Salem's Witches (Neitherlands Book 1), page 4
Veronika showed Paquita her badge, while Sarah shielded herself with her arms. “We’re Salem’s Witches, and we are investigating a crime. We have reasons to believe whichever organization crafted this item might be involved. We need your help, so will you tell us what this is?”
“That’s an amulet of the church of Quackology, that’s what it is!” Paquita held the broom high, seemingly ready to unleash it on both witches if they made any sudden movements or said the wrong thing. “And whatever might have brought you here with that…that thing, I must say we do not have anything to do with such a cult nor do we want to. Now, leave!”
“But wait!” Sarah said from behind her arms, “We need information on this. This could save lives. Could you at least point us toward someone who might know of this…church?”
Paquita lowered her broom. “You really know nothing of it, do you? There are very few adherents of it who’ll be open to answering any questions you have. However…” Paquita grabbed a piece of parchment and wrote something. “There’s this woman I met, not long ago. She has dealt with them, and she no longer follows the faith. She might be able to teach you about it.” Sarah was about to grab the note when Paquita pulled it away from her. “But you have to promise to destroy this piece of evidence as soon as you find this woman, and never speak of me to anyone involved in this…case.”
Veronika assented and grabbed the paper quickly, before Paquita had time to change her mind. “Thanks. We’ll go now, but may I ask…what is it about their god that makes you fear him so much? I’ve heard stories of many of the gods, but none of them seemed to be scary enough to make somebody act like…like you just did.”
“Dear child, it’s not their deities, whatever those might be, that I’m afraid of.” Paquita’s expression tightened. “It’s their lawyers I dread.”
Betelgeuse took a sip of coffee and read the note he held again: A parrotgram. A bloody parrotgram, delivered straight to him by none other than Desiderio Marcano’s pet parrot. Actually, it had been a crow, and the pesky animal had refused to just hand him the note, instead forcing him to chase it all the way to a café.
In the note Desiderio asked, or more accurately demanded, that Betelgeuse stopped whatever it was he was doing to go chase three bored housewives nobody cared about because he felt they might be important for a case. He closed the note with nary a good wish and the most hurried, smudged, ugly signature in the world.
As if that old fool knew anything at all about leading an investigation. He had been born rich and used that money to build a criminal empire extending through most of the Neitherlands, but to Betelgeuse’s knowledge Desiderio had never worked a day in his life. All he did was order people around and act as if he knew how things were done.
Then again, he paid well, and Betelgeuse was much too fond of money to let Desiderio know where he should stick his absurd requests.
“Anything else?” A voice startled him. It was the waitress, probably the most peculiar one in the city: Tall, thin, with her hair made up in what looked like long worms and a strange aura that made you think she was about to fly away like a god-damned crow. She was also sexy like nobody’s business.
Betelgeuse stuttered. He almost answered with something completely inappropriate, then thought better of it: Hitting on waitresses never ended well. “I— I think I’m done, miss.” He tried to say it in a flirtatious manner, because who cared if things didn’t end well, and failed spectacularly. “Unless you happen to know how to find people in this city, in which case I might offer you a position as my aide. My last one left me, and what’s a private investigator without an aide to do all the work for him?”
The waitress smiled. “A private eye, in my café? That must make this day the most thrilling one of my work here,” she said. “Then again I just started today, so the competition is rather…null.”
Betelgeuse put his coffee cup on the plate and handed it to her. “Shame, you already have a job. As you know, there are plenty of mysteries to be uncovered by the likes of me.” He caressed his electric blue hair, the same hair most people thought would make him a terrible investigator thanks to its inability to go unnoticed. “Perhaps, if you wanted, we could set up an interview. You drop this annoying old place and start working a real job with a real man for a boss. Maybe make a career out of it, who knows? The opportunities are endless.”
The waitress smiled at him again. Perhaps the smile meant he was hitting the mark. “Why don’t you tell me about your current investigation, then? Perhaps I can help you with it from this little café. You’d be impressed what us waitresses learn on the job.”
“You bet I would,” said Betelgeuse. As far as he knew, there were two types of waitresses: the ones in it because it was a paying job, and the ones in it for the gossip. The latter were the ones who secretly kept tabs on each of their customers, eavesdropping on their conversations and trying to learn all they could about their private lives—in some cases with the intention of blackmailing them later.
The second kind of waitress always made a great private investigator. They were, if anything, the unsung heroes of crime stories, for it was they who often held the information necessary to crack cases.
“Who are you looking for, then?” The waitress maintained her smile.
For an instant, Betelgeuse thought her black eyes turned red. He blinked, then they looked black again. “Three women. They like playing the investigators, or so I’ve been told. Can’t say I’ve run into them on any of my cases, but I do recall having read of them in the newspapers once or twice. Usually with pictures that allow you to see…” Betelgeuse thought better of commenting on the witches’ looks in front of the waitress he was supposedly hitting on. “…their faces.”
“You mean Salem’s Witches?” said the waitress. “They’re there, if that’s who you’re looking for.”
Betelgeuse looked through the window and indeed there they were: Two thirds of the trio he had often seen in pictures, walking along the street with nary a care in life. In person they looked even better: The silver hair of one begged to be grabbed, while the second, thinner woman with the wavy black hair, just begged to be chased after, right away.
He did neither of those things, although not for a lack of desire. He just happened to be barely professional enough to keep his work separate from his fun, and enough of a law-abiding citizen to avoid doing things that would send him to jail. Most of the time.
“I have to go after them!” he said, getting up and hastily throwing money on the table. “You can keep the change, think of it as payment for your help with this—” He took two steps toward the exit, then stopped. “By the way, what was your name?”
“Just call me M,” said the waitress. He hadn’t noticed at the time, but she had taken off her apron while they spoke, or when he got up. She also appeared as if she intended leaving the place.
“Well, M…you think we’ll meet again?” said Betelgeuse, expecting her to let him know she was going with him to see the investigation through.
“Sooner than you think, my dear. Sooner than you think,” she said, leaving the store ahead of him and…in the opposite direction to the witches.
Betelgeuse sighed the sigh every womanizer keeps saved for the many who got away and left the café, hoping his two targets wouldn’t escape. For a moment it struck him as odd that a crow, which he didn’t know Desiderio used, would bring him a message then refuse to hand it over without first leading him to the very place his targets were going to walk through.
Then again, stranger things happened. In New Wakilork, they happened every day.
In his hurry to catch the witches, Betelgeuse didn’t notice the waitress hadn’t bothered picking up his money. Or letting anyone know she was leaving. In fact, he couldn’t know it, but she hadn’t even bothered to get hired there at all.
All civilized societies in the Neitherlands, and arguably everywhere, have something in common: Their people take pride in what they call ‘common knowledge’, this being those things everyone knows to be true. Going against said knowledge isn’t forbidden, but it is often ill advised as said behavior can bring hurtful comments passed behind the rebel’s back, disgrace, segregation, jail, and death.
Practicing science in New Wakilork, where the College of Wizardry was all too ready to take control of the city were the Dominion to fall, wasn’t just defying the common knowledge that magic ruled everything. It was more akin to punching its face, throwing it onto the floor, kicking it a few times, spitting on it for good measure, then writing the parrotphone address of its sister on the walls of the nearest public bathroom.
Laura was aware of this, and therefore she did her best to help Atoms in his experiment as little as possible, even when her curiosity pushed her to ask about everything she could.
Or it would have pushed her to, had they done anything at all yet. So far they had only walked all the way to the top of a hill while the gray skies grew increasingly darker and an impending storm went from being a possibility to becoming a reality.
“I think it’s going to rain,” said Laura, who had been wary of the skies since they left the house.
“I know. Isn’t this exciting? I’ve been waiting for an afternoon like this for weeks!” Atoms stared at the dark clouds like a maniac. “Now, please open that bag and take out Experiment Item Number One, then hand it to me.”
Laura opened the bag, looked inside, and found a kite—a pink kite with flowers and all kinds of adornments to make it pretty. She took it out, hoping there would be something else in there, but there was nothing. The crazy man had made her walk all the way to the top of a hill while a storm was brewing carrying nothing but a kite, all under the guise of an experiment.
Laura wondered if perhaps the real experiment for the old fool was finding out if her dress would shrink under the rain, although that didn’t explain the kite. She wondered if he was a maniac who also enjoyed stealing toys from children. “Atoms…there’s only a kite here. A little girl’s kite.”
“I know, I know! Bring it over!” said Atoms, rubbing his hands together and staring at the increasingly dark skies. “This is so exciting!”
Laura brought him the kite.
“This is going to be great! Now, I want you to hold the kite here while I run over there, then when I tell you you—”
“Are we really flying a kite? What kind of twisted experiment is this?”
“It’s not just any kite, miss. This is the kite that will redefine everything everyone believes in!”
“It looks like just any kite to me. And I can’t see how a kite could change anything. Are you sure you aren’t—”
“I bet you didn’t see the key,” Atoms said just in time to keep Laura from calling him crazy.
Laura looked at the kite again and indeed, a tiny silver key was tied to its center. Now it was a keyed kite. Still not a good enough reason to get wet and risk pneumonia.
“Atoms, it’s just a key. What are you trying to prove here? The most that can happen is that, if the key is too heavy, the kite won’t fly. That’s it.”
Atoms put his left hand on his forehead. “Laura, this is real science. There’s this theory, called electrozity. With this experiment, I shall confirm it.”
“And how would this experiment go, pray tell?” Laura couldn’t believe the man’s folly. She was also somewhat curious as to what he planned to achieve, and a part of her even wanted him to succeed, if only to learn something new.
“You ever seen lightning?”
“Everyone has, Atoms.” Laura had no time for political correctness, so she disregarded blind people. “What’s so special about it?”
“It’s made of electrozity, of course. And I’ve come up with this theory. Electrozity is attracted to metals, so—”
“So if you fly this, lightning should strike the kite?” Laura wasn’t sure if the man was crazy or just suicidal. She suddenly felt better. She was only going to get wet, yet if the experiment worked, she could foresee a worse future for the scientist.
“Indeed. And with that I’ll confirm that lightning is not just magic Nariko hurls from the sky at unfaithful men and random things!”
“What if the kite were one of those random things she decided to strike with lightning?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, my dear, it doesn’t suit you.”
With that, Atoms took the string and ran away from Laura while she held the kite. When he reached what one could expect was a decent distance, he stayed put for a bit. And then, when the wind picked up, he motioned for Laura to release the kite.
The kite flew up immediately, while the first drops of rain landed on Laura, Atoms, the kite, the bag, and pretty much all of New Wakilork. Atoms flew the kite with a grin, as if it was the most excitement he’d had in years.
They waited under the rain for a while. Laura tried covering herself with the bag, but the wind made it impossible to. In the end she just felt lucky her dress didn’t shrink, although she was sure it would be ruined once it stopped raining.
Then lightning struck, once. It landed just a few meters away from the kite. Another followed, also barely missing the kite. The third, four and fifth ones followed the same pattern, and the sixth one found no reason to deviate from the norm. The seventh one, the smartest of the lot, managed to miss the kite by barely a few inches.
Atoms, who had been holding the kite steady, seemed to grow impatient with this development. Soon enough he was trying to steer the kite towards the lightning, always failing in his quest. A second set of lightning struck, twenty more strikes missing the kite, as the storm took over the hill and the city.
Laura thought it impressive how Atoms had managed to get lightning to strike so many times in succession in such a small area. It was as if every single lightning strike allotted to the storm had been sent there for a festival, and all of them had been explicitly asked to miss Atom’s kite for LightningFest.
Atoms didn’t seem to find LightningFest at all amusing, growing visibly angrier by the minute. Soon enough he wasn’t just steering the kite around trying to catch the lightning, but also jumping, running, screaming and, during a particularly shameful moment, rolling in the dirt. None of his actions made lightning hit the kite, which had by then earned several awards for the sturdiest kite in history. All the other kites in the city, and in the whole of the Neitherlands, would from then on hope to be able to weather a storm in such an amazing, impeccable fashion.
Laura stared at Atoms, who didn’t seem to care about his award-winning kite, still doing his best to get it destroyed. The kite refused, with every bolt of lightning missing it. He kept running around, screaming bloody murder and attaining nothing at all. Laura feared the old man would get a heart attack and die while she watched the sad, yet amusing spectacle.
Eventually, something did happen: The kite’s string finally gave in to the constant punishment, breaking and allowing the storm to steer the kite away from the hill and from Atoms, who stared at it in disbelief.
Any pretence Atoms had kept of being a civilized being went away with it. He jumped in rage and screamed, ran around, yelled incoherent phrases, threw himself to the ground and pulled on the grass. He got up again. He ripped his soaked shirt in anger. He grabbed a handful of dirt and put it in his mouth. All in all it was quite the scene—the kind that would likely have landed him a leading role in a theater company, or a room in the sanitarium he had managed to avoid. Meanwhile Laura stared, unable to do anything and with no clue of what she was supposed to do with the tiny old man who had finally snapped.
Then he regained the ability to speak. “This is all the gods’ fault!” he yelled. His voice was loud enough to be heard above the storm. “I know I’m right, but whenever I try any experiments those cowards ruin it! Curse you, Nariko, for sabotaging me!” He raised his hand and pointed at the sky. “I curse you and all of your god friends! But you will see, oh, you will see! It is not over until the fat lady sings! One day I will succeed, and on that day you will become my bi—”
Lightning struck again, but this time it didn’t land anywhere near the kite. It struck Atoms right on the head.
That was the end of the kite experiment.
Annabella Bostwick walked through the school halls. She had never considered herself as a teacher, but after getting the chance to do it, she had liked it just enough: There was something about helping mold younger minds to become upstanding citizens and avoid joining unsavory groups that fit her perfectly.
She entered the meeting room, expecting to find a couple worried about little Timmy’s misbehaving, or asking why little Tina had been forbidden from going to the park with the rest of the classroom.
The two women there stood up as she entered. “Hello, I’m Miss Bostwick. I can’t say I recall having seen you two around before, may I know who your child is?”
The women stared at each other and laughed. “Sorry about the mix-up, Miss Bostwick,” said the one with silver hair. “But we don’t have children—”
“And we’re not a couple,” said the woman with the black locks. “I’m Sarah, and my friend here is Veronika. We were wondering if we could ask you a few questions for an investigation we’re leading.”
“This is rather…uncommon,” said Annabella. “I’m supposed to be teaching children right now. May I know what this is about? I must say I had never heard of, well, anything being investigated in this city.”
“That’s because we’re not with the Dominion, Miss Bostwick,” said Veronika. “We’re Salem’s Witches, and we’ve been told you could help us with an investigation. I know this might not be the right moment, but we need to move ahead as quickly as possible.”
Annabella smiled at the women, wondering why exactly they thought a simple school teacher could help them. She couldn’t recall having committed any crimes recently, or ever, although she was the kind to secretly fear somebody would take over her body at night and force her to go out and kill people.
