Excerpt: The Witch Days

People say that you must learn history to keep it from repeating itself. But learning it does nothing so. Everything has every chance of repeating in the unpredictable mind of a human. And there are so many of us, it was bound to happen anyway.
It’s 2087, and the madness is still conquering. Trails are still being held for those who are accused. Those who are murdered aren’t even buried, their bodies are thrown in the streets and hung from telephone wires for all to see. Crows stalk the most infected towns, waiting for the bodies of more victims to show up. Vultures are even starting to appear.
I’m always behind a locked door, never grocery shopping or getting my haircut. Never walking Piper, my dog, in the park. My mom won’t even let me open the windows anymore.
It’s like a sickness. Or a parasite. All oddities are thrown into the category of witchcraft. Any feet that seem to float, any person who is in a place where they are not expected to be, is accused. Aunt Verona was thrown into jail two months ago after her fingerprint wouldn’t register in the banking system. And now her family is being searched out to see if it’s a blood relation. But luckily we are far away from society, as far away as we can be with telephone reception. We’re settled in eastern Oregon, far from any major city. The TV in our house is always on, always reporting the newest accusations and murders.
My brother Elmer is two years younger than me, and he never leaves my side. We’re both cursed. Just six years ago we were normal, or at least as normal as we could be. I was twelve and he was ten. The telekinesis we both obtained was not an issue because no one knew but my mom and us. She had figured it out herself when I was five, when I stopped the lightning from hitting our oak tree. That was when she knew we were not safe in the world, this world where all false behaviors pointed to witchery, even with our powers. She herded us to the outskirts of John Day, up in the hills were no one could see us.
We eat mostly from our garden, and every couple of months mom runs out to the nearest grocery store to stalk up on soups, crackers, and anything else that wont rot within 60 days. Its always a tense time, because mistakes are so easily acquired. She says it feels like every one is always watching her back, waiting for her feet to trip over air or for her ears to twitch. But so far she’s always come home safe as she ever was, always more and more happier each time she opens the front door.
But mom’s not feeling well anymore. She barely leaves the couch, and I’ve slowly become more and more in charge of dinners and cleaning. Elmer tries to sooth her with blankets, and offers to keep her mobile with his eyes, but mom forbids us from using our powers. She won’t even let us straighten the sheets with anything but our hands.
I’m not sure what is going to happen. Something surely is, and there’s not much time left until then. Elmer agrees with me, reluctantly, not wanting to believe as much as he does.
Our kind tends to know these things.