Free Witches Protection Program by Michael Phillip Cash

Twitter and Facebook to bury that bitch. Tomorrow you get the formula for the cream. We’ll expose the ingredients. Every show will drop her ad. It will be like dumping a pail of water on her. She’ll melt. Selfie! Let’s post to Instagram.” She plopped down next to her friend, her cell phone in her palm. “Smile!”
    “That melting thing only works in the movies, by the way,” Morgan told her sourly.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    W es stared dismally at the file, his face glum. The words swam before his tired eyes. He closed it with a snap and got up to grab a beer in the dimly lit kitchen. His apartment was small, on Steinway Street, over a souvlaki place that played Greek music day and night. The trill of the mandolins filled his space. The fan overhead circulated stale air. The smell of roasting meat from downstairs teased him. It was oppressively hot in his apartment. His parents had a place on Long Island, surrounded by trees. It was cool in the summer and warm in the winter. When he took his first apartment in Queens, he had been shocked by stuffy rooms. But as he missed the island, he loved the busy streets with the ethnically diverse, open -aired cafés. After he graduated, he’d backpacked through Europe, and Queens reminded him of Greece. He remembered visiting Delphi and learning about the Sybils. Wise women had stood over a fissure, releasing toxic gases that were said to turn them into oracles that foretold events. A reasonable explanation for something that appeared mystical. Legends of their prophetic powers made them sought after by leaders around the world. So, could they be regarded as witches too? he wondered. He learned about the witch hunts of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in school when he was a kid, as well. Midwives and medicine women —or cunning women, as they were called —were often persecuted because people didn’t understand the science of healing. The term witch hunt alone stirred up the concept of persecution. All they did was heal the sick or deliver babies. Science, he reasoned, explained the events taking place, but try as he might, he could not find science or even the logic in the Witches Protection Program. He leaned out the window, gazing at the large face of the moon, his mind swirling with thoughts of oracles, face cream, the girl, Alastair, and the idea of witches. Well, at least it wasn’t quite a full moon, he thought. Much less spooky, the waning moon. Hopefully by the time he finished this assignment, there would be no moon, and all this nonsense would be a memory. He turned to his small kitchen. Junie’s leftovers glowed gently with a pulsing green light. He should throw that crap out.
    The biggest surprise was his father’s knowledge of the program. Wes picked up a landline to call him. He punched in half the number and then put his finger on the lever, hanging up. He felt his throat clog, not knowing where to start. He had questions, so many questions, but even more than that, he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear his father’s answers.
    He held one of his new business cards in his hand, turning it over. He folded it and then watched it flutter down to the pavement below. His new badge lay discarded on the table next to the pop gun Alastair had issued him. He picked it up by the chain, swinging it around his wrist. The cool beads of the metal slapped his arm, winding tight. Then, he unraveled it faster and faster. Finally, he held it up, staring at the inane image of crossed witches’ brooms. He caught the shield in his hand, then threw it against the wall, where it slid down to rest near his shoes. He sat on his couch —a Danish modern salvaged from his folks’ basement —and put his feet up, his head resting on a pillow.
    Witches, he ruminated. I mean, could it be possible? He thought about Genevieve Fox. She was a sweet little lady, as tall as she was round, with a happy smile and wrinkled, blue -veined hands. Harmless, she was, with her soft chuckles and polite