Dance of a necromancer E-Book

Nadia Schluter

• Herausgeber: novum publishing
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 112

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

It is the year 1854 and witch hunts are taking place. Violet lives with her father and cat Widow deep in the forest, far away from the villagers responsible for her mother's death. She was suspected of black arts and nasty stories are also told about Violet in the village. The truth lies somewhere in the middle. What would you do if you were suddenly faced with death, but it turns out there is one simple solution to everything? What if you could outsmart death? Widow, meanwhile, tries to do everything possible to keep Violet from going down a dark path, but sometimes people make the wrong choices ... A gritty tale of love and loss of that which you hold most dear.

Leseprobe

CITES

"Denn die todten reiten schnell"

"For the dead travel fast"

Bram Stoker's Dracula

OCTOBER 3, THE YEAR 1854

The bright glance of the glowing moonlight revealed pieces of the forest as I walked through it that evening.

Timid but observant, I continued my path through tall ferns that were damp from the rainfall that had occurred earlier. Every now and then a large drop fell from the still damp leaves that made the thicket smell like fresh hay. The combination of scents was a sensation that always made me feel revived.

The musty smell of soggy moss, the fungi that grew on the dead leaves, the stinkhorns.

It had a calming effect on my restless mood. It smelled like death and at the same time like life.

Consciously, I occasionally left a flurry of my own pheromones on the gnarled old tree trunks as I walked past them. A tentative touch of skin on weathered wood caused me to absorb omniscient knowledge in a brief instant.

The knowledge of this ancient forest, what it had seen and what it still saw. The leaves rustled softly in the wind and whispered secrets to each other. Between them they would be kept forever, but not if it were up to me.

I too knew and saw things, not just because they were a simple fact, but because this was written in my genes.

An inheritance from thousands of years ago that allowed me to see beyond what the eye revealed. A teaching passed down through generations.

I looked beyond reality and saw what was behind it: The occult. That which was supernatural or had to remain hidden.

Some of those things I didn't want to see, but once you saw them you couldn't disguise them.

Then came the harsh reality that the world was a grim place, where constant danger lurked for those who did not believe and those who did not want to see them.

A dense layer of fog hung overhead, from the fauna and flora that, like me, had been soaked.

A white, still haze that made the setting feel ghostly.

Hair clung against my chilled skin, but I barely noticed. Without sheltering from the rain, which had come down on me like a torrent, I had decided to walk on tonight.

Generally, I did not like water or getting wet, so this was a statement in itself.

The walls had come down on me, and in a surge of emotion that stood ground between anger and sadness, I had crawled through the open window and fled into the darkness. That overpowering silence was exactly what I needed to think about my next step in this chain of unpleasant events.

I felt a heavy, precipitating sense of doom rear its head when, hours later, I saw a faint ray of light emerging among the tall trees...Home.

What had I really accomplished in the hours that had turned evening into night? Nothing, was the rock-hard conclusion.

Sometimes you couldn't offer help to people who didn't want help.

She had to figure it out for herself I thought stubbornly as I sat down in the wet grass a hundred yards before the wooden cabin.

If not willingly, then by force..

She would have been worried about me by now, I thought, and that thought excited me strangely.

I could still hear her voice reverberating in my head.

Earlier, it had echoed between the trees like an reverberation.

She had called out to me worriedly and looked for me in panic, but I had deliberately let time pass agonizingly slowly until she had given up hope.

Now I could make my entrance as indifferent as possible and then she would regret it bitterly. Of that I was sure.

After all, my nighttime escape had lasted long enough. I wanted to curl up between wool blankets in front of the crackling fire and get warm.

My body deserved warmth, my old soul all the more.

The worn steps to the porch were long past their time, and the road-rotting wood creaked under my light weight.

Agile as I was, I crawled back inside through the open window, into that familiar warmth that served as my home.

I was not safe and sound inside yet when I heard her shouting furiously at me. "Dirty damn beast that you are ... Ungrateful piece of misery! ... Cat from hell!

I've been so incredibly worried about you." She burst into a violent and continuous sobbing.

I wasn't even startled when she walked up to me, lifted me up and pushed her tear-stained face deep into my wet fur.

She hugged me with the strength of life, but glancing over her shoulder, I could still see that doomed, open book on the table, lit by candlelight, and I knew she was more interested in death.

I floundered and once again felt the anger return like an awakened fire to which fresh air suddenly joined.

She didn't allow it.

Her smile that broke through the tears and sadness weakened me deep inside.

Her voice broke the brief silence that had hung between us. "Silly cat that you are, crazy beast of mine. Don't you ever run away from me again.

I will put an end to this period of intense sorrow. I promise you that.

We won't be alone for long, you and I. You're soaked ... Poor beast."

She laid me down in front of the fireplace, in the soft blankets her mother had once knitted for her in better times.

The times of happiness, when the child was still an infant and not a young adult woman taunting herself daily with loneliness and tears.

A child who had known happiness and contentment, loving parents and who had still been impressed by all the beauty around her.

That had not seen what lurked in the dark corners of her bedroom. That had not known what I had been protecting her from all this time as I lay curled up at the foot of the bed, like a gatekeeper between two worlds.

She did not know what I had tried to fend her off from: " Evil."

Evil pursued those who were pure of heart, and it struck when they found themselves at their wit's end.

Mother had unwittingly let it into the house. It had haunted her, lurking and bringing misfortune into her life at just the right time.

The child had found me when I myself was small and shy.

Helpless and dejected, without a parent looking back at me, I had walked around their little wooden house lost, and on the last strength I had left, I too had cried.

I had been rejected. It was she who had succeeded in a persuasive plea to share their home with me.

Together we had grown up into an inseparable couple.

We were left until the end. People came, people went.

It was time for an extended wash. I was feeling dirty and that was just something that could not be off too long duration.

With my rough tongue, I licked the hardened pads of my paws. There were cracks and fissures in them.

The lines of a lifetime of memories. I, too, grew older.

The child took a seat at the table again. She looked guiltily at me.

Was she actually looking at me? Her thoughts seemed elsewhere.

Swiftly she turned, averting my piercing gaze because she knew what it meant.

She knew I knew.

Slowly, she began to read aloud from the book.

That filthy, damned book ...

There was a constant, dark haze around it that a human being could not perceive with the naked eye. I could, and it dizzied my mind's eye.

That book was evil itself and it wanted to be read, practiced and studied. Most of all, it wanted to be used for purposes forbidden in the rules of this world.

Nauseating vibrations came from it that managed to tire me over and over again.

I was no longer myself, no longer constantly on my guard, and that frightened me. Since the child allowed that book into the house, the whole condition had worsened for both her and me.

It simply did not belong here and there was a threat coming from it.

The child practiced and made mistakes as she read the tricky words.

Fortunately, she made mistakes. I could only hope that she would not master this knowledge.

That this book, a bargaining chip of evil, could not take hold of her and lift the veil between the here and now.

The one behind it was all too eager to indulge in life.

It would never let go ...

JANUARY 7, THE YEAR 1852

Lost in thought, I walked past the only church in the village.

The building, made of monastic bricks, towered high above the rest of the shabby houses, and the austere cross made a strange but menacing impression.

The weather was disastrous that day, as was my mood. The wind danced wildly through my dark brown locks, blowing fiercely behind me.

The hard rain clouded my vision, but did not wash away my worries, however. My head flooded with thoughts of the distant past that still seemed so close. The desolate thoughts of what once was took hold of me so much that it affected my entire being. Who I was, who I had once wanted to be.

The illusion I kept to myself was that I had to be alert at all times, since I was not inviolable. At least that's what I kept telling myself.

Today I had not been attentive enough to pay attention to the little details.

Those simple little things that could have made my day a lot more enjoyable, I had overlooked.

The church clock struck its heavy hands to 1 o'clock and accompanied it with a swelling chime, from which I awoke from my thoughts.

A large crowd of villagers, whose faces were burned into my retinas - how could it be otherwise after what had happened - gathered in the square in front of the church. Young ladies in gorgeous corsets, with hoop skirts underneath.

Some of them wore poofed wigs.

Others had a child by the hand, most accompanied by their good-looking partners.

I wanted to make my way out quickly and unseen, but that hope was soon dashed.

The crowd ceased their hurried conversations among themselves and stared at me. A few whispered something I couldn't and didn't want to hear.

Their false looks did not leave me and quickly I turned my face to the ground. No, not today. Today I didn't have the strength for it ...

Soon the rants began. One encouraged the other and it went off like wildfire.

The words no longer touched me, because they seemed meaningless in the face of all I had had to endure in my young life.

However, that didn't mean it left me untouched. It made me angry, furious even, after all they had caused.

"Filthy witch! Daughter of Satan! Hellhound ! Crawl back to that dark lair where you live!"

No, not today. Today I kept my mouth shut wisely, because mother always said: if you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all.

Keep the credit to yourself at all times.

A fierce stab of pain suddenly swept through the left side of my face, and when I lifted my fingers to reach for the pain, I saw that they were stained deep red. I was bleeding. Well, at least it was a sign of life ...

Some villagers, meanwhile, were throwing everything within their reach at me, and I saw that I had been hit by a stone with sharp edges.

Ironically, the entire scene resembled a stoning, as I sat there crouched and pained on the ground with a wild crowd getting closer and closer.

It became light in my head and the bricks of the street seemed to take on a life of their own before my eyes.

It was a sickening feeling and all I wanted was for it to end, for me to wake up in the dank but familiar darkness of my bedroom, where I could let my tears flow in silence.

I closed my eyes and pressed my hands against both ears.

Suddenly I felt warm hands on my shoulders and looked up anxiously. "Violet, is everything all right? Geez, you're bleeding a lot. This can't go on like this.

You shouldn't let them, Violet. I can't watch it anymore."

Distraught, I stared into the face of Harvey, whom I knew only because I occasionally picked up supplies from him at the local market.

The loner who was always friendly and didn't care what anyone else thought about anything. Harvey looked around with a gaze that expressed self-assurance without words.

It had become quiet around us ...

The crowd seemed hopeful to see another gossip unfold right before their eyes. A gossip about the witch and the village idiot who helped her would manage to keep them busy for a few days, so they wouldn't have to think about their own meaningless lives.

"You people are ignorant. It is disgusting how you treat your own kind," Harvey spoke loud and clear.

"You are the ones responsible for making her life a real nightmare and you decide, at all costs, to continue with it.

God forgive your souls, because there is a special place in hell reserved for those people."

One of the ladies started laughing hysterically and replied, "Hell? That bitch on the ground knows all about that, right?