Chapter 74
LIVESTREAM
‘A WITCH’S APPEAL TO AMERICA, BY LACHLAN FREY’
I am giving myself up in the hope it will reveal to every American what your government is doing in your name to children, to families, to people you know and those you care for.
This includes scientific experimentation, secret drug trials, improper use of force, invasion of privacy, arbitrary detention.
That’s a lot of legal-sounding stuff. Sort of thing you might hear in courts.
But in plain words what they’re really doing – and what we as Americans should be long past ever doing again – is separating out one group of people.
Suggesting they shouldn’t be treated the same as the rest. We know where this path leads, and our politicians should be ashamed to have set their foot upon it.
Big claims. You’ll want evidence. So at this moment, I am also releasing to national and global media outlets a cache of documents – let’s call them the Redhaven Files – from within the campaign orchestrated by Sandra Ortiz.
They will prove that discussions took place inside government about unethical research intended to harm people with magical ability.
Research that in some cases has been conducted in Canada, to enable deniability.
Yet more documents reveal the shocking numbers of children and young people violated by forcible testing under the new Act, their DNA harvested and made available to corporations.
And also included is correspondence sent to Ortiz’s campaign by people boasting of assaulting magical folk, or volunteering for a witch-hunting militia, or describing in sickening detail their fantasies of harming witches.
I am not suggesting the Ortiz campaign approves of such actions or ideas.
But neither is there any record of her office reporting these dangerous individuals.
And the fact they felt their violent hate would get a sympathetic hearing from her campaign shows you who the anti-witchcraft alliance truly creates space for. And it’s not decent, regular Americans.
To all of you, my fellow citizens, I owe an apology.
My recent behaviour at the Montreal experimental site may have stoked your anxiety about magicals.
I certainly, as my friends have told me, lost my cool spectacularly.
But that had nothing to do with being a witch and everything to do with being a loving father.
My innocent daughter was kidnapped in the name of their so-called research.
Sandra Ortiz wouldn’t expose her own child to risk.
No, Luka Ortiz’s magic was removed by magical professionals.
Instead she made my daughter a guinea pig for untested drugs.
For what I did that day, I apologise. For why I did it, I make no apology at all.
Not a single parent or caring adult among you would have acted differently.
You can probably hear the helicopters overhead, now. And that shouting? It’s members of the Capitol’s security team demanding I give myself up. Hey guys, stay calm, that’s exactly what I’m here to do. Just a few more words.
I know what will happen to me next. I’ll receive the same drug they injected into my child. It’ll strip out the very heart of myself – my magic.
I submit to this so that you, my fellow Americans, may understand the great wrong being done to those who have only ever used their Gift to help others.
The wrong being done to many of your friends and neighbours just because they were born a little different.
I beg you to raise your voices and tell your representatives, your government, and your President that this is un-American and is not done in your name.
No more Salems!
[Frey lifts his handcuffed wrists above his head to show he won’t shape any spells.
The circle of supporters around him breaks open as he turns and walks toward the Capitol.
They chant: No more Salems! No more Salems!
Filming continues as Frey is swarmed by security, knocked to the ground and tasered.
Police begin dispersing the protesters, but the camera ducks and wobbles to capture glimpses of Frey’s unconscious, strapped-down body being stretchered into a black van. ]