Season of the Witch

Chapter 3: The Replacements

They parked the stolen car a few blocks away from the school and walked the rest of the way back. Hopefully they would be able to sneak into their beds without everyone realizing that they had been gone the entire night. It was quiet.

Zoe glanced sideways at Melanie, who appeared to be lost deep in her thoughts. She suddenly realized that she had forgotten something important. "I never thanked you for helping me."

Melanie blinked and glanced at her briefly before looking straight ahead again. "We're witches. It's what we do."

"Madison didn't," Zoe said. "She left me."

"Madison's a bitch," Melanie stated matter-of-factly. There was no getting around that. Zoe smiled slightly, but the corners of her mouth fell with Melanie's next words. "What are we gonna do about him?"

"Kyle?" Zoe asked, scrunching her brow slightly. "Didn't we already decide to leave him with Misty?"

"That's only a temporary solution," Melanie said, frowning. "We need to start thinking of something more long-term. His biggest problem, aside from how poorly he was put together and the fact that he should be dead, is his lack of control. I'll try to see if there's something in Cordelia's stash that can help get his head straight again. If he can function normally, he might have a shot at a real life."

"What if she catches you?" Zoe asked.

Melanie shrugged. "She lets me borrow her spell books from time to time for studying purposes. So, even if she sees me going through them she won't be suspicious."

Zoe was really glad that she had Melanie on her side. She didn't know how she would have gotten through all of this without her. She probably would have managed somehow, but it was reassuring to have such a dependable ally. She frowned slightly though as she thought more about Kyle. Melanie was right. Kyle couldn't live a normal life the way he was. She and Madison may have brought him back from the dead, but he wasn't the same boy they had met that night. He just wasn't himself anymore. She wondered if it was because he was having trouble sorting out his memories. "Do you think it would help if we took him back to his family?" she asked. "It might help him recover faster." Melanie looked at her and furrowed her brow a little.

"Maybe," she said. But there was a possibility they might not accept him the way he was now. "It depends on how well Misty can heal him. If we're going to return him to his family, we'll need to find out more about them. See whether or not they'll be able to handle it."

Fortunately, Cordelia had been too consumed with her fertility ritual with Hank to notice how extended their absence was. And if Fiona had, she didn't care enough to mention it. So Melanie spent most of the morning searching for the spell, until Zoe tracked down and called Kyle's mother, Alicia Spencer. She wanted to see her. Partly to prepare her for Kyle's return, as Melanie had suggested, and partly to try to alleviate her own guilt for everything that had happened to him since they met him. Zoe was nervous about meeting her, so she was glad when Melanie asked if she wanted her to come too. And that was how the two girls found themselves down in the Ninth Ward, sitting on a sofa in the house Kyle grew up in, while they watched his bereaved mother cut up some hash on the kitchen table and load it into a small glass bong. Since she wasn't good with sensitive stuff like this, Melanie had decided to let Zoe do most of the talking.

"So what made you come to see me?" his mother asked. "No one else has bothered."

"We've been feeling so haunted. It all seemed so unfair, so random," Zoe said earnestly. "You know, a truly decent person like him. We can't even imagine what it must be like for you. Losing your son." The girls watched as his mother lit the bong and inhaled deeply. She coughed and looked up at them. Then she crossed into the living room to join them.