Cyberwitch Academy: Learn or Burn

Chapter 76

I'm sitting face to face with my father in a window booth at the Confessional Café.

I'm trying not to let him see how sick I am. I'm trying not to melt into his arms and cry.

Right now, I'm just not sure who he's working for. And through the cracks in his own mask, I can see a glimpse of the whole bundle of things he ain't saying.

But the love is there, and that's the hardest part.

"In the Priory, they don't bring in news from the outside. I tried, but it's no joke in there. You sign away your freedom when the treatment begins." His voice brings back a lost world.

I reach across and put my hand on his. His eyes well up, but he keeps his voice steady. It's hard for me to do eye contact, but I make the effort for him.

"I had no idea the Witch Hunt thing was so serious. We all thought it was a media circus back in New York."

A sad song starts from the back of the café where a tiny stage plays host to a jazz singer dressed as a nun. There are net booths, but they're dressed up to look like confessionals. The whole place is designed to look like a 1940s American Bar mashed up with a Catholic church. The clientele likes to dress up.

I scan the crowd, trying to figure out how many of these people are working for the Hunt. Is dad setting me up?

"The Hunters must have talked to you." I'm gauging his response. Waiting for the lie. hating every second of it.

"Yeah, they grilled me for days. I only hit the street this morning."

"What did they offer you?"

A long pause. He's agitated now. Biting his lip, trying to formulate words. I let him flounder.

"They're not bad people Ursula, they're just trying to do a difficult job."

I stand up, pulling my hood over my eyes and my mask up over my nose. He grabs my wrist.

"Ursula, you're in a cult. You've been brainwashed my darling. Please baby, listen."

And I stop, in spite of myself, like he's slapped me. What if he's right?

"Will you just hear me out? They gave me some notes, something to help me talk to you. Please baby, you look so sick. You can leave any time you want."

I sit down real slow and he unfolds a crumpled piece of paper and starts going through these bullet points.

"Number one, the Witch Cults target vulnerable people, particularly people who have just lost a loved one, often one or both parents, and they target young people especially traumatised girls."

He's reading fast, like he thinks I might leave before he gets through.

"Number two, they research your personal history and find out what you believe and then they use it to explain their version of the world back to you, with subtle manipulation. Does that sound familiar, does any of that ring true?"

Um, yeah dad the bell is rather loud. I think, but do not say.

And I'm thinking how my whole belief system was mom, she was the centre of the universe and suddenly the witches are saying that mom really was the centre of their universe, she literally made their whole world, Ursula you are the daughter of our greatest hero, Mel's tattoo was it even real?

How could I not become one of them? How could I not join the cult my mom created?

Dad sees my look of horror, and he goes on.

"Number three, new recruits are isolated, cut off from family and friends, not permitted to contact anyone and are kept permanently in the sight of their chief abuser, often known as a Spider."

I want to throw up. I'm frantically scanning back through my memories of Mel. Was she always manipulating me? Was she, my abuser?

"Number four, the victim is subjected to humiliations, mental, emotional and physical tortures. Often this is done through a device called the Secret School where new recruits are set up to fail and publicly humiliated for doing so. Once shamed and 'expelled' they can be sold as assets to street gangs."

I think of the little jobs we have done for the gangers to keep ourselves afloat since we were thrown out of the Secret School, never really asking who got hurt in the process, nor really who got paid.

"Number five, the victim is rewarded for behaving more like a cyberWitch by being lavished with attention by attractive 'sirens' being given expensive new clothes and a new name. The message of 'us and them' is constantly repeated. Everyone outside the cult is 'A Witch Hunter' or part of 'The Mob'. Conflict between cult factions keeps the young witches too frightened and too busy to ask too many questions. Cult leaders speak in riddles, making it impossible to ask rational questions."

"Please stop." My voice is so weak I barely hear it. I'm trembling. I'm staring into my coffee.

"Finally, point six. The Witch Cult uses a real biochemical weapon known as the Rhizome to weaken their recruits physically and mentally, and makes them dependent on remedies only the cult leaders have access to."

Deep inside me, the crying lady, La Llorona is trying to tear apart the bars of her cage, trying to swallow me up and drown everyone in the bar with her. But Sadie is also with me, and she's whispering something else. But I can't quite hear the words.

"Ursula I'm going to the loo, and if you're still here when I get back, I'm going to take you in a taxi to the airport, and we're going to fly home tonight. They promised me they'd send the twins over as soon as I get you off British soil. I want you to come home Sula, but it has to be your choice."

"Mom's alive."

He stops still for a second as he stands up, and for a fraction of a second, I see his eyes dart across to a man at the bar. Sadie's whispering gets louder.

"We can talk about that on the way to the airport." This voice doesn't even sound like him. Now he walks slowly, deliberately affecting calm, to the toilets at the back of the bar.

And I realise what Sadie is whispering, use the shivers. So, I do. I call a research demon to identify everyone in the building who is moving in a way that would indicate espionage training. Five agents identified with more than 96% probability.

The singer is singing something about how people just ain't no good.

I walk into the confessional booth, and I close the door, and lay my hands on the net access point. And I fill the local network of the bar with raging demons. All the lights go out, the kitchen explodes, all the bottles and mirrors and glass in the building shatters. In the chaos I run out through the broken front window and jump onto the back of Mel's bike. The rush of air on my face dries my tears as we fly down the central reservation.