Secrets, Lies, and Covens (Phan)

8 Plauged Secrets

The coven managed to help Dan onto the couch where he sat alone awkwardly. Everyone else hovered around the outskirts of the room speaking only in whispers and glancing at Dan.

Finally, Clarissa came and sat down next to Dan. She pulled out a cigarette and put it in her mouth giving Dan a look as if to ask him to light it for her. With the snap of his fingers, the end caught flames which quickly dispersed into a stream of smoke.

"Getting fancy with the pyrokinesis, I see," Clarissa commented.

"You know it," Dan said awkwardly. "So, what exactly happened to me?"

"Well, that's what we're deciphering. We think we may know, but just to be sure, did you have any visions? Four to be exact?"

Dan straightened up, "Y-yeah, I did. Four exactly. Why, what were they?"

"Predictions. They're only four possible outcomes, but one of them will come true," Clarissa told him.

Dan sucked in a breath, "You're not saying that... that I saw the future, are you?"

"Congratulations. You manifest clairvoyance," Clarissa blew a puff of smoke.

"T-that's what clairvoyance is like?!" Dan questioned almost terrified.

"Calm down, it's only that bad the first time! Given visions like that do come with migraines, but never as intense as the first time," Anya reassured Dan walking over and sitting down next to him. "Your body knew what to do to receive those probable signals, but it had never truly experienced it so your body didn't know what to expect."

"So it won't always be like that?" Dan questioned.

"No, but you will get less intense migraines," Chris warned.

"Great, so I have a new power, but I don't get it. What's the problem?" Dan wondered aloud.

"Veronica," Louise jumped in, "You said Veronica when you woke up."

"Dan, do you even know who Veronica is?" Zahra asked.

"She's..." Dan stopped. When he was in the visions, Dan seemed to have had some background information on her. Now, she was just the black hooded lady from the shadows. In fact, she didn't even seem human. If anything, Veronica was a spirit. "I don't know. I think she's was just a ghost dressed in a black dress and cloak standing in the shadows before she disappeared."

Everyone exchanged nervous glances in silence.

"Should we tell him?" whispered PJ.

"He's a member of the coven, he deserves to know," Clarissa said like it was obvious.

"But what if he tells the council?" Louise reminded everyone.

"I don't think Dan would do something like that," Anya pointed out.

"But he might get scared and think that it might save us," added Chris.

"He's going to find out sooner or later. Curiosity will lead him to finding out someway worse," Zahra went on.

"Um, guys, you're all standing right next to me now, so I can hear you all loud and clear," Dan butted in, "Tell me what?"

Everyone heaved a breath and eyed each other once more before Clarissa finally spoke up. "The year was 1693 of April. The Salem Witch Trials over in Colonial America had just ended, and the remaining witches had decided to split up. When Colonial America was first suggested, all European witches banded together and sailed over to the new world and gathered in Salem, Massachusetts. The town was to be a haven for any and all witches to be born, raised, and live there without any humans to live in fear of. Salem started out about eighty-seven percent witches and only thirteen percent human, but it wasn't long before more humans began to crowd in. With so many witches in one place, the outnumbered people were bound to see the them use magic occasionally and it scared them. In fact, it scared them so much that the humans went as far as to hang a woman for it. The best part was that the first woman to actually be hung for witchcraft in Salem was completely human, but as the trials went on, there were some witches that got mixed in with more humans that were slaughtered. When the witch trials finally concluded, no one felt safe to stay there any longer. Some wanted to stay in America and move to another state, but there was also a good amount that felt it was better to go sail back to Europe. The ones that did stay ended up forming one small coven in each state except for Massachusetts thinking that it was better to have less witches in one area. They were called the Salem Dispersed Covens. The witches that returned all gathered in London for a while. They were known as the Returned Coven before splitting off into multiple covens across Europe. The twenty witches that remained in London began calling themselves the London Coven and that's our coven today. One of the witches in the London Coven was named Veronica Benson and she was an ultimate with seventeen alleles. Her unusual seventeenth allele was strange unlike any other. Witches called this 'mutation' allele the Plague Allele for the user could infect anyone of their choosing with the dreaded Black Death sickness that killed a good amount of the world from 1346 to 1353. All she had to do was touch the victim's skin with her own. Witches tended to fear this power the most because it was the most deadly at the time, so Veronica kept it a secret from the rest of her coven. One day while Veronica was sitting alone out in the garden of this very house, a lone wolf had stumbled across her. It was clearly lost and starving, so on instinct, it attacked her. A nearby warlock heard her screams and using his teleportation, he came to her rescue. Unfortunately, the warlock was too late for Veronica had already killed the wolf by infecting it with Black Death. The warlock wasn't scared though, but taken with Veronica's beauty and strength. She panicked when he found out about her allele, but he promised to keep it a secret. Veronica was attracted to the man's trustworthiness and how he was ready to come defend a stranger blindly. The witch and wizard continued to meet secretly in the garden under the cover of night at first as friends, but soon as more. Eventually, Veronica became pregnant with the warlock's child. The couple was elated, but soon struck down with dilemma. Witches within the time range forbade the relationship of witches and warlocks over much controversy and there was the possibility that the child would be born with the Plague Allele. They both agreed to meet at their regular time the next night and run away together, but Veronica was found out the next day by the rest of her coven who locked her in the basement and the wizard when he came to meet her with a power binding. When the other nineteen witches began their preparations for the burnings, Veronica and the wizard used whatever spell craft they could manage to mature and give birth to the baby boy before transporting it away to a house bound to take care of the child. This much strain to use power killed the warlock and sent Veronica into a coma which se awoke from tied to a wooden post in the basement below this house. Her lover had already been chopped into pieces and the child was in one of the other witch's arms. The baby boy was killed right in front of Veronica's eyes, and as they dumped the kerosene on her, Veronica cursed this house and the coven binding connections to her soul to the walls, floorboards, air, and furniture. She vowed that she would return to this house one day to get revenge on the coven for destroying her family and happiness, so whenever October comes around, she has a way of coming to our world from the spirit realm even though she was burnt at the stake. Her rage filled spirit has appeared before, but when the clock strikes midnight on Halloween, we've always managed to send her back when the realm sync ends."