He starts quietly, "Let me tell you a story instead. This story begins a long, long time ago in the village of Salem. Have you heard of this village?"
I nod my head yes, my mouth still chewing. I want to remind him that this is the place he joked he used to live in somewhere in the sixteen hundreds, but I feel too self-conscious to talk with my mouth full.
He continues, "It started so innocently. A small group of girls from Salem was playing with the idea of witchcraft, playing around with naive divination. Then one of the girls started feeling guilty, so she imagined she was really being possessed by an evil being. This was brought to the attention of the village council, but neither one of the girls obviously wanted to confess. However, as it progressed, each girl had no choice but to point out the witches who supposedly possessed them and told them to perform these hideous acts of fainting and dancing in the woods at night. They picked someone they did not like, someone they had an altercation with at one point or another. They accused innocent women of being witches and then panic and fear spread throughout the village like a wildfire. People were pointing fingers at each other and soon half the village was locked up in jail or being sent away to go on trial in bigger towns and cities. Nine women accused of being witches were eventually burned in the village of Salem."
I turn to him until I am sitting sideways on the swing. He stops the motion of swinging as I pull my knees up onto the swing and fold my arms around my legs. I rest my chin on my knees. He smiles affectionately, as if he recognizes that this is a comfortable position for me, especially when I am mesmerized in something. There is no way he knows though. It is impossible.
He continues while he looks at me, his green eyes smiling amused, while his face remains serious, "There was this girl, let's call her Heather." He smiles apprehensively.
I smile acceptingly. "Sounds like a good name."
" And two brothers, let's call them Kevin and John."
" No. Not John, my dad's name is John."
" Okay, we'll call him James. Heather was also one of the girls playing with divination and unbeknown to her when she pointed out the old woman who allegedly possessed her, she never knew that this old woman actually was a witch. As the old woman burned at the stake, she started talking in a strange voice. The wind came up, the clouds gathered ominously in the sky and lightning crackled on the outskirts of the village. A whirlwind twirled around Heather as she stood in the crowd around the burning stake. It pulled her hair up and away from her face. Kevin was standing next to her and he actually saw Heather levitate momentarily before she collapsed onto the ground."