Palindrome

I waited for an invitation to come to his house now that his parents were gone, but it never came. Every day after work, William was waiting for me, either with a car or his bike. Sometimes we went back to the lake — William flying us in, playing in the air until I got all dizzy. He told me so many amazing stories about his family and things he`d seen in his five hundred years. We discussed religion, but he was very neutral about it, even though he knew about them all. We talked about history, music, books, movies. I snuck him in my house, and we watched Titanic, Lord of the Rings, and scary movies that made me jump, but William only laughed. I cried in his arms, telling him about my parents, surrounded by the smell of them.

Sometimes I sat with William, Belinda and Benjamin after my shift, eliciting some looks from the regulars, and from Oscar and Mary. Benjamin had loosened up and was fun to talk to if I just overlooked the evil jokes he made sometimes. Belinda was…Well, Belinda. She didn’t go out of her way to talk to me, but she also didn’t leave when I sat down, I took that as a win. One day I asked Benjamin about their eye-colour, while Will was on the toilet. He blinked devilishly, “You mean my pretty brown ones?” I smiled crookedly back, “No, I mean your other colour. Why are they different?” Benjamin looked at Belinda, she was seemingly deeply fascinated in the TikTok-videos on her phone. “It`s a personality trait. We are all born with grey eyes, but as we get older, we develop our own colour based on our choices and mindset.” Benjamin seemed satisfied with being able to talk about their secret with someone else than family. “It`s possible for more than one to have the same colour or are all individual in some way? I took another sip of my coffee. “Yes, but rarely in the same branch of the family. There aren`t that many of us left, we`ve lost someone along the way and we don`t breed so easily anymore.” I blushed, he talked about it like they were animals. I swallowed too fast and had to cough, maybe that was the way they let the “curse” go on? Breeding in their animal state? I didn’t dare ask, especially in the middle of the diner in broad daylight. I asked another question instead. “How do you lose someone; you seem pretty unbeatable.” Benjamin flexed his muscles unconsciously and Belinda rolled her eyes without looking up. “Well, men have become better armed along the way.” Suddenly, he frowned my way. “Why do you want to know?” I smiled reassuringly, “Just curious. Can I ask another question?” Benjamin didn’t answer, just waited. I fiddled with my fingers, “How do you... I mean, is it contagious? Or do you have be born like this?” I still hadn`t told Will about the book, it burned in my conscience, but it didn’t give away anything substantial about the curse. Although I didn’t know why they called it a curse, they all seemed to like being Beasts. Benjamin laughed low just as William sat down beside me. “Isn`t that a question you should have asked earlier? I can smell the blood from the bit on your hip.” William growled in the back of his throat, a “stay-the-fuck-away” noise, if I ever heard one. Benjamin raised his hands instantly and sat back. “Sorry bro, but she should have asked the question earlier.” William turned to me, eyes blazing. His smile was white against his tanned skin, the blue shirt matching his eyes as they were now. “No, our bite is not contagious, but our blood does play a part in the whole.” I closed my eyes, mortified by what I was about to ask. “But do you both need to be Beasts?” Belinda hissed at the wording, but Benjamin and William laughed. “No, we prefer human mates.” Benjamin eyeballed me while talking, earning yet another growl from his older brother. I leaned forward, “But how does that work, you are,” I lowered my voice, “old. How does your mother look like that if she`s over 500 years old and human?”

No answer. Belinda put her phone down and drank the last of her soda, signalling to Oscar for the check. Her eyes blinked green when she looked back at me, I wondered briefly what personality trait green stood for, couldn’t be all good. “Why are you asking all these questions? You know what killed the cat, right?” I rolled my eyes again, “I`m not the one out to kill you, it`s the other way around, isn’t it?”

The truth was the longer time I spent with William, the idea of them being dangerous seemed more and more far-fetched. I knew he`d said so himself, but the three of them seemed so normal compared to their scary father. William squeezed my hand fast under the table, hiding the short caress from the other customers. My heart picked up speed and Belinda raised her head just to look at me and roll her eyes before she took her phone, ignoring me. William laughed silently beside me, having heard the change of heart-rhythm himself. Annoyed with their easy abilities to read me, I calmed myself down and opened my mind as I recited a spell inside my head.

Let her speak the truth

Let it be revealed

When I ask, I shall receive

So mote it be

This was an easy spell, it wouldn’t work on deeper questions, but I wasn’t aiming for serious, I wanted to show her that I had some tricks up my sleeve. After repeating the spell three times, I blew gently into Belinda`s face, making her flinch and look up.

I caught her eyes and asked instantly before she could look away.

“Belinda, who are your biggest celebrity-crush?”

With a strained voice she answered, “Harry Styles.”

I smirked as she clapped her hand over her mouth mortified, and Benjamin laughed. “Really, sis? The one with the wide pants? I thought you said he was a sissy?” He shook his head and smiled widely. William tried to contain his humour, but it was evident when his dimples popped out. Belinda hissed and glared at me, but I felt safe out in the public. I cocked an eyebrow, taking a sip of my tea. “No need to be embarrassed, he`s very good looking.” I leaned back in the seat, “Although I didn’t think you were into all that “treat people with kindness” swag.” Her eyes glinted green before she focused her attention on her phone again. I wondered if they let their other eye colour show this much among other normal people—I hoped not.

Benjamin smiled and waved to Oscar as he delivered the check. I saw him give Oscar a small wink, making Oscar blush behind his dark skin, and I noticed a small tremble in the hand holding the paper. Hmm, had I gotten everything wrong? Or was it just this family who brought everyone to their knees?

I had one last question. “You use words like mate and breed like you`re a pack of wolfs. Does that mean you have a leader, an alpha?” William tensed beside me, was I asking a forbidden question? A nervous laughter pressed itself out of my mouth, “Please don`t say God.” Benjamin smiled quickly and shook his head, “Right now there isn’t one. Too many who wants to take the crown, damn savages.” He muttered the last words. Belinda looked up. “What about you bitches? Ooops, I mean witches, of course.” Her smile was as fake as one of the K-sisters, but her eyes glinted of real humour. I decided to ignore her, to her dismay. “No, some have a High Priest or Priestess if you are in a coven, but it`s pretty much everyone for themselves. If there`s bigger communities, they use democratic ways to decide upon things on the larger scale, but we like to keep our gatherings small. Mum and dad made pretty much every decision together, but mum did have the last say if they disagreed.” I furrowed my brows, “Maybe we would have gotten through the dark ages better if we did have a leader, but it`s no use thinking about that now.” Belinda pulled on her sweater, curiosity showing on her pretty face, “What do you mean, The dark ages? Like the Middle Age?” I snorted, “Like the Witch trials.” Belinda looked briefly at William before standing up. “Around 70 000 people, dead. Just because of mass-hysteria.” William shifted in the seat, and I turned to him, wondering what was going on. His expression was hard to read, did he look guilty? “It`s a long time ago, we learned from it. So many innocents died though.” I got out of the booth, following the others outside, waving my goodbyes to Oscar.

The persecution of Witches — or of people accused of being witches, has been going on forever, but the latest scars are from the time after the Reformation. In 1484 there was a papal bulletin from Pope Innocentus VIII where he condemned devil-worshippers, supposedly killing children. Two inquisitors got the job to investigate the prevalence of sorcery in Germany: Jacob Sprenger and Heinrich Kramer. Their book, “Maleus Maleficarum, The Witch Hammer” exploded in Europe, teaching the government to spot, prosecute and blame people— mostly women, for being witches. Although endorsed by the Catholic church at first, they took more and more distance from it, because of the groups using it for their own benefits. As the Protestant Church gained a bigger foothold, the book and its methods got recognised among the royalties, among them the Danish and Scottish. Witchcraft became forbidden by law in 1563 in Scotland, In England you had the Witch-law of 1542 and the next 150 years things were bad. Women, men, children were being stabbed, tortured, drowned and burned. The last being accused of witchcraft and executed in Europe was Anna from Switzerland, which took place in 1782. So many tragic faiths because of fear.

As I explained about all this getting into the Mustang, the three siblings kept quiet. “Those were our dark ages.” William held so hard on the steering wheel; I could see his skin turn white. Something clicked in my brain, something I should have thought of long ago. “Oh, sweet Lady. You were a part of it. Your…Kind.” My hands were shaking, how could I forget things so easily just because William made me happy? None of them made a sound, my heart hammered like crazy. “You were born in 1520, you grew up with this.” Their silence broke me, and I felt my throat tightening, threatening to overwhelm me. Thankfully, William hadn`t driven yet, I opened the door, almost falling out on the curb.

Outside I stopped to catch my breath, how could I let these things slide by, I knew they hated witches. I hid behind the blessing from the Goddess, but I did this for my own egocentric reasons. For each time William had called me witch with a reverent voice, how many times had he said the word with hatred?

I felt him behind me, hovering. “Hannah, please. Trust me when I say I didn’t partake in those things. Nor Benjamin or Belinda. We were just kids; we weren’t allowed to join the elder.” Meaning he wanted to? I walked away, not bothering to answer him. I knew he could easily overtake me, but he kept his distance following me home. I was out of breath when I reached the door, I had to take a minute before facing him. He waited at the bottom of the stairs, eyes big and pleading, hair rustling in the wind. I could see the purple glinting through his tears. Tears? For what? For the tens of thousands of people being tortured and killed because some old maniac thought they held the secret to something? “Don`t you think you might have gotten things wrong? Don’t you think that at least ONE of the thousands you got killed would have spilled something if we knew something?” My voice was shrill, but I didn’t care. I pointed at him. “How many? How many witches have YOU killed?” He bent his head back, arms hanging down. “You wouldn’t believe me.” My heart stopped. “Try me.”

His eyes were completely purple when he looked at me again, reminding me of nights gone by.

“None.”

“Liar.”

He sighed harshly. “No, I`m telling the truth. We`re not allowed when we are young. Not anymore. Witches are dangerous, the real ones anyway. We have to stay out of it till we reach a certain age.”

My voice was strained because of the tears I was holding back. “So fucking sad for you. How long until you are allowed then?” In a blink of an eye, he was in front of me, his face so close to mine I had to focus to look into his eyes —his burning eyes that fell to my lips for a second, making my body squirm against my will. “Five months. And believe me when I say I`m fighting for it to not be you in front of me when it happens.”

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