The Five Cursed Witches: Volume 1 - Zoe, the Witch of Innocence

Chapter 83 The long story

Zoe

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"I always assumed my mother was a witch as well, or human," I started. I sat leaning against Felix with his arms around me and looking at Alex. "But apparently she was a nymph. While she was pregnant with me, she somehow found out that I was dying. I would guess that has to do with her being a nymph. I've only used those powers a couple of times now, but when I healed the plant, I can sort of feel its life energy. It would stand to reason that she could feel mine while she was pregnant and could feel that something wasn't right with it."

Alex had once again taken a position as if she was listening to a good bedtime story. She was bundled up in the armchair and had her cup of tea in her hand. Though she looked at me so intensely that I doubted she remembered the tea.

"I met two nymphs today that knew my mother, Ash and Pine, and from what they told me, my mother went to a faerie for help. What exactly the faerie did, I don't know. But it saved me, though it also made my skin the way it was. Anything alive that touched my bare skin immediately died. So when I was born, I killed my mother. She and Father must have known about it, though. He must have been prepared with gloves. But why he never explained anything of this to me, I just don't get."

Telling all of this to them felt surprisingly good. I finally more properly sorted out all the information I had gotten and even though there were things I didn't understand, saying it all out loud made it clearer.

"It was just me and my father for most of my childhood. Really, most of my life. Like most witches, we have a coven. But I wasn't particularly welcomed in it because of what my skin was and my father... Witches are almost exclusively female. There are some male witches, but they are rare and it is believed that they are much weaker than female witches. If that is actually the case, I don't know. I think it rather has to do with a tradition of not teaching male witches like female witches are. But because of that bias, male witches are treated extremely poorly by their covens. They are forced to do what no one else wants to. Really, they sort of are seen as slaves within the coven."

Alex opened her mouth, but Felix behind me shushed her. I felt grateful because I really didn't want to go into more details about it. Just the small flashes of memories that I allowed myself to remember were painful enough. Explaining more would be unbearable.

"I was fourteen when our Priestess came and asked for my assistance for the first time. Our coven had long been in dispute over land with a group of rogue shifters. They lived in the forest close to us and they got in the way of us and we got in the way for them," I continued and then added at Alex's puzzled look, "Shifters are people that can turn into a specific animal, like wolf-shifters, but there are many more than just wolves. And rogue means that they don't really have a pack like most shifters traditionally do. They usually don't live in one place but travel around. This group, though, had decided to settle together close to us and, well, were becoming more and more of a pack. The coven had tried to fight them off, without succeeding, but then got the idea that I could do it."

I closed my eyes momentarily and took a deep breath before continuing.

"All I had to do was get too close to them. They attacked me and the moment they came in contact with my skin, they died. It was slightly better for a while after that. In exchange for my help, the coven let my father be in peace and towards me they were much more respectful. I guess I even felt happy over what I had been able to do for a while. I finally felt like I had a place in the coven. Thing is though, that was far from the end of it. Next time, it was a witch from another coven. Then a vampire. Followed by a banshee. And many more. It started going from being to defend after attacks, to defend before attacks, to just blatant gain. I was a tool that could easily kill the competition. I stopped doing it willingly and only did it as a response to threats towards my father."