Periphery

The Witch

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“She was my neighbor.

As I mentioned earlier, yes she came to meet me last week. It was her first visit here after her scandalous wedding. She as you must know, eloped with her music teacher who was already married.

No, we weren’t friends. Her crowd was different but she was always kind to me. I feel bad as I couldn’t help her last week. My grandmother liked her too, maybe because we were the same age. In fact she looked younger than her actual age. She was an extrovert no doubt about it. She was the only child of her parents but her folks were not too lenient with her as the others might say. Things changed when she started mingling with the wrong crowd in her teens.

I believe that’s when she met her husband, she was too young to comprehend the gravity of the situation. She did what she had to without knowing what she was doing. She was seventeen, ready for college. He was… I think thirty years old, married with kids.

I heard it was a shotgun wedding but she had a miscarriage. I bet she aborted the child. I know she was capble of that. It’s a decade old story.

She came here for some help.”

“What help?” The officer in front of me was in his late forties. I liked his moustache. Not everyone can rock a moustache. Beard is an overrated accessory on male faces. His partner was in his mid thirties, clean shaved and an amateur scribbling on a notepad trying to impress his senior.

I knew the minute, they entered in that they were the harbinger of bad news. They carry the stench of death in them. Aisha came last week with a request. She wanted to cast a spell on her unfaithful husband. She caught the bastard red handed. Her eyes were dry but swollen.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

I knew she wanted revenge. Her whole aura was a bad energy, I had to burn sage to purify the air after her departure. She came to the wrong place. I am not a witch to cast spell. I can sit for séance and see things that I don’t like to mention and wish I could stop.

My granny used to say, “You don’t say no to a gift”

I doubt if it’s a gift to see what I see. Sometimes I prefer to be blind. Ignorance is bliss.

“She wanted help?” The young officer looked at me.

“To cast spell” I don’t like to lie about my profession.

He gave short glance to his senior who’s eyes were fixed on me. My cat Nana purred and rubbed her body against him. She liked him. Nana is black persian, she is eighteen years old. Usually cats do not live that long. But Nana doesn’t listen to anyone, not even time. I bet death itself is scared of her. I don’t see it hovering over her. Like I saw it around Aisha last week.

“So are you a… Witch?” The amateur asked me. I nodded but couldn’t help smiling at the lack of their knowledge.

“You can call me but I do not cast spell. I do not have a wand or a broom, or pointy hats”

“Do you have cards?” He asked out of innocent curiosity. His senior cleared his throat and apologized to me.

I have cards but this wasn’t about it. There were checking alibis.

“Aisha’s husband was found dead in an alley with bullets in his head; shot at point blank. He was a professor of a degree college and as the record says and you confirmed, he was indeed having an affair with one of his students.”

The senior officer meant business.

“Yes I read newspaper. It was all over the local news channel” I could feel the irritation building up.

“I believe there’s something missing here.” He looked at me straight in the eye and I understood what he meant. His amateur junior started calling Nana but she’s never listened to anyone.

“You do not believe how simple the case is. Anyone can kill the professor. But Aisha had the main motif. You think she killed him.”

“Yes but How?” the amateur asked.

“There is a world where energies work and Aisha unlocked it somehow. Her hate won. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. She had to pay a price and she did. She got her revenge but on what cost?”

The amateur gave a short laugh.

The senior officer looked troubled. “We believe in proofs and logic”

“If it is so, why did you come here to meet a witch? You could have asked Aisha’s parents or her husband’s lover. You came here because your logic failed or your logic brought you here”

The officer gave me paper which was inside a Ziploc. The amateur looked shocked.

It was letter written in blood. It was a declaration letter. My hands trembled as I read.

“Aisha was found dead in her own pool of blood. Perhaps she didn’t know it but she was with a child. I do not know what to make of it. It is beyond what my apprehension. Forensic report claims the time of death of these two to be same. I… Do not believe”

Aisha’s voice rang inside my head. “Help me” she had asked me a week ago in this same room. I couldn’t shake this feeling what she had done to herself and the child.

As the officers stood to leave, the chairs creak a sound. I could smell the blood and I knew it then. My vision had return with blur periphery, the chairs rock back and forth. I tried to ignore the sound as I escorted the officers away.

Inches away from my ears, I could her voice saying “Help me”