Chapter Seven: Practical Magik

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"They found the other half of the body." Eleanor told Malcom, in a tone meant to be low enough that Cordelia wouldn't hear them.

They had been talking about the events of the previous night for around five minutes, and Cordelia had been sitting in the stairwell for the past five minutes, eavesdropping.

She understood why they didn't want to talk about it around her. Parents didn't talk about gruesome murders with their children, especially not when their children had found the victims of those gruesome murders.

At that moment, Cordelia decided to make her presense known, by walking into the kitchen as if she hadn't heard every word they had exchanged.

"Hey sunshine." Her mother greeted her, with a forced smile for Cordelia's sake, and a term of endearment her mom hadn't employed since Cordelia's childhood.

Cordelia nodded, moving overly slowly, to look like she had just woken up, when really she hadn't slept much with the image of the body and another she had never seen, but vividly remembered from her dream. That body belonged to a woman, and the only connection it bore to the body from last night was the way they'd been killed.

Cordelia dismissed all thought of her more and more frequent nightmares from her mind, as she sat down at the kitchen table with pop tarts.

"Your mother and I agreed that it would be best if you stayed home today." Malcom mentioned as she sat, pressing his lips together. Cordelia had figured as much. Her parents only ever let her miss school when she was throwing up, but they probably figured she was traumatised enough to miss a day of school.

"Unfortunately neither of us can stay home with you." He added, rubbing his eyes. They were exhausted. Mentally. And physically. The events had taken a toll on them as much as they had on her. Never before had her parents age shown so much. For the first time in seventeen years, Cordelia thought her parents looked old.

"I really need to go to the station to sort out this mess, and your father has to give a tour of the school to visiting professors." Eleanor explained, rubbing her hands together.

Cordelia nodded, "It's fine. I'll be fine home alone. I'll probably just sleep and read most of the day." She told them, forcing a smile, this time for her parents benefit.

The last time she had told them she'd be fine home alone however, the cops showed up at their house. They weren't reassured.

"Okay. I'll call and check on you at lunch." Eleanor told her with pinched lips.

"Okay Mom." Cordelia smiled, reaching across the table for her parents hands and giving them each what she hoped was a reassuring squeeze.

Two hours later, Cordelia was home alone and sitting at her desk, pulling up her browser on her laptop.

She couldn't get the nightmares out of her mind, and so she thought back to the very first one, and typed into Google; witch trials.

5, 300, 000.

That was the number of results her search had.

Good thing she had nothing better to do.

Cordelia sat in front of that screen for hours. She read about what she had already learned from Mr. Pierce, and dug deep into the history of witch trials. In every culture, every religion, there was something that resembled witchcraft. Most of the time it was seen as Wicked. Unatural.

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