Chapter 19
BEA
Whatever Mom and Dad are paying for this shitty therapist, it’s too much. She’s supposed to be helping me ‘work through’ what happened at Bittershore, but I’ve little sense of pushing through. It feels more like I’m being dragged back there, over and over again.
Some memories are made to be suppressed.
I can’t tell my parents that, or they’d be on at me to, Come home to California, darling, where they understand the analytic process.
I figure the shrinks of San Diego have their hands full with my addict dad and neurotic mom.
Maybe that’s why I moved in with Bridget.
If ever anyone was a shoulder to cry on, it’s her.
But now Pierre Martineau’s dead, thanks to Harper Fenn, and Bridget’s gratingly cheerful little cottage is wreathed in a miasma of grief.
Still, I’m going nowhere. I’m where I want to be – inside Sandra Ortiz’s campaign.
I pause on the doorstep of her office. Give myself a little shake to throw off the negativity of that therapy session.
Reapply my lipstick, a classy nude shade Sandra sometimes wears.
Then I lift my chin, as I’ve seen her do every day since Luka’s arrest, and push open the door.
We’ve both been asked why I still work for her – and whether I should.
At one point I worried either the Feds, or some Congressional standards office, would put an end to my interning for her this summer.
A potential ‘conflict of interest’ given I’m one of her son’s victims. Back in the weeks right after it happened, I overheard one of her political advisors arguing that continuing my internship could be perceived as trying to buy me off.
If the girl doesn’t testify it’ll look bad, Sandra, he told her.
Oh, I’ve no doubt Bea will testify, she’d replied, tartly.
When I confirmed that formally, and notified the police, some lady cop with a fake-sympathetic voice asked if Sandra was putting pressure on me about what to say, as if I was going to get in the witness box and deny that Luka strung me from a tree as a sacrifice, or stammer, It could have been him, Your Honour, but it was dark and I’m really not sure.
As if.
No, Sandra and I are on the same page. We both want to fight this scourge of witchcraft.
To the world, our alliance doesn’t make sense – the mother of an accused boy, and the girl who’s accusing him – but to us, it absolutely does.
Whether Luka acted on his own initiative, was influenced by another witch, or was even outright controlled by their magic like a puppet, I’ve no idea.
My hope is that the trial will delve into that, so I’ll get some clarity on what happened to me.
My part in this remains the same – to tell the truth.
The words Luka said to me. What he did to me. I’ve nothing to fear.
It’s malefs who should be afraid.
‘Bea. A moment?’
As I head to the shared workspace, Sandra’s waiting in the doorway of her private office.
Her expression is neutral, though she’s such a good politician no smile or frown would tell me much anyway.
Her poise is always so effortless. She’s amazing – not like my mom, half the time sobbing all over the place, the other half bottling it up so painfully and obviously that you want to shout at her to let it out.
But my stomach churns. Does Sandra feel she has to let me go after all? Have Luka’s weird comments at his pretrial hearing changed anything?
There’s no one else in the office as she closes the door. My ribs tighten with anxiety. Does she think I’m going to cry, like my mom, and she’s sparing me an audience? No. I can’t lose this placement. I won’t! There must be some bargaining card I can play.
Sandra sets the coffee machine grinding, then places a strong Americano in front of me.
Our eyes meet – she’s heard me talk often enough about how I was driven nuts by Mom’s green-tea-only rule at home, and had to sneak Starbucks into the house – and then she smiles.
A genuine one. Something inside me unknots, and I sip the coffee to calm myself as she stirs creamer into her own.
When she starts talking, it’s about Luka.
How much she loves him, but how hurt she was by his little speech about persecution, and whipping up fear.
‘This aggressively magical version of Luka isn’t my son, Beatriz.
Not if it means he’s choosing his witch heritage over me.
He’s been brainwashed.’ She looks genuinely distressed, no politician’s game-face trying to spin the positives.
‘I want my son back, free from whoever’s been influencing him.
More than that – free from magic itself.
And I want to make sure magic can’t harm other families like mine, like yours, ever again. You want the same, don’t you, Bea?’
I nod.
‘And what if magical potential could be cured. The ability removed completely?’
I don’t even have to think about it. There’s something so unfair about magic.
So unjust. Sure, I’ve heard the argument that it’s simply one more ‘natural difference’.
Some witch-rights activist grabbed me on campus once.
Shoved her pink-haired, pierced-eyebrowed face right up against mine and said, How’s it different to being born pretty, Beatriz.
Or born clever? Chance of birth gave you those advantages – would you be prepared to give them up?
Then she’d smirked when I didn’t have an instant reply.
What I would have told her, if I hadn’t been so upset by her bullying, is that witchcraft is different.
Sure, looking good can make others favour you, or be sympathetic or take an interest. Intelligence usually gives an advantage in class or in the workplace.
But people still have control over how they respond to you, whether they let themselves be flattered, or impressed, or whatever.
Witches can ensure you don’t have a choice. That’s what Sarah Fenn did to my dad.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I’d want to see it cured.’
That genuine smile again. Sandra leans in as she asks me to accompany her to take notes at a meeting Michael Whitman has arranged.
‘Completely confidential, so I can’t take my official-payroll staff.’
Prof. Whitman’s involvement makes sense when she explains it’s with a former Mount Rowan Hospital researcher and their Big Pharma investor who’ve apparently spent years investigating whether there’s a pharmaceutical way to inhibit or eradicate magical potential.
‘As you can imagine,’ Sandra says, ‘they want access to our Registration data. And maybe more. Maybe some volunteers for human trials.’
The principle of this is so important. At present, only magicals can bind other magicals and restrict or destroy their power. That’s no guarantee of safety for the rest of us. Our authorities should have that ability too.
‘I’m in,’ I tell Sandra. ‘However I can help, I will. And there’s something else you should know …’