M Sellars - Never Burn A Witch

“Some,” I returned.

“Some my ass,” Ben spat. “He scared the piss outta all of us at the last scene.”

“What happened?”

“Long story, man,” Ben shook his head. “You’d think I was nuts if I tried ta’ tell ya’.”

“You had to be there, Carl,” Agent Mandalay offered in agreement. “There’s no way to explain it and keep it from sounding like some kind of fantastic tale.”

“Well, we are talkin’ about Rowan here.” Deckert gave me a half-hearted, knowing grin.

“Let’s just say that when we put two and two together, all of a sudden your call wasn’t much of a shock,” Ben explained.

Deckert made the connection quickly and glanced from Ben and Constance to the pool, then to me. “So you mean you predicted this murder? You’ve done that sorta thing before. No big deal, right?”

“I wouldn’t say predicted really. More like someone on the other side went out of their way to make sure I knew exactly what it felt like,” I answered then paused as the remembrance made me shudder. “In any event, it was a little too late to do anything about it I’m afraid.”

“What it felt like?”

“Drowning,” I explained.

“You mean someone wanted you to know what it felt like to drown?”

“Yeah,” Ben answered for me. “In a bone dry apartment, nowhere near water.”

“So, how?” Deckert pressed.

“Let’s just say my lungs are still a little damp,” I replied.

He just looked at me and muttered, “Weird.”

Agent Mandalay agreed softly, “That’s the word that came to my mind too.”

A large burst of bubbles shot through the surface of the water on the other side of the pool, and the shiny neoprene-covered head of the diver poked through. A raspy exhale through the regulator hissed into the night as he clamped one hand on the side of the deck and removed the mouthpiece with the other. He spoke briefly with the coroner and senior evidence technician before finally nodding and sliding back beneath the surface, trailing a rope behind him.

The tech looked up from the hole and glanced across the short expanse at Carl then gave a curt nod. The aging detective let out a steamy breath and announced quietly, “He found the body.”

The talk of my recent otherworldly contact prompted me to recall the reason I was present at this crime scene to begin with. As much as I feared what I had to do, I knew I needed to get on with it. I realized fully that opening my senses to the surroundings would not necessarily bring useful information, though I dearly hoped that it would. I was patently aware, however, that it would most certainly bring a handcart full of painful emotions and Technicolor horror streaming directly into my very soul.

The dim glow of the diver’s flashlight was starting to grow brighter, and small eruptions of expelled air bubbling up through the surface of the murky water were coming at increasingly regular intervals. The coroner’s assistant and a burly crime scene unit tech were steadily and carefully pulling on the rope that had been attached to the body.

We stood watching the macabre scene unfold under the harsh glow of the halogen lights. Oblique blue shadows cut across the still forms of the officers on the other side of the pool giving a surreal appearance to their stoic faces. Each gurgle of bubbles that broke the surface of the water seemed to echo louder in my ears and reverberate through my body.

Slowly my chest began feeling heavy, and I noticed my heart was rattling mercilessly against my ribs. Bitter fear surged upward from my bowels at the thought of once again feeling the water in my lungs. I was only seconds away from panic when the first of two cinder blocks appeared above the edge of the ice as they were dragged from the turbid depths. I exhaled heavily, and it instantly dawned on me that I was not reliving the drowning, as was my immediate suspicion. I had simply been holding my breath.

The twinge of panic subsided, and I continued to watch across the expanse of smooth, crystalline snow to the gaping wound in the sheet of ice. I was amazed by how silent the scene had suddenly become. The only sounds to be heard were the rhythmic bubbling of the diver’s expelled air coupled with the wet scrapings of the two concrete weights rubbing against one another as they were wrestled from the hole. Even the multitudes of police radios riding on the hips of uniformed officers and in the hands of detectives seemed to have fallen unnaturally mute.

I was concentrating so hard on what was before me that I scarcely realized my meticulously erected defenses had fallen of their own accord. I wasn’t even aware that my hand had crept over to begin tearing at a violent itch on my forearm.

A tangle of blonde hair finally breached the surface of the water and was slowly followed by the nude body of a young woman being skillfully supported by the diver. From where I was positioned, I could easily see that her arms were bound tightly behind her and that the rope stretched down her back to encircle her ankles.

As she was lifted out of her recent and final hell, and gently placed on an open body bag, profane sound once again returned to the night. The clamor of the camera crews, blaring police radios and murmurs of the gathered spectators began assaulting my ears as if they had never stopped.

I understood then that the silence had never been real at all. It had merely been a product of my own deep-seated reverence for the passing of a life.

“Female,” Carl mumbled sadly. “Looks like Ben and I were right.”

The maintenance worker who had helped clear the snow and ice was now gesturing to the coroner and pointing beyond the fence. Even at this short distance, we were unable to make out for sure what was being said, but it appeared that he knew the victim.

“I think they might have an ID or something,” Ben spoke. “I’m gonna go see what’s up. I’ll be right back.”

I was completely unprepared as the sharp stab of light pierced my eyes and burned mercilessly into the back of my skull. Color fled from my surroundings in a whirling tempest of shattered psychedelic glass as the illumination bloomed again and then slowly subsided. Disjointed sounds crashed in distorted waves against my tortured eardrums, and fear drove a steely spike into my heart as the grainy black and white inhumanity played itself out in my mind.

I am bound painfully.

I cannot move.

I can barely breath.

Tape covers my mouth and I cannot cry for help.

“Robert! Where are you? ROBERT, HELP ME!” My scream is trapped between my teeth, only to be swallowed in a bitter lump.

This can’t be happening.

No! This can’t be happening!

Who are you?

Why are you doing this to me?

What have you done to Robert?

“ROBERT!!!”

There is a voice speaking to me.

It is the one who asked me the questions.

The one who hurt me.

“Christine Liann Webster, in accordance with the thirty-third question, in as much as you stand accused of the heresy of WitchCraft by another of your kind, and as you have refused to admit these crimes, remaining still impenitent, and that on this day evidence of your heresies has been found…”

Evidence?

What evidence?

What are you talking about? WitchCraft? I don’t understand.

I am freezing.

Why did he bring me out here in the snow?

Why are we next to the pool?

What is that noise?

What is he doing?

“ROBERT, HELP ME!!”

“…In as much as you have been found guilty, and that you are damned in body and soul, you are hereby sentenced on this day to death. To be executed immediately and without appeal in the manner of drowning. May the Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on your soul.”

“…Is Christine Webster,” Ben’s voice muscled its way into my ears, forcing me back to reality. “Maintenance guy over there ID’ed her. Apparently, she lived in a condo about half a block up this street. Got a coupla uniforms checkin’ it out.”