Captured Witch

VI. A Community like me

Edwin grabbed my left hand and cuffed it, wrapped it around the handle on the car ceiling, then cuffed my right hand. “Seriously? Is this necessary?” 

            “Yes, because those cuffs act as a muting agent for your magic. It also keeps you from jerking the steering wheel to crash the car,” He said so matter-of-factly as he sped away from the diner.        

            I stared at the handcuffs then at him angrily. I tried to jerk the handcuffs off but all I was successful in doing was hurting my wrists. I screamed angrily. “What do you people even want with me?”

            “Just shut up and let me drive.” He deflected. 

            I had to fight every fiber in my body to speak for some reason, but I kept talking anyways. “I have spent my entire life hiding from you people. The least you can do is explain to me why that is.”

            Edwin reached in his pocket, pulling out a syringe and stabbed it into my arm. I screamed out in pain as he pushed whatever was in it into me. In less than 30 seconds I lost consciousness. 

            When I woke up, my hands were still cuffed but I was laying in the back. I slowly sat up and grabbed my head which was throbbing. “Ouch, what did you give me?” 

            “Something to shut you up. And if you don’t stop talking, I’ll do it again.”

            I slumped against the seat. Honestly, I am exhausted. It really has been the longest day. Or has it been 2 days already. Based on the lack of sunlight, I was asleep for several hours. “How long have we been driving?”

            “About 10 hours.” 

            “Ugh. Get me out of this car. I’m going to be sick.” My nausea intensified. Edwin sighed and pulled over as I threw open the door. “Gross” he said as I hurled the contents of my stomach into the grass beside the road. I stumbled out of the car and sat on the grass behind the car. Everything was so blurry, so distorted. I put my head between my knees and groaned. Edwin slammed his door shut and I heard his heavy footsteps approaching me. He grabbed my wrist and pulled me up. I felt so weak, but I attempted to fight back. Then I heard a gunshot. Edwin dropped me back to the ground and pulled out a gun. “Who’s there?”

            Another gunshot hit Edwin as he stumbled back. It made him more enraged. Just as rapid gunfire was occurring, someone picked me up. I turned to look at her face, which was still blurry, and it looked like the girl from the diner. “Shhh, you’re going to be okay.” She helped me stumble into the woods.

            “What are you doing here? Why are you helping me?”

            “Because I saw your mark at the diner ” She lifted up her sleeve to reveal an similar one on her wrist. 

            She took me to her car and buckled me in. “Don’t worry, we are going to get you somewhere safe.”

            Tired, but too sick to sleep, I leaned against the window until we got to where she was taking me. When the car was put in park, someone opened up the door. I almost fell out of the car, but someone caught me. My hands were still cuffed, and I couldn’t use magic to get them off. “Oh sweetheart, you look exhausted.”

            “Yeah, well you would be too after the week I’ve had.”

            “I understand that. Let’s get these cuffs off. Emily!”

            A girl around my age skipped over staring at the woman talked to me. The woman gestured to my hands and the girl waved her hands over mine and the cuffs fell off. I rubbed my sore wrists. “Thanks.”

            The girl walked away, and the older lady took my hand and led me to a cabin. She showed me to a room with an attached bathroom. “You should shower and have a nap. It’s fairly late but if you wake up, just come down the hall and someone should be in the sitting room to keep you company.”

            “Thanks,” I said, still confused as to where I was or what was going on. 

            I took a much-needed hot shower, examining all the new cuts and bruises on my body. My arms took the worst hit. When I got out of the shower there was a fresh set of night clothes for me to wear. I slid on the cotton shorts and tank top and slipped into bed. The bed was hard as rock, but it didn’t matter to me. I drifted off into a peaceful sleep.

            I didn’t wake up until it was light outside. I still felt a bit woozy, but I didn’t feel exhausted. I slid on the satin robe that was hanging on the back of the door and headed down the hall. There were already a few people in the sitting room, which was blindingly bright. I shielded my eyes and looked around. “Good Morning! How do you feel?”

            “Still a bit sick. I don’t know what he injected me with, but it obviously didn’t sit well with me.”

            “He injected you with something?”

            “Yeah, it made me pass out for about 10 hours.”

            “Hmm, well we can get you to medical and see what we can do. Perhaps you would like some clothes to wear?”

            She led me down the hall to the closet and let me pick out whatever I wanted to wear. I chose some black pants and a black tank top. I tied my hair up with a ribbon and left the closet. The lady led me outside and to another building close by. I sat down and one of the women in the building took my blood. “So, what is this place?” I asked. 

            “The medical building dear!”

            “No. I mean this place. With all the witches. Is it a school?”

            “It’s a community for a special type of witch. Witches with a similar mark as you.” She flipped her wrist over to reveal her mark. “Everyone has a different mark; it represents their individual abilities. However, I’ve never seen one as distinctive as yours. It represents your enormous amount of power.”

            “That’s why they want me, isn’t it?”

            “Yes, partially. There is always more to the story. But that is all yet to come dear. Oh, by the way, I’m Ella. I realize everything seems so odd, but you will get used to it.”

            “Get used to it? I’m not staying.”

            “That doesn’t need to be determined now. Let us get you feeling better and we can talk more about it.”

            I sighed and waited for the nurse to come back. When she finally emerged, she had a worried look on her face. “It is something new, we’ve never seen anything like it. As far as I can tell it was meant to weaken her significantly for a long period of time. That may be the reason she still feels sick.”

            “Anything we could do to fix it?”

            “Time, she should feel better by the end of the day.”

            “Ugh” I groaned. 

            “Come along. Fresh air may do you some good, and perhaps something to eat. It is almost lunchtime.”

            I followed her outside and saw a few young children run past as their parents watched. Ella showed me where lunch was served, and I made up a plate. I hadn’t eaten since the diner, so I was ravenous. I quickly scarfed down my food. After I was finished, I just observed everyone here. They were all so happy, so peaceful. I hated it. I wasn’t used to being so well received in a place. Normally my arrival to a place stirred up some controversy. Here, however, I was well received. I didn’t like it. 

After lunch, Ella showed me around. I didn’t pay much attention because I knew I wouldn’t be staying. I still felt exhausted, and I was beginning to develop a headache. I trudged through the rest of my tour, only half-listening to Ella and her ramblings about the history of this place. 

“This place is so different from the school.”

“The school? Whatever do you mean?”

“The school I’ve been going to for years. They have loads of young witches of all types. We learn magic, and how to blend in with the humans.”

“They teach integration. Impressive, I may need to meet the headmaster of this school one day. I’m surprised I’ve never heard of it. Perhaps we could send some of the young ones there to learn more about it.” 

Ella kept rambling on about the school until we reached the cabin. “You look like you could rest. Go on in and lay down, hopefully you will feel better.”

“You’ve been deflecting.”

“Deflecting? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Why else could they possibly want me?”

She sighed. “I was hoping to explain that to you when you were more well rested.”

“I would like to hear in now.” I sat on the steps of the cabin and waited. 

“The immortals enjoy keeping and arsenal of witches on hand. They are always actively looking for one type of witch or another, but they don’t normally go out of their way to chase them down. Your mother was out on a mission to find witches like us. She was normally so careful, but something happened, and they took her. 

“When they do capture a witch, especially one like your mother, they make sure it is hard for them to leave. They forced a marriage on her with one of the immortals and a few months later she was pregnant with you. She had only been in that place half a year, but she knew that it was no place for a child like you. 

“She waited for the perfect opportunity, but she had to get out before you were born. There was no way she could get herself and a newborn child out. There finally came an opportunity when she was seven months pregnant. She ran like hell and barely made it out. She was in the woods for a month, trying to find her way back but then she had you. I don’t know what happened, but you were left behind. That school you were talking about must have seen you, seen your mark, and known that they needed to help you. Your mother, however, wasn’t as lucky. The immortals don’t enjoy seeming weak, and an escaped witch looks weak. They found her and dragged her back to their headquarters. We haven’t seen or heard from her since. 

“I know that you are her child because of your mark. For one it is larger than the normal mark, second it is similar to hers. A child normally inherits a similar mark as their parents. Third you have markings that could only signify one thing, you have an immortals’ blood in you.”

I sat quietly absorbing all of the information. “Why didn’t she use magic to cloak herself?” 

“She couldn’t. That is another reason they forced her marriage. When someone with the mark marries an immortal, they lose free will. Our ancestors created the immortals, and as a retaliation from nature we were stuck with this mark, and it had unexpected side effects. It was a punishment for creating something so unnatural. When a witch with the mark marries an immortal, she also loses the ability to do magic freely.”

I nodded, taking in all this information. They didn’t want me because of my magic, that was only a small part of it.  They wanted me because, technically, I was already theirs. I was the one who escaped and never caught. Just as I was wrapping my brain around this concept, I felt a sharp stinging pain in my left arm. “Ouch!” I screamed as I grabbed my arm.

“What is it Adalaide?” Ella asked. 

“It’s my arm. It feels as if something is stabbing it.”

Ella moved around to look at my arm. “It’s redder and more irritated than it was before. How curious.”

Then there were screams. Children, their parents, everyone. Everyone was screaming and running. Ella told me to go inside and then she and a few others took off running in the direction that everyone else was running from. Not one to sit idly by and wait, I stood up and ran behind her. It wasn’t until I got to where Ella was standing that I realized I made a huge mistake