Touch of Darkness

Chapter 7: A Breakdown of Our Powers

That evening we met at the clearing again. It was a cool night with the wind gently rustling the trees, creating the perfect ambiance for our gathering. Alice had a notebook with her and quietly looked over it for a long time. We were waiting for her to start speaking in anticipation, but she seemed to be so immersed in whatever she was reading. In the meantime, while we were waiting, I thought I'd talk to Cain about the rumors.

"Hey, Cain," I looked at him sitting beside me and whisper, "You should be more careful of how you're getting involved with girls. The rumors are starting to include you too."

He rolls his eyes at me, "So I've heard. Three of my exes have already sent me some strongly worded texts." So he's already knows. "But I don't want to hear that from you, Victoria. Of all the guys in the school you went on a coffee date with the one dude that we were all supposed to be careful of."

All of a sudden I notice all eyes on us now, even Alice's. They look at me in disbelief.

Chris furrows his brow in concern, "So it's really true, Victoria? You were alone with Zedd?"

"He didn't do anything to you, did he?" Alice asked.

When Cain asked me the same question this morning I understood the concern, but now its different.

I shake my head, "He didn't do anything. In fact, he helped me when some guys were bothering me about the rumors." I take a moment to think before I say this next part, "What if Zedd is actually not a bad guy?"

Their silence gives me all I need to know about what they think. At some point we've become so certain that Zedd and Alessia were bad people,

"Victoria, you can't actually be thinking that," Elijah says and I snap my head towards him.

"Why not? Since the beginning we've drawn him as an evil character based on what? A few feelings that we ourselves aren't even sure about? Sure he was strange in the beginning, but when we work together in the office, when I had coffee with him, when he showed up at the right moment," my voice is rising in intensity. I don't mean to raise my voice at Elijah or any of them, but when I think about all my interactions with Zedd so far, their suspicions frustrate me for some reason. "I'm not going to just assume he's a bad person anymore without giving him a chance."

"But what about your dreams?" Cain cast a serious scowl at me, "You specifically said that Zedd looks like the man in your dreams and nightmares, and that was why you were scared of him. Are you taking that back now?"

"No, I can't deny that he is the one in my dreams. But there must be some other meaning behind it. Maybe it was a premonition of some sort, we are developing magic aren't we? This could be a part of that."

Alice frowns and the worry on her face hurts a bit, but I stand by what I said. She sighs, "We can't stop you from interacting with him. But just keep an ounce of suspicion about him."

I'll agree to that at least, as long as they aren't going to stop me.

"Anyway," Alice breaks the silence, "Here's what I've learned...

"In February 1692, the niece and daughter of Reverend Samuel Parris began having fits and threw stuff around the room. Soon after more girls were affected and people accused three other village girls of being witches. Soon after this began a hysteria where everyone was accusing everyone. About twenty people were found guilty, but many of them weren't actual witches. With the pressure coming down on witches in Salem, five families came here to Connecticut to try and survive. It was supposed to be six, but it's believed the sixth family was murdered coming here. They started this settlement as a place that would be safe for witches, but many of them didn't want to come so over time there were only a handful of witches. Our families are actually descendants from those five families. As for powers, well, when the settlement first began, the families each shared powers, but as time went on and families married with non-witches, some powers slowly diminished. So all of our powers used to once be together which is why we still have some of the same powers, like telepathy."

Alice closes her notebook with a soft clap and smiles, "That's it for the history lesson. Now as for our powers specifically-"

"Wait, wait, wait," Cain suddenly outburst, "Our parents? So they knew about this the whole time and didn't tell us?"

"I think that's something we'll have to confront them about on our own," Chris says, "They must have a reason for keeping it hidden."

Cain's expression is still sour. I can't blame him; this is a huge secret that all our parents have been collectively keeping from us. What did they hope to gain from it?

Alice attempts to move on in the conversation, "Let's all learn about our powers, and then we can make our own decisions about our parents. Firstly, thanks to Chris helping me with some experimenting, we've figured how telepathy works." She looks at Chris and he nods. All of a sudden we hear his voice in our heads.

Focus your thoughts loudly in your head. If you want a specific person to hear, focus on them. The rest of us nod, and we try to do it. After a couple of minutes of practice we seem to have it under control. Once we were finished, Alice moved on to the next part of her notes.

She said that what Cain experienced that night matched a description of what was known as Animal powers. Basically, he could call on the abilities of any animals, for example the speed of a cheetah. He also had the ability to increase his strength. If he paired those two powers together, we could only imagine how much havoc he could cause.

As for me, Alice says that what I did was called Nullification. That was how I could stop the attacker's magic. It seems like I don't have to be touching the person to stop their magic, but if I come into contact with them the effects are increased.

Chris seems to have an especially amplified Intuition. Alice explained that the ability in general was common, but there are some in which the power is enhanced greatly. And concluding her research findings, she mentioned her own ability, Knowledge. She retained all the information learned by previous generations, and was able to retain anything else she learned about. Witches usually gained their powers around our age, some even earlier. The magic would be unstable at first - something we've already figured out - but luckily we would get used to it, and if we practiced we'd be able to hone our skills and control our powers even better.

Elijah was a bit disheartened the whole time. "I haven't gotten any sort of powers yet, what if I'm not even a part of this?"

Alice smiled, "Don't worry, when the time comes I'm sure you'll find your powers."

We finished our discussion soon after, deciding that if we could, we try to practice with what we had. Elijah swore he'd let us know the second he got his powers. When there was nothing more to talk about, we returned to our homes.

As I lay on my bed, I thought about this Nullification I supposedly had. It's not as if I could just try it out now. If I want to see the effect I need someone with a visible power. Cain would be my best bet. I'll ask him tomorrow if he wants to practice together.