Tales of Forbidden Love: Tale of Salem [Book 1]

Tarja (1)

I was sitting under a tree. In a cold and freezing weather, yet it was a surprisingly sunny morning. The layers of snow were covering everything. The sounds of blowing winds, snow flying in the air all around me and the sounds of the animals around me were my only company.

I have always loved it this way. Being all on my own, in the wilderness of the big forest. It was my only means of escape from the cage that was my Coven.

Coven was my home, place where I have been living for my entire life, as well as my family, and the couple of families with whom we shared it. To people who would from time to time come to us, either as traders or members of Tsarist Army, we appeared as a farming community. Small, primitive, collection of peasants, who barely knew how to behave properly, let alone do things like reading. But that all was just an act, one mastered so well that it was almost natural to us. But act nevertheless.

We were, I am, something entirely different then mere peasants. For hundreds of years, people, like me, like my family have been hiding in places like that. Far, far away from the civilisation, relying only on themselves and those who were of the same kind. But it was not always like that. We were not always in need of hiding, living in separation, fear, isolation. No. In past, long forgotten, we ruled the world. We were the masters of the lands, skies and waters. We owned the world. But then the Humans came. And as they were evolving our domination was disappearing. Slowly, but surely. They were becoming the masters of the world, while we were disappearing under their might.

And yet, worst of all the wars happened only around more than thousand years in past. That was when ten mighty leaders of five human tribes united into one. And unified, under the ten Martyrs, as they would become to be known, they waged a war on my kind. A war which would once and for all made it so that they were the dominant species of the world, not us, not anymore.

Such was, is, the story which my mother always would tell me before bed. So I knew where was my place , in the Coven, and what would await me if I ever left it and was found for what I am, death would await me. A terrible death by fire at a pyre, or being drown in a holy river.

Such is a fate of a witch in this world.

Despite knowing this, all of it, I was nevertheless a curious being. My mind would often go to places unknown, imagining things which might have been if my life was different, what might have been if I left the Coven, as I had dreamt of many times. I simply wanted to know what a real, free life, and world, looks like. I wanted that more than anything.

A she-wolf, who was the only one of her kind, as I came to understand over the years, was laying on my legs, sleeping quietly for almost two hours now. I was the only one she trust, because she knew me for years, and I knew her. We had a special bond, As I was about to fall sleep as well, even though it was morning, she raised her head in a flash, and standing into a defensive position even faster.

"Tarja, please calm her down. I down want to get bitten, again," a kind voice pleaded as a figure of a young girl was approaching.

Oh, Oksana, sweet little Oksana, what made you wander so far away from mother? I told to myself as she was coming to me.

"It is alright, nothing to worry about," I said to the she-wolf, petting her head. She calmed down, and laid into the snow like nothing happened. "What are you doing here, Oksana?" I asked my little sister, who was not standing in front of me. Her long red hair were shining in the sunlight. "You especially should not be here."

"Oh yes, as if I was the only one who knows that you come here. The whole Coven knows it. Or have you forgotten how once Old Kalganov was looking for the two of us, with help of his bloodhounds?"