by Jones, L. A.
"What do you mean?"
Aradia inhaled and exhaled a breath through her nose. "Need I remind you I am a D.A.'s daughter? I know for a fact that over a hundred cases appear in every state that go unsolved for years. Many of them involving young women like us. There are over a dozen cases in the state of Massachusetts alone where young women disappear never to be seen again which also means there are over a dozen people who get away with murder. It's sick I know but it's true."
Rhonda just stared. After taking off her glasses and massaging her temples she said, "but doesn't it upset you?"
"Of course it does," Aradia stated, "but just because I am not okay with something doesn't mean it will never happen."
"Yeah but don't you wish you could change that?" Rhonda put her glasses back on and stared up at the ceiling with a dreamy expression. "Wouldn't you like to have the power to change the world? Especially for the better? Wouldn't that be so tight?"
Aradia didn't answer, and turned back to the computer. While she typed in more searches, her mind began to wander. Technically, I already have that kind of power. I mean I can read minds (through physical contact of course) and control the power of nature with a mere thought. However, would that kind of power change much? Most of all, do I want to take on that kind of responsibility? I mean I couldn't stop murders from happening could I? I couldn't stop crime...could I?
Aradia pushed herself away from the desk. She crossed her legs and lightly tapped her foot against one of the wheels. You know when you think about it I did help solve a murder and I am sure if I explore my power a bit maybe I can predict a murder before it happens. As for crime...well I could do the same.
However, she blew a strand of hair out of her face, I can't prevent all crime from happening. I can't become the supernatural police force for Salem especially all by myself. Furthermore, I promised myself a long time ago I would never become a vigilante. I mean I am a fan of Batman as the next person but...if you ever watched the flick Batman Begins then you could see he had no choice. He had to act because the Gotham police force was so corrupt but the Salem police force is not corrupt. Furthermore, my dad is an assistant DA what would he think if he found out? He would of course, parents always found out. It's just one of those things like why the sky is blue and why fish swim. But...
She tucked the very same strand behind her ear. Rhonda does have a very good point. If you have the power to do something then you should use it. However, excluding the Vampire Murders, not much happens here in Salem at least nothing crime related. Unless of course you count the discrimination in the hidden race but they don't consider that a crime.
Aradia snorted and tossed her head but then a wave of thoughtfulness came over her. However, just because they are okay with discrimination doesn't mean it's right. I mean years ago people were okay with treating blacks like dirt but that doesn't mean it was right. In fact people knew it wasn't right which is what started the civil rights movement.
"Hello? Earth to Aradia," Rhonda joked as she tapped on her left shoulder.
Aradia turned, almost like a reflex, to her right to see Rhonda smiling over her shoulder. "Hello? Personal space here."
Rhonda chuckled as she backed off. "Fine. Fine. Have it your way."
Aradia smiled over her shoulder. "If I had it my way, there would be world peace, free ice cream, and MTV would stop showing crap like Teen Mom." .
Rhonda had to clamp her hand over her mouth. After swallowing her fit of laughter, with some difficulty, she once again leaned in towards Aradia.
"Well you better hurry up with finding our case for our assignment because break is almost over." Rhonda looked at her slapstick digital watch to prove her point.
Aradia snorted angrily as she typed in yet another search. This time something finally caught her eye. FIFTH VICTIM FOUND IN SERIAL KIDNAPPING CASE.
"Hello? What's this?" Aradia asked out loud.
"It appears to be a serial kidnapping case Aradia," Rhonda stated.
"No duh Sherlock!" Aradia muttered.
Rhonda squinted. "Okay I have heard of serial killers but serial kidnappers? As D would say eso es tan raro."
Aradia raised an eyebrow.
"It's Spanish for 'that is so weird,'" Rhonda explained.
Aradia then nodded and turned back to the screen. She scanned the first few lines which read, "after missing for five months, Nika Azarov was found in a furniture warehouse in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her wrists had been bound along with her legs with thick ropes to one of the couches stored in the warehouse. The poor sixteen year old girl was found cold, almost half dead, oddly dressed in an expensive lingerie dress. Babbling incoherently and starving, the girl was taken to a nearby hospital..."
The warning bell rang and Rhonda muttered, "shit!" under her breath. She quickly went to the table where stuff lay and scooped them all.
"Hey Aradia," she said without looking, "you think you can handle the article. You know highlighting it and stuff. You can come over on Friday and we can compare notes."
"Don't you need a copy?" Aradia said over her shoulder.
"Email me the link," Rhonda stated before walking out of the library. Almost as if it were an afterthought, Rhonda turned and said, "bye Rai!"
"Bye Ron," Aradia said and batted her fingers at Rhonda. The moment the printer started making printing sounds was when Aradia sprang to her feet. She shrugged on her coat and threw on her backpack. She still held her binder so she could stuff the newspaper article in the folder clearing marking it as the Government section of her classes. She too then raced out of the library.
However, as focused as she was on improving her grades it still managed to take a back seat to her other goal. Hence why the next day Aradia sat in the Salem High School central quad eating sunflower seeds. She didn’t actually care for sunflower seeds, and she wasn’t sure where she’d come across the bag. Someone had probably left it out on a bench, maybe. She’d always thought sunflower seeds were more trouble than they were worth, but then again, she wasn’t really that hungry.
The internet results the other day had been absolutely no help. It told her a great deal about the human part of history, but that wasn’t where she’d find the answers she needed. Who was she? What were the witches like? Why, really, had they all died? Had they all died?
Great, she thought to herself, as a small group of thuggish looking types sauntered her way, I can’t even be alone right.
There were three of them, and they looked and dressed like your typical late-teens bad guys: leather jackets, tight shirts, sadistic grins. Two of them were clearly subservient to the third, following him around like a frightening Pied Piper. She actually recognized one of the lackeys: he’d thrown eggs at her and Rhonda from the back of a pickup truck when they were out for Halloween.
All of that, even the fact that they were messing with her now, wouldn’t have bothered her. What put her on edge was that she recognized the leader.
“Bane, right?” Aradia asked.
She’d never met him before, but she recognized him from descriptions Kaiser had given her. He was a hulking, swaggering werewolf with a smug grin plastered on his ugly face. He wore his greasy black hair pulled back in a ponytail, and he’d adorned his leather jacket heavily with obscene words and patches. He had on steel-toed black boots and was fairly well draped with dangling silver chains. There was no mistaking this guy especially by the fact that he smelled like fresh dirt.
Bane grinned as he approached her. “My reputation precedes me.”
“I suppose it does,” she replied unenthusiastically. “This is a high school, you know. I don’t suppose any of you are actually enrolled in school? Here or otherwise?”
“Not really our scene,” one of the lackeys replied.
Dear God, Kaiser really used to hang with these bone heads?
“Your reputation precedes you, also,” Bane stated. He paused a moment before adding, “Witch.”
“Excuse me?” Aradia replied with disbel
ief. A look of shock replaced her previous, miserable one.
“Oh yeah, I know all about you. Hell, by now probably the whole town knows there’s a real hidden witch in Salem,” Bane uttered, voice dripping with cruel amusement.
How could anyone have found that out? Aradia thought, completely puzzled. As far as she knew, only Dax, Mr. Dayton, her parents, and Roy knew what she was.
“He didn’t give me a name,” Bane went on. His smirking grew more sinister with every word he said. “But the girl who took down the Vampire Murderer was a likely candidate.”
“Who didn’t give you my name?”
Bane shrugged. “Didn’t give me his name either. I didn’t ask. Leech was lucky to get away from us alive.”
Aradia rolled her eyes. “Oh, please, you’ve never killed anyone. Worst crime you’ve pulled is what you’re doing with your hair.”
Bane and crew growled at her.
“What did he look like?” Aradia inquired further.
The lackeys weren’t smiling anymore, but Bane still was, and all three looked violent. Kaiser had warned her that he was a bruiser. She weighed her options though and decided it was worth the risk, even on school grounds.
She stood up and got right in his face, trying to keep her voice steady. “The vampire who told you about me. What did he look like?”
Bane didn’t say anything.
Aradia tried to sweeten the deal. “If you ask me, maybe I can find him, and maybe I really will kill him.”
“Or maybe you just want to keep him company at night, like you do with that other vampire and werewolf," Bane retorted.
“I am so tired of this vampire-werewolf love triangle thing,” Aradia muttered.
“That’s right,” Bane replied, clearly not listening to her. “We know all about your sick fetishes.”
Aradia rolled her eyes and sat back down. This isn’t going anywhere.
“Dark hair, goatee,” Bane said, describing his informant. “Real Colin Farrell thing going on.”
Xan! Aradia realized, clenching her fists with her hands, her body now taut with anger. Xan had been in the room as well, and even if he hadn’t been, Mr. Preston or even Dax could have told him.
If word had gotten to some outsider like Bane, the rest of the hiddens in school probably know about me too! They’ll probably start staring at me even more then they usually do! They probably all think I’m a freak.
The idea brought back a slew of memories from her old school and brought Aradia to the brink of bursting into tears.
“I don't know if it's true, though," Bane continued, spurring Aradia to look directly at him.
“You don't think it is true?” She said in an almost pathetic, but very hopeful voice.
“Naw, I don’t really think you’re the last witch.” His wicked smile should have warned Aradia that she wasn’t going to like where he was going.
“Really?” she asked. She felt like a kid at Christmas time who was about to get a hoped-for game console.
“Yeah. Judging by how scrawny and weak you look, I doubt you’re the last survivor of your kind. You’re nothing special at all.”
Aradia's face fell. “What?”
“Yeah. Look at you, sweetie. Nobody would call you special. Isn't that right, guys?”
The other werewolves snickered, highly amused by their leader’s joke.
“But then again,” Bane added. “Maybe you really are the last witch. Maybe the other witches faked their own deaths just so they could make sure they would be free of you.”
Aradia stood up again and faced Bane. This time it was no ploy for information. Her body shook with anger and her palms were heating up, ready to burst into flame. The look in her eyes would have warned a terrorist not to mess with her. Bane, however, just looked right back at her. He folded his arms across his chest as if he were daring her to make a move.
However, at that very moment the school counselor happened to be walking through the quad, and the SHS counselor happened to be Mrs. Preston. Upon seeing her daughter practically surrounded by a group of punks, she quickly swooped to Aradia’s rescue. She asked, “Everything alright, honey?”
“Honey?” Bane repeated sarcastically.
Aradia considered punishing Bane for all this. It was three on one, but they wouldn’t be expecting what she could do, even if they did know she were a witch. Since her mother was there, she decided against it. Aradia swallowed her thirst for vengeance, took her mother's hand, and went towards the parking lot.
“I don’t think we’re done here,” Bane interrupted their retreat, “honey.”
“Oh please,” Aradia’s mother replied. “Right now the three of you are trespassing, and by the smell of it, have weed on you. You’d probably get about ten hours of community service and a court-ordered drug cessation program if I called the police right now.” She pulled out her cell phone to add credibility to her threat.
“Hmm” Bane replied, “excuse me if I don't start shaking in my boots.”
“I’m sure you are,” Aradia’s mother replied. “I’m also sure I won’t see you on school grounds again. Have a nice day.”
Bane’s cackling laughter, along with his gang's, echoed in Aradia's ears as she and her mother walked away.
"What was that all about?" Liza asked her daughter as they drove home.
"Nothing," Aradia muttered with a shake of her head.
Liza wanted to press it further but not wanting to upset her daughter, she decided to drop the subject. Aradia slumped against the car window feeling completely defeated. As much as she wanted to deny it, the werewolf had reminded Aradia the seriousness of her situation. The seriousness of whether or not she was truly the last witch. Was she truly all alone? She felt confused and angry, but most of all she was upset for having so many questions and no answers.
Ever since she had become aware of her powers, she had always had questions. Now, though, she had more questions than ever before, and she could not bear it any longer. Aradia had one last, crazy thread she could follow. She had to know.
“Mama, I need you to take me to the cave where you found me.”
“You know, when you said you could take me to the cave,” Aradia said, bored, “I’d assumed you actually knew where the cave was.”
“It’s been fifteen years,” Ross replied defensively. They’d driven back and forth over this particular few miles of highway three times now. “You were there too. You could help with the directions.”
“I was a baby,” Aradia replied. “Do I need to add a ‘duh’?”
“It’s a shame there’s no sign,” Liza commented. She and Ross exchanged a knowing glance and soft chuckle. Aradia rolled her eyes. She’d heard the story of how they’d found her dozens of times.
“You could use your powers,” Ross said. “That summoning light would lead us right there, wouldn’t it?”
“Ross…” Liza admonished.
“No, it’s okay,” Aradia replied. “He’s right. Or, he should be.”
That earned a questioning look from both her parents, though Ross kept his eyes on the road.
“I tried,” she explained. “It didn’t work. I think my powers are weaker when I’m… feeling down.”
“Or maybe less controlled,” Ross replied. “I think you’ve got all the same power stored up in there. You just can’t tap into it the way you want if you’re not…”
“Attuned,” Liza finished for her husband.
“Here,” Ross stated firmly, pulling his Murano onto the shoulder. “Here’s where we pulled off the road.”
“I think you’re right,” Liza said. Pointing, she went on, “And down there is the clearing where I waited while you went looking for trouble.”
“Found it,” Aradia joked half-heartedly.
Ross held out an arm. “Lead the way. Ladies first, of course.”
“Of course,” Liza replied, glad she’d had the foresight to wear old sneakers.
Liza got them to the clearing, but Ross was the o
nly one who truly knew where the cave was. After about an hour of searching, he found it. The cave had not changed much in the years which had elapsed since he found his daughter.
At the mouth of the cave, Aradia suddenly felt afraid. She wasn’t sure what scared her more: the possibility of answering her questions, or the possibility of finding nothing at all. What she found, if anything, might traumatize her for life.
“It’s okay, honey,” Liza reassured her. “Your father and I are here for you.”
Aradia looked at her mom, who nodded. They both sighed heavily and went into the cave together.
The cave was damp, smelly, and chilly, but most of all it was spooky. In spite of that, Aradia could not help but feel that this cave did indeed have the answers to her past. Somehow, in some visceral way, she felt like this cave held a link to other hidden witches.
“Hey check it out!” Ross cried, his light focused on a spot at the center of the cave. He bent and picked up a small object from that spot.
“Is that–” Liza asked.
“My wallet! It’s still here,” Ross replied. “My note’s still inside.”
Aradia took the note and unfolded it. “‘Dear people who lost something important. If you lost something here recently, call me at this number. If you can describe in detail what it is, I’ll give it back.’ Really, Dad? You wrote this like I was a wad of cash.”
“Couldn’t take any chances,” Ross replied, waving his light around the cave.
The three of them wandered. The cave was shallow, but it opened to the east. Though they had started early, it had taken them far longer to find the cave than they’d anticipated, and the sun was high in the sky. Little light entered, making exploration difficult, and they had only the one flashlight.
Ross returned several times to one particular wall. It seemed to be a dead end, but he was not so sure. Puzzled and curious, Ross went to the wall and ran his hand over it. He did not know what he expected to happen, but nothing did. He rubbed his fingers together. It wasn’t what was happening, it was what wasn’t happening. He still wasn’t sure what that was though o rather, what it wasn’t.