I'm not sure what the police were expecting, but it clearly wasn't us.

Midsummer's Eve. There we were, with our sister coven, up on Witches' Hill.

We'd had our picnic, we'd danced and sung the songs. Everyone else had gone up to the top of the hill to sing the Sun down. Typically, Uncle Steve was still down in the park, running around with the kids. In fact, the youngest was sitting on my shoulders.

The police car came hurtling up over the curb, tearing up turf as it went. It slammed to a stop midway up the hill. Simultaneously, in a choreographed move, both doors fly open. A cop leaps out of each and immediately crouches behind it, taut, as if expecting a barrage of bullets from the hilltop.

“Hey officer,” I say. “Midsummer's Eve, what?”

They give me the eye. Hands on guns, they move cautiously up the hill.

Not much later, they come back to the car, looking sheepish. They get in, back out of the park, and drive off.

I guess they'd been expecting slavering Satanists. Or mutant bikers.

Instead, they get a gay uncle and a bunch of middle-aged white people singing songs. Families, no less.

Witches, one. Police, nothing.

I mean, how dumb can you get?

Everyone knows the orgies and human sacrifice don't start till after midnight.