

“You are a witch,” he spoke very quietly.

“No,” she replied quickly even though she knew it was not convincing and even though she knew he knew better. Her hands were sweating again, but it was a different kind of sweat. It had nothing to do with her anger moments before, but instead was entirely driven by her fear. One day they would find out and then they would come for her too and destroy her just like they had destroyed Victoria.

“I don’t care,” he assured her. “I have a necklace, too.” He showed her a green pendant around his neck. That’s not possible, she thought, witches are always female. He was probably lying to her and maybe even spying on her. He was probably with the people that were trying to punish witches. She blinked. Why would they even need to spy on her?

She drifted away from him. She steeled her eyes on the distant streetlights. “I am going to leave,” she resolutely declared.

Calmly, Ki merely responded, “You’ll get in trouble if you skip school.”

I don’t care, she thought forcefully. She did not need school. She just needed a break where all the pain would fade away and all of the past would be undone. She wanted it to be over and even though she knew it never could be. If she let the thought flit over her, maybe it would give her hope. Eventually, all the consequences would flit away, too, in her mind, and the hope would bring her to peace, but it would be fake, and they would come after her sooner than if she just did what she was supposed to.

At the beginning of Grade ten, Victoria had continued to supervise her when her parents were away. Her parents had not trusted her. She had stood in the bathroom, staring into the mirror with her hands shaking. A strange red light had darted between her hands, terrifying her. It was just like the light that girl had had in Kindergarten, except that the girl’s was blue. After all her fears and doubts about the treatment of witches, she was a witch. She was one of them and she had done nothing. She had taken a glass cup that she had left in the bathroom and dumped the red light into the cup, trying to get it away from her and it had filled the cup, but the light had kept streaming from her hands. She had tried dumping the light down the sink, but it just swirled around and then streamed back towards her and faded into her skin.

When her parents had been distracted, she had smuggled honey into the bathroom, and poured it into the cup, and then had attempted to stick the red magic to it, but it did not work. She had panicked then. She had tried molasses and oil and even sugar, and then she had a muddy mixture of strange kitchen items with the red light floating around amidst them. The mixture settled and then it was one colour: a dark reddish-amber. She had poked it with the pointer finger of her right hand while her left hand had trembled continuously. The mixture had been about the consistency of new paint. She had poured more of the red light into it, forcefully this time, shattering the glass and separating the contents all over the counter and the floor. Her parents had left by this time.

“Katelyn?” Victoria had coughed, sounding strangely like she was being choked.

Katelyn had touched the molasses, but it had seemed to have the grainy texture of sugar, while the red light on the floor had been sticky like honey. They had not separated quite as well as she had thought they had.

“Katelyn?” Victoria had gagged, more desperately this time. “We will all fall one day...” It had been the second warning. She must have known her death would come soon.

Katelyn had opened the door. “What?”

Victoria had held what had appeared to be an inhaler, but a distinct stream of green dust flowed around her face, even though she had it firmly covered by her mouth. She had slid down the wall, closing her eyes. She had stood up abruptly, opening her eyes. “Honey—” her eyes had fixed on Katelyn “—you are a witch.” Victoria had not been speaking of Katelyn as “honey,” but instead she had meant the actual honey. Katelyn had glanced behind her. All the ingredients were gone.

“What? No!” Katelyn had protested, just as she now did to Ki, trying to hold onto some hope. She had seen what they did to that girl in Kindergarten, but she had forgotten the girl’s features and had never known her name.

Victoria had put her inhaler back in her sparkly pink purse. “I think I know my triggers.”

“You have asthma?” Katelyn had questioned, rather irritably.

“Magical asthma,” Victoria had clarified. Katelyn had never heard of such a condition. “It is caused by certain types of magic. For me, it is usually red magic and honey.” Katelyn had stared at her in disbelief and some indignation, because Victoria had just accused her of using magic. “Luckily for the majority of the population, the condition only affects witches. It is the reaction of colours in the soul.”

“You are a witch?” Katelyn had stuttered, stunned. Victoria had nodded. Katelyn gasped, realizing that was how Victoria had found her five years ago.

Victoria had held up the pink amulet she had hidden back then. “This is the symbol and the protector of the soul, so it does not separate.” She had waved her hand and crafted a heart-shaped glass gem on a black chain and handed it and a red stick to Katelyn. “For safety.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Katelyn had taken the items hesitantly, knowing that accepting them was symbolic of accepting the world of the witches and she was not ready to do that. She had still been afraid. She had taken them anyway. No one will know, right? She had thought. Now, Ki knew. Victoria had smiled slightly, but she seemed preoccupied. Katelyn had wondered why her parents who hated witches would let one supervise her. That was when she realized she had stopped thinking of Victoria as ‘the woman.’ She was not sure when this change had occurred.

“You should not be ashamed,” Victoria had whispered. “It is who you are, and you should not listen to those who tell you otherwise.”

“Then, why are you afraid?” Katelyn had questioned tensely.

Victoria had sighed. “People do not accept us, but we will show them we are the same.”

“How?” Katelyn had exclaimed in disbelief.

Victoria had fixed Katelyn with a thoughtful gaze. “I have a party, the Social Unity Party. I guess it’s not popular, so I try to avoid advertising.”

“You are Miss Leste?” Katelyn had inquired, “But my parents must know.”

“Yeah, your father hired me,” Victoria had responded. “It was part of our platform, mentorship. You could join us if you want, or not.”

Katelyn had consented, if only because of the strange circumstances. Her father must have known and yet she had doubted whether she would not be treated horribly for joining. She knew what happened to the one girl in Kindergarten and yet it must be her guilt for doing nothing and mentally persecuting the girl that had caused her to want to join the witches.

Victoria had led Katelyn into the main base of the Social Unity Party. It was a two-storey red brick building with blinds drawn over the windows and a black sign with “Social Unity Party” written in gold print. Inside, a woman had sat behind a desk and had smiled warmly and nodded at Victoria as they had entered. To the left had been a hallway with eight offices while to the right a simple wooden staircase had led to the second floor. “Brittney Pallivar” had been written in gold on a small black business card on the matte black desk behind the woman. The woman herself had had greying blonde hair and a black pantsuit.

“Hi, Brittney, this is Katelyn,” Victoria had declared, more at ease than usual. “She is thinking of joining us, if you would get her started?”

“Of course, membership is five dollars,” Brittney had supplied, but her eyes had showed some suspicion towards Katelyn. “What is your last name?”

“Valedette,” Katelyn had responded, causing a look of alarm to momentarily cross Brittney’s face. Now, Katelyn could say it was fully justified. Katelyn had handed her a five-dollar bill.

Brittney had lowered her voice as she had eyed Victoria warily, “You should be careful of the conservative parents.” She had handed Katelyn a membership card as she had taken the bill, nevertheless.

“We have a duty to support their justice, Brit,” Victoria had replied. “That is what this whole policy is about.”

Brittney had given Victoria a meaningful look but had dropped the matter. She had led Katelyn to an office at the end of the hall, which was shared by four women. Katelyn had momentarily wondered at the seemingly exclusively female party, but she had quickly realized there was a reason for this. Witches were almost exclusively female, and though the party was not specifically registered as a witch party, as that would be illegal, it had been formed by witches and its interests were those of witches. On paper, it had claimed to support aims of equality between economic class, gender, race, nationality, language, religion, and disability. Race, of course, had included the typical black, white, Indigenous, coloured, and mixed, but also non-magical, wizard, and witch. Thus, it had been unpopular also for its radical aims.

“Hey, gals,” Brittney had greeted the women. “This is Katelyn. She is hoping to help out, so show her some of the clerical work we have to do before Elections comes for the files.” They had given Katelyn a stack of papers. “Just put all the financials into that computer. It should have a database labelled ‘financial disclosure.’”

Katelyn had read through the papers scanning the numbers and matching them with the categories in the database. She had wondered why they would give her this task and why it was even left to do. She had shivered, afraid that helping the witches would only end poorly for her, especially with Brittney’s warning. Nevertheless, she had returned over the next few days and that was when she had started to notice that there was more to the financial information than she had originally perceived. She had figured they would not allow her to directly input information necessary for their elections documentation and that she was not strictly supposed to work for them. The financial information had seemed to be a transfer of funds throughout the members of the organization and some non-members as a sort of medical sharing plan, but as she had looked further, she had realized it was not just for medical expenses. It had seemed to be a distribution of profits among witches to compensate for providing witch services. Witchcraft was not legal in public and services were not allowed to be provided to non-witches, so special documentation was necessary. Why is the party distributing the payments? There had been a logo on the top of the page that she had never really remarked on before: a gold star surrounded by a red circle. There had been black writing in characters she could not read surrounding the circle. She had asked one of the women what the symbol was for.

“Oh, that is the Social Unity Cooperative,” the woman had responded. “It is a program we support through our membership fees to pay reliable witch members who pay us in return.”

“And Elections likes that?” Katelyn had questioned.

“It is legal, for now,” the woman had answered. “When they decide to ban it again, we will have to revert to more traditional methods, but I think Elections would rather those of us who are willing to use this method use it because this way they get to see our catalogues. Also, our member cards with this symbol do not provide access to the more traditional markets the government wants to ban, so it is more acceptable to the majority. Elections regulates that non-witches must be allowed to join the party, although they would prefer to crush us, but whatever they think, the access these cards give us is limited enough that it is decently appropriate for non-witches.”

“I thought you were a radical party and did not compromise for the mainstream,” Katelyn had commented.

“They have some valid criticisms of some of our practices,” the woman had admitted, “but it is not for them that we compromise. We compromise because we believe it is more just. Many of us do have more extensive cards, but if we ever want to be accepted by society, we have to adapt a little. Otherwise, they will just discriminate against us. We must prove that we are reasonable.”