The traffic accident out on highway 14 caused a stir in Madrid, as the townsfolk knew tantalizingly little about the men involved in the car crash. Some, however, mysteriously knew them surprisingly well. The fact that they were all French nationals also made a bigger splash in the local news, which was featured on TV the whole week following the accident. It was almost a month later when Simi heard that the two men who survived the mishap had recovered and were released from the hospital. It was particularly unsettling to her when she additionally heard from her parents that they had returned to Madrid in another car and were frequenting certain residences in the village again. One such house belonged to the owner of the department store, Mr. Trenton, the father of Curtis.

Though the summer vacation was almost over, and the high school aged children of Madrid would be taking the bus into Santa Fe soon, Simi had not seen nor talked to Curtis since the unfortunate incident in the store when his father claimed she had attacked him. She was still attracted to the tall and handsome seventeen-year-old, and had not forgotten her visits with him in the store. Her latest images of Curtis' fantasies—which seemed to come to her annoyingly constant and lurid, were about other girls now who seemed older and looked much like the ones she had happened upon briefly, while mistakenly accessing a porn site on her new computer. Sometimes she would continue to eavesdrop on his thoughts about them, but more often than not she would simply tune them out as they were uncomfortably sexual.

But the fact that, according to her father, people had seen the French travelers coming out of the Trenton house, as well as several other homes in the village, was truly troubling. It was not only suspicious to certain residents—reporting this as gossip in her mother's restaurant, but the incidents also did not sit well with Luis and Gabriella. Their earlier conversation with the County Sheriff about the men did not yield any more details about their origin or purpose for being in Madrid. The officer told them the French victims of the accident had not broken any laws, nor were they persons of interest to the authorities in any way. Most likely just tourists. Responding to the men's alleged threats, the position of the Sheriff's department was to 'just not to get involved in conversations or arguments with them in the future.' Though the officer did tell Luis confidentially to report any other verbal abuse or suspicious behavior his family might observe

As Simi readied herself for the last week of August and the beginnings of her high school experience, she had not given up on her hobbies of drawing peculiar creatures and magical elements in her room. She also began that month to read voraciously on her new laptop computer. The subjects of that reading now involved, besides the typical teen interest in vampire and werewolf tales, something which also piqued her interest in the occult. She had harbored a fascination with paranormal elements observed through her own abilities and since childhood when she heard bits and pieces about her great grandmother's preoccupations with the subject. Particular to her interests now was the topic of witchcraft.

It was not long before Simi discovered sites on the Net dealing with witches and sorcery. She began to search for, and more importantly relate to, the women described in every age who seemed to have such insights and powers similar to her own, based on the power of nature. She soon discovered the active worldwide movement known as "Wicca" and its definitive location at www.wicca.com. Here women internationally both celebrated and delved into maters of the Earth, the heavens, seasons and the cosmos. She was emboldened that certain females had over millennia, and still do have, an innate relationship with the mysteries of the universe and the elements of nature around them.

Simi was to learn that late summer, at age fifteen, that there were other exceptionally gifted and empowered women and girls which were, as she had experienced since a small child, qualitatively different from most others. But in addition, she found many websites that shed light on history's horrific stories of the 'witch trials' and persecutions throughout the ages of such females with little understood abilities. How they had been seen as a threat both to men, religion, and even entire societies.

In the context to her own situation, she was drawn to stories of females who had been accused of something called "heresy" and how their own perceptions of the world and behaviors in it were branded as "evil." She read of women in France and Spain, some five-hundred years before, and later in England and the Americas, who had been persecuted and hunted down like animals, accused of witchcraft, and brought to unfair trials. She found it hard to understand how, in the name of Christianity and public scrutiny, these women were hanged, drowned or burned alive for their practice of exercising their powers or even their own nature-focused perception of the world.

* * *

A week or so later, when Simi, to her anger, saw one of the French strangers standing near the bus stop where she would soon leave each day for Santa Fe, she boldly decided to approach him. The man was surprised and caught off guard that she did not cower or avoid him.

"So how are you?" She asked casually, standing now before the middle-aged man. He had still-fresh scars on his arms and face—obviously incurred from the not so fateful accident outside of town.

"I'm very fine," the man said, a bit defensively and with his distinctive French annunciation. "The better question, mademoiselle, is . . . how are you doing?" There was unmasked irony in his voice.

"I am always good," Simi answered, undaunted. She was boldly prepared to bring the charade to a head.

"So why do you follow me . . . and hang around my house?" she asked open-faced and innocently. "We met once before your accident . . . outside my house at night. I remember it well. You threatened me and my family. Why?"

"Yes. And that terrible accident," the man said, slowly rubbing the long scar on his arm. "Perhaps you were . . . aware of it, yes?"

"How could I be?" Simi smiled incredulously.

"Well, mademoiselle, perhaps only you would know that?"

"OK. And so . . . if I was?"

"Then we are correct. About why we are here."

"Maybe you should tell me that . . . why you are here."

"Well. That is an old story. Why we are here. And what we do. It's what we have done for over five-hundred years."

Simi was appalled at what he had just revealed. She looked back at the house and the empty street. She realized she was totally alone in confronting him.

"I believe You are a member of Wicca . . . yes, mademoiselle?"

Simi was keenly aware of the worldwide movement from her recent readings.

"And . . . if I am?"

"Then we must continue with our work here."

"And so . . . I guess I must continue with mine."

"Yes. And exactly that work of yours, mademoiselle. You see . . . we are commissioned to stop it. Wherever it exists. And that includes . . . you. Here in this town."

Simi did her best to disguise the shock at what she was hearing. What the man had finally admitted to. Yet it all now made sense. What she had been reading about--the 'witch hunts' of the past. Could it really still be going on? In the United States, today? How and why her great grandmother, Theresa, was murdered.

"Well, I have to be getting home," she said, trying to hold back her understandable fear and anger.

The man nodded and strangely held out an open hand toward her house . . . as if releasing her to freely return. Simi's temper was brewing, yet at the same time she did not want to let him know her enraged feelings.

"You see. . . I must continue my work now," she said diabolically and purposely under her breath. She looked up at the man once more. "You must be very careful when the roads are wet here," she said a little louder, and in the gaming tone with which they had begun. "And sometimes . . . even when they are not wet."

The man smiled at her. "We are ready, Simi. Your days are few here."

"My days are just beginning here," she said assertively. She then turned and walked casually away from the bus stop.

* * *