Kate’s touch had given it a new life of vivid colors and crazy patterns that swirled and lagooned and soft forms moved over the dead bulb of her eye. The retaliation did not, however, affect Mistrial’s esteem, as it left her equally in grievance, and, just as Kate had in her seat of anger resolved to “solve” Mistrial, Mistrial took it upon herself instead to be the one to solve Kate instead, with the understanding that although two wrongs don’t make a right but and yet at some point along an intensive string of wrongs the maths open up to new, strange possibilities. Another slight hiccup in the otherwise blissful record of housekeeping occurred where, while in town selling produce, Heathcliff had broken a bottle on someone’s head and stabbed them in the face with the jagged edges. Nobody could really judge the matter as there were no witnesses. It was known that something had been said, some verbal exchange, between the two parties earlier in the day, but no witness had come forth with any sorts of outlined expression. In their hearts, the coven stuck with their own kind over the weak testimony of the townsfolk. Townfolk, they were convinced, were possessed of a stunted and mean spirit - if any soul at all. Like chattel, townspeople were domesticated, and domestication was antithetical to the spirit of witchcraft whose glorious spirit is to go beyond the ordinary, the known: to snap the pathetic killing jar of a social order unaware, or worse, accepting, of the closed system it recycled its shallow ideations in. After some reflection, Mistrial felt the face-stabbing was a wholly good thing, and merited no further speculation. She was glad of it, and clung harder to the object of her affection, who in turn was deeply ingratiated by the infamy of stabbing someone in a cold-blooded fit of rage and finding strong support for it. The next incident was somewhat more dubious, though, more embarrassing than anything, and they only heard of it because the Canary had whispered it into a tree hollow. The tree then snitched, all things being equal to a tree, to Valorie who was starved for any ounce of attention whether it be from trees or bees or hermits of the forest, cats, bats, raccoons, babbling brooks, bears, mutants, maniacs, and really anyone who would give her the time of day. According to the rumor, a few days back Heathcliff had excused herself in a hurry and the Canary, against all words of caution, had pursued at a distance to spy over this person she still considered a stranger and interloper in the household. When, at some distance from the house, she heard a loud wailing and there saw Heathcliff laid out upon the earth, clawing at her clothes, and there, emerging from her VA-GI-NA (these words the Canary apparently enunciated clearly and loudly,) was some sort of fanged intestinal snake that began yelling at Heath about returning to the Red Devils and how ungrateful she was, and how awful, how difficult it had been bearing her burden all this time, and the whole time Heathcliff pleaded and cried and ended up in such hysterics that the snake snapped and started biting her up and down her body and that’s when the Canary turned away and thought that other people ought to deal with their problems and not let them get out of hand like that and it was really no business of her’s anyhow. Mistrial asked Heath about the episode and Heath said it was a regular snake attack and she must have squatted over it to take a piss and was so surprised she collapsed on top of the poor thing and in trying to escape must have aggravated the assault beyond ordinary and the Canary spied this and invented a fanciful story around it. Kids these days. Mistrial preferred believing that to the horrible mysteries of the crotch snake. The whole affair came to a head for poor Canary when Heath casually let slip around Kate that the Canary was blabbing secrets into the hollows of trees again and Kate's eyes lit up the way they do when someone runs afoul of her constantly shifting and semi-mystical Non-Aggression Principle. Overhearing this, the Canary, who happened to be rounding the corner with a bowl of hot soup, threw it down Heath’s back and ran out the house, leaving Kate to deal with Heath who was understandably fit to be tied. After some wrestling, Kate convinced her to let the kid be: that this was her house and as the matriarch she would see justice prevail between the two parties. So Heath and Mistrial snooped endlessly to find out what punishment would be metered out and found Kate Hex talking down to the kid who was wringing her decrepit little hands over and over like she were trying to scrub something out. Kate was really laying into her and gave some direction for her to stick out her tongue and the Canary stuck it out, and Kate grabbed hold of a sudden and yanked like she expected to come away with it. The Canary slapped her hands around her mouth dumbstruck and Kate walked away. The kid clutched her granny hands tight over her mouth, and picked her way over the sodden leaves plastered to the garden walk. Then ran up to the fountain edge and stuck out her tongue to catch a glimpse of the reflection, observing it from every angle. Totally normal. But it was the last time they’d ever hear her speak. All parties were pacified.
