Witch and Wizard - James Patterson [12]
My mouth dropped open as I saw the jury nodding.
“Prophecy?” I scoffed. “I promise you—my sister and I are nowhere in the Good Book. Get real, Ezekiel.”
The courtroom gasped. “Blasphemer!” a woman cried out, and shook her fist at us.
The bailiff rushed toward me with his billy club raised, and I lifted my eyebrows in mock fear. Uh, I’m in a cage, stupid. The bars work both ways.
Judge Unger continued, “Therefore, based on the preponderance of evidence—”
“Look, whatever the charges, we plead not guilty!” I yelled, grabbing the bars of the cage despite my handcuffs and shaking them with all my strength. Which I guess wasn’t the smartest thing.
Smack! The bailiff raked his nightstick across my knuckles. Wisty gasped, and I barely managed to swallow a scream of pain.
The One Who Judges literally leaped out of his chair and leaned over his desk, practically within spitting distance. “That’s showing those vermin! Well done, bailiff! That’s the only way to deal with this kind of filth! If you spare the rod, you spoil the deviants!”
His face was mottled purple and white, his eyes bugging out of his head.
“How say you to these charges?” he yelled at us.
Dumbfounded, Wisty and I replied, “Not guilty!”
The judge turned away from us. “Gentlemen of the jury, with that statement, the defendants stand in clear contempt of your will and this court’s mission. They mock us. They flout the standards of the glorious New Order! I ask you, what is your verdict?”
“That’s it?” I yelled from the cage. “That’s our trial?”
“You’ve got to be kidding!” screamed Wisty. “That’s not fair.”
Smack! went the bailiff’s nightstick. Smack! Smack! Smack!
Chapter 18
Whit
THIS WHOLE CRAZY THING was happening so fast.
In ordinary, lawful trials, one juror stands and reads the verdict from a sheet of paper that often shakes in his or her hand. But this was a travesty of justice. This jury simply held their fists out. We watched as the men, one by one, turned their hands thumbs-down. All of them. Unanimous.
Of course, in ordinary trials, there are also lawyers and due process and principles such as innocent until proven guilty, and things like that. Welcome to the New World Order, I guess.
Judge Unger banged his gavel so hard that Wisty and I jumped. “Guilty as charged!” he roared, and my breath froze in my chest.
“You, Wisteria Allgood, are hereby determined by the New Order to be a witch! You, Whitford Allgood, are determined to be a wizard!”
Wisty and I could only stare up at him in shock and disbelief. But he had saved his best line for last.
“Both of which are punishable by hanging… until dead.”
Chapter 19
Wisty
HANGING UNTIL DEAD?
This isn’t real.
My ears started to buzz.
This can’t be real. This doesn’t happen. This has to be a nightmare.
My chest tightened up. The room started to go green. And fuzzy.
And then I heard Whit’s voice. Like it was coming to me down a long tunnel. Finally, he shook my shoulder.
“Hang in there, Wisty,” he said quietly. I blinked and focused on his face. “Love you.”
I nodded. Whit didn’t think he was special, but his words and his touch were like a magic bullet of strength. I could breathe now. “Love you too,” I whispered. “More than I ever knew before.”
I inhaled deeply and braced myself for what Judge Unger had to say next.
“Unfortunately, executions are not allowed until said criminal is eighteen years of age.”
The buzzing returned to my ears, the fuzziness to my sight.
Whit would be eighteen in less than a month!
I wondered why I wasn’t feeling a little flameish or lightningy right about now. I wanted to lash out at this judge so much that it hurt.
“Therefore, both of you will be held in the state penitentiary”—he continued gravely, and then smiled—“for the time being.” He nodded at the bailiff in the courtroom