The Witch of Vera Wood: Chapter 8

The Witch of Vera Wood

Chapter 8

 

            The next few days passed with little incident as Lina learned many new things about magic and the world of witches. Her lessons with Johanna taught her many a new thing about witches’ laws and about the Witches’ Council, while her lessons with Tarja taught her fascinating things about magic itself: how to brew different potions, how to make objects move, and all those fun and interesting things. Today’s lesson was with Peter on what he thought was possibly the most boring subject of all (which is probably why Tarja made him teach it): the History of Witches.

 

            The two decided to have their lessons somewhere outside, away from the incessant giggling of the two other women. They sat together underneath a large oak tree, with Peter in his human form.

 

            “Oh how I wish I didn’t have to teach this,” said Peter as he leaned back against the ancient trunk of the tree, putting his hands behind his head and closing his eyes.

 

            “It can’t be that bad, can it?” asked Lina. She’d always found history to be an interesting subject.

 

            “I remember when I had to be taught this stuff,” he said. “While all the witches were practicing their magic about a hundred feet away, we familiars were stuck listening to another ‘senior’ familiar tell us all about witch things. Remember, most of us had little idea that witches even existed, let alone their history, culture, and all that stuff. We were all unsuspecting residents of the nearby village, seduced by people like Tarja into what’s basically slavery. Well, at least that’s how we saw it back then. Now I realize it’s more fun to be a familiar than a regular old person. A lot more freedom.”

 

            Peter yawned. “Now I must pass on all this stuff I learned nearly three hundred years ago, that, by some magical force, I still remember.”

 

            Lina laughed. “Did they give you some sort of super memory potion or something?”

 

            “Nope,” said Peter. “It’s just a familiar thing. We have extremely good memories, so I basically remember everything I’ve ever learned or seen. It gets annoying sometimes when you want to forget something though.”

 

            “Oh,” said Lina.

 

            “So, onto the History of Witches. You ready for a bore-fest?”

 

            “Sure,” said Lina, chuckling. “I take it that we’ll start from the very beginning?”

 

            “Yep,” said Peter. “So, the question is ‘How and when did the first witches learn magic?’”

           

“Oh, Tarja told me something about that already!” said Lina excitedly. “They watched how the plants took energy from the sun and tried to find a way to harness that energy, and eventually succeeded.”

 

“Oh good! Then I won’t have to teach you all that,” said Peter, relieved. “So now the questions is ‘When?’”

 

“Long ago, I’m guessing,” said Lina.

 

“Very long ago. It was like seven thousand years ago or something like that. The first witches were, of course, in what is now Finland. The pagan religion of some group of people unknown led them to discover how to harness and manipulate energy and all those things. Anyway, the teaching of witchcraft was exclusive to that tribe or group or whatever because they didn’t want any of their enemies to learn how to do it. Legend says they became the most powerful group of people in the world at the time because they could raise crops at ten times the regular rate using magic, and do everything using magic.”

 

Lina looked at Peter, wide-eyed. Somehow this was more interesting that she thought based on Peter’s description. Peter continued to talk.

 

“So, still according to legend, one day someone went and told their tribe’s secret to another tribe, so they learned magic, and so the knowledge kept spreading. But very few actually knew the original mistake of many of the very first witches, about using the sun as an energy source. I assume Tarja told you all about that.”

 

Lina nodded.

 

“Right. So, the leader of the original tribe came up with a plan. He first led his own tribe into hiding, somewhere deep in the forests of Lapland. Then, in disguise, he met with the leaders of the other tribes, suggesting that they all have one big ceremony celebrating unity, where all the tribes gather together and make the energy-harnessing potion together. He also told them that instead, they should all take energy from the sun instead of the moon, telling them that it was a much better energy source than the moon, and then all drink the potion at the same time. They, not knowing about energy-overload, agreed. So, the ceremony took place, and all the witches in existence at the time, except for the original tribe, gathered together in one place, held the ceremony, and all OD-ed on energy.”

 

“I don’t think I can believe that,” Lina said. “You’d think that at least a few witches wouldn’t go, or not do it for one reason or another.”

 

“Mind you, it’s all legend,” Peter pointed out. “Nobody is sure if this really happened or not. And anyway, the numbers of witches were still very small at the time. Maybe two hundred and fifty to three hundred or so, not including the original tribe. So it’s not all that absurd.”

 

“I still don’t believe it,” said Lina, skeptically.

 

“You don’t have to. Like I said, it’s only legend. As long as you know it,” said Peter.

 

Lina nodded her head. “Let’s get to some believable history.”

 

“Alrighty then,” said Peter. He continued to tell her about the history of witches. He told her about how the original tribe survived, and how the witches spread from there, picking and teaching only people they thought worthy to be witches. He told her about how, by the fall of the Roman Empire, there were witches living from Scotland, to the northern coasts of Africa, to the great rivers of china, about how they became part of the mythology of nearly every culture on earth, and about how witches went from living in villages all together and forming close-knit communities to living alone, spread out through different regions and only intermingling occasionally to hear news and tell stories. Lina learned about the creation of the Witches Council in 1072 and the spread of witches to North America, Tarja being the very first witch to come over, and accidentally causing the Salem Witch Trials to occur while she was studying flora in Massachusetts.

 

“She tried to take a Miss Abigail Williams, a girl in Salem Village, as a pupil,” Peter explained. “That backfired when, after she showed Abigail how to concoct a particular potion, little Abby tried to do it herself one day while on her own and was discovered by her little cousin Betty and a neighbor’s daughter, Ann. The stupid little girls all decided to drink the potion, and due to Abby’s inexperience the potion was concocted incorrectly. All three girls became extremely ill the day afterward, and some village women were blamed for afflicting them. So started the Salem Witch Trials.”

 

Lina listened, hanging on to every word. She found this history fascinating, more so than the regular old history she’d learned in school. Peter was surprised that she was so interested, at one point adding, “I act more like a teenager than you do, and I’m almost three hundred and fifty years old!”

 

Peter ended the lesson after telling Lina about undocumented witch involvement during the Revolutionary War with promises to continue the lessons another day.

 

“We covered six and a half thousand years of history today and I’m tired!” he exclaimed when Lina kept urging him on. “The next two hundred years can wait until some other time!”

 

*          *          *

 

Johanna and Lina had grown very close during her stay. Often, after their lessons would end, the two would sit outside and Johanna would tell stories from her childhood, including the occasional embarrassing story about Tarja. It was like having a cool aunt that told you stories about your mother. They would giggle a lot, often a little too loudly, scaring away any animals nearby with their shrieks of laughter. 

 

“We lived in an actual witch village,” she would tell. “The last one on the planet, which it remains to this day. It’s where the Witches’ Council lives and meets, and where the council members take on students from nearby villages and towns, to the obvious chagrin of the local population. Thankfully, they’re too afraid to come anywhere near, so we’re safe,” she said with a smile.

 

Johanna would also tell of her childhood before she became a witch.

 

“I lived in a small village about five miles away from the witch village,” she told Lina, “on a farm, where my parents made me work all day because I was the only child old enough to work. It was horrible!”

 

“Did you ever have any free time, or do anything fun?” Lina asked.

 

“Not during the day, no,” replied Johanna. “But there was a family who owned a farm next to ours, and they had a son who was about a year older than I was. Strong, hardworking, typical 17th century farm boy named Antero. He was probably the best looking boy in the village, and it turned out that he was quite in love with me. I wasn’t in love at first, but I eventually fell for him after I decided to give in to his constant courting. He was sweet, charming, selfless, and just overall perfect.”

 

“I’m envious,” said Lina jokingly.

 

“I was the envy of all the girls in the village,” said Johanna, smiling. “They used to glare at me with hatred and envy while they were being courted by other boys. It was great!”

 

“What happened when you left to be a witch? Did you miss him?” asked Lina.

 

“Well, not really,” said Johanna. “I used to sneak out of the little hut I lived in with a bunch of other witch-students to go see him every other night. He would wait for me in a little grove of trees that grew on the edge of their property, and we would be hidden from the world. It was extremely romantic. We would tell each other everything that went on in our lives since our last meeting. It kept me sane through the intense witch training we would have to go through every day. You’re lucky in that respect. Our lessons were like military training!”

 

“So what happened to him?” asked Lina.

 

“Well, we kept meeting each other all throughout my training. I offered for him, one day, to become my familiar so we could always be together, since any sort of romantic interaction between a witch and a regular person was completely forbidden unless it was to acquire ingredients for certain potions, if you get my drift.”

 

It took Lina a minute to understand, but she got it after she thought about it. Feeling embarrassed she begged Johanna to go on with the story.

 

“Anyway, he refused to become my familiar. He said that, since his family had no other children, he was the only one who could help his aging father on the farm, so he had to stay. Instead, it ended up being one of his good friends that became my familiar.”

 

“Wasn’t that a bit awkward?” asked Lina.

 

“At first, but we got over it,” replied Johanna. “It actually helped me a bit because he could use Antero’s house as a base to fetch ingredients when I needed them. Unfortunately that had its consequences.”

 

“What consequences?”

 

“Well, we kept seeing each other even after my training was done, when I was responsible for getting my own ingredients. One time, I got very, very sick. So sick I couldn’t even get up from my bed for a month! Thankfully Tarja was there to take care of me during that time. Anyway, I still needed to brew the potion, so I sent my familiar to get the ingredients I needed. He used Antero’s house as a base as usual, and from there went into the village to find a victim. He seduced a young girl but was caught in the act of acquiring the main ingredient. Anyway, he fled back to Antero’s house, which is probably the stupidest thing he could have done. Anyway, he was being chased by some angry villagers, so he ran behind the farmhouse where Antero was waiting, changed into a bat, and flew off toward where I was living.”

 

Lina listened to the story wide-eyed. “So, they found Antero there instead of your familiar?”

 

“Exactly. He was blamed for seducing the young girl and taking her purity away. He was whipped for his ‘crime’ in the town square, in front of everyone! I got to see him one last time after that incident, and when he told me what happened I was ready to strangle my familiar, but he calmed me down and told me that nothing was going to happen and that all was OK. I believed him,” Johanna said, looking down sadly.

 

“What happened next?!” asked Lina eagerly, wanting to know more.

 

“One night,” Johanna said, stifling a tear, “he was walking through the village and was stabbed in the back by the brother of the girl that my familiar seduced. He was found dead in a puddle of his own blood the next day. Unfortunately, the people still thought him guilty of a crime he didn’t commit, so he wasn’t given a proper burial in the village graveyard. Instead, he was buried in the grove of trees where we used to meet. I still visit it occasionally and leave some flowers.”

 

“That’s so sad!” said Lina. A tear fell down her cheek as well, and there was a silence between the two for a minute or two. Lina finally spoke up again.

 

“What happened to the guy who stabbed him?”

 

“He was put in a cell beneath the church,” said Johanna, suddenly grinning. “He was found there one day with deep wounds and A-N-T-E-R-O carved into his back, bleeding heavily and in great pain, but still alive.”

 

“You didn’t…!” started Lina. Johanna smiled.

 

“He got what was coming to him. I force-fed him a potion that constantly created more and more blood so he wouldn’t die for a long, long time. When they found him, he was muttering my name over and over again. The people thought he was crazy, since I disappeared more than ten years previously and was said to be dead. They had a funeral for me and everything, and my tombstone still stands in the village graveyard to this day.”

 

“Wow,” said Lina, astonished that Johanna could do something so seemingly awful to a person, but at the same time admiring her devotion to her loved one.

 

“Yea, people said that my ghost came back from the dead and tortured Antero’s killer and caused him to bleed endlessly. Almost flattering,” she said, grinning widely.

 

A though then occurred to Lina.

 

“Where’s your familiar? I thought they suffered great pain if they went too far away from their witch!”

 

“Off delivering letters to other North American witches, informing them of my promotion to Head Witch. Familiars only feel pain if they go far off with the intent of leaving. But if they’re sent to do errands, then it’s fine,” said Johanna. “I don’t feel like visiting every single witch on the continent, so I’ll just send them letters and visit the ones I actually like.”

 

“Oh,” said Lina.

 

*          *          *

 

Soon the time came for Johanna to leave. Lina, Tarja, and Peter were all sad to see her go, but she promised to come back one day soon.

 

“I’ll definitely be there when you receive your Witch’s Tattoo! Don’t worry!”

 

“Witch’s Tattoo!?!” asked Lina.

 

“It’s a tattoo you get when you become an official witch,” explained Tarja. “It’s given to you by your mentor with a council member present. In this case, Johanna, I hope.”

 

“Of course me! Who else would I send?” exclaimed Johanna.

 

They all said bye to the new Head Witch as her familiar, who took the shape of a gigantic eagle-like bird, landed beside her. Johanna mounted her familiar, who took off into the air, through the trees, and out of sight.