A Girl Beyond (War of the Witches Book 2)

by Marjorie Weismantel

  I pause as I hear a whispering murmur from the crowd. A green-robed man next to me steps forward and raises his hand for silence. A hush goes over the crowd and he speaks. “You know the truth of what she says. The diaboles are determined to destroy us and our kind. It is easy to target us, for we are the luminars. We are the ones who spend our days trying to rid the fields of the harvest rot and the children of the hunger diseases. We are always near the death and destruction. We do not hide away in our manors or sanctuaries as they do.”

  “Why did you have us come to this place?” questions a stooped old crone in the front.

  I lift my chin and regard her. “We must stop them, before it is too late! Since this terrible famine, many of our kind have been dragged before the village lords or judges, recipients of false accusations. The accused are then questioned and tortured before the very folk they tried to help. As convicted witches, they are then tied to the stake and burned completely to ash.” I pause, than quietly add, “The commoners have been convinced of a grave falsehood, that erasing all evidence of our being will rid the world of its sorrow. That is a deception that they will surely regret.”

  A short man from the back speaks up, pointing his finger for emphasis, “I live in Friesland. The witches are not being persecuted there as such. The famine has been bad, but they have only summoned the witches to the big house and spoke to them. So far, no one has been hurt. My master has been good and he will leave us be. I declare that to be the truth.”

  “Tis easy for ye to say such things.” A tall, gaunt woman with a faded red cloak and a sallow-skinned child by her side steps on a log to be heard. She glances around furtively before she continues. “I am from the Gaelic country. At the begin’ of the starvation, it wa’ like ye say.” She nods toward the short man. “The laird called each o’ the witches, un by un and he had words with us. Thought tad be the end of it we did, but t’was not. The time of hunger woudn’a go away so the laird and his son went agin us. T’was not as we thought it’ would be. I was off’n the field with our lassie when they came and took my ma and my da.” She sobs for a moment, clutching the girl to her side, but her voice was clear as day, her flashing eyes defiant, “They were accused of the witchery they were, and whipped and burned, all the same dae. I could hear screams and smell the foul odor of the smoke as I ran. I ben wandrin’ with our poor Kellie ever since.”

  The red cloaked woman steps down and all are silent. I search for the right words to say but I can think of nothing.

  The green-robed man next to me finally starts to talk in a low but steady voice. “We all know what is happening throughout the continent and in the English lands. The diaboles are using the human suffering of this famine to rid the world of the luminars. After all, if the world is rid of good witches, the power of the evil ones will be unending.

  The stooped crone speaks again, impatience in her tone, “So, tell us what you want of us.”

  “We will simply do the deeds they accuse us of,” I say quietly with raised eyebrows, waiting for their reaction.

  “And what deeds would that be, dearie?” The crone waves her staff at me.

  “They accuse us of evil deeds even though they know we are not guilty of such things. So, why not let them truly suffer the consequences of their deception? We will contrive sickness upon their own families, we will raise tempests upon their own farms, we will divine spells to cause distrust among their households, we will make their animals lame and we will bring ruination upon their own fields.”

  A shout from the crowd, “And where are we to carry out these acts?”

  The green-robed man touches my arm before he answers for me, “Henceforth, ye shall go to your place of origin and commit these crimes against your lords and masters. You will have some time because they know this is not of your true nature, so they will not suspect you, at least for a while. There will be a time when they determine the cause. You must be very careful when that time comes. However, remember that not all lords and priests are diaboles. Some of them are of a decent sort. Be careful only to target the evil ones. It is not our way to go after the innocent.”

  “We feel such danger around us now. Why must we add to our troubles?” the voice of a boy chokes out.

  “This is what must be!” I angrily direct at them. “I know it is hard for good ones to engage in such destructive acts. But, we either do this, or we wait for our demise at their evil and treacherous hands. There is no choice in the matter.”

  At that I wait. The witches had been through enough. This war of witches would bring them more pain and death. They were hoping for peace. The witches were again murmuring among themselves. After a time I sense something from the crowd. I knew they were turning my way.

  The old crone finally speaks up. “We will do your bidding, girl. Don’t know if it’ll work but nothin’ else comes to mind. Tis better to die fighting, than be led like a blind man to the pyre.” I hear some muttering in the crowd but most of them are nodding their assent.

  As the witches gather their belongings to begin their journeys, I go among them to converse and inquire as to where each is from. I am pleased to learn that they come from all over the continent and the English lands: Scotland, England, Bavaria, Friesland, Castile, Denmark, Hungary, and more. When they go back to their homelands and carry out the plan, the destruction to the diaboles will be unforeseen, wide spread, and devastating.

  Out of respect to me, the witches pull down their hoods as we meet. I am taken by surprise for it is revealed to me that I know a number of them. Strangely, they do not respond in return. Why is that? Most of them are from afar. When have we possibly met?

  Most shocking of all, however, is the green-hooded man. When I first hear him speak at my side, I sense a connection with him even though his voice is not familiar. When he finally pulls off his hood and looks into my eyes, I feel a peculiar warmth spring from my heart. I know instantly upon gazing at his face that he had once been my father.

  This was very strange for I had watched my own father die many years before of the falling sickness. This man does not even look like my father. No, this man is not my father from this lifetime. He had been my father in some other lifetime. I am sure of it.

  51. Personal Vengeance

  Suddenly, I feel a shaking sensation, almost as if we are experiencing an earthquake. What’s the matter with the others? Aren’t they feeling it? The witches are talking and gathering their belongings as if nothing is happening. I fall to my knees to slow down the sensation of movement. It is making me dizzy.

  A tiny voice in my head: “Tess, Tess, do you hear us? Please, you must come back.” I can feel something grasping my shoulder.

  A voice I’ve heard before, but so faint: “Mom, her eyes look different. Start the count back. I think she’s starting to hear us.”

  It is now louder and insistent. “Tess, I am going to count down from ten to one. By the time I reach one, you will return to the present. Ten, nine, eight, seven…………one.”

  My inner sight fades away to a tiny black pinpoint. I feel around and open my eyes. I’ve been here before. Why am I here?

  I turned to the right and saw her staring at me, obvious concern on her face. On my left was the older one, outwardly calm, but I could see a twitch in the corner of her eye.

  “Are you all right, dear? You looked dazed. Remember me? I’m Belinda.”

  “And you know me. I’m Mercy, your best friend. Are you doing OK?”

  “Yes, yes. Give me a moment,” I said, holding my head in my hands. I could feel a headache coming on. “Moving between centuries; it makes you lose your bearings.”

  “Why didn’t you want to come back to us, Tess?” asked Belinda softly.

  “Because it was so terrible for the witches there. They were pitiful, starving, devoid of hope. Somehow I felt responsible for them and I did not want to leave.”

  Belinda smiled. “I’ve heard of this happening, but I’ve never seen it. Sometimes people are regressed to
a past life and they don’t want to come back so they try to stay. It can be very dangerous. People have been known to…..well, never mind. ” She took my hand. “I’m just glad you returned to us, Tessie.”

  I gazed back at her. “I saw what happened. I witnessed the beginning of the Karmic Apocalypse of the Wiccans.”

  “We had an idea you did. We could hear you speaking to the witches about a plan to nail the diaboles on their own territory,” Mercy remarked, smiling.

  “Do you know how things turned out, Tess?” Belinda inquired.

  “Yes, I know that the luminars all went back to their homes and followed the plan. We only targeted the diaboles and it went as you would expect. The evil ones suffered great hardship for a few years: failed crops, poor health, family troubles, and general bad luck. It resulted in a time of some hardship, because when the lord and masters suffer misfortune, everyone is affected. However, for a while, it was also a time of peace because the diaboles were busy working to ease their misfortunes. They even stooped to seeking out the luminars for help. We would not help them, though. We just pretended to help.”

  “Why would they ask you for help? After all, they were witches. Didn’t they have any powers?” Mercy asked.

  “One power the diaboles completely lost was the power to heal, primarily, because of disuse. If they needed a healer they had to call a doctor, or a luminar, and the doctors weren’t very good during those times,” I explained.

  “What did you do when you went back to your lord and master? Did he deserve retribution? Did you torment him and his household?” Mercy asked impatiently.

  I nodded and explained, “In my village there were two evil ones who tormented everyone within their reach, including the commoners. One was Lord De Mornay and the other was the Bishop of Reims. The Bishop was just your everyday witch-hater. But Lord De Morney was especially heinous. He went after the so called ‘child witches’. We knew he just had a thing for children. He enjoyed abusing and torturing them. The threat of arresting a child was also a very effective way of controlling their parents.”

  “What did you do to them?” asked Belinda.

  “My mama, who was also a witch, was determined to make Lord De Mornay pay. You see, he had taken my baby brother, Renaud, the year before. It was terrible. We had loved him so. Mama and I had lost all our fear after that tragedy. In fact, I would say Renaud’s death was one of the reasons I decided to call together the witches to plan The Karmic Apocalypse.”

  Mercy cried, “What a horrible man! How’d you make him pay?”

  I gathered my thoughts and then explained, “We decided to inflict him with as much pain and suffering as possible. Most importantly, we did it very quickly. That way, he was completely overcome by the shock of it all. He had to spend a great deal of his time trying to manage the calamities that befell his household.”

  “What did you do to him to bring him to his knees?” Mercy asked with a note of thrill in her voice.

  “I had access to their household on occasion because they called me to treat any sickness or injury.” I turned to Belinda and added, “I learned that I had a talent; that of curing maladies by ‘the laying of the hands’.”

  Belinda looked startled. “Really? Can you explain it?”

  “Actually, I believe that I still have that talent to a certain degree. It is a kind of healing through warmth and displacement. My healing methods were not always successful, but I was better than the doctors. They usually made patients weak, with the leeches and the bleeding.”

  Belinda asked with obvious curiosity, “What would happen? What would you do?”

  “I would place my hands on a person’s diseased parts and think about my hands and how they were warm, but also how they could act as a vessel. I would think about pulling the disease out of their body and into my hands and my body.”

  Mercy gasped, “You would suck the disease into your body? Wouldn’t it make you sick?”

  I nodded in agreement. “Temporarily, yes. If I was able to pull a sickness out of someone’s body, I could be very tired and sick for a quite a while. Under most circumstances, I knew that eventually I’d rid myself of the disease for my body was not aligned for the growth of that particular malady. It was always a risky procedure because I never knew when I might acquire an illness that would stay with me.”

  Belinda appeared puzzled as she asked, “Why do you still think you have the healing power of ‘the laying of the hands’?”

  “Because I have cured people before at least twice that I know of.” I looked between Belinda and Mercy as I continued, “When I was a girl of about seven, I was home with my mom. I knew she was pretty sick because she looked so bad. She was vomiting and she had a high fever and chills, the whole bit. She stayed in her bed and could hardly talk or do anything. I was running around heating up soup and trying to make her better but it was frustrating. I felt terrible for her and really missed her company. Anyway, I laid my hands on her when she was sleeping and I wished that I could make her better. After a time I could feel something leave her body and go into mine. It felt weird, like ants crawling into my skin. I remember feeling really awful right after that feeling of the crawling ants hit my stomach. My mom was the opposite. She woke right up and got out of bed and then she put me right to bed. I was so sick for about a week with some kind of flu. My mom figured that I simply caught it from her, but deep down I knew it was more than that. I knew that I took it from her.”

  Belinda inquired, tilting her head, “When was the other time it happened?”

  “It was just a few years back. My cousin, Eve was playing on the high school basketball team and she was pretty good. In fact, she was the starting point guard. She fractured a bone in her arm and couldn’t play for a few weeks. She had this fear that the coach would continue playing this bratty freshman even after she returned. It was all she could talk about. I did feel bad for her but I was also so sick of hearing about it. I couldn’t take it anymore. I snuck in her room one night while she was sleeping and placed my hand on her injured arm. I just sat there and held it until I almost fell asleep. At first, I didn’t think it would work, but finally, I started getting that same weird feeling. It was as if there were ants crawling into my skin and right through to my bones. After it stopped, I practically had to crawl back to my room. The bones all over by body were aching so bad. I didn’t go to school for a week. I told my aunt that I had the flu. When Eve went to the doctor’s two days later for another X-ray to see if it was healing properly, her arm was completely healed. The doctors were all shocked. They said they’d never seen anyone heal so fast.”

  “How did you use this ability of yours against Lord De Morney?” Mercy asked.

  “I had heard that the laundress of the De Morney manor had taken ill. As in the past, I immediately went to the manor to offer my healing services. When I arrived, before I saw the laundress, I made a point to tell Lady De Morney’s personal maid that I had a special potion for her Lady’s gout. Afterward, I went to see the poor laundress and she was not in good shape. She had jawfaln, or fallen jaw. Apparently, she had been bitten by a wild dog on the previous day.”

  Mercy asked with a puzzled look, “Did she have lock jaw?”

  “That’s exactly what she had. I immediately recognized what it was at that time and I knew it was incurable. Anyway, I treated the laundress by placing my hands on her face and gradually drawing the disease into my body. Then I went directly to Lady De Morney’s room with my special gout potion. It was very difficult for me because I was feeling the lockjaw disease starting to course throughout my body. Fortunately, Lady De Morney was anxious for my potion as she was resting on her bed with her gouty foot lifted up onto a pillow. As I rubbed the potion all over her leg and her foot, I used all of my concentration to push the jawfaln, or lockjaw disease out of me and into her own body.”

  “Did it work?” Mercy asked anxiously, edging closer to me.

  “Yes, it did. Lady De Morney acquired lock jaw and died.
You must understand that it’s a very bad way to die. I saw her later because they asked me to try and cure her. The poison that you get from the bite of a diseased animal causes your muscles to contract so violently that you lose the ability to draw a breath,” I shuddered.

  Mercy’s eyes widened. “Was she a bad person?”

  “Yes, she was a nasty piece of work. Lady De Morney and her husband were both diaboles. They were cruel to their house servants and they treated their field peasants like the lowest slaves. She always sat right in front during the executions and the burnings and she would bring her two horrid children with her as if it was the greatest entertainment! I detested her.” I stared off, my mind elsewhere.

  Belinda took my hand. “So, Tessie, dear, what else happened?”

  “Two days after Lady De Morney was infected with lockjaw there was a strange storm. There wasn’t much rain, but there was enough lightning for me to make use of it.”

  “What’d you do with lightning?” Mercy asked anxiously.

  “I was able to catch lightning and then throw it out again. When there was lightning near the De Morney’s field, I was able to harness it and fling it directly onto their barley and wheat fields. It had been quite dry so most of their fields completely burned.

  Belinda leaned in and asked in a soft tone, “Tess, there’s something I meant to ask you. When you were at the gathering of witches, you indicated that you knew some of them, but they didn’t know you. Was that true?”

  I paused for a moment before answering, “Yes. When I went around to the witches, they took their hoods off as a sign of respect. As I saw into their eyes, I got a glimpse of their everlasting souls. Witches only reveal themselves like that when they know they can trust someone. That’s when I saw who they were.” I gazed at Mercy. “You were there, Mercy. You were the Gaelic woman with the red cloak. And Will was there along with Sam, and Doug. I also saw our two gypsy friends, Dika and Nadya, and some of the new students who have arrived in Woodley recently, including the sister and brother from my English class. And, I swear, Mr. Kenney was there. I mean, it didn’t look anything like him because Mr. Kenney is short and round. This guy was tall and really gaunt, but I’m sure that it was Mr. Kenney’s soul in that body. It’s hard to explain.”