A flock of dark-feathered birds gathered on the power lines, resting their wings in the cool evening air as they watched the wind blow a few fallen leaves across the asphalt lot, the occasional flickering of a streetlight illuminating the parked cars below. The last few people were shuffling into the auditorium of the local high school for an emergency church meeting; The few pews of the church itself not enough to hold the entire town at once.
Rows and rows of metal folding chairs were set up in what was usually a gym as people were gathered around a projector on wheels facing a wall where a school mural was obscured by a rolling sheet extended from the wall - only "CLASS OF '85" visible between the sheet and the short platform that was wheeled out next to it. A hastily-made transparent slide was being projected there with the words "SAVE OUR TOWN" illuminating the darkened room.
Eris sat near the front in her 'professional' dress clothes. She traded her usual baggy jeans for a long skirt that went down past her shins, a pair of black tights beneath her modest-length heels. Over that she had a long-sleeved sweater, one that completely covered her tattoo and blocked the judgmental eyes that usually lingered on her butterfly. Her shoulder-length hair was tied into a bun, though after a long day it was not quite as neat as it had been this morning.
She flexed her legs a bit, frustrated that she couldn't cross her legs on the uncomfortable seat without causing a ruckus for sitting improperly in a skirt.
Reverend Richards entered the room with an authoritative stride, the pomade in his slicked-back hair reflecting the fluorescent lighting of the room. Mayor Winstrom shuffled his feet behind him, the thin wisps of grey hair pointed forward as he seemed to struggle keeping his head upright. The difference in the two men was vast and their postures reflected that fact - it was a well-known secret that in his advanced age, Winstrom struggled to do any more than walk around, much less govern. Richards was quick to identify this weakness and swooped in to get de facto political power over the other man.
But Eris only paid attention to the third figure following in the shadows of the first two, her friend Shelby Bates who trailed by a few paces, her long brown braid bobbing slightly with each slow stride. She thought to ask why her friend was following in such great company, but kept that to herself when Shelby sat down in one of the empty chairs beside her.
"How did your interview go?" Shelby asked, settling in place with an old book in her hands. "I do hope you made a good impression."
"Not great." Eris clicked her tongue. "Knight seemed interested in my resume, but I felt like he had it in for me personally. I got the runaround on whether I could actually start working there or not. I think he's just looking for a polite way to say he doesn't wanna hire anybody with their hair dyed."
"I see." Shelby looked at the book in her lap. "Recently, there's been some discussion regarding the lack of qualified teachers in Fairhaven. I am unsure they have the luxury of being picky."
"Well, thanks for the vote of confidence." Eris smiled smugly.
"Oh! I didn't mean anything negative by that." Shelby looked nervous.
Eris tried to assure her that it was just a joke and she wasn't truly offended, but it appeared as though something else was bothering Shelby. Something about the book she was carrying. It appeared far too old to simply be called a 'book' - a word like 'tome' or 'artifact' seemed more appropriate.
"What's with the... book?" Eris asked, unsure if her word choice was proper.
"Oh this?" Shelby held up the object in question as if she'd only just noticed it. "It was requested that I help the church with a certain matter. The matter of - er - the two women they... discovered."
"Ah, the lesbians." Eris giggled. Shelby shushed her.
"Don't say that out loud." She looked around nervously to see if anybody was eavesdropping on their conversation, though in the crowded room it was unlikely anybody could hear over their own miscellaneous murmurs. "People around here aren't too... understanding of that sort of lifestyle."
"Sorry, the two naked girls discovered in the woods covered in sweat and hickey marks." Eris' voice was saturated in sarcasm. "Totally unrelated to anything sexual, I'm sure."
"Well, its' more than just those two... friends." Shelby sighed. "But people have been spreading other rumors, too.
"People have found their yards torn up, garbage strewn around neighborhood streets. Wild animals have been behaving erratically - it's as if they're not afraid of humans any more."
"Sounds to me like they're hungry." Eris smiled. "And so they're breaking into people's garbage and picking out what they can."
"Well, regardless of the truth, it has a lot of people very worried." Shelby picked at the corner of the book, scratching a bit of stray binding. "The Mayor had to call this meeting to get people to calm down to restore some civility."
"More like the Reverend called it." Eris scoffed. "The mayor can barely change his own diaper these days. I'm shocked he keeps getting re-elected but I guess nobody else wants the disgrace of managing a town full of idiots."
Their conversation ended there as the Reverend stepped up to a microphone stand that was behind the projector screen. Pulling it forward, he stepped into the glow provided by the projector and onto the elevated area just to the side of the image on-screen. The room echoed with the sound of him tapping the tip of the device twice - testing the audio as well as gathering the audience's attention.
"I thank you all for coming out tonight." He began in a solemn voice. "And I offer an apology that this meeting could not have been held in more optimistic circumstances.
"As many you already know, there is a panic seeping into our town over rumors of witchcraft and strange events surrounding witchcraft. Our local librarian Shelby Bates - who has been incredibly cooperative in our town's attempts to modernize our book selection - has been searching alongside myself and Ms. Crumfeld of our neighborhood watch for more answers to help assuage this panic.
"We have found most disturbing news. There is a witch living among us."
The crowd muttered among themselves for a while - The Reverend was an expert at letting people work themselves up for just as long as he needed them to. Eris wanted to roll her eyes, but the attention Shelby had just received meant it would difficult to do so without somebody noticing her attitude. She'd only come to this meeting to try and appear more involved in the community - something she hoped would increase her chances of getting a real job instead of skating around in a mini-skirt and pretending her boss really was touching her butt on accident five times a day.
The crowd grew silent as Reverend Richards raised a hand, his palm facing outward.
"Fairhaven was once a gathering place for dark arcane arts." He began.
"We have found an old tome in our library stating as such. It details their rituals, their habits, their methods of attack, and many more things about how to recognize and subdue a witch.
"This 'Tome of Witchcraft' was rediscovered by us for a reason! It is a sign from above that we are meant to take matters into our own hands! That our prayers have been answered! That we can drive out this witch once and for all!"
The crowd got to their feet, fervently applauding at the man who they now viewed as their savior. People cheered his name, jeered for the unknown witch, and began to wipe away tears that weren't there. Everybody except for Eris, who couldn't help herself. She scoffed.
Beneath the ruckus of the crowd, it would have been unlikely that anybody heard the noise or read her body language regarding the whole affair. But somehow, Richards was able to pick her out of the crowd - his eyes staring daggers into the girl near the front as he slowly raised a finger to single her out.
"Why are you not celebrating?" He asked. The crowd grew silent in an instant.
"It's stupid." Eris shrugged. There were a few gasps behind her.
"Ma'am, what is your name?" He asked. Richards' tone was totally neutral, no indication of what he was playing at.
"Eris." She replied. "Eris Alexander."
The reverend stepped forwards, briefly illuminated by the projector before he stepped fully into the light, shutting it off. At this, the house lights came on.
"Ms. Alexander." He spoke in a low voice, the microphone held further from his mouth, but not so far that the conversation was not still being projected. "Do you understand the extent of the danger we are facing?"
"Yeah." She said, taking the mic from his hands. "I know the danger damn well.
"There is none! Are you all serious? Witchcraft? Ancient tomes warning of dangers? Arcane secrets? What about logic? What about Occam's razor? You mean to tell me this hustler told you all we were being haunted by a witch and you all believed him? Calm down!"
The crowd had seemed to die down a bit, people were sitting once again and Eris swore she could even see one or two people turn to their neighbor and nod in agreement. It was good to see some sense come into the world, even if she had to raise her voice to make it happen.
"But what you fail to understand," Richards raised his voice, not bothering with the microphone. "Is that we still have unexplained phenomenon in Fairhaven."
He pointed to the crowd where the two girls who had been the center of every rumor for the last two days were sitting. They hastily let go of each other's hands when the some people started to face them and murmur.
"How do you explain the clear signs of possession that struck these two, young, church-going women? Is there any 'logical' explanation for them walking into the woods and removing all their clothes?"
"THEY'RE LESBIANS!" Eris wanted to shout, but she kept the words to herself. She thought back to her preteen years, when rumors of a young man being a homosexual had spread among the town and became the stuff of rumors, becoming more and more extreme before ultimately, that boy was driven out of the town after having been assaulted in his home. She was too young to understand what was happening and why until she was older, and the memory still lingered in her head.
Eris could not bring herself to risk the same thing happening to these two girls.
"Maybe they were just hot." She shrugged.
"Of course." The reverend shook his head. He reached out a hand to Eris, gesturing for the microphone which she handed over. Something was nagging her in the back of her mind that his calm expression was hiding something, but she couldn't get a read of it.
"Eris... Alexander?" He asked. "Is it not true that you have a pierced navel?"
She stepped back. How did he know?
She was usually careful not to flaunt her belly button in public around here. Back in the city it was much more acceptable, one of the reasons she had moved away from this small town in the first place. But when things didn't work out over there and she came back, she'd begun wearing longer, baggier shirts in public. Eris had always meant to remove the piercing one of these days and to let it heal, but she also didn't expect to stick around forever, just until she had the money to try to live in the city once again.
