The sound of Ruby's laugh surprises me and I walk out of the bathroom confused, wondering what's happening now. My girlfriend has been really stressed these past days, working nonstop, getting ready for our trip to New Orleans, worried about the witches' suicides, gathering information, taking care of her coven... Suddenly, I realize it's been a while since the last time I heard her laughing and that's why it felt weird for a second. I hope Savannah's grandmother can help us to find out what's going on because I really miss my carefree tattoo artist, the woman who loves drawing flowers on my skin and making out with me on the chair of her parlour.
"What's so funny?" I ask sitting on the bed while Morgan watches me patiently, waiting for me to lie down so she can look for a comfortable and warm spot between my body and her mistress' to sleep. I lean my back on the headboard grimacing when my hunter fidgets nervously in my mind because of the powerful spells around us although there's nothing he can do and calms down eventually.
"This book... It's one of those we bought at Chelsea Market, I found it among the possessions, quartz crystals, bottles and bowls of the unknown witch..." Ruby chuckles again while I lean over her shoulder to be able to read the title and stare at her in disbelief.
"Babe, that's a Malleus Maleficarum, it's not funny at all... thousands of witches were killed because of this horrible book... It helped inquisitors to find our sisters, supposedly, and gave them instructions about how to torture them to force them to confess they were doing businesses with the Devil."
"Thousands of innocent people, instead. Real witches aren't easy to capture even when hunters chase us and we're able to fight back and escape most of the times, besides, we help each other and Mother Nature protect us so only a few sisters died. However, they killed old ladies with knowledge of healing herbs that could be found in the forest, midwives from small villages, young girls that other neighbours reported because they were jealous, people who were used as a scapegoat to hide worse crimes... Even famous doctors with wealthy and powerful patients that were dying of an unknown disease preferred to accuse women of the family of being witches instead of admitting they didn't know what was going on or how to help them..."
"Still not funny..." I complain frowning.
"It is, I mean, the death of so many innocent people is not funny but when you read the book... some passages are surreal, the things they're talking about are ridiculous, it's so absurd that I can't help laughing sometimes. The Malleus Maleficarum was published in 1486 by Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger, two inquisitors that got permission from Pope Innocent VIII, and it was a great success... The most read book after the Bible, the bestseller from the 16th and 17th centuries. When you read what this Kramer guy wrote, you realize he was crazy obsessed with sex and women, Dr. Freud would've found a gold mine to psychoanalyze inside the head of that cruel, superstitious and fanatic asshole. He saw witches and impure sexual acts everywhere, a healthy mind cannot imagine such a perverted stuff, in fact, he wrote hundreds of pages to explain that every woman is a witch and if she thinks for herself, she's even more dangerous... Listen: the mouth of their vulva is insatiable, that's why they need to give themselves to demons to be able to get satisfaction..."
"The man was insane... You know what? Every time I listen to the speech of a fanatic, misogynist and sanctimonious guy, I can't help thinking that deep inside those pathetic men are terrified of us... and I wonder why... If they know how little we care about them and how insignificant they are..."
"I agree with you," Ruby nods turning some pages of the book. "Kramer spits poison against women in every word, which shows that he was really scared of us."
"Or maybe his mom was mean to him and he projected his insecurities onto all of us..."
"Could be... Or the sexual abstinence drove him crazy and was oblivious to the reality that normal people were living, he was really horny and really crazy to picture those kinds of wet dreams in his mind. He was obsessed with the idea of witches turning men impotent..."
