Most teenagers became frequent users of Green Demon, but there was a problem with the supply. A sufficient availability was sporadic at best.
“How do you not have any?” the girl asked, clutching her cell phone so tightly to her ear that her nails went white with pressure. “It’s the one job you have, Mel!”
Next to her, her boyfriend was having a beer he’d snatched from his parents’ fridge. The summer heat was intense, especially while their systems were subjected to the thermogenic properties of the Green Demon’s principal ingredient. The young man was gulping down the cold beer while his girlfriend, no older than sixteen, begged her dealer for a hit.
“Dude, I just stay thirsty!” he gasped as he tossed the empty can aside. “What did she say, Vicky?”
She looked at him with a sense of panic and shrugged while she waited for a response from her friend who served as her supplier. Her friend, Mel, was the girl who was in touch with the actual dealer, but Vicky and her boyfriend had no desire to deal with the bigger boys in town.
“Oh God, we have to wait three days, she says,” she whined. Her hands trembled at the thought of coming down from her latest high and her eyes darted wildly as she thought of alternative ways to obtain a bump. Her boyfriend ground his teeth in frustration as he got up to steal another beer.
“Your dad is going to notice, you know!” she warned, as she dialed another friend for help.
“I don’t give a damn, Vick. I’ll deal with him when he says something. My tongue is so goddamn dry. My throat … I can’t even swallow properly, man. We need something more to drink,” he panted.
It was true. Green Demon, thanks to its main ingredient, dehydrated its users, leaving them dead thirsty all the time. To exacerbate it all, the temperatures in Massachusetts had soared to record heights this year. Most of the unfortunate users felt drained and thirsty, but it was the escalation of their core body temperature that tormented them most. They simply could not keep up with enough water and the beer was never cold enough. In fact, sometimes Vicky felt as if ice was not cold enough to keep her cool.
Both kids sat under the fan while the boy’s parents were out at work, but the heat and the thirst were a low price to pay for the reward of the high they would get from even one line. Vicky was furious. After calling four different people, she had to break the news to her boyfriend that they would have to wait.
“Oh my God! What do you want me to do?” she screamed at him. “Am I supposed to create the shit out of thin air now? I am just as desperate as you!”
“Call someone else then!” he roared, his salivating words cutting through her ears. He was getting aggressive, shoving his face right into her hair as he yelled. “You started this, V! YOU! You started this and dragged me into it and now …”
“Hey! You insisted on doing lines with me at the party, so shut your goddamn trap, Paul! Nobody held a gun to your head!” she screeched, but her last word was cut short when her boyfriend landed a hefty backhand across her cheek. Vicky hit the ground, out cold, while he stepped over her and took her phone. Frantically, he started going through her phone contacts, calling every single person to see if they had any Green Demon.
“Hello, Grant?” he stammered. “You holding?”
“Holding what, bro?” the random contact on Vicky’s phone asked him.
“You know … Green Demon, dude,” the boy rapped quickly, hoping to hear some good news. He looked at his girlfriend, unconscious on the floor, but all he cared about was getting more khat in his system.
“What the hell is Green Demon? Are you a friend of Vicky’s? Why are you using her phone?” this Grant character asked the young man.
“None of your business who I am,” her boyfriend sneered. “Just tell me if you have Green Demon or not. Don’t waste my damn time.”
“None of my business?” Grant raised his voice. “Why are you calling me from my stepdaughter’s phone, you miscreant? Where is Vicky? Put her on the phone right now!”
The young man had a fright, and rightly so. He quickly killed the call and threw the phone on the couch. Vicky’s cheek was already exhibiting a welt of note, red, and soon to turn darker. He knew he was in trouble now. Not only had he assaulted her, but he’d incriminated himself as part of the drug ring in the small town. When one of the officers arrived at his parents’ house, Paul was still trying to revive his girlfriend.
“And all this because the goddamn dealers aren’t coming through with product!” he hissed as he heard the police car stop. Paul made a run for it, but the two officers ran him down and apprehended him. Vicky’s stepfather had called the police, knowing the address of Vicky’s boyfriend and friends.
“Stay down! Stay down or I will break your arm, boy!” Officer Nita warned. The sturdy and loud African American officer did not take crap from perpetrators, no matter their age. “You can join your other buddies we picked up this morning for B and E. Maybe y’all can discuss what you will be telling the judge.”
“And you have an extra charge of assault, so you can be their leader,” the other officer added with brutal sarcasm. “Get in the car.”
What most of the Green Demon users in town did not realize when they started purchasing the drug was that its supplier had a definite agenda. Now that they could not readily just buy their next hit, the Green Demon fanatics grew anxious. For some reason, dealers did not get their batches delivered as routinely as they had hoped, and it left their customers dangerously unstable.
As the officers transported the young man to the station, they saw colleagues trying to contain some chaos that ensued when a teenager was hit by a car on their way.
Officer Nita rolled down her window to ask her colleague what had happened.
“A kid got hit by a car,” the other officer reported, looking exhausted. “This crap is getting out of hand, Nita.”
“Tell me about it,” Officer Nita sighed.
“Apparently, these three kids just decided to play chicken with the oncoming cars! Can you believe that? I refuse to charge the driver. This is straight-up reckless behavior,” he continued.
“I agree,” Officer Nita declared. “We gotta make things hard for these kids. Show them that there are repercussions for their acts. I mean, hell, this is endangering our law-abiding citizens.”
“True, Nita, true,” he replied with a just nod. “Well, I’ll see ya back at the precinct later.”
With that, they parted, each unit having to deal with its own respective problems; problems caused by a common denominator.
All over Hope’s Crossing, police could not keep up with the rampage. Young people on Green Demon acted out like never before, even causing traffic accidents when capering through the cars on the main street. Not only the police had their hands full. The hospital staff of the clinic and medical centers found that their shifts brought in more action than before. It was unprecedented, the number of new cases coming in because of Green Demon.
Injuries from accidents and assaults were rife, and some cases of overdose threatened to garner the town its first casualties. This alarmed the authorities, most of all, the mayor. Unfortunately, his spineless nature left him to do little more than complain among his peers. As far as solutions, the mayor was stumped for action.
The intermittent supply of khat leaves left the local dealers in trouble with their clientele, but they had to keep up appearances. Such actions caused distrust among the fanatics, dealers, and suppliers, which caused a spike in general crime, something that Hope’s Crossing was not accustomed to, let alone ready to combat.
“Hey, Miss Corey,” two teens greeted Maggie as they entered her shop.
“Hi, guys,” she smiled.
Maggie was becoming familiar with certain groups of friends from the local high school, flocking together at the gas station or just loitering to pass the time during the hot summer days. As Bramble had suggested to her, Maggie tried to memorize their features and names, just in case she had another problem. After all, she was a sha
rp sleuth who could quickly discern patterns in behavior and suspicious timing.
The teenagers sniffed around her shop, but she held her tongue. She knew what they were looking for, but she played dumb. Maggie knew that pretending to know nothing usually provoked the truth by way of explanation from others and it worked like a charm on kids.
“Miss Corey, do you have any in stock?” one girl asked.
“Have what in stock, my dear?” Maggie asked.
“You know, Green Demon,” the girl replied matter-of-factly, assuming Maggie was a producer of the product, what with her growing things and selling herbs.
“I have nothing, honey,” Maggie disappointed her. “There is no Green Demon at this store. I told your friends that too, but you guys don’t believe me. I mean,” she looked about her own store, “buy anything here that you might assume is Green Demon and see for yourself what is in the bottle. Nothing here is made of that plant, sweetie. I’m sorry.”
“What good are you then?” the girl mumbled.
“What did you say?” Maggie prompted.
“Nothing. Nothing,” the girl sighed, looking at her friends and shaking her head. They all sighed in disappointment and left the shop for the gas station. Maggie had seen before how these same kids were harassing people at the gas station for a chance hit of the product while their dealers were dry.
“This is getting alarming, hey, Bramble?” she asked her cat.
“It is becoming an epidemic, I’d say,” he agreed, munching on custard and filo pastry. Maggie had made him a rip-off Danish to treat him. “The worst part is that the mayor is doing nothing to curb the problem. Poor Sheriff Walden is carrying the brunt of the predicament, because most parents are absent or neglectful.”
“That is spot on,” she nodded. “How are they not keeping track of their own children, you know?”
“I think another factor adding to the scourge is that parents don’t believe that their children have a problem to begin with. To tell you the truth, I have seen some lazy parenting in my life that promotes the ignorance around here to an alarming rate.”
“Yeah, I noticed that. Besides, if they refuse to acknowledge that these young people are actually addicted, there is no chance that they will commit them to treatment of any sort and that alone poses a social problem.” Maggie presented her analysis like a professional.
It was true. The Green Demon blight was spreading like a plague and the worst part was that this addiction crisis had managed to overwhelm Hope’s Crossing in the short time span of less than a month.
11
A few days after the assault on Vicky, courtesy of her boyfriend, the girl was walking with her friend, Mel. They had been waiting for their dealer to obtain another batch of Green Demon, but he told the girls that the supply was sporadic and scarce.
“Dude, I still can’t believe Paul actually beat you up,” Mel told her friend.
“He did not beat me up, okay?” Vicky protested. “It was one slap.”
Her friend shrugged. “Still assault, though. You do have a huge bruise and it took them almost an hour to revive you, so stop defending him.”
Vicky had no retort to her friend’s statement, but she did not like admitting that her boyfriend was slapping her around. Still, they were stalking the streets for anyone who might still have some of the drug on them. Suddenly, Vicky gasped.
“Corey’s?” she asked, her shiner still prominent on her face. “Maybe Corey’s herbs and Simples has some? I mean, it is Maggie Corey. Ollie got arrested after she refused to give him any, but he says she has Green Demon.”
Mel rolled her eyes. “You believe Ollie Miller?”
“Hey, Corey’s is an herb shop … and Maggie is a w—” Vicky argued, but her friend’s odd expression halted her words.
“A what?” Mel asked.
“You know, herbal expert,” Vicky recovered. “If anyone in this town is growing this stuff, it has to be Maggie Corey, whether you can trust Ollie or not.”
“Makes sense,” Mel agreed with a pull of her mouth. “Where is her shop again?”
“Just down this block. Pass the iced tea,” Vicky begged.
Their faces were flushed from the heat as they braved the early afternoon sun down the main road of Hope’s Crossing. Coming from ahead, they encountered another group of teens from the gas station area.
“Hey, did you get some stuff there?” Mel asked one of the young men in passing.
“Where?” he frowned.
“Corey’s, man,” she snapped. “Where else would I be talking about? You are coming from that side.”
“Couldn’t find Corey’s Herbs, actually. Going to try Gary, but he said he is dry too,” the boy moaned.
“Okay, cool. Never mind,” she shrugged. When they had some distance between the two parties, Vicky leaned in and nodded her head. “I know where Corey’s is. He is just too stupid to find the old ghost house. Moron.”
“I know, right? Everyone knows where the wi—um, Maggie’s shop is,” Mel cackled.
Both girls had their suspicions about Maggie Corey, but neither actually ever voiced what they thought of her. Neither wanted to sound like a fool to the other, after all.
When they came to the edge of the second block down, they checked the street names to make sure that they were at the right place, yet they could not recognize the building accurately. It looked like the old Corey house, but it also did not. It was a strange moment for the girls, since they had walked past Corey’s Herbs and Simples since they were in junior high, back when it still belonged to Clara Corey.
“Okay, where is it?” Mel sighed, her hand firmly in her side.
The two girls looked at the gardens and street signs, familiar shops and traffic lights, and still they could not locate the old herb store. Everything looked right, except the actual shop window they knew so well being absent.
“I have no idea,” Vicky replied, a deep scowl residing on her brow. Both swung from one side to the other, pivoting on their static stances to find the building, but they could not find it.
From the interior of the shop, Maggie watched them. Bramble was curled up in her embrace as they chuckled at the girls.
“Good call, Bramble,” Maggie sniggered. “I don’t know why I did not think of it.”
“Pity, it might diminish your sales if people cannot find your shop,” he lamented.
“That’s fine with me,” she replied. “Cloaking it from misguided kids protects my reputation and I won’t have my tolerance challenged all day long. I could not give a rat’s ass if it is temporarily bad for business. Besides, didn’t you say that the wards we put in place this morning are only effective on minors?”
“I said virgins. God only knows how many teens can still find us,” Bramble jested.
Maggie laughed. “I think it is working with youth in general. I have noticed that the only patrons today have been over forty. Maybe your virgin theory is archaic.”
Bramble’s keen eyes studied the confusion of the two high school girls on the curb opposite the shop. His wails of laughter were contagious and had Maggie in stitches as well.
“Oh jeez, look at them!” he roared with laughter. “As lost for direction as they are with life in general.”
“We should make some popcorn. These two are even funnier than the previous group of boys who ended up fighting about asking directions. I feel sorry for them, but I just cannot abide anymore. How many times can you tell someone that you don’t have a product?” she justified strengthening the wards on her shop. “I had to make this place invisible to them as well as Gareth. Soon we’ll end up invisible to the entire town at this rate.”
“Oh, would that be peaceful!” Bramble purred, thinking about what it would be like to be left alone by the ignorant, the church hypocrites, and the gossipers.
“It would be, right?” Maggie grinned. “But I have to make a living.”
“Oh yes. Money. Money, that good old elixir of greed and need,” he sighed. “I m
iss the days when we still bartered for trade. Those good old days when you had to have something to offer society in order to survive. These days the idiots have money and tradesmen go hungry.”
As they philosophized, they saw a car stop next to the two girls. Maggie listened through the open window as the woman in the car ranted at them. Being on the opposite side of the parking lot, the sound carried perfectly for a bit of eavesdropping.
“Melissa Ellis, did I not tell you to stay away from this den of iniquity?” her mother shouted at Mel.
“Den of what, Mom?” the girl asked innocently.
“Reverend Mason called that Corey’s shop a den of iniquity and I believe that is what is, so you get in this car right now, young lady!” the mother bitched, while Maggie and Bramble stood in stunned silence.
“Are we surprised?” Bramble remarked casually. “I bet she doesn’t even know what the hell that means.”
“Yep. What bothers me is that he is still at it, the prick,” Maggie hissed as she watched the car speed away.
The other girl was left behind, looking rather bewildered, her eyes still searching for the elusive herbal shop she knew so well. She carried that desperate look that Maggie had come to know from the high school kids who had entered her store for the past few weeks. It made the pretty witch sad to see someone so young taxed with such turmoil over a very dangerous substance that would probably end up killing her if she did not stop soon. Maggie’s occasionally potent maternal instinct caused great compassion inside her, a compassion for those manipulated by others. It made her wish that she could just seize them all up and invoke wards for them too, as she did for her house and her shop when she needed protection.
In the next days, Sharon and some others informed Maggie that she was still the prime suspect among concerned parents and teachers of Hope’s Crossing. Even the less diligent parents began to look for someone to blame and Maggie’s vocation provided the perfect reason to make her the perfect patsy. Even though they were aware that Maggie was in fact aiding the police in their investigation, they somehow still assumed that she was at the root of the addictions. Despite her protests and her obvious noninvolvement in selling the product, they persisted in their assumptions.
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