NEFARIOUS

CHAPTER 3: WITCHES

"You?"

Teressa looked at the familiar guy--black ripped jeans and a t-shirt. He lend her a hand as she stand upright."What are you doing here at this hour?" she asked him. "A nice way to tell thank you, Aldaine. And I should be asking you the question. I didn't know you could come out of the house,"

"What do you mean, Amherst?"

"I mean. I didn't know nerds like you would leave your books and come outside. And I expected you are weak,"

"First, I do come out of the house and two, I am not weak,"

"Yes, you are,"

Teressa was fuming but she let herself calm down. She noticed a few bruises on Dracen and got a little worried. She offered to help but Dracen, as he is teased her while rejecting her offer telling her he could take care of himself. His way of replying angered Teressa more, so she just took her grocery bag and walked back home while mumbling to herself about how her beautiful night walk became not so nice.

Reaching home, Teressa put the bag on the kitchen counter and went to her room to change. Slipping off her jeans and t-shirt, she wore a pair of shorts and an oversize hoodie. She walked down to the kitchen and start unpacking the grocery bag while singing softly

When the night is nearly ending~

Rewind the clock~

Rewind now~

The f*******n games~

And this magic hour~

Blue-flamed fireworks flare-up~

Teressa started making some noodles soup for herself after arranging the groceries. She turned on the stove, still singing.

On that dark night~

At the bottom of the stairs~

The magic began the moment I saw you~

Let's make a magic spell out of your tears~

So that there will be no more tears~

Terressa placed the hot bowl of noodles on the table in the living room and turned on the television. She watched Pretty Little Liars while eating. It was 9 p.m. so she decided to go and read the book she borrowed.

The book had an old cover but the designs and details inside were quite interesting. As she opened the first page, in bold helinda rook font, a deep crimson red were the words,' World of Demons' and under it like a P.S. note was written: The deeper you go, the more deathly it gets and the more mysteries you will discover.

The contents page had names of all kinds of supernatural creatures. There might be at least twenty-five or more names and types. This explains the thickness of the book. The first chapter was about witches. From their history to witchcraft to the things they can actually do which many humans do not know about. There were also a few details about witchcraft in different places in the world.

Witchcraft is the practice of what the practitioner ("witch") believes to be supernatural skills and abilities, such as the casting of spells and the performance of magical rituals. Witchcraft is a broad term that varies culturally and societally, and this can be difficult to define with precision. Historically, the most common meaning among non-practitioners is the use of supernatural means to cause harm to the innocent; this remains the meaning in most traditional cultures worldwide

Probably the most widely known characteristic of a witch was the ability to cast a spell, a spell being the word used to signify the means employed to carry out a magical action. A spell could consist of a set of words, a formula or verse, or a ritual action, or any combination of these. Spells traditionally were cast by many methods, such as by the inscription of runes or sigils on an object to give that object magical powers; by the immolation or binding of a wax or clay image (poppet) of a person to affect them magically; by the recitation of incantations; by the performance of physical rituals; by the employment of magical herbs as amulets or potions; by gazing at mirrors, swords or other specula (scrying) for purposes of divination; and by many other means.

Strictly speaking, necromancy is the practice of conjuring the spirits of the dead for divination or prophecy, although the term has also been applied to raising the dead for other purposes. The biblical Witch of Endor performed it (1 Sam. 28), and it is among the witchcraft practices condemned by Ælfric of Eynsham: "Witches still go to cross-roads and to heathen burials with their delusive magic and call to the devil, and he comes to them in the likeness of the man that is buried there as if he arise from death.

Throughout the early modern period in England, the English term 'witch' was usually negative in meaning, unless modified in some way to distinguish it from cunning folk. Alan McFarlane writes, "There were a number of interchangeable terms for these practitioners, 'white', 'good', or 'unbinding' witches, blessers, wizards, sorcerers, however 'cunning-man' and 'wise-man' were the most frequent." In 1584, Englishman and Member of Parliament, Reginald Scot wrote, "At this day it is indifferent to say in the English tongue, 'she is a witch' or 'she is a wise woman". Folk magicians throughout Europe were often viewed ambivalently by communities, and were considered as capable of harming as of healing, which could lead to their being accused as "witches" in the negative sense. Many English "witches" convicted of consorting with demons may have been cunning folk whose fairy familiars had been demonised; many French devins-guerisseurs ("diviner-healers") were accused of witchcraft, and over one half the accused witches in Hungary seem to have been healers. Some of those who described themselves as contacting fairies described out-of-body experiences and travelling through the realms of an "other-world".

A particularly rich source of information about witchcraft in Italy before the outbreak of the Great Witch Hunts of the Renaissance are the sermons of Franciscan popular preacher, Bernardino of Siena (1380–1444), who saw the issue as one of the most pressing moral and social challenges of his day and thus preached many a sermon on the subject, inspiring many local governments to take actions against what he called "servants of the Devil." As in most European countries, women in Italy were more likely suspected of witchcraft than men. Women were considered dangerous due to their supposed s****l instability, such as when being aroused, and also due to the powers of their menstrual blood.

Historians Keith Thomas and his student Alan Macfarlane study witchcraft by combining historical research with concepts drawn from anthropology. They argued that English witchcraft, like African witchcraft, was endemic rather than epidemic. Old women were the favourite targets because they were marginal, dependent members of the community and therefore more likely to arouse feelings of both hostility and guilt, and less likely to have defenders of importance inside the community. Witchcraft accusations were the village's reaction to the breakdown of its internal community, coupled with the emergence of a newer set of values that was generating psychic stress.

In Early Modern European tradition, witches were stereotypical, though not exclusively, women. European pagan belief in witchcraft was associated with the goddess Diana and dismissed as "diabolical fantasies" by medieval Christian authors. Witch-hunts first appeared in large numbers in southern France and Switzerland during the 14th and 15th centuries. The peak years of witch-hunts in southwest Germany were from 1561 to 1670.

It was commonly believed that individuals with power and prestige were involved in acts of witchcraft and even cannibalism. Because Europe had a lot of power over individuals living in West Africa, Europeans in positions of power were often accused of taking part in these practices. Though it is not likely that these individuals were actually involved in these practices, they were most likely associated due to Europe's involvement in things like the slave trade, which negatively affected the lives of many individuals in the Atlantic World throughout the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries.

In Japanese folklore, the most common types of witches can be separated into two categories: those who employ snakes as familiars, and those who employ foxes. The fox witch is, by far, the most commonly seen witch figure in Japan. Differing regional beliefs set those who use foxes into two separate types: the kitsune-mochi, and the tsukimono-suji. The first of these, the kitsune-mochi, is a solitary figure who gains his fox familiar by bribing it with its favourite foods. The kitsune-mochi then strikes up a deal with the fox, typically promising food and daily care in return for the fox's magical services. The fox of Japanese folklore is a powerful trickster in and of itself, imbued with powers of shape changing, possession, and illusion. These creatures can be either nefarious; disguising themselves as women in order to trap men, or they can be benign forces as in the story of "The Grateful foxes". By far, the most commonly reported cases of fox witchcraft in modern Japan are enacted by tsukimono-suji families or 'hereditary witches'.

Teressa yawned as she felt tired. She looked at the time and it was already 11 p.m. She kept the book on her study table and did her night routine before getting to bed. She pulled her blanket over as sleep starts to consume her.