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  Witchy Secrets

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  Table of Contents

  Chapter One – The Stranger Calls

  Chapter Two – The Gift

  Chapter Three – Destiny

  Chapter Four – A New Life

  Chapter Five – Making Plans

  Chapter Six – Lessons

  Chapter Seven – Shifting Sand

  Chapter Eight – The Reckoning

  Chapter One – The Stranger Calls

  Blaise Winters had always known she was different to others. Even though her mother lavished love upon her and loved her unconditionally, she had always felt cast apart from others, as if she belonged to no-one, on the borders of all the cliques at school and shunned by her fellow classmates. From an early age, she had sensed that she was never going to be part of the “in” crowd, so perhaps it was Blaise herself who deliberately placed herself on the periphery of her peers, innately sensing her life would never be compatible with theirs. She was a solitary child who grew into a withdrawn teen and whose sullenness was normally perceived as the territory of her age.

  Her solitude should have made her feel lonely, but she had never mourned the absence of close friends. From a very early age, she realized that her home life was very different to others around her. She knew instinctively that she should never mention the sense of timelessness she felt, a feeling that she had been here before and she was convinced beyond doubt that she would return too.

  She had begun asking her mom questions from an early age about why she was different but felt fobbed off when the answer would always come back, “It’s not time yet. We will both know when the time arrives. Until then, be patient and enjoy your freedom.” Blaise wondered what her mother meant. Was she implying that the freedom would be removed at some point? Wasn’t that what happened to all grown-ups and they had to take on adult responsibilities. But intuitively she knew that there was a lot more depth to the explanation.

  Blaise had been brought up by her mother, Agatha, who was a single parent and who rarely spoke of Blaise’s father. Agatha had given birth to Blaise at the age of 17 and to her daughter, Agatha had always been like a beautiful queen from a fairytale. She seemed to be unaware of her own beauty, or perhaps simply wasn’t concerned with it. But no-one else could fail to notice her long, dark curly tresses, which framed her heart-shaped face and emphasized her green eyes and tawny skin. Her lips were full and mocking but were still not an unkind feature of her flawless face. She possessed a beauty that seemed timeless and unmatched, and Blaise was in total awe of her own mother. They clung to each other in an almost unhealthy emotional desperation, rarely apart, and became more like sisters than a mother and daughter.

  Blaise had never wanted for anything. They lived a modest lifestyle, but in a mansion, which Agatha had said had been the family home and generations of her family had lived there before her. She had been an only child so that when her parents had been killed in an airplane crash the house and their small fortune fell to her. Blaise and Agatha lived in the huge house alone, apart from Alice, the maid who seemed to do everything around the house and prepared them mouth-watering meals every evening. Blaise regarded Alice as part of the family because she had always been there, loving her.

  If Agatha was lonely, she showed no signs of it. She was an accomplished pianist and the house would often be filled with the sound of her passionately executing some classical piece. Blaise grew up with the sounds of Bach and Chopin filling her senses and although she had a fine appreciation of it, any musical talent seemed to have bypassed her. Although she did share her mother’s love of books and took every opportunity to dip into the splendid library which had been a part of the house for as long as the house had stood. They owned two horses and often the pair would ride out on the pastures of Bardstown, Kentucky, their dark tresses trailing behind them, and conjuring up visions in bystanders of epic movies in which they should have starred. Blaise had inherited her mother’s dramatic beauty and Agatha shielded her like a mother tigress.

  They seemed to have no need of others in their intimate world. Together they explored the capitals of Europe: London, Paris, Rome, Athens, relishing all the glittering prizes their travels offered up. As a teenager, Agatha had been sent to Lausanne in Switzerland to finish her education. She learned the three languages of Switzerland even though she lived in the French section. Now she spoke all three like a native and any accent she may have had was imperceptible. Her love for her daughter was fierce and she wanted to show her all the world had to offer. As Blaise matured, they seemed to grow ever closer in a relationship, which might have been described as claustrophobic by others. But for the mother and daughter, it was all they would ever need, and they felt cocooned in a web of bliss, which neither hoped would ever end.

  It came as a shock when, one Sunday afternoon, they sat in the library, deeply engrossed in their own worlds of literary delight, and the doorbell rang. Agatha and Blaise looked up at each other, shocked, their eyes like saucers, as if it might be the devil himself. The only person to ever ring the doorbell was the postman but he didn’t make deliveries on Sundays. Each of them sat transfixed, waiting for Alice to appear and inform them who the stranger could possibly be. As expected, a small but urgent knock came at the door.

  “Yes, come in Alice,” uttered Agatha, trying to appear calm for her daughter’s sake. She couldn’t explain to her why she had felt that sudden surge of terror when the doorbell went. It was such a normal occurrence and anyone else observing the scene might think they had gone completely mad to be so disproportionately disturbed by it. But Agatha had always known this day would arrive. She had anticipated it for as long as she could remember. And even before Alice had time to announce who it was, she knew the name that would issue from her lips.

  “Monsieur Jacques Manneau is here to see you, Miss Agatha.”

  The sound of his name struck fresh terror into Agatha’s heart and her face emptied of any color. She couldn’t escape. Her destiny had come to collect, and she had agreed long ago to surrender to it. Those were the terms she had signed up to.

  “Show him into the morning room please Alice. I’ll be through shortly.”

  She hardly dare look in Blaise’s direction, but she could feel her daughter’s eyes on her, beseeching her for an explanation.

  “It’s nothing to be worried about,
my sweet. It’s just someone from the past who I would rather not have seen at all, ever again.”

  “Can’t you send him away? Please do mom.”

  “No, I can’t send him away darling. I have no choice but to see him. It’s an arrangement that was made long, long ago and now I have to abide by its terms.”

  “But what could that possibly be? I don’t understand. I’m scared, mom.” Blaise could feel the panic rising in her and already her breath had shortened and begun to come in short gasps. Agatha came to kneel in front of Blaise’s chair and took her in her arms.

  “Don’t worry, my love. Everything is going to be fine. I am so very proud of you and all you have become. You are destined for great things, huge achievements. And there is a price to be paid which I am more than willing to pay. Trust me,” and she stroked her daughter’s hair and kissed her tenderly on the forehead before hugging her closely to her and stroking the back of her hair. After a few moments, she sat back and taking Blaise’s hands, asked, “Do you trust me baby?”

  Blaise looked into her mother’s eyes, trying to read the thoughts behind them but there were no clues. Eventually she nodded, and a tear fell down her cheek as Agatha left the room to meet with the mysterious stranger.

  Blaise never saw her mother again.

  Over the next hour or so, Blaise did her best to distract her thoughts in her book, but she found that she had read the same page four times and still didn’t know what she had read. She abandoned it on the table beside her chair and stood to pace the floor. Ten minutes ticked by and she could stand it no long and walked resolutely towards the morning room to investigate who Monsieur Jacques Manneau was and what his business was with her mother. She threw back the heavy double doors with a strength borne from determination, but the room was empty. She surveyed the room quickly expecting them to spring up from somewhere they’d been hiding from sight. But the room remained still and deathly hushed.

  She turned and heard the fear in her own voice as she shouted out, “Mother! Mother! Where are you? Please answer me.”

  As if by magic, Alice appeared silently from the kitchen. In her hand, she carried a plain white envelope with Blaise’s name emblazoned across it in Agatha’s familiar scrawl. Blaise’s breath caught in her throat as she took the envelope Alice held out to her as if it would burn her and stared at it like it was a serpent in her hand.

  “I’m sorry child. She’s gone.”

  “Gone? I don’t understand. Why? Where?”

  “The letter explains everything. Read the letter. Shall I come with you?” Alice offered.

  Blaise didn’t trust herself to speak because she was sure that the sobs she was trying so hard to suppress would escape and she wouldn’t be able to quell them once they started. She merely shook her head, tight-lipped, and disappeared to her room to read the dreaded news she knew instinctively would change her life forever.

  Chapter Two – The Gift

  With trembling hands, Blaise carefully tore the sealed part on the envelope and removed the folded paper from inside. When she opened it out, her eyes fell upon the beautifully scripted writing of her mother. Her writing was something Agatha had always been proud of because a favorite teacher had once told her it was a thing of beauty, which had made her take care whenever she wrote anything. As she looked at it, a tear from Blaise’s cheek ran off her chin and onto the letter, smudging the ink, which Blaise had used in her fountain pen. The rest of the words began to blur, and she wiped away the rest of her tears on her sleeve, sniffed and began to read.

  My dearest daughter Blaise,

  How often have I started to write this letter to you and had to abandon it because it seemed to need words I could not bear to say to you? But write it I must because it explains both our destinies.

  When I was sent to Switzerland at the age of 16 by my parents, it was to escape the clutches of M. Manneau but, of course, you’ve guessed it, he found me. I was almost 18, the same age as you are today, with only two days to go to my birthday. If I could have escaped M. Manneau’s detection until after that date, I would have been safe. But he was too clever for me and found me all too easily.

  I know that you are aware that we are special. We have special powers, which run in the family. Your grandmother possessed the same magical qualities as we both share. And I use the word ‘magical’ purposely because we have a formidable gift at our disposal. Have you ever wondered how you can accomplish certain things you do which you have never witnessed anyone else being capable of? Or how you can conjure up certain implements instantly that you might require to complete a simple task? Things which you might now even have been aware of previously. These are just simple examples, but we are capable of so much more, things I have never spoken to you about because I chose not to exercise my powers and didn’t want to encourage you to do so either.

  I truly wish that our lives could have been simpler instead of the complicated web we are both caught up in. Perhaps it was unfair of me to keep this from you for so long, but I wanted us to be happy together for as long as possible. Please know my darling that I love you more than life and to be given the gift of a child such as you, my life is the only bargaining chip I own and could use against M. Manneau’s cruel demands.

  You’ve asked me so many times to tell you about our past and why we are different, but I never wanted this day to come. Some people might call us witches. That is a name that has been bandied about for hundreds of years to describe the good and evil amongst us. I suppose it’s as good a word as any other. We are witches and the women in our family have been for generations. You are a witch my darling. But rest assured, that doesn’t have to mean anything ominous. You can choose to deny your powers for the rest of your life, if you so choose. Which is what I sincerely hope your decision will be.

  You have probably realized by now that M. Manneau is one of the evil ones amongst us and gets his power from people like us, whose powers are much stronger than his when fully developed. I always chose to shun them because I have experienced first-hand what such evil can do. He killed your grandparents, which I thought would break my heart. You see, he must kill to redeem the power within that person. My father was just collateral damage. When it happened, I felt powerless to do anything. I was numb. Helpless and wounded. But then he said that if I promised to willingly sacrifice myself by the age of 18, he would give me the gift of a child, just like he had done with my mother before me. I would have you for 18 glorious years before he came for payment.

  In my emotional state, I agreed and signed up to an agreement by which I must abide. Defiance would mean not just my own death but yours too. And I could not bear that. My soul would never find peace.

  I know that soon he will return to the house. When I am gone, and his power has been rebuilt. He will offer you the same contract as my mother and I accepted. Do not agree. Believe me when I say I have never regretted having you and I feel I have been truly blessed, but to be separated from you like this is surely the cruelest pain and torment that any being has ever had to endure.

  Escape as quickly as you can. Flee the house for now. Alice is your great aunt and has always loved us both deeply. She will show you how to escape his clutches. Manneau asked her to be his bride many years ago. She refused and found a way to keep him at bay. You must do the same. Because you will never escape his reach otherwise. When he tracks you down, make him fall in love with you. But first, you must develop your powers to their fullest strength. Alice can show you how. Only then will you find a way to conquer him and vanquish him forever.

  I know that we shall meet again my dearest darling and I will wait for you to come to me. But not for a long time yet. Take your time. Make sweet memories with your own daughter just like the ones we have made together. Show her Paris and Rome and if you look for me, I will be there too. I will love you until the end of time and beyond. I am always at your back.

  Blessings and keep you safe,

  Your adoring mother, Agatha

 
Blaise felt as if she had stepped into a fairytale. She could never have imagined that she would play such a vital part in it though and felt totally bewildered by it all. The door opened, and Alice stood there in her coat, car keys in her hand.

  “I’ve already loaded the car up. We should get going as soon as we can. We have a lot of ground to cover to put some space between him and us. He’ll be back soon to claim what he thinks is his. Come on, we’ll talk in the car.” Alice handed Blaise her coat and she put it on and followed Alice out of the house, watching her lock the door behind them. She wondered if she would ever walk through that door again. It was very slowly dawning on her that she would never see her mother again and she couldn’t allow herself to think of it because it was far too painful.

  “Does this mean that monster is my father Alice?” she asked forlornly.

  “It doesn’t work like that in our world Blaise. We don’t have children like mere mortals, they are gifted by men to women but not in the usual way. Our species is dependent on the other gender but very differently to the way humans are. Men hold the key to the cycle of life for us, but it comes in the form of a potion. A child is developed in what would seem to outsiders as laboratory conditions. There is no contact required to make a child.”

  “It all sounds rather clinical,” said Blaise. “So, we’re all test tube babies?”

  “You could describe it like that, yes. The composition of our bodies is very different to that of humans, but we made Earth our home thousands of years ago and decided to stay when conditions proved favorable here.” Alice stole a quick glance at Blaise quickly as she drove them away from the home the younger woman had known all her life. “I know, you’re bound to be shocked. But there was never going to be an easy way to tell you about your heritage.”