2022, March 23th

Collapse - 27 years

After Sibyl's outburst, Sakhir went to talk with her privately. They returned as Katherine was getting ready to head home.

"I'm really sorry," Katherine said as she gathered her supplies.

"It's okay." Sibyl was calm, although still a little frosty as she sat at the table. "I'll get used to it, but you should warn people before doing something like that again."

"But I couldn't! I had to trick you. It was the only way to get you to do it, or else you would have expected it to fail, and it would have."

"Hmm," Sibyl seemed doubtful.

Sakhir spoke. "If you ever think you can trick me into improving my power, you have my permission to go right ahead."

"Same here," Josephine said.

"Same," Christof added.

"Okay." Katherine brightened. "I do have some ideas I want to try on you guys, but I guess I should probably keep it to myself."

"It is your call," Sakhir said. "Josephine? Sibyl? If you'd drive Ms. Faulk back home?"

They did. Katherine was back to her old excitable self by the time they dropped her off. Josephine walked Katherine to the house while Sibyl waited in the car.

Her father answered the door. He looked as he always did when Josephine dropped off Katherine: tired, worn, and old, despite being in his thirties.

"Hi, daddy." Katherine hugged him.

He returned the hug awkwardly as though this was unexpected behavior. It probably was. Ever since Josephine had approached Katherine that day at school, she hadn't once reverted to that shrunken version of herself that slunk away from her tormenters. That was a different girl.

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Her father disengaged. "Do you have any homework left?"

"A little."

"Then why don't you go do it and let me talk with our guest for a moment."

"Okay," Katherine agreed readily enough. No reason not to. Her father wouldn't remember any conversation he shouldn't.

She turned to Josephine. "You'll pick me up tomorrow?"

"I will."

"Cool. See you then." She disappeared inside.

The father turned to Josephine. "I don't think we've met," he said.

"That's right."

"Name's Allen."

Normally Josephine would wipe his memory and walk off. She didn't though. "Nice to meet you."

"My daughter has been spending a lot of time with your kid. She never got around to telling me who they are. You're not Allison's mother, are you?"

"No. Not Allison. Jesse." Jesse had been a safe name Katherine and the coven had agreed upon for a cover story.

"Never heard that name before. I'm not too surprised. I have to waterboard that girl to get her to tell me anything about school. How long has she and Jesse been friends?"

"Not long. They met last week."

"Huh. Just that long? Well something's really working out. I haven't seen Katherine this way in years."

"How is she normally?"

He seemed to consider whether to get into it or not. "It's been rough. She's been having some trouble at school with the other girls. I really only know what I hear from the teachers, but it's been pretty bad. Really bad actually. It's been affecting a lot at home. I can't tell you how relieved I am to hear she's spending time with someone. This week it's like she's actually back to normal. Wouldn't tell me for the life of her what's changed. So how've they been spending their time together?"

"Oh, you know. Whatever kids do these days. They spend most of their time in their room."

Allen nodded. "I'm just glad she's spending time with someone. I'd say they're welcome to spend time here too, but I don't want to rock this boat."

"Is it just you and her?"

"Yeah, it is. She lost her mother a few years ago."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

He shrugged it off. "Her mother and I were separated. Kat though, she lived with her mom. The thing is, coming to live with me meant changing schools, and that's when everything went sour. I was honestly considering transferring, or... something. Just get her back to her old school. Maybe that could help. I can't tell you how relieved I've been this week."

"Yeah." Josephine forced a smile. By this time next week, this man would be contacting the police about his missing daughter. Kat would be happier with the coven, but that didn't make Josephine feel any less nauseated about what they were about to do to her father.

"Anyway, thanks for dropping her off," Allen said. "I hope I'll be seeing more of you."

"Yeah, I hope so too," Josephine turned and headed down the walk way. Allen waved goodbye. Josephine cleared his memory before he closed the door.

She got in the car where Sibyl waited behind the wheel.

"Why'd you stay and talk?" Sibyl asked.

"I don't know," she replied. "I shouldn't have."