On the other hand, she wasn’t going to let them scare her away either. And the sooner they figured that out, the better.
Centering her mind, she concentrated on sending calming vibes out into the assembled mass of churning emotion. While she waited to see if that would have any effect, she tried talking some sense into the people confronting her.
“Gentlemen, ladies, I haven’t done any of those things, honest,” she said, trying to project earnest innocence. Not her best look, really, but it was worth a try. “A few folks did get sick after using my herbal remedies, but the sheriff was able to figure out that someone was altering the medicines. And if you ask the people who bought them, you’ll find out that I gave everyone their money back, and gave them new medicines that worked just fine.”
A few muttering voices agreed that yes, that was true, they’d heard that down at Bertie’s.
“But that don’t change the fact that you’ve been castin’ hexes on people’s property and their livestock,” the leader shouted.
Another rock went sailing by, thudding against a window that somehow not only didn’t break, but caused the rock to go ricocheting back along the exact same trajectory from which it had originated. Someone in the crowd let out a howl of pain and Baba bit her lip so she wouldn’t laugh. A glance out over the group erased any temptation toward merriment, though, when she saw that they were still too riled up for her efforts at mental soothing to work. Shit.
“Are you really trying to tell me you believe in all that stuff?” Baba asked, raising her voice. Behind her, Chudo-Yudo growled, looking menacing in the way only a huge, jagged-toothed pit bull can. One man in the front of the group started edging his way subtly toward the back.
“Witchcraft?” Voodoo? Hexes?” She lifted her hands, sending out tiny impulses to the clouds above while trying to appear as harmless as possible. “Come on, really? You can’t honestly think that stuff exists, can you? This is real life, not some fairy tale.” Of course, her real life kind of was a walking fairy tale, but this was no time to try and explain that. Hell, there never would be a time. Not with these people.
For a moment, she thought her rational argument might sway them. A few of the saner types lowered their weapons, doubt starting to slide over their features like the clouds that had temporarily covered the sun.
But a voice from the back of the crowd shouted, “Someone is doing all this crazy stuff! You’re the only stranger around these parts right now, and everybody says you’re a witch! I say it’s true and I want you gone, away from my family!” A small flurry of stones accompanied the high-pitched rant, whistling through the air too close to her head for comfort, and as one, the mob took a few steps closer to Baba, raising their varied impromptu tools of destruction with renewed purpose.
Right, Baba thought to herself. No more Mrs. Nice Guy. I’ve had a long day and I want my damned dinner. She took a deep breath and pulled her hands down with a drooping motion that might have looked to the crowd like surrender but actually tugged on the suggestion she’d planted in the atmosphere up above.
The misty purple heavens opened up and dropped icy-fingered rain in torrents on men, women, trucks, and baseball bats alike. Thunder crashed and roared across the sky, accompanied by jagged flashes of lightning that turned the suddenly darkened afternoon intermittently bright as midday. Hail pelted exposed skin like BB’s, stinging and pelting the mob as they stood openmouthed, the sudden unexpected storm cooling their fury in a way that Baba’s kinder methods had failed to do.
The big man who’d led the mob tried to urge his followers on, screaming above the sound of the ice and rain that pinged and sang as it hit the Airstream. “See! See! She’s a witch! Get her!”
But he spoke to an emptying field as his friends all raced through the downpour to reach the shelter of their trucks and SUVs. The owner of the VW Bug struggled for a moment to raise the convertible top she had lowered in the earlier warmth, then gave up and hopped into a nearby vehicle, leaving the small car abandoned amid the mud, slowly filling with water and pea-sized hailstones.
Baba and her accuser faced each other across a two-foot space, water coming down so hard she could barely make out his contorted, reddened face. Slowly, he let the hand holding the chain drop, but he stood there for another minute, glaring through the wet, before raising one finger in an obscene salute and stalking off to his outsized truck.