Shouts from her friends were heard, mumbling from others. Stares and shock, whispers that turned louder filled the now static room. Some cheered on the officers.
"Yeah, get these little girls out of here!" a man yelled from the second row wearing a baseball hat and a shirt with Rob's old political logo on it.
Tilly turned helplessly to Jen who pointed to Rob watching on with satisfaction. He was enjoying this.
"You have no right to quiet her," Jen yelled over the din, but Rob's eyes never wavered from tracking where the two men pulled Jessica from the room, the double doors opening to the night air before closing them in.
"What the hell is going on?" Bess asked Crystal who had a look of trying to work out a puzzle.
"They can't do that, can they?" Kelsea asked Carol who shook her head.
"No."
But the word was drowned out in the fragility of the environment they stood in. This was not their room, these were not their people, and their rights could easily be silenced without repercussion.
"I would suggest you sit down, be quiet, and let the night continue," came Rob's confident voice, cutting through the chatter. "Or better, leave. You understand now that you are not welcome here."
They turned as one to look at him.
The women and one man in blue tipped up their heads, and standing shoulder-to-shoulder stared at the man at the front of the room, their bodies tight and full of a different kind of magic - feminine rage.
The room vibrated, knocking everyone's attention around, looking for a cause. There was a steady energy coming from the thin line of blue; it caused confusion and wariness. Tilly could feel anxiety stabbing at her from so many places and when she looked around the room her eyes connected with the wide-eyed stare of Freida.
Did she fear them?
Freida's eyes, not hidden by the glasses hanging on her chest, did not move from Tilly's stare as something moved in thewoman. She tried to discern what the woman was feeling, but there were too many emotions tangling up inside of her to be able to pick one person's emotions out.
Finally, she broke eye contact, a severing of something as her eyes shifted down in a move that Tilly understood well.
Jen laced her fingers through Tilly's pulling her attention to her friend who still stared at the man and now the three figures standing behind him, making a powerful statement.
There was one moment, one shift that was a blink in time, where Rob's bravery cracked, but then it was back. His face hardened, his smile widened and then Astra pointed to the door.
Yells were thrown at them.
Telling them to leave.
Threatening the witches to never come back. To leave town. To take their magic with them and let their town become a shadow of its past. They stood together at the back of the town hall as Rob's voice echoed the library with false promises and threats against tolerance. His eyes carefully jumped over their forms as he spoke and the sneaking looks of others felt like pinpricks.
When Astra strode toward them at the end as others mingled in clumps, Ursula looked to the others with her arm around Bess and asked, "What's the plan?"
"Someone needs to get Jessica," Eloise replied, but before anyone could move they were being descended upon.
"The bravery of witches is always an attribute I will admire," Astra said as a greeting.
Crystal smiled. "Your own bravery is noted." Her words were kind, her smile sincere, but Astra narrowed her eyes at the sneaking honesty. Then she turned her shrewd eyes to Tilly.
"I confess, I've always been attracted to the taboo."
"I'm sorry?" Tilly asked frowning.
"Witches and vampires. Relationships are taboo," she said matter-of-factly. She leaned forward, her smile unkind when she asked, "Has he bitten you yet?"
Her frown deepened but before she could answer Astra said the words Tilly had opened from an envelope further confirming their origin and intent. "Ortes fortuna adiuvat." The vision of her kissing Theo, the odd feeling and anxiety that had taken ahold of Tilly resurfaced. She had used magic, but was it to play or to do something much darker? "It is the bold that will win this. Don't forget. A small group of common women who look for signs in the stars with a mediocre touch on magic cannot move mountains."
"You," Tilly said, stepping forward, a surge of anger filling her, "are the problem here. You and your witchy stepford sisters came to our town to do nothing but cause trouble and pin it on us." She took another step toward the severe woman who watched her without emotion. "We don't know what your game or your goal here is, but we will find out and we will take you down."
A collective silence surrounded them. Astra's eyes never left Tilly's. Then the woman closed the distance between them and gently tucked a piece of emerald hair behind Tilly's ear, her long fingers cold.
