[18+] Justine thought she was going out to interview some crackpot who thought she could do magic. Instead she comes face to face with her own long-buried past.
Today’s story is the first of two parts of “The Witch of Whatcom County” by Kristina “Orrery” Tracer, who has two published novels, available for purchase at Furplanet, and Nickylion aka Ko Bunny, who writes as a hobby over on Furaffinity. Witch of Whatcom County is Ko’s first published work, and you can find more of their stories on Furaffinity.
Read by Dirt Coyote, lately of twitter dot com.
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https://thevoice.dog/episode/18-the-witch-of-whatcom-county-by-kristina-orrery-tracer-and-ko-bunny-part-1-of-2
Today's story concerns adult subject matter for mature listeners.
Speaker:If that's not your cup of tea,
Speaker:or there are youngsters listening,
Speaker:please skip this one
Speaker:and come back for another story another time.
Speaker:You’re listening to Pride Month on The Voice of Dog.
Speaker:This is Rob MacWolf, your fellow traveler,
Speaker:and Today’s story is the first of two parts of
Speaker:“The Witch of Whatcom County”
Speaker:by Kristina “Orrery” Tracer,
Speaker:who has two published novels, available for purchase at Furplanet,
Speaker:and Nickylion aka Ko
Speaker:Bunny, who writes as a hobby over on Furaffinity.
Speaker:Witch of Whatcom County is Ko’s first published work, and you can find more of their stories on Furaffinity.
Speaker:The association of queerness with
Speaker:otherworldly matters seems to be instinctive,
Speaker:from third-gendered images on neolithic religious sites
Speaker:to the present-day satanic panic.
Speaker:Whatever the application, in any particular culture, the basic idea makes intuitive sense:
Speaker:to be ourselves is to
Speaker:say basic details of reality
Speaker:—gender or orientation or place in society
Speaker:—no longer are taken for granted because we were told so,
Speaker:but are because we say they are so:
Speaker:I am who I say I am. I love as I say I love.
Speaker:Is it so much of a stretch to extend this to time
Speaker:and space, to no longer take the seasons for granted because we’ve been told so,
Speaker:to say that the wind and waves, too,
Speaker:may be as we say they are?
Speaker:Read by Dirt Coyote,
Speaker:lately of Twitter dot com.
Speaker:Please enjoy “The Witch of Whatcom County”
Speaker:by Kristina "Orrery" Tracer
Speaker:and Ko Bunny, Part 1
Speaker:of 2 [Editor's Note:
Speaker:Never before has Inquiry magazine run an exposé of this nature.
Speaker:Our subjects have tried our patience, tested our resolve,
Speaker:and strained our credulity.
Speaker:This time, however,
Speaker:someone cost us one of our top reporters.
Speaker:We have never felt it necessary to editorialize our content;
Speaker:our journalists' integrity has always sufficed.
Speaker:We advise you, Inquiring Minds,
Speaker:to take everything you're about to read with extreme skepticism.
Speaker:We're only publishing this because it's in every contract we sign with our interviewees
Speaker:to publish whatever the investigation yields,
Speaker:no matter what. Until now, we've only ever had to invoke that clause to stop legal harassment demanding we retract our content.
Speaker:In this case, our legal advisers have prompted us twice to publish,
Speaker:citing possible breach of contract,
Speaker:the continued investigation into Justine Lejeune's
Speaker:or Helen Cressida's whereabouts notwithstanding.
Speaker:We honor our agreements at Inquiry,
Speaker:and we stand by our word,
Speaker:and so without further ado,
Speaker:we bring you Justine Lejeune's
Speaker:last interview for this site.
Speaker:—M. Josephson, Chief Editor,
Speaker:Inquiry] [Editor's Note,
Postscript:This article contains depictions of explicit sex acts,
Postscript:including some that defy the laws of physics.
Postscript:Heavy discretion
Postscript:is advised.] Every interview with every True Believer starts the same way.
Postscript:While one of our contact team is trying to set a date and time for an interview,
Postscript:the candidate will make some demand,
Postscript:some hard precondition for talking to us.
Postscript:No cameras. No ultraviolet lights.
Postscript:Blindfolded during the ritual.
Postscript:Without fail, every one of those demands in some fashion prevents us from actually validating
Postscript:whatever claims we've gone to review.
Postscript:It's not that they don't have their reasons:
Postscript:cameras can't see auras,
Postscript:ultraviolet interferes with their powers,
Postscript:or they had a coconspirator
Postscript:tiptoeing in socks to move stuff.
Postscript:It's that they all somehow know,
Postscript:with an intuition that rivals precognition,
Postscript:that whatever wild story they use to explain their gifts
Postscript:falls apart under the right kind of scrutiny.
Postscript:Inquiry's features
Postscript:have always succeeded because they've always accepted those requirements.
Postscript:Most sites that do this kind of work refuse to take sucker bets;
Postscript:they refuse to accommodate their targets' beliefs about their own abilities.
Postscript:That lets everyone off the hook.
Postscript:Often, they outright refuse to do their demonstrations.
Postscript:When that happens,
Postscript:the True Believers will blame
Postscript:any failure — and it's always failure,
Postscript:if it's published —
Postscript:on not meeting the necessary preconditions.
Postscript:That, in turn, gives their marks a
Postscript:release valve for their cognitive dissonance.
Postscript:Inquiry's team, on the other paw,
Postscript:give people whatever rope they request,
Postscript:the more the better.
Postscript:Then, after the demonstration,
Postscript:the interviewer asks what purpose each precondition served.
Postscript:Every explanation is met with,
Postscript:not a challenge, but another question.
Postscript:Why follows why follows why,
Postscript:until the subject either can't explain,
Postscript:contradicts themself,
Postscript:or simply refuses to try justifying any further.
Postscript:At that point, Inquiry lets you,
Postscript:Inquiring Minds, draw your own conclusions.
Postscript:Helen Cressida's team asked for basically nothing.
Postscript:We'd found her website through an online search for folks calling themselves witches,
Postscript:and it read like so many other self proclaimed occult types.
Postscript:We e-mailed the address on the site,
Postscript:asking if she'd be interested in being on Inquiry's front page.
Postscript:We rarely hear back from cold calls like that,
Postscript:but this time, someone replied a day later with a phone number.
Postscript:When Inquiry's leads team
Postscript:got in touch, the person with whom they spoke on the phone was happy to hear from us.
Postscript:Of course they'd heard of the site, they said,
Postscript:and they were quite willing to meet.
Postscript:They said it'd be easiest if we stopped by her house —
Postscript:Helen would have access to her workshop there —
Postscript:but they'd be happy to meet us anywhere.
Postscript:The notes I got on the file from the leads team said that Helen's only reason for asking for access to her workshop
Postscript:was to perform a wider range of rituals,
Postscript:but they didn't say we couldn't bring cameras, recorders, phones, or anything else.
Postscript:That was my first warning.
Postscript:When I called the number on the morning of the interview,
Postscript:the person with whom I spoke apologized for missing it earlier,
Postscript:and he asked me to bring whatever brand of pre-packaged snack
Postscript:and something to drink in a sealed can.
Postscript:He stressed that point, too:
Postscript:the packages had to be sealed to my satisfaction,
Postscript:nothing open-air.
Postscript:That was my second warning,
Postscript:but I ignored it as well.
Postscript:I just remember asking him,
Postscript:"Why do I need those, and why should they be sealed?"
Postscript:His answer was my third:
Postscript:"You might need them for a ritual,
Postscript:and you'll want to know they're safe."
Postscript:Cressida's house was two stories tall,
Postscript:with a fieldstone façade, sitting at the end of a long dirt driveway a few turns off of SR539,
Postscript:up by Wiser Lake. I ran the pre-interview checklist, but I swear on my mother's grave we found nothing.
Postscript:Whatcom County records showed the property had been bought fifteen years ago by "H. Cressida"; I took screen shots and stored them in my notes.
Postscript:Infrared and ultraviolet cameras turned up nothing out of the ordinary.
Postscript:Infrasonic and ultrasonic audio recordings outside the house came back clean. I set up one video camera in the back seat and pointed it at the front door,
Postscript:then got out a second
Postscript:and a tripod to take inside with me,
Postscript:along with a paper grocery bag.
Postscript:A rabbit with tan fur greeted me at the door, wearing a costume halfway between a stage magician's assistant
Postscript:and fetishwear. The black leotard and stockings were glossy latex,
Postscript:and he had a white bowtie dotted with silver sparkles.
Postscript:Tucked behind one ear, he wore a bright red flower.
Postscript:"You must be Justine.
Postscript:Did you bring what we asked?"
Postscript:He had a massive grin on his muzzle,
Postscript:and he spoke just loudly enough to be heard over the music playing further within.
Postscript:I held up the paper bag. "A banana Nutterbar and a can of Nesbitt's Diet Lime.
Postscript:You can inspect them,
Postscript:if you'd like." I held up my phone.
Postscript:"Also, I assume you're fine with recorded audio?"
Postscript:The rabbit nodded.
Postscript:"I'm fine with it;
Postscript:you'll want to ask Mistress directly.
Postscript:directly." He glanced at my bag and held up his paws.
Postscript:"I don't want to touch those, though;
Postscript:please leave them in the car for now."
Postscript:"So why—?" The rabbit smiled.
Postscript:"If you hadn't brought them,
Postscript:I would've had to ask you to go get them.
Postscript:You might need them later.
Postscript:I'm Ren; I'll let you in once you've put those back.
Postscript:back." Ren made no move to step out of the way, so I took the food back to the car and stashed it next to the video camera.
Postscript:That much I know I captured on tape;
Postscript:I even held them up to the lens and checked the
Postscript:seals. The Nutterbar was still sealed,
Postscript:and I turned the can upside-down in front of the camera to show it was still closed.
Postscript:Ren stepped aside once I came back to the door, and he motioned for me to follow him inside.
Postscript:Just inside the front door, a staircase went up into near darkness.
Postscript:To the right was a small dining nook,
Postscript:its wooden table and mismatched folding chairs
Postscript:painfully ordinary against the backdrop of
Postscript:"witches capable of changing the
Postscript:fabric of reality.
Postscript:reality." I remember joking at the time that even modern wizards apparently held dinner parties,
Postscript:but Ren ignored me,
Postscript:motioning towards the hallway that led past the stairs to an opening on the right,
Postscript:leading into a brightly-lit living room, the kind you might seen in
Postscript:any mid-century dwelling.
Postscript:A flat-screen TV and media center sat against one wall,
Postscript:and bookshelves dominated the rest.
Postscript:Facing the television was an el
Postscript:-shaped sectional couch, with overstuffed ottomans and a few beanbags floating in the middle of the space.
Postscript:Hidden speakers filled the space with analog synthesizers,
Postscript:while the shelves themselves held back issues of Tarosophist's
Postscript:Quarterly and Align,
Postscript:occult magazines with which
Postscript:Inquiry readers are no doubt familiar.
Postscript:In an old wooden rocking chair, the kind seen in Norma Rockston paintings from around the Final War,
Postscript:sat Helen Cressida.
Postscript:Like Ren, the lioness wore a black leotard and boots,
Postscript:but her bowtie was gold,
Postscript:and her gloves were fingerless to expose carefully filed claws.
Postscript:Her tufted tailtip flicked back and forth on the hardwood floor.
Postscript:"Welcome," she said without turning away from the swirling visualizer on the television.
Postscript:"You must be Ms. Lejeune."
Postscript:"Call me Justine.
Postscript:Justine." I smiled. "You're Ms. Cressida?"
Postscript:"Helen, please," the lioness said as she rose.
Postscript:"You're from Inquiry."
Postscript:"Justine Lejeune, senior field investigator,"
Postscript:I replied, pulling the press pass the site issued me out of my wallet.
Postscript:My name and title dominated the top edge in slab serifs,
Postscript:with Inquiry's logo and the issue date on the right side in a delicate italic.
Postscript:My picture occupied the left,
Postscript:lean vulpine muzzle covered in short russet fur
Postscript:and ears that didn't fit in the frame.
Postscript:The fennec in the photo stared up at me
Postscript:with intense blue eyes,
Postscript:her muzzle set in an expression my coworkers had dubbed
Postscript:'resting vix face.'
Postscript:I passed the badge to Helen.
Postscript:"As agreed, I'm recording this conversation.
Postscript:Audio and, with your permission,
Postscript:video." "I wouldn't have invited you here otherwise,"
Postscript:Helen responded evenly,
Postscript:her smile unwavering on her muzzle.
Postscript:"Please, make yourself comfortable.
Postscript:Can I have my pet bring you anything?
Postscript:Water? Coffee?" "Coffee sounds good,"
Postscript:I replied while I set up the camera.
Postscript:I took a seat on the couch near Helen's rocking chair
Postscript:and starting setting up the tripod.
Postscript:A minute later, I had video on its back screen and a green light telling me it was recording everything.
Postscript:Helen released my paw, then curled it around in the air in front of her. She flicked it towards her, as if tugging a rope.
Postscript:From behind me I heard a sharp gasp, followed by Ren's voice.
Postscript:"Coming, Mistress." The rabbit stepped into the room and bowed his head.
Postscript:"You summoned me?" The lioness responded to my furrowed brow and flattened ears with the faintest smile.
Postscript:"Two coffees please, pet.
Postscript:One with cream, one...?"
Postscript:She lifted her voice in a lingering question as she motioned towards me.
Postscript:"Black is fine," I muttered.
Postscript:My years at Inquiry had inured me to all kinds of alternative lifestyles.
Postscript:That didn't stop me from glancing towards the rabbit's crotch when Helen called him
Postscript:"pet," or from the inside of my ears turning pink
Postscript:as he smiled at me before walking away.
Postscript:I focused my attention on the camera,
Postscript:and the camera on Ms. Cressida's muzzle.
Postscript:Shot from below, she looked like she was gazing at the ceiling.
Postscript:The track lighting put a faint glowing mane around her head.
Postscript:The rabbit bowed, then stepped back into the hall.
Postscript:As soon as he was out of the living room, I turned to Helen.
Postscript:"You two have quite the lifestyle.
Postscript:Is this how witches usually dress at home?"
Postscript:Helen chuckled. "It was Ren's idea;
Postscript:you were coming to try to expose us as frauds.
Postscript:We figured the least we could do was play along.
Postscript:And, by the way, neither of us is a witch.
Postscript:I know Inquiry loves to throw the word around,
Postscript:but we're multitraditional
Postscript:ecstatic ritualists,
Postscript:not followers of northern European
Postscript:folk tradition." She paused a moment,
Postscript:her voice darkening.
Postscript:"You didn't come here to discuss fashion
Postscript:or semantics, though.
Postscript:You want to talk
Postscript:magic." I smiled and leaned back on the couch.
Postscript:"I thought you wanted to talk magic.
Postscript:magic." Inquiry may not be in the business of extracting schadenfreude by force,
Postscript:but everyone's their own favorite subject of conversation.
Postscript:"I'm just here to listen."
Postscript:"If you don't mind, then, let's start
Postscript:with with a history lesson.
Postscript:lesson." The lion smiled and leaned forward,
Postscript:her elbows on her knees.
Postscript:"Mine, and yours. The Phoenix Club has a long memory,
Postscript:Ms. Lejeune." In that moment,
Postscript:Ren reappeared in the door,
Postscript:a mug in each paw.
Postscript:He silently approached and offered one to me,
Postscript:bowing as he held it out.
Postscript:I took it, grateful for the interruption,
Postscript:and sipped it while I considered my response.
To explain:while I was at Bridgeport University,
To explain:I had a very active fantasy life.
To explain:I had never been a True Believer;
To explain:I was just bored and,
To explain:frankly, lonely. I heard about a university club that claimed to be magical practitioners,
To explain:and I tried to join.
To explain:They asked me what I already knew, invited me to listen to their stories of how to work magic,
To explain:and occasionally claimed to have cast some spell or other.
To explain:I tried to play along with them,
To explain:but it was clear after a few months that they were just
To explain:a cliquey bunch that didn't want to have me around.
To explain:They stopped asking where I was around the same time,
To explain:and I moved to Oregon State the next semester.
To explain:Ten years on, I thought that part of my life was behind me for good.
To explain:Now here it was, staring me in the face.
To explain:Helen took her coffee from the rabbit,
To explain:then pulled him down by his collar for a light kiss.
To explain:His tail bobbed and he rose onto his toes,
To explain:then stood up and bowed before disappearing again.
To explain:Once he was safely out of sight, I turned back to the lioness.
To explain:"Where did you hear about the Phoenix Club?"
To explain:I pulled my tail around into my lap and started smoothing down the ruffled fur.
To explain:My ears had pulled tightly back against my head,
To explain:but I took a deep breath and forced the muscles to unclench.
To explain:"Let's focus on you, instead.
To explain:What makes you think you can work magic?"
To explain:"I helped start the club, Ms. Lejeune,"
To explain:Helen said, her voice uncomfortably gentle.
To explain:Her tail flicked back and forth against the ground.
To explain:"I was in the first group of inductees after the founders.
To explain:Ren joined when I was a junior.
To explain:I went by Bixby back then;
To explain:my portrait's hanging in their main hall.
To explain:hall." My eyes went wide;
To explain:a full third of the papers in the club's library had Bixby as a co-author.
To explain:"You know, your employers' website has hurt a lot of people."
To explain:"You are the subject here,
To explain:not the Phoenix Club and not Inquiry.
To explain:Inquiry." I couldn't keep the tension out of my voice.
To explain:I don't know how our intake team missed this connection.
To explain:I should never have been assigned to this case.
To explain:Someone should have spotted this. Now I
To explain:was in the middle of an interview going sideways for all the wrong reasons.
To explain:"Fine, then. You claim to be Louis Bixby;
To explain:you don't look anything like him.
To explain:How do you explain not being a male bear any more?"
To explain:Helen laughed. "I told you.
To explain:I can work magic.
To explain:When I cut spiritual ties to the identity of Louis Bixby,
To explain:I offered him to the club as an egregore.
To explain:Anybody who wanted their name taken off a paper could use his instead.
To explain:By the time I left grad school, 'Blame
To explain:Bixby' had become a running joke for anything unexpected.
To explain:unexpected." The lioness grinned from ear to ear.
To explain:"One of my best workings.
To explain:workings." I confess, at this point I was in too deeply.
To explain:Some part of me just wanted to bail on this whole interview.
To explain:Professionalism suggested that I should.
To explain:This shockingly improbable series of coincidences
To explain:had the seeming of deliberateness.
To explain:I found myself almost believing it was intentional,
To explain:that somehow this group of slighted fantasy LARPers
To explain:had decided to track me down.
To explain:"What do you want with me?"
To explain:The lioness sat quietly her eyes wandered the room,
To explain:not meeting my gaze.
To explain:"I said, what do you
To explain:—" Helen held up a paw, and my muzzle snapped shut hard enough for my teeth to clack.
To explain:"I wanted to apologize, for one.
To explain:We were still learning.
To explain:You kept asking us to tell you how everything worked,
To explain:as though we really understood it ourselves.
To explain:We tried to explain what we could,
To explain:but it felt like you wanted answers that could be independently proved or empirically defined.
To explain:All we had were questions and hope.
To explain:We tried to explain that what the magic needed was an open heart
To explain:and a willingness to believe.
To explain:You kept asking for ritual specifics,
To explain:like it was all about the words and not their intent.
To explain:We gave up out of sheer frustration,
To explain:and eventually you changed your major.
To explain:I'm sorry." Inquiring Minds,
To explain:have you ever had a bruise that you couldn't stop pressing?
To explain:You know that bone-deep ache when you touch an injury,
To explain:knowing you should leave it alone?
To explain:Helen's words felt like that,
To explain:somewhere in the back of my psyche,
To explain:pressing on a scar I thought had long since healed.
To explain:"You're sorry?" I choked out the word.
To explain:"You call me out of the blue ten years after I thought I put that fantasy behind me
To explain:to rub my nose in your mistakes?
To explain:You're sorry?" "Yes, I am.
To explain:am." The lioness' kindness felt smothering.
To explain:"All of us are, really,
To explain:but Ren and I agreed to reach out.
To explain:We saw what you'd been doing since you graduated,
To explain:and we realized we owed you another chance to learn.
To explain:This time, though,
To explain:we think we've figured out how to show you,
To explain:not just tell you.
To explain:That is, if you'll let us."
To explain:"Show me?" I blinked.
To explain:"Show me how?" Helen smiled.
To explain:"You work for Inquiry.
To explain:Your job is debunking True Believers, isn't it?
To explain:Ren and I would like to prove to you that magic is real.
To explain:We'd like to help you cast
To explain:a spell." My whole tail quivered under my paw,
To explain:the tailtip visibly twitching.
To explain:The room had just become too warm,
To explain:and yet I had a chill from my neck to my spine.
To explain:I sat and stared into the visualizer on the television,
To explain:lost in thought. "If you know
To explain:I was at the Phoenix Club,"
To explain:I said slowly, "then
To explain:you know there's something I bragged about doing,
To explain:some spell I said I'd cast.
To explain:cast." The words fell from my lips.
To explain:I hadn't thought about this in
To explain:years. "Tell me what I tried to do,
To explain:and then prove to me that it can be done.
To explain:There's your test case."
To explain:"Done." The lioness held out her paws to me.
To explain:"Then take my paws,
To explain:and let me see." I rose from the couch and took her paws in my own.
To explain:She gazed into my eyes, and her lips moved.
To explain:I could hear her whispering,
To explain:but even with these ears, I couldn't make out what she was saying.
To explain:She furrowed her brow and frowned,
To explain:though, and after a few moments, she gave out a feline hiss and dropped her arms.
To explain:"Damnit." The sudden denial and withdrawal dropped me on my tail with a thud.
To explain:My chest was heaving.
To explain:"What? Can't you— You can't, can you?"
To explain:Let the video show that's what I said;
To explain:I can't pretend I didn't.
To explain:I swear, I tried to keep my voice even,
To explain:but I was hurt. Ms. Cressida had dragged something very personal out of me
To explain:when I wasn't ready, and let me tell you, Inquiring Minds,
To explain:that didn't feel very good at all.
To explain:Helen let out an exasperated sigh.
To explain:"I can, but—" She stopped and hung her head,
To explain:and her voice dropped to just audible over the music. "Ms.
To explain:Lejeune, I swear to you I can,
To explain:but my magic requires consent;
To explain:I can't force it on you,
To explain:or it won't work.
To explain:You have to come to it, and right now you don't think you can,
To explain:so you can't. I can help you, but you have to let me.
To explain:me." She held out her paws to me once more, both pads-up.
To explain:"Ren and I use sexual congress in our craft to help open the heart to the sublime,
To explain:the ecstatic state at one with the universe.
To explain:universe." Something... something ineffable,
To explain:some gravitas undergirded her words as she spoke,
To explain:as if she were standing before an altar.
To explain:"I know you cannot understand the full context of your answer to follow,
To explain:and I empower you to safeword as soon as you become uncomfortable, however you choose to answer.
To explain:I can offer you only my word as bond
To explain:that I won't try to make you do anything you don't agree to do,
To explain:but I also know you have no reason to trust me.
To explain:All those caveats acknowledged,
To explain:do you consent to letting me work ritual before you,
To explain:on my terms, in order to fulfill your request?"
To explain:This was the first of two parts of
To explain:“The Witch of Whatcom County”
To explain:by Kristina “Orrery” Tracer and
To explain:Ko Bunny, read for you by Dirt Coyote, lately of Twitter dot com.
To explain:Tune in next time to find out whether Justine will run from her past,
To explain:or follow Helen and Ren back into the house and find out just how far the rabbit hole goes?
To explain:As always, you can find more stories on the web
To explain:at thevoice.dog,
To explain:or find the show wherever you get your podcasts.
To explain:Happy Pride, and Thank you for listening to The Voice of Dog.