The Hidden Legacy

broadly, I headed for the counter, snagging the shop’s oversized broom on my way. Despite the fact that the broom was decorated with a big spray of dried herbs, its handle was heavy, thick and made of oak. “Can I help you?” I said, making eye contact with the kid loitering by the register.
The teen recoiled, and started swinging his eyes around, checking to see where his friends were. “Uh, no. No, I’m good,” he stammered. “It’s cool.”
“You sure?” I asked, never taking my eyes off him, even as I felt a little breeze begin to ruffle my hair. Uncalled, the element of air wrapped itself around me—which sometimes happened whenever I was really angry, or afraid as I was now. The little airstream picked up in intensity, rolled towards the boy, and his eyes went huge. I watched as his mind tried to work out what was happening.
He glanced from the broom and back to my eyes, and he paled. “Witch,” he whispered.
Saying nothing, I smiled at him very slowly, and he stumbled back.
“Let’s go guys,” he called to his friends.
The kid who’d been peppering my mother with questions stopped and considered his buddies.
The third boy in the big jacket nodded and moved towards the door. I watched Henry shift his body, and the minute the kid stepped over the threshold, he grabbed him by the collar and yanked him back inside.
The kid in the jacket took a swing at Henry, who dodged it easily. “You don’t want to do that son,” he said. Henry bent the kid’s arm behind him, applying pressure.
“Mom, call the police!” I pushed out with one hand, the door slammed shut, and I swung out from behind the counter.
“Ow!” the kid yelled at Henry. “What are you? A cop or something?”
Henry applied a bit more pressure, and the kid stopped struggling. His knees hit the ground, and packages of candy and boxed cookies fell out from under his jacket to the floor of the shop.
I could hear my mother in the background, her voice was high pitched and she was speaking very quickly into the phone. I checked the other two boys. The pale boy who’d stood by the register held his hands up in the air and backed away from me. “It was his idea!” He pointed to the third boy. “I didn’t do anything!” he insisted, “I didn’t do anything!”
“Shut up, Zane,” growled the third boy. He made no move to run, but there was something in his stance that had my mouth drying up.
I focused on him. The third teen was only a few feet away from me, and I picked up the scent of metal and gunpowder again. I glanced at my mother. She was standing way too close to him, and was still on the phone with the 911 operator. “Mom,” I called to her, and she swung her eyes towards me. “Ozone,” I said.
My mother’s eyes flared wide, and she hit the floor.
The third boy started to reach around to his back, and several things seemed to happen at once: Henry started to shove the boy he’d collared to the floor. The second kid, Zane, started screaming, and without a plan in mind...I pushed out with the broom handle—hard—and popped the kid that was reaching for a gun, right on the end of his nose.
There was a nasty crunching sound, and he dropped to his knees, the gun clattering to the hardwood floor. Blood poured from his nose, and Henry leapt to secure the fallen gun.
“Are you crazy?” Henry snarled at me. “What were you thinking?”
My stomach lurched at the smell of the fresh blood. “He was going for a gun,” I pointed out.
“Oh my god, oh my god...” Zane repeated over and over again. He’d also dropped to his knees and put his hands behind his head. Clearly Zane knew the drill.
My mother came around the counter with a baseball bat and few heavy duty zip ties. “Here,” she said, handing them calmly to Henry. “I imagine you can use these to secure that young man who had the gun.”
I gaped in shock at my mother. There she stood, our family drama queen, as cool as a cucumber, while I was shaking in reaction. The boy in the jacket shifted on the floor, and I turned to him, raising the broom handle. “Don’t move,” I warned him with a wobbly voice.
“I’d listen to her if I were you,” Henry advised as he secured the bleeding boy’s wrists behind his back. “Unless you’d like her to break your nose while she’s at it.”
Zane cringed away from me. “Holy shit, she’s a real Witch.”
“Hannah,” my mother said, patting me on the shoulder, “maybe you should sit down, you’re awfully pale.” She went to stand over the two other boys who were now on the floor, sitting on their hands.
“I’m okay,” I managed, and tried not to be sick from the combination of the spices in the shop and the smell of the blood.
“Popped him in the nose with the broom! Wait until I tell your father!” My mother laughed. “That’s my girl!”
Henry straightened and glanced over at my mother. He shook his head and assessed me with hard green eyes. “You took a hell of a risk...” he began to lecture, but before he could continue, the sounds of the sirens from the arriving police cut him off.
***
The resulting pandemonium took hours to straighten out. The third boy had to first be taken to the local hospital to treat his broken nose, while the other two boys were taken directly to the police station.
I’d probably still be making statements and being interviewed by the police if it weren’t for a few very good reasons: Number one, the store had a video surveillance system in place and the whole thing had been caught on tape. Number two, Zane and the boy who’d attempted to shoplift the cookies and candies had both started talking to save themselves from an attempted armed