Tales of Aradia The Last Witch Volume 5 (9 page)

"I know."

Aradia stopped. "what do you
mean you know?"

Saul sighed and said, "I
know that you have seen them and if you stay a little while I will
explain."

Aradia crossed her arms and
exhaled a frustrated breath through her nose.

A moment passed before she
said, "no promises."

Saul look satisfied and
said, "rumors about you have been circulating for years. Ever since
you took down that guy Dereck. In fact, I have been following you
since your sophomore year."

Aradia gasped and Saul
hurried on with his explanation. "When I saw you and your parents
enter that cave I followed you. After you and your parents left, I
stayed behind and buried your people's bodies. I figured it was the
least I could do for them."

"you buried them?" Aradia
sounded skeptical. "all of them?"

"Yes," Saul stated
sincerely.

Aradia still didn't look
convinced so Saul added, "if you open the secret cave door then I
will be able to show you."

Aradia sighed and stared at
the ground. She then spun on her heel and walked straight into the
cave. Saul obediently followed her and kept his head down so he
could hide his smirk.

Aradia shuddered with
trepidation as she walked through the long mouth of the cave. It
may have been four years but the memories of seeing her people
hanging lifelessly still haunted her. The emotions she had felt
upon reading the book, the chronicle of her people, also felt raw.
The despair, the sadness, and the the shock. Most of all, Aradia
remembered the devastation she had felt upon finding out that she
was indeed the last witch.
Hell
, Aradia thought bitterly,
I still feel devastated about it. I mean you see
this kind of stuff on TV but it's a whole different ball game when
it's you. People say they understand but I don't think they do.
They could never understand how lonely and horrible it feels to be
the last of your kind. You have no one to talk to, you have no one
who understands how you feel, but most of all you have no one to
teach you about your abilities. This explains why I am here
ditching school with a complete stranger.

Aradia hesitated as she
thought about all this but nevertheless held out her hand and
placed it on the wall.

It took her a while to
gather her courage and walk in. She knew that the gruesome sight
was in the town hall but seeing the abandoned homes were just as
depressing. The thought of innocent people being dragged from their
homes and killed cut through Aradia's mind like shattered glass.
However, she didn't want to seem weak to Saul so she kept her eyes
on the ground and her expression as straight as she could. She
didn't notice Saul slipping beside her and taking her hand. Aradia
raised her head shocked, but Saul didn't bat an eye lash. He just
led her to another clearing off to the left of the town
hall.

I didn't realize this place
was so large
, Aradia thought. Unconsciously
and unintentionally, she gripped Saul's hand a bit tighter. They
got to a field that seemed isolated from the rest of the village.
One look was all it took to figure out why. Tombstones stuck out
from the ground like stone mushrooms. Aradia knew she shouldn't but
she was surprised to see so many. Moreover, she was surprised to
see how they were arranged. Instead of being sloppily erected, as a
hasty way to make amends, the tombstones stood straight and tall.
Names, birth dates, and so on were inscribed on each and every
tombstone as if they were professionally done.

"Did you do this?" Aradia
asked.

Saul nodded and folded his
arms.

"How..." Aradia
began.

Saul interrupted and said,
"vampire speed is truly an amazing thing. What takes most people
months, we can accomplish in mere days. Tasks such as burying
people and setting up their tombstones."

Aradia slowly wandered
around the grave sites. Sometimes stopping to place her hand
lovingly on one of the tombstones.

"How did you know their
names?" Aradia asked, trying to hide the suspicious tone in her
voice.

Saul shrugged and said, "I
got their names out of the ledger."

"What ledger?"

"The one in the
library."

Aradia stopped.
"library?"

The doors creaked loudly as
Saul pushed them open. He boldly walked in but Aradia hung back
hesitantly. Saul then groaned, grabbed Aradia's hand, and dragged
her inside. She resisted the urge to dig her heels into the wooden
floor. Saul stopped in the middle of the floor before letting go of
her hand. He then dashed off and pulled out a box of matches. As
fast as a hurricane, he lit a match and sped around the room
lighting all the lamps. Just like a sunrise over the horizon, light
began to dawn all over the room and as it did Aradia's eyes began
to grow wider.

My god
, Aradia speculated,
I wonder if this
is how Belle felt in Disney's Beauty and the Beast.

On every wall of the huge
towering room there stood shelves of thousand upon thousands of
books. All thick and heavy with faint traces of writing on the
spines. In between the shelves stood ladders that seemed to tower
straight to the top. Three different marble podiums stood in front
of three different bookshelves.

"What is all this?" Aradia
said in an almost breathy gasp.

"It's a collection," Saul
explained as he leaned against a shelf, "a collection of every
piece of your coven's history since the day it was first
founded."

Aradia was stunned.
I knew there was one chronicle and that I took it
but I didn't imagine that...

"This library," Saul went on
to explain, "includes details about ceremonies, rituals, people
born to this coven and so much more!"

Aradia looked around, her
eyes wide, and her expression as greedy as kid in a candy store.
"Which one should I start with?"

Saul grinned and raced to
the top of one of the bookshelves. Gripping onto the side of the
book shelf with his claws, he slid his other finger along the
spines of the books and then smiled. "This one," he
concluded.

He then seized the black
book by the spine, jumped to the ground, and held it out for Aradia
to see.

Cautiously, she took the
book in her own two hands and read the title aloud. "The History of
the Hidden Witches."

She quickly looked around
and saw one of the pedestals. She took the book and laid it out,
the ancient pages shimmering like flickering candle light. Aradia
took a deep breath, hoping it would slow down her racing
heart.

"Chapter One," she began,
her voice tingling with excitement.

Saul and Aradia stayed in
the library for three whole hours. Occasionally, Aradia would get
hungry and Saul would race out to bring her food and drinks. This
was how Saul got Aradia to try beer for the first time. He had
bought himself a beer and Aradia a soda but she been curious to see
what alcohol actually tasted like. After a couple of swigs, she
knew and could honestly say she liked it. Most especially, the fact
that she could drink way more than the average woman and not get
drunk. At least that's what Saul had told her.

Aradia hated to admit it but
Saul was starting to grow on her. He was handsome, dashing, and
sweet. His showing her this library seemed to prove how incredible
he really was. The only discomforting thing was Saul reminded her
of Dax. It wasn't just his accent, his blonde hair, and charm were
similar to her ex too. There were dramatic differences though such
as their clothing. Dax dressed in button down shirts, black
jackets, and khaki pants while Saul on the other hand always
dressed in black. He wore black shoes, black socks, black shirts,
and black pants. It didn't matter what the material was, if it was
black he wore it.

However, while Dax had never
encouraged Aradia to do anything dangerous Saul wasn't like that at
all. He kept going on and on about how incredible her powers truly
were and the possibilities of what she could do with them. Before
Aradia had felt cautionary about her powers but the way he went on
about them made her feel somewhat giddy.

"This is incredible," Aradia
said after closing another book. This one was a deep green color
with brown parchment pages. "Its about all the ceremonies the
witches used to perform when they were still around. Ceremonies and
rituals such as hand-fasting, wishing for a good harvest, even
child-birthing too!"

"Funny," Saul said, "I
thought you would have liked the first book best of
all."

"Oh I do," Aradia insisted,
"I mean finding out about where the witches came from was so
totally cool!"

Saul laughed softly. "I
thought you might like that."

"It's amazing," said Aradia,
"who would have thought that all the witches are descendants of the
Roman goddess Diana? That her daughter was the first witch and my
namesake. She was the one who gathered all the disciples and
created the first coven. She taught them all that they knew about
witchcraft and everything."

"Furthermore," Aradia added,
"that my own coven were her direct descendants and have traveled
all over the world teaching everyone what they knew. Salem was just
their latest stop."

"Yeah," Saul admitted, "who
knew that the witches were once partly human?"

Aradia's face grew a bit
solemn. "Technically, they weren't really humans to begin with.
They were born into the human race but had very special gifts like
psychometry, telekinesis, and more. These were the people whom my
ancestors sought out and trained to be witches. Hence why their
powers evolved and why they were able to do the things that they
could do."

"Or the things you can do,"
Saul pointed out.

"I wonder what the
difference is between human and hidden witches anyway?" Aradia
asked randomly.

Saul sighed before
explaining, "human witches are more commonly known as pagans.
Pagans are very much Catholics and Jews in their ways. Their so
called 'spells' are their prayers and they perform them such as
Catholics would say a rosary. They dress in certain robes and use
candles on certain nights like Jews do on Shabbat. They don't have
any real power so to speak. Hidden witches on the other hand do
have powers but they don't need to say spells to do things. Just by
focusing and using their energy, a hidden witch is capable of
anything."

"Such as?" Aradia asked,
sounding intrigued.

Saul shrugged. "Things such
as reading people's minds, creating fire in their hands, messing
with technology, unlocking locks, and there is so much
more."

Aradia was in awe. "You talk
as if you know all about it."

"I do," Saul
insisted.

Aradia grinned in gleeful
anticipation.

What Saul neglected to
mention was that the reason why he knew all about the witches
powers was because he heard stories from several of the vampires
who had killed them. Rome was only one of a long line of witch
hunters who had survived the previous coup. He was also one of the
ones who loved to brag about it. Why the Sovereign spared him, Saul
didn't really know but at the moment he didn't really care. He was
this close to Aradia and he could see in her eyes that he was
beginning to gain her trust.

Who knows?
he thought to himself,
I
may have it already.

"What do you mean you are
not worried?" Melina shouted at Tristan.

After texting Roy, his best
advice to her was gathering everyone after school at the diner and
telling them what she saw. Melina had waited anxiously through out
the rest of the day. In between her classes, she texted Tristan,
Titania, Felix, and Rhonda. Roy and his brothers would already be
at the diner by the time everyone gathered.

An hour later was when
everyone arrived. They dragged chairs from the other tables and
formed a circle. Melina was the only one was standing. She stood in
the center, looking at all of them, her nerves stretched almost to
the breaking point. She then told them about seeing Aradia ditching
school to go off with a guy on a motorcycle. At first, the group
reaction was denial and then worry. Tristan, however, had
interrupted and confused everyone by stating that he was not
worried about this turn of events. Needless to say, Melina was
shocked and confused. Tristan then sighed and leaned back in his
chair.

"I am not worried," he
explained, "because this is Aradia we are talking about here. She
is the most good natured, well intentioned, and selfless person I
know. She took the rap for me when I was about to be arrested
during her freshman year. She throws free parties to promote
tolerance among the hidden races for Christ's sake. How much can
she possibly change?"

Melina sighed heavily. "I
think you are forgetting that she has recently had her heart
broken, she has stopped throwing the parties, she was raped, and
has repeated her junior year in high school."