Midnight had passed and it was four in the morning when finally a book that Damien pulled had the information about the hourglass, “Oh! I can read it too!” exclaimed the priest.
Damien brought the book closer, placing the lantern above it to say, “Look there’s a drawing about it. They are called the scavengers.”
“A scavenger is the creature that belongs to the pit of darkness. It moved in darkness and appears usually at the hour of the night and not necessarily at the hour of the hourglass. The creature is said to have been one of the very few firstborn in the four lands before the existence of the white or black witches or also the pureblooded vampires who have claimed to have been the first one to descend on these lands with the humans.
The creature is cunning and manipulative, something that has been only lurking in the shadows with the other creatures that only haunt during the darkest hour. Some of us have been attacked by these creatures who seek more than blood or body but the very soul which is the essence of a person’s very being. Last week, one of the witch sisters had gone out to never have come back or returned to the living. We believe that and are sure that these creatures with the rest are waiting to hunt down the souls which they find are important so that they can be sacrificed and pawned with each other.”
Penny stared at the parchments of the bound book as Damien read from it. He turned some of the pages as the rest only spoke about what they were until he came to the second last page.
“It looks like the white witch who wrote this made a diary entry,” he said turning the page back and forth before reading it,
“Location Winter of the North, age of the beginning. Two of my sisters have gone in search of the creature that often lurks in the shadows. One of my sisters told me how the creature speaks to them. Helping them. It has been a dire time with the vampires who have been trying to take claim of our lands. The place where we reside has been burning down the ashes.”
Penny not listening to Damien read it, she read the rest on her which went on to say,
‘It has been a week now. Our elder witch sisters have started to retaliate by killing the vampires. Some have gone so far to kill them in their houses which I believe has not gone well. There have been more rise in death and we have gone so far as to touch the magic which we have sworn not to use. One of my sisters said that magic is cursed.
Another day has passed by and things haven’t gotten better. My sisters are changing. Changing for the worse where there has been rise of secrets among us, we hide and neglect what is important. The sisterhood has been forgotten now.’
There was another diary entry after it, the writing much shabbier than the previous days,
‘Things that I have written down all these years now appear to be unsafe. Some of my sisters have gone missing. I have come to believe the forbidden magic didn’t appear out of anywhere. It hasn’t been there but was brought to our world. There has been nothing by chaos, more families have been burnt alive and the harmony which was present has now disappeared.
This madness will not end. It started to only end from what started it. Some of us have tried to understand the cause but it seems unlikely any of us have ever been able to come close to knowing the truth.
The scavengers might disappear but they haven’t left the world we live in. There are other creatures, the guards at the gates who are guarding but we can only hope for it to never return back.’
“If the witches have recorded it down here which wasn’t even recording but more of a diary entry. How do you think it is possible to know what this creature wants?” asked Father Antonio with a frown on his forehead. The man knew only as much as the others did.
“Penelope is special, we’ll need to know what others things we haven’t explored yet,” he said looking at the girl who stood quietly right now, her thoughts going to an overdrive thought process after reading the parchments. If the creature had taken away the white witches and as spoken in here where this scavenger was trying to entice or might have brought the hidden magic, it was possible that it was trying to have Penelope touch the forbidden magic but he doubted that was the case.
After all, trying to attack and kill someone was never taken to be as a sign of persuasion which meant the creature found her soul to be worth stealing.
“Have someone ask about these. If they can find anything at all,” Damien ordered it to the priest who nodded his head. As much as Damien was interested about this creature, so was Father Antonio who wanted to know more about what the white witches knew in the past, “Thank you for your time,” he said and Penny thanked the white witch before leaving the church and getting back to the mansion.
Once they were back in the room, Damien stepped to look at Penny to make sure she was alright and had been unharmed before they had left the room.
“How are you doing?” he asked her.
“A little lack of sleep,” she answered truthfully for him to nod.
“That’s good that you weren’t hurt. I don’t think I have ever seen anyone run like a duck before,” he commented to have her roll her eyes at him.
“I did the best I could by running away from that thing. I don’t think anyone ever thinks if they are running elegantly when something like this happens,” she pulled away the scarf that was around her neck which had kept her warm from the cold air outside the mansion and inside the bottom dungeons in the church.
