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I figured that whatever role I was playing, I couldn’t just stand by and let this happen. “Whoa, what are you people doing?” I demanded.
“You saw what the device said. And you’ve felt magic, yourself,” Abigail said.
“I don’t know what I felt, and I’m still not convinced by your gadget.” I turned to the driver. “What, exactly, did you see?”
“She waved her hand at the walk signal, and it changed.”
“Oh, come on!” I said. “Who hasn’t done that kind of thing when you’re impatient with waiting? I know I do it all the time—‘When I count to five, the signal will change. When I wave my hand, the signal will change.’ That doesn’t mean you made the signal change. Was it seriously out of sequence?”
“Well …” he said, dragging the word out and not meeting my eyes.
“You want to see proof of magic?” Abigail said. “We’ll show you magic.” She turned to the woman. “Show us some magic,” she demanded.
“I don’t know what you people are talking about,” the woman said. “You’re all crazy.”
Although she was lying, I thought she was right about the crazy part. Is it gaslighting if the people you’re lying to about what they see are already crazy in a different way? I didn’t think that telling them the truth was likely to help them or change anything about the way they saw the world. It would only make them more dangerous.
If the puppy guy was who I thought he was, I’d learned what I needed to know about this group, and I’d had enough of them. I doubted burning a bridge here would kill my investigation. I stepped forward and said to the driver, “Was she hurting anyone, even if she did maybe change the signal? Not that I’m saying she did.” I looked around at the rest of the room. “If there is magic, all any of you have described is petty little stuff. Don’t you think if there really was magic, it would be a lot bigger and more important? If there were wizards, wouldn’t they be doing more than stealing potato chips?”
A couple of people nodded thoughtfully. “But …” the driver began. “But it’s not fair,” he finally said.
“So it wouldn’t have also benefited the other people around her who also wanted to cross if she’d really changed that light?”
“It’s not fair to the other people who can’t do it,” he argued.
“And it’s not fair that some people can sing and my voice makes dogs howl,” I shot back.
While we argued, the “witch” took advantage of her captor’s distraction to extricate herself from his grasp. It took him long enough to react that she had a chance to get out the door and be well down the hallway before he
thought to go after her. I hoped she’d used her powers to hide herself or to get completely away. It could get ugly if we had to send magical people to rescue her from this bunch.
To cover her escape and keep the rest of the group from forming into a mob to go after her, I stood in the doorway, put my hands on my hips, and said, “If this is what you’re all about, I don’t want any part of it,” I said. “What is this, Salem? You’re acting medieval. If magic is real, I think it would be kind of cool, not something to be afraid of or to blame my problems on.”
The woman whose chips had allegedly been stolen stood up. “I’m with her. I’ll admit, I feel cheated that I never got my Hogwarts letter. If there’s magic, then maybe it’s something wonderful. I may not have magic, but that doesn’t mean I have to act like a Muggle.”
Abigail opened her mouth to protest, but another person in the group stood up. “Dragging in someone suspected of witchcraft was a step too far for me,” he said. “I’m out.”
More of the group took courage from their example and joined us. Soon, it was just Abigail, the bridal show lady, the guy who claimed to have been forced to buy liquor, and the puppy guy against all the rest of us. The ones who’d stood all looked to me, as though for guidance. I didn’t know what to do with them—start a new movement, the people who believe in magic but think it’s kind of okay?
For the moment, the best I could do was walk out. If they followed me, that was up to them. They did follow. When we were on the sidewalk outside the church, they clustered around me. “What do we do now?” one of them asked.
“Live your life?” I suggested.
“I mean, about magic,” she said.
“What do you think you can do about it? If it exists.”
They all looked at each other. “We can expose it,” one of the men said.
“Why?”
“So people will know,” he said.
“And then what?”
They didn’t have an answer for that, so I said, “It was nice meeting you, but I need to get going,” and hurried away.
I ignored the sound of running footsteps coming up behind me. “When should we meet again?”
