“How does it work?” I asked.
“As an Internet card would, though the websites are different. Here,” Adrian said, taking out a laptop and booting up. “I’ll show you. What are we searching for?”
“Anything pertaining to a relative of mine, Elizabeth Parsons, or other spirit elementals.”
“Ah,” he said. “Witches.”
He brought up an online supernatural database and left me to browse the selection, but nothing caught my eye. Charles took over, while I looked through the hard-copy books Adrian had brought.
I settled on The History of Witches and returned to my seat. A lot of work had gone into making this book: hand-sewn binding, pages creased with a polished piece of bone. Definitely one-of-a-kind.
The couch shifted as Charles settled beside me with the laptop. Adrian grabbed a book and sat in an adjacent recliner.
“The spirit elementals were chosen around the time the Salem witch trials began,” Adrian said. “In effect, they ended up being called ‘Witches’, even though only one true elemental was hanged.”
“That’s what I’m looking for.” I cracked open the book in my lap. “Information on that one witch. She’s not listed in the traditional histories, right?”
“I’m not sure. Admittedly, I’ve never had any reason to look into this.”
I skimmed the Table of Contents and flipped to the first section, marked ‘Victims’, which listed the names of all the people killed over the years for ‘witchcraft’. The list contained two sections: Humans, Witches. If the section had only listed one name, it would’ve been sickening, but the way pages spilled on, name after name, was nothing short of horrifying.
All those innocent people.
I scrolled through the list of humans first, and, nearing where my ancestor’s name might be, I held my breath. Did I want her to be human? What if she was—would it mean I’d never escape the whispering curse? Were the two things even related?
Elizabeth’s name was not on the list. I scanned a second time, and my concerns doubled. What if she wasn’t on either list?
The supernatural list was significantly shorter, the cause of death for those listed not being attributed to the trials but simply to having been killed during those times. I trailed my finger over the names. Halfway down the page, I found her: Elizabeth Parsons, 1674-1692. The only elemental hanged during the Salem witch trials. Others had died from typical deaths, such as old age, sickness, or murders unrelated to the trials.
She’d died at age eighteen…the same age I was when the hissing in my brain started.
I glanced from the page to Charles and Adrian, now buried in their own research, and decided to read a bit more before sharing what I’d found.
Nothing else caught my attention until I began reading about the Universal Necessity of Witches.
Humans had fallen to the practice of killing the elementals, believing them to be accursed, naming them as witches. The penalty of the claims resulted in the death of many innocent humans. And so, at the time of the Salem witch trials, coinciding with the dual-bred cleansing, the Universe chose the spirit elementals—witches.
Their immortality was not tied to their nature, however, as was true of other elementals. Instead, their immortality existed in their magic, carried through their bloodlines. These were the most vulnerable of the elementals, but, so long as their powers were used for good, they could perform without limits. However, should they choose a darker path, their magic would draw harm to themselves.
Okay…so not what Charles had told me. Charles believed the magic of those elementals had died along with their human bodies.
The Maltorim continued to lead the genocide against the Universe’s command, and the spirit elementals, being under attack themselves, did little to slow their efforts.
However, in time, the dual-breeds dwindled so low in number that the war subsided to quieter efforts. When the spirit elementals died, their magic was halved and passed on to their descendants. With each passing generation, the magic halved again, and after several centuries, the witches’ powers tapered away to virtually nil.
Because the efforts had failed, and the witches were so often in danger of persecution, they never had the chance to use their powers. The Universe chose no further spirit elementals.
The section defining spirit elementals said they kept the same life expectancy as any other human, though rumor spread of witches who gained immortality through being turned by the Cruor. This weakened their powers, but left them with more tolerance to sunlight than their makers.