The Bewitching - Book 1

Chapter 9 - The Uninvited Stranger

Elyssa sat at a desk in her room with an extremely large and weathered book taking up most of the space in front of her. The pages were yellowed and torn around the edges. It appeared so old that it was a surprise that touching them didn’t turn them to dust between one’s fingers. Her eyes were heavy and she struggled to keep them open. Every now and then they’d close and her head would begin to droop. Before it would fall completely forward, she’d snap her eyes back open and rub them vigorously.

It had been three days since she had met Annette and her mom, along with tiny Tobias and the mysterious Dantes. As much as the two women had told her, they had still left many things unanswered. She had been told of the history of the world and the battles between good and evil that have been around since the beginning of time. They taught her the most basic forms of energy manipulation. They also warned her that she posed a danger to the future that evil wanted to see unfold.

The attack she witnessed was only the beginning. It was her life the demons wanted. There would be more attacks to come and it was important that she became as strong as she could, as quickly as possible.

The one area they tried to avoid discussing was Dantes. There was more to, not only him, but the both of them that Annette and her mother seemed hesitant to speak of. At most she knew Dantes and her were connected somehow from previous lives, quite possibly romantically, but she wasn’t quite sure exactly how, or of the seriousness of that relationship if there was one. It didn’t help that she wasn’t sure why she was so intrigued to know more about him and their history. She wasn’t even sure if she liked him that fondly. It may have just been her curiosity in wanting to know, but it was definitely eating at her.

She attempted to ask nonchalantly on several occasions, not only about him, but the strange visions she experienced when her skin had made contact with his. Alicia would often avoid the question completely and attempt to entirely change the subject. Annette, on the other hand, was a bit more forthcoming. Like a child with a secret, as hard as Annette tried not to tell, she would still let little hints drop here and there. Granted they were fairly lousy hints which told Elyssa nothing, but she hoped that with time she might be able to find out more than she currently knew. The fact that she could even get Annette to slip at times gave her some hope. Although she would often catch Annette grinning at times when a slip occurred in such a way that made her wonder if the whole child like act and dropped hints weren’t just an act.

It seemed neither Annette, nor her mom, could explain why Elyssa had no recollection of her past lives. It was somewhat odd, they told her, for someone with her capabilities, capabilities which she had also forgotten and usually flowed from lifetime to lifetime with the knowledge of how to use them. From what she could gather from one of the hints Annette dropped, the connection of energy between her and Dantes had been so strong at some point that it now jolted her memories when they touched.

This idea followed very closely along the lines of how they described energy, and connections between people and living things. Everyone was connected through energy much like a network of spiderwebs. Many were weak, but the closer we were to someone, such as friends or family, the stronger those connections and strands of energy became. Love or intimacy heightened them even more, and those were the most powerful strands that existed. It was a complicated matrix of sorts that could be used to draw power for the most potent of spells. From her earlier visions with Dantes, she could only assume that it was in some way this type of connection that allowed her to remember bits and pieces of the past.

In addition to what they shared, they had also given her the large book of spells she now held in front of her, with instructions to read as much of it as possible. Along with that were a few simple cantrips they had taught her to get her started. They had instructed her to read the book from the very start without skipping ahead. At first she found herself excited about receiving such a gift and all the amazing things she might learn.