by J. J. McAvoy
“There is nothing to negotiate. She is our sister!” Ulrik snapped, and I smiled a bit.
“Again, missing the point,” Hinrik muttered, now annoyed with him.
“I understand the point. Do not talk to me as if I’m an idiot. I’m just beyond your conversation.” Ulrik growled. “The Omeron coven wants Dru. They might not know it’s Dru, but they want her. And the answer is no. What is the worry of saying no? That they will seek to attack, too? I dare them. They shall die. Which is why I say we should not concern ourselves.”
“They are using the old prophecy of the goddess Circe.” Hinrik actually looked ready to fight his twin brother. “To go to such extremes as that is not without pondering! At the very least, we should seek to know why they want a witch so badly that they would kill other witches to get her.”
“What if she really is the only daughter of Circe?” Atarah asked causing them all to look at her. “What? It is odd she can still do magic?”
“It would be even more odd for the destroyer of vampires to be vampire.” Melora commented. “Magic aside she is a vampire. The old prophecy of Circe claims that a witch shall be born of magic beyond all magic. When the era of weeping and darkness is upon us, she will uplift the sun in one hand and the crush night with the other. She shall bring about the end of this world and usher in another…does she look the least bit interest in that?” Melora added nodding to me causing them all to glance over.
All of this was beyond me…First it was vampires, then it was witches, followed by ghosts, and now it was Goddess and prophecies. What was next? Mermaids?
Honestly all I wanted to do was look at art and read. Why was this all happening? Who could I speak to and have it stopped?
“True. If the daughter of Circe was to come, her presence would have been felt by all witches the day of her birth. So, I can’t believe I’m saying this, maybe Ulrik is right and they are just using that as a ploy to get support.” Atarah replied.
“Why can you not believe you are saying that?” Ulrik grumbled at her.
“I would prefer not to get involved in Wiccan politics or drama at all.” Arsiein lifted a scroll, setting it on the table to read, blocking his brother’s view of his mate.
“Here. Here. I agree. They are always plotting and up to no good. The less we know of them, the better.” Ulrik nodded at his brother. “Theseus, why are you so quiet? This is about your mate!”
All eyes were on Theseus and me. For the first time since entering, he looked away from his father and to the rest of his family. “I am saving my words for Father to find whatever it is he is looking for. Have you not noticed he enjoys leaving us to argue like children before he comes and changes the whole direction of our conversations, rendering everything we said before useless? We are all so annoyed with all the arguing that we simply agree on his terms without debate.”
They all just looked at him blankly. Rhea, however, smiled wide, looking over her shoulder. “He has found you out, my love.”
“They all have. Theseus, however, is the only poor sport enough to ruin our family debates,” Sigbjørn stated, causing the rest of them to snicker.
“Father, what are you looking for?” Melora finally asked. “Do you need help?”
“I—” he paused, reaching quickly to grab one of the books. “I have found it.”
The book in his hand was almost as dense and long as an encyclopedia. When I looked closely, as he stepped towards the rest of the family, it was an actual encyclopedia of ancient language and linguistics.
“I do not understand?” Theseus eyebrows bunched together in confusion. “This is what you were searching for all this time?”
“Yes, it is a tricky book to find.” He said, dusting it off.
“What? Vampire libraries don’t have a coding system?” I joked because what the heck else was I supposed to do?
“My system is perfect, thank you,” Hinrik retorted sharply.
Ulrik once again rolled his eyes. “Don’t mind him, sister. He’s overly attached to his books and scrolls. That’s why his mate must leave him sometimes as he would spend weeks organizing in here and offer no one attention.”
Hinrik growled at his brother at the mention of his mate. But Ulrik just stuck his tongue at him.
“Father,” Theseus called to get everyone’s attention back. However, Sigbjørn was still captivated with the book in his tattooed hands. “I know Hinrik and Ulrik are hard to understand, but I doubt this book shall help, now of all times.”
Both of his brothers turned to him, but Theseus didn’t care. However, I couldn’t help but smile. They all couldn’t help but tease each other. They really were brothers. This really was a family…a happy one.
One I was adding drama to.
“What good is life without drama?” Sigbjørn stated, glancing up from the book and to me. “Every addition to the family comes with its own challenges, discoveries, and changes. We must charge ahead together, nevertheless. It is but growing pains.”
He handed me the book. I wasn’t sure why, but I took it all the same. The moment it touched my hand, I felt a sudden jolt of static run through my fingers. Causing me to flinch and back away from it. The book fell to the table, and the moment it did, the book changed in every way possible. It was no longer dense and thick, no longer a book at all, but instead a pamphlet. To be more precise, it was now an identical copy of a February 21st,1663 sermon it had fallen next to.
“What did you do to it?” Atarah asked, coming up beside me to look. Awe on her face.
“She did not a thing,” Sigbjørn stated, quickly putting his hand on the now pamphlet. “Careful, the moment we look away from it, it will vanish and hide somewhere else in the library.”
“What is it?” Arsiein asked, stepping beside his mate, less in awe of it and more distrusting.
“A grimoire,” Sigbjørn answered, lifting the sheets.
“That’s the thing witches put spells in, right?” I knew that much at least, and Sigbjørn nodded.
Rhea snickered; “And this who they say is their new goddess.”
I frowned.
“Why is it not locked away with the rest of the old grimoires?” Hinrik complained, but I couldn’t tell if he was more worried that it was out or that his library system was being disturbed.
“It escapes.” Sigbjørn said, lifting it up, and again his eyes fell to me. “Over the years, we have fought many Wiccans. Of those we have defeated, we have had their grimoires collected, for the history of the witches they belonged to and to understand their ways. They serve us no other purpose as we cannot do magic. However, not only will this one never reveal its true self, but it enjoys hide and seek.”
“When did we gain this one?” Hinrik was clearly confused by it.
“I noticed it before we left a year ago. Though I do not recall how we gained it,” he stated, offering me the book. “You had a memory of being here a year ago…would you have dropped something?”
“Something like a spell book?” Was that something people normally dropped?
“Why not have us see this first?” Theseus frowned, reaching down to take the papers. “Instead, you had her work on a painting, which now has witches on our doorsteps.”
“Theseus,” Rhea sneered, not liking the tone in Theseus’s voice for sure. She had that mom glare again.
“While you both were enjoying the gardens, I searched for it again but could not find it. I thought to have her use magic to undo the spellbind on the painting was an easier step. She fell drunk before I could. Then you refused to let her out of your room this morning. So, if you must lay blame on me, also lay it at yourself,” Sigbjørn stated amused, and Theseus hung his head, shutting his mouth. I was sure his father said more in his mind. Sigbjørn’s attention came back to me. “Witches enchant their spell books in many different ways. But all of them keep them in a place they be
lieve is safe for it holds all their knowledge and history.”
I glanced back down at the book on the table. Could it really be that simple? All the knowledge and history I had lost was in a book in the Thorbørn family library.
“I do not wish to rush you, sister, but there are homicidal witches hiding in wait about our country,” Arsiein stated impatiently, causing Atarah to elbow him.
“Right,” I muttered, reaching down and grabbing it upon doing so. The book shifted again and changed into a classic black and white composition notebook that grade-schoolers used. On the front in crayon, in a child’s handwriting the name…
Druella Zirie…Omeron. What?
The whole world seemed to slow down as I opened to the first page. There in the same crayon and in the same writing, it read:
“My name is Druella Zirie Omeron,
I am eight years old,
I am from Bymoor, Virginia.
My dad is Dovev Omeron.
My mom is Zirie Omeron.
They are gone, so uncle Axel takes care of me.
He teaches my best friend, Simone and me magic.
We learn magic because we are witches.
I am a witch.”
I stopped reading, shaking my head.
“This can’t be right,” I whispered. “My last name is Monroe.”
“No, it’s an anagram.” Hinrik stared at the book in my hand, pointing to the letters. “Change the words...Monroe becomes Omeron.”
“So, she is not just an Omeron coven witch. She is an actual Omeron?” Ulrik stared wide at me. “She is the niece of that maniac Axel Omeron?”
“And apparently, he wants his niece back,” Melora stated, but I shook my head, tossing the book onto the table. It changed forms again, but I didn’t care.
“Keep reading, Druella,” Sigbjørn said, but I didn’t want too. I didn’t want to know more. I wanted to throw the book, but when I looked down and saw the words, I couldn’t help it.
“Witches protect witches from the monsters.
I will protect us from the monsters.
But all monsters aren’t monsters.
Cuz I met a monster.
I think he is nice. He saved me, but when I tried to see him, he was gone.
He doesn’t know, but I tagged him, so I can find and thank him.
“Monster, monster, stay longer, stay longer, shine bright all night, like the moonlight at midnight for a witch’s sight.”
To my right, Theseus began to glow like the moon. His skin was even whiter. He stared down at himself in shock as my hands began to tremble.
“Ugh!” Theseus hissed, reaching up to grab his head, and his whole body shook.
“Theseus!” I called out, grabbing him as he dropped to his knees.
Rhea was already on the other side of him. But he held out his hand to stop her. His eyes looked at me.
“Keep…reading,” he gritted out through clenched teeth.
“Theseus what’s happening…”
“I think…I think I’m remembering something.” He held my arms. “Keep reading.”
I shook my head. “I don’t want to.”
He smiled even through the pain. “We came here for the truth, remember?”
“Damn it.” I glanced down at the pages, flipping through it, but there was nothing there. “It’s empty! There are only words on the first page! And you’re still glowing!”
“Try.”
“I am!” I hollered at him before throwing the book to the side and reaching out to hold him.
His skin was cold, even colder than it should have been like ice was crawling over his skin to encase me, too.
Magic, this would be a very good time to kick in.
It was a kid’s spell so…how did kids talk?
“Monster, monster, don’t stay any longer or all night or at midnight in the moonlight, because I am a creature of the night, a monster too in your sight,” I said quickly, and the light dimmed from his skin until it returned to his normal color.
His whole body went limp as he leaned against me. “I remember…”
“What do you remember?” I asked gently.
He glanced up at me, his eyes searching mine, and there was pain in them. “You took my memories…You killed me, Druella.”
TO BE CONTINUED IN 2021...
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