The Voices

The wind had been blustery, tearing at the tender surface of her bare arms. She should have been wearing a sweater or even a coat since it was late October and the snow would soon be on its way, but she had left her sweater in her school locker in her rush to get away from school. The tall grasses had brushed against her grey jeans, and she had closed her eyes to try to feel their movements and emanate their softness.

She had rushed to the bathroom as soon as she had gotten home and looked in the mirror. Her eyes had been tinged red with red circles around her eyes. She had pressed her hands into her eyes and cried and then drawn her hands to the necklace that Victoria had given her. It shimmered slightly. Something felt wrong about it, yet she could not decide exactly what.

She had stood still staring into the mirror for a long time before Victoria returned from the rally. Victoria had put her arm around Katelyn and repeated that same question that Miss Corinne had asked, but her eyes were soft, their grey emanating the slightest mist of rose.

“The voices,” Katelyn had responded staring at her trembling hands as the red lines swirled up her fingers. “They won’t leave me alone.”

Victoria had crafted a glass dish with her pink magic and instructed Katelyn in mixing butter, insect wings, and spider web with Katelyn’s red magic. She had then told Katelyn to mix in the honey. Katelyn had applied it to her hands and then the voices had quieted, and her vision had sharpened.

Victoria had worn a weak smile as she clutched her inhaler and a glimmer had passed over eyes for a moment so brief it seemed to only be a flash of light, but knew the flicker was fear. She had always been afraid of Katelyn from the moment Katelyn had noticed her necklace. She had not faced her death with no fear at all, but she had not turned away from it either. She could have saved herself, but she did not.

As soon as the rain stopped and the sun began to shine through the dark clouds, Naji herded Katelyn from the office and to her car. Katelyn bowed her head. Of course, they were going to the police. Katelyn should have told the police immediately. Didn’t Victoria deserve that? She considered, but still she felt foreboding. Victoria could not have possibly accepted her fate if she knew Katelyn would do nothing, but Katelyn still found it hard to believe that her parents had done it. She wished time would stop and she would be stuck in the painful moment between no one knowing and everyone knowing.

The ground still shimmered with the water still dusting its surface even as they stepped out of Naji’s black Mitsubishi. Ki was still behind her, but he would never understand the pain Katelyn felt so often. Maybe, Victoria had not understood it either but at least she knew how to ease it. She knew about the voices somehow. Katelyn had not heard them in a while, but they were still there in the shadows beyond her mind. Victoria had not encouraged fear, especially not allowing it to affect her actions, but she had wanted Katelyn to keep the voices back and she had not explained where they came from. She had understood their power and the way they affected Katelyn’s own thoughts and feelings somehow.

A police officer looked up from the service desk as soon as they entered. “Greetings, Ma’am,” he spoke calmly to Naji with concern in his hazel eyes.

Naji glanced at Katelyn and then Ki. “There has been a murder,” she informed the officer, her voice pausing on the last word and raising in pitch as it lowered in volume.

The officer fixed her with sharp eyes, “Did you call 911?”

“Well, I was not there, sir,” she responded glancing at Katelyn once more. “This is Katelyn Valedette.”

The office had white walls and two plain black swivel chairs behind the golden wood counter. On the side of the counter that touched the wall by the door was a small glass box like the glass barrier at a ticket booth. There were pamphlets on the counter, but the black lettering swam before Katelyn’s eyes. She could not think straight, not quite. The floor was dusty and grey with muddy footprints tracking from the glass doors and the big black mat in front of them.

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Ki leant against the wall opposite the counter glancing back and forth every so often. He might have looked as if he were in line, but the other officer behind the counter did not ask, only surveying the younger boy silently as he divided his attention between observing and completing whatever paperwork lay before him. Teenagers, was written across his face in an almost critical manner. They think they are so lost. She closed her eyes.

Ignore the voices. Ignore the voices, she repeated to herself.

The officer doing the paperwork did not look that old to be remarking on their age. He was certainly younger than the officer talking to Naji whose dark brown hair was starting to grey. That man had to be almost as old as Katelyn’s father.

“Why didn’t you call the police?” the older man gently asked. Ignore the voices, she told herself, but the man had spoken this time.

Why didn’t I call the police? She asked herself. I was afraid. I didn’t want them to arrest my parents. The answers sounded small and pretentious. They would definitely think she was involved, especially since she was a witch. She knew what people thought about witches. That was a reason, too. Didn’t I have another one? A better one? She considered, but nothing came to mind. She opened her mouth but she did not know what to say.

Just tell the truth. The words were on the officer’s face, but he did not speak them this time.

“I... I don’t know...” she muttered refusing to meet his eyes. Is she involved? She could hear the thought spinning through his head. Then why say anything at all? That was why she had said nothing. They would naturally think it was her. Her parents had used her magic. She could not tell the police that. She could not tell them she was a witch. All the stereotypes, all the prejudice, all the hatred that had led her parents—her parents—to kill the babysitter they had found for her would come to the surface and drag her away to prison. She had stood there and done nothing and said nothing as she watched her parents—no, her mother—trigger Victoria’s asthma and then prevent her from reaching her inhaler. Her father had just stood by like her and done nothing, not to harm or to help. He had warned Victoria, though, so he must have known it was coming. At least, she had assumed it was a warning. It might not have been at all.

She was crying again. She lifted her hands to her face and shook her head. The officer led her behind the counter to another room further back in the station with no windows. It was fully lit but she could not help feeling that this was becoming an interrogation. She sat in a metal chair on one side of a metal table while the officer sat on the other. Naji and Ki had remained outside. She could not help feeling that it was not right that she was alone in the room, but at the same time, the officer seemed friendly with his old, wide smile.

“It’s okay,” he tried to reassure her, but she knew it was not.

Her mind kept spiralling back to the girl in Kindergarten. The officer’s large hands rested on the table as he tapped his thumb rhythmically to some beat she was not familiar with. She could hear the tune in her head. The words were coalescing, words unfamiliar to her ears. Rap music? It was English, but she still did not quite understand what they were saying.

“What is that?” She asked. The officer’s brow furrowed with confusion. The words are in your head, she reminded herself. But I have never heard them before. “You’re tapping a song,” she elaborated and let her gaze fall to the grey floor. The last thing I need is for them to think I have lost my mind, she chastised herself. They would never believe a word I say.

“Oh,” the officer exclaimed with surprise. “My son is in band. Do you like the song?”

“I’ve never heard it,” she admitted. The officer’s brow furrowed once more. “If you want to know about Miss Leste’s murder, you should ask my parents. They are the ones that did it.”

She knew the police would want to know her version of the events whether she did it or not because she claimed to be a witness, but she was sure this officer thought she was guilty. Instead of responding to her, his hazel eyes sharply assessed her as if he thought he would see straight through her if he kept staring. His eyes lingered on the tips of her hair and then traced the outline of her trembling fingers as she pressed them to the table. His eyes widened as they fell on her neck.

“So why would you hide your necklace?” The officer asked.

Great, he suspects, she thought as she faked a slight smile. “It’s nothing.” She should have been more careful of drawing attention to his tapping or lied to say she had heard the song before. Police could not possibly fault someone for having listened to a song. No, one lie leads to another. Never lie to the police at all. She had not really been telling the truth when she had told him that it was nothing. She had already gotten herself in trouble by not calling the police to begin with. She should have known she could not keep the truth concealed forever.

Closing her eyes, she exhaled. “Okay,” she whispered, and she told him everything for Victoria.