"Ew," Eloise and Bess said in tandem, bumping fists as the women around the fire discussed how this seems to happen so easily; the dissolution of community and culture of a group into the armed and elbowed acquiescence of bowing to the men with their boots on necks and trampling on flowers as they take and take.
"And then you left," Tilly said to Crystal, who was sitting in her Adirondack chair quietly amongst the feminine rage, bringing the conversation back around.
Crystal nodded, her eyes on the fire. A look of remembering it all.
Jen leaned forward, her words soft, her heart no longer demanding. "And your best friend, she was one of them? She believed whatever this covenant group believes?"
Crystal's eyes turned up to where Jen watched her, and she nodded again slowly. The sadness there, the heartbreak couldhave been grabbed with hands and felt like a piece of cold marble. Betrayal was a thing so heavy that when a person was willing to let another see it, uncover it from where it had been hiding inside of them after years of pain, moving on, new love and the occasional visit with fist-to-heart, there was a communion.
Crystal passed that communion to Jen, and Jen took it gingerly, understanding the intimacy of this. The fire turned green, and the sky above them matched in a marbling of green and blue with starlight diamonds.
"They're here because we aren't supposed to be," Ursula's voice cut through the chatter and the moment.
"Wait," Kelsea held up a hand. "Are we made witches?"
"No."
"Then, they're just scared of us?" Carol guessed.
A great breath was pulled and held inside of Crystal before she nodded and replied. "I think so."
"And they are going to wreak havoc on Salem until what, we disband or agree to not do magic?"
"I'm not sure," was her soft reply.
Crystal was a strong woman. She was only soft in how she touched, but in every other action this woman would not be described as soft or uncertain. She did not love softly or with uncertainty. And she did not speak softly or uncertainly. Until this moment.
It was felt amongst the women. They bent closer, their eyebrows furrowed and hearts wrenched. Fireflies flickered close around her, and the vine of honeysuckle that trailed up the kitchen window curled closer, wrapping around her chair leg as the trees bowed their heads lower. Portia and Cleo took to closer branches.
Jen clapped. "Well. Fuck them."
Everyone looked at her. Eloise's mouth turned up on one corner. Casper tilted his grey head, and one of the prozac dogs jumped into her lap as she made a decision. She thought of Cora, and she thought of the signs that were beginning to pop up around town, weeds among gardens alluding to dangerous women.
It was the start of what could come. She knew that. It started benignly.
We want our town to be safe.
Everyone did. Everyone could get on board with that. It would be difficult to find anyone who would disagree and say that no, they would rather have a dangerous, violent town.
But then the message morphed. It became more pointed.
More targeted.
More personal.
It wasn't just about danger; it was about a particular group of people that they felt created that danger, that posed a threat. And hey, they already got people on board with the original sentiment that made sense - danger is bad. So maybe they would lose a few followers, but psychologically and historically, when the same person or group takes a well-received message and starts twisting it to fit their agenda without telling anyone along the way, well...then suddenly those signs aren't about dangerous towns.
They're about targeting entire groups of people.
"I'm fucking tired of being targeted. Held down. Being told what to do, what not to do. So yeah. Fuck them. I don't know how, and I don't know what it means or looks like, but I'm ready to fight it. For us, for Cora, for all the women who have been branded by a name just because she couldn't be controlled."
Bess smiled widely and raised a fist in the air. "Hell yeah!" Ursula gave her a look, and Bess shrugged. "This doesn't seem like a time to tame it down."
To which Ursula gave a look of concession and shrugged her shoulders before she raised her fist in the unnaturally cool July air and said, "Hell yeah."
More fists lifted until the trees waved over them and the stars pulsed, the fire turned pink and orange.
Bess and Eloise were drying dishes as a few others were discussing important matters with Crystal, matters of which Ursula made clear Bess not need bother herself with.
