Witchlight

Part 6 of "The Scarecrow"

I’ve said before that this is a town composed of strange things, to the point where the strange and whimsical is completely normal, but an attack of witches is something we don’t experience every day.

If someone told me this would be the result of that barn and scarecrow showing up in a field overnight, I’d think they were nuts.

Much like that morning with the barn, my office was filled with the constant ringing of phones, but unlike that morning, there was a lot more panic. A barn is harmless. An onslaught of witches is not.

Our local witches and warlocks had been holding this coven back in the woods for the last several days, after one of them got brave enough to manifest a bull from her wand. I guess things didn’t go well last night.

The office was being bombarded with calls about green lights and lightning strikes being seen over various parts of the town. At first, I thought it was just citizens seeing the combat in the woods, but then we got a call about witches breaking into homes.

I never thought I’d see the day where the town would be turned into a warzone, much less a magical one.

When one of the warlocks, Allard Vonner, told me the situation looked like it was going to get out of control, I ordered my officers to block off parts of the town with our vehicles and stand guard with shotguns. Most of the townspeople were safe behind us.

We could see the flashing lights of the battle in the woods, and I still couldn’t believe this was all over a scarecrow. Well, it wasn’t just because of a scarecrow. It was all about revenge and humiliation. Still, it started with the barn and the scarecrow.

Some of my older officers mentioned they felt like they were fighting street-to-street in Europe again, and I couldn’t blame them. It wasn’t exactly fun standing here, waiting for the fight to come to us. Everyone tensed when we saw someone running toward us, but we were immediately relieved when we saw it was just Elsbetha, one of our witches. She kept looking over her shoulder as she ran, and stopped in front of me. “Sheriff Blakely,” she said, breathlessly, “Madam Farina sent me to tell you that Mr. Martin Weston has been kidnapped. We saw him being dragged into the forest.”

“What the hell would they want with him?” I asked.

“His connection with Raincrest, I think. Or perhaps as a bargaining chip. She wants you to accompany us to rescue him.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re going to rescue Raincrest, too. You spoke to him. You have a connection with him.”

________________________________________

I figured getting the scarecrow back would end this sooner. After leaving Deputy Ahern in charge of the barricade, I went with Elsbetha to where the other witches and warlocks were gathered. It was a small cabin near the lake, pretty close to the fighting.

“I see getting Blakely was no problem?” Vonner said.

“No problem at all,” Elsbetha replied.

“Good.” Vonner turned to me. “It’s a pleasure to see you again, sir.”

“It’d be a pleasure if this were under better circumstances,” I said. “What’s the plan here?”

Madam Farina stepped forward, laying a map flat on an old wooden table. She pointed to a red circle in the middle of the woods. “You see this? This is their hut. All of our prior scouting missions have found this is the only building they possess in this area.”

“That should make it easy to overrun, right?”

“We wish. With the amount of witches we’ve been encountering, and how they’ve been surprising us by appearing out of nowhere, I think they have a tunnel system.”

“We just haven’t found any entrances yet,” Vonner added.

I thought for a moment. “Have you looked in any unusual places? Like tree stumps, or rocks? I’ve heard plenty of stories from POWs who used stuff like that to escape German camps.”

Vonner looked at Farina. “We haven’t, actually.”

"That’s the first thing I would do. The other thing we need to find is how extensive they are, then block them somehow.”

“That’ll take time, and it’s probably time we don’t have.”

“Well, it’s better than doing nothing at all, and we can start picking them off while we’re at it.”

The magical folk in the room glanced around at each other, then nodded. “Considering we have no other ideas, I think we’ll go with yours,” Farina said.

“OK.” I looked back down at the map. “I can get some officers to help so we can split up and cover more ground. I’ll call the next town over to let them know what’s going on, see if they’ve been having any problems. That’ll give us an idea of how far the witches have spread, and perhaps we can get some more help. We’ll need a numbers advantage.”

________________________________________

As the sun started setting, the flashes of green light from the fighting in another part of the woods were getting brighter, clashing with the warm red-orange hue of the twilight sky. We spent that afternoon and evening scouting the woods and checking every nook and cranny for tunnel entrances.

Believe me when I say it wasn’t easy job. Checking everything became tedious. Despite an urge to go into every tunnel entrance we found, I knew it was best to wait until we knew where each of them were. My plan was to block every entrance by having people at them, armed and ready. Vonner said the best thing to do was destroy any confiscated wands---witches and warlocks are powerless without them.

I overheard Farina mention she wanted to deal with her daughter herself. I’m not one to get involved with family drama, but I did ask why.

“This whole skirmish is Evie’s doing,” Farina replied. “If anyone can disarm her and make her tell her coven to stand down, it will be me. If she refuses . . . I’ll let you handle her.”

“The last thing I want is for this coven to start killing people,” I said. “The lives of everyone who was kidnapped come first, and I’m worried your daughter will take advantage of such a distraction to dispose of the hostages if they haven’t done so already.”

“That’s why I’ll wait until you rescue the hostages. Witches are manipulative, and we can’t let them have the upper hand in anything. Those tunnels are their turf, and we have to turn it into ours.”

I nodded. “If anything happens to your daughter, I’m sorry it’ll have to end that way.”

“It’ll be her own doing. She should never have challenged us, or assumed we’re weak because we chose a different path in life.” A sad look came over Farina, and I offered my hand. “I’ve never expressed how grateful I am for you and the non-magical folk of this town for taking me in all those years ago.”

“You came before I was born. You don’t have to thank me.”

“But you’ve still been very accepting, just like the men and women who came before you. I’d like things to stay that way.”

Nodding again, I gently took my hand away. “We can talk more when this is over, OK?” I looked out the window, the green flashes getting brighter as the sky continued to darken. “I can’t promise we won’t fail, but we’ll damn well give this fight our all.”