wouldn’t leave.
I had the perfect opportunity now.
Chapter 26 — Emery’s Diary
The next few days were tense. I managed to get out of my room unsupervised. I attempted the door, and it was unlocked. Anytime I ran into another person they would watch me closely though. I didn’t want their attention while I wandered the house, so I tried to be unobtrusive. I had found a small library area, and I would go there to read. A lot of the books were about witch history, pure and simple. I find little regard for werewolves in those books.
Today while I was in the library, I found something new. I found a werewolf-witch history book. I pulled it off the shelf purely out of curiosity. It didn’t have a title, and then I realized it was hand written. It wasn’t very big, it was smaller than the average book in size. The script inside was beautiful, the kind of handwriting you only see on really old documents. I pulled the book up close and breathed in. I sighed with the scent of an old book. I couldn’t stop my curiosity from taking over. I flipped to the first page.
Emery’s Spell Book and Diary
I started to read standing too intrigued to even sit. The first few pages were small spells and cantrips. I ended up skipping over them. I passed the spells and when I got the diary part of the book is when I started to really read it. Emery was one of the witches who survived through the Salem Witch Trials. As I read more about what had happened, I realized things were different from the picture history books painted.
I found a seat in a dark corner of the room. It was hidden behind some shelves tucked away in the back. I knew about werewolf hunters, they were taught when they were young by their parents who were taught by their parents about our kind, all the way back to medieval times. It was a dirty business, a family business. Their numbers had decreased drastically, but they still existed. I hadn’t realized there were witch hunters as well.
I read on. The more I read, the more I empathized. The witches were scared. They were watching their children being killed. Of all the ways a witch could be killed, humans at the time thought death was the only way to “purify” them. More powerful witches could douse the fires, but that wasn’t always enough.
I read that witches didn’t hit their magical peak until their 21st birthdays, which explained what happened to me. These hunters would find the witches and warlocks before their 21st birthdays and kill them. There was no way for them to stop the hunters without their powers.
That is when Emery, who assured her readers she was light witch, heard rumors of other witches using dark magic. Blood magic. Emery said that once a witch used blood magic, they rarely ever went back to the light. Light witches used the Earth around them and they gathered what they needed magically from it. Blood magic was diametrically opposed to light magic, and once it was used, the Earth rejected the blood magic user. From that point on, their powers would only be amplified with the addictive use of more complicated blood spells. The stronger the blood, the stronger the spell.
Times are dire. Our Coven has lost two more innocent souls. Aradia is considering blood magic. She seems to believe that the only way to protect ourselves is to force the assistance of the only other supernatural beings that we are aware of. The wolves. They have become too reclusive and hidden in their human skins. We have no such luxury. We are simply as we are.
I do not agree with her choices but she is the Leader of our Coven. I have to hope she knows what she plans. Otherwise she may curse the rest of her line.
I pulled my head from the book as I looked at the name once again. Aradia. As in my mother? How long did witches live? I had always been under the impression they lived as long as humans. I knew weres lived longer because they had two separate beings contained inside of them. I looked back down at the book. I had to know more.
I heard a creak and my head shot up. This was dangerous. I was in the communal room, so I decided it would be best to smuggle Emery’s diary away to