Chapter 2

When you think of a house that a witch lives at, you think of something filled with cobwebs and dust, but this house was as gorgeous as lively. I guess the clue that it wasn’t going to be a haunted house cliché was the clean porch and modernized architecture. Most buildings look like this on Lacrose now.

They have been trying for years to get the world up to speed with the tycoons like Planet Larson of the 8^th Galaxy Known. It’s so technologically advance, people have flying robots to do their chores. I think it would be a little freaky. I would feel like robots were taking over the world, but that just might be my inner android-phobic father talking.

What I know is that the witch’s place is quite lovely. A “butler,” let me in and showed me to a small sitting room. It was nice and plain with a fireplace and two sitting chairs. A painting above the fireplace captured the sea. I have never actually been to a place of so much water. It stretched onto the horizon and seemed to go on forever.

“I like that painting very much,” I spent around and found a young woman standing before me. She was rather pale with great greenish yellow eyes. They reminded me of my cat’s eyes. Long pale blonde hair spilled over her shoulders in a shiny waterfall. She motioned to the painting once again. “I could stare at it forever and not manage to separate the sky from the sea.”

I smiled then remembered my manners. “Kristy.” I held out my hand, but then remembered the psychic. Maybe it wouldn’t be a good idea to shake hands. She, of course, just watched my arm fall back in place at the side of my body like she was watching something tedious.

“I suppose you have not heard of the phrase ‘magic flows?’” She made it question.

“No, I’m sorry.” I managed to smile weakly. “This is all new to me.”

“I’m sure.” It was her turn to smile. “I am R’onia.” I wanted to say, of course you are, but I’m sure that would have either confused her or aggravated her. Magical people always seem to have weird, cool names.

“It’s nice to meet you. I‘m glad that you would see me.”

She nodded then motioned to the chairs behind me. I sat, like a good house guest. When she sat across from me, I could see how hard she was trying not to touch me. It’s a little insulting really. Am I really that repulsive?

“You see when a magical person collides with another magical person for the first time,” she began. “It can be quite dangerous.”

“Oh.” Do witches have the power to read minds?

“The professor told me that you have many questions.” she looked bored. I ignored that fact. I wasn’t here to become friends with the witch. I was here to get my answers!

“Well, as you probably know, I’m a necromancer, whatever that really is,” I said. “Do you know what it really is?”

She inhaled sharply. “A thousand years ago they would have just called you another witch and burned you at the stake, but over the millennium the differences have been made. Witches can make potions out of ingredients, the same as a necromancer, but witches have to have a magic mix where necromancers do not.”

“So our differences are made through a different way of making potions?”

“Well, no.” she sighed, looking at her hands balled up on her skirt. “I’m sorry. It has been a long time since I have had the liberty to talk about such things.”

“Sure, sure.” I replied quickly. “Take your time.”

“You see, I am a witch and still we are shunned from every day life.” R’onia said. “The power of a witch can be felt by almost everyone the he or she encounters. Necromancers seem immune to that.”

“Well, I met a psychic before and she said that she never wanted to be around me again.”

“Did you touch her?”

I bowed my head. “Yes.”

“Any magical person can see through another one.” she said. “Remember, ‘magic flows’ so don’t touch anyone that cannot handle what power you have.”

“How do I know who can and cannot handle my power?” I then asked.

She sighed again. “I can teach you that.”

“Would you?” I smiled. She did not. “But you don’t seem to want to…”

“Oh no, no.” She shook her head. “Forgive me. You are reading me all wrong. I envy you…Kristy, was it?” I nodded. “You can walk through the day with the Humans and not worry about them hunting you down.”

“But killing innocent witches is illegal.” I said. “You haven’t done anything wrong.” Of course that’s speaking from the moment I met her and on. I cannot say or know what she’s done in the past.

“You’re right, but it’s just paranoia.” I found her smiling brightly, all the way to her eyes. “Necromancers can have many different abilities.” she then said. “You could talk to the dead, maybe even raise them if you so desired.”

I blinked for a moment. Raising the dead? That sounded freakish. It sounded like something I didn’t want to be apart of…but what can a girl do? You can’t fight your power, right? The psychic said I would be surrounded by death…is that what she was implying?

“It is also in the power of a skilled necromancer to control other creatures.”

“Like the Vampires?”

“Well not the same way.” she said. “Glamour is a very powerful ability that the Vampires have and it is natural to their specie.”

“So, it’s more like creating a spell for me?”

“Or me.”

“To recap,” I said looking at the notes I had been writing. “A necromancer is someone closely related, in power, to a witch, but has the ability to speak and raise the dead.”

“And control them.” she interrupted.

“And control them.” I repeated. “We can also only be ‘detected’ by others if we touch them…”