LAMIAE

CHAPTER FORTY NINE: TRUTH

"It took place at the beginning of the sixteenth century on the border of the lands of two connected countries. In the then Kingdom of Poland, a countess gave birth in the castle to a beautiful girl with blue eyes. It came to her in great agony, and she needed help from her faithful servant, who did not practice treatment using traditional methods. The local medicine was still primitive and was based on the principle of draining excess blood from the patient. She replaced it with herbs that she collected in the forest, which pleased the countess. In fact, the herbalist treated all kinds of diseases with them, from influenza to the plague," Genevieve paused for a moment. She looked at the book as if she had the rest of the story written there. "In the same year, just a few kilometers away, in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, a boy was born in a magnate family in a castle. These two noble families had been closely related since the Union of Krewo; so it's no wonder that children were destined to be together from an early age. They even physically resembled each other - the same hair, the same skin tone, the same eyes. Except one. The boy was corpulent and the girl was frail. They also differed in character. The girl was sensitive and easily attached to things and people, while the boy was raised to be a strong, brave knight. He never cried. Crying was a disgrace to a man. It happened one winter day that the Teutonic Order invaded these two estates. Although the knights were few in number, they managed to conquer first one castle, then the other, which was not far away, killing everyone they met on the road. The girl's parent, sensing an approaching threat, hid the several-year-old child with the herbalist and nurse in the tunnels under the castle. The boy also survived, but only because the knights missed the boy who hid behind a wardrobe. He did not move out of fear and ate nothing for two days and nights. Two days and two nights the Teutonic Order feasted. On the third day, the boy's godfather and his companions arrived at the castle. They drove away these few knights and took the boy in. The children did not see each other for years. The boy grew up in the castle, the girl in a cottage on the edge of the forest, where she helped a herbalist. She didn't remember much from her early childhood. She knew nothing about her native roots, because the nurse died before the girl could speak well and the herbalist later convinced her that she was her grandmother."

"It sounds like a fairy tale, they will probably fall in love soon and live happily ever after," interrupted Dagmara, frowning. Genevieve looked at her as if she had just remembered she was there.

"It's not a fairy tale," she muttered dryly, continuing. "And although after thirteen years the children finally met in the forest, nothing after that resembled a fairy tale."

"Okay, I'm not saying anything anymore," Dagmara said, crouching down next to Tie, who stretched out to be petted.

"The boy went hunting once, and the girl went to collect herbs herself, as her grandmother told her. While chasing the deer, the boy fired a shot and it undoubtedly hit the young herbalist in the side. It wasn't a big injury, but the moment the bullet touched the girl, the man also felt a dull pain. Seeing what he had done, in excruciating pain, he took the girl to the castle, where she was attended to by local doctors. She almost died from the wound, but with the last of her strength she ordered to call her grandmother. The boy also felt worse and worse, and as his uncle and his entourage were not at the castle, he ordered to carry out the dying girl's wish. The herbalist quickly cured the girl and recognized the young man from the neighboring castle. She wanted to take her fake granddaughter with her, but as the young man also regained his strength, he did not allow her to do so. Of course, he liked the pretty girl and he didn't want to lose her. The boy did not remain indifferent to the girl either, they talked all day long in the castle and still couldn't get enough of each other. However, the herbalist found a lurking danger in the incident that brought the teenagers together, so one night she got the boy drunk with a drink and forced the girl to run away under the cover of darkness."

Dagmara stopped petting Tie. She had to admit that she was becoming more and more absorbed by the story.

"They never returned to the cottage near the forest. They wandered from one place to another, learning something new in each place. You must know that the herbalist's skills in medicine were too effective. Even an educated person could not cure some of the cases that the herbalist dealt with. They provided the women with food and sometimes accommodation. The girl also began to learn this craft under the watchful eye of her grandmother. She had a year to master it. At the same time, the young man could not find a place in the castle. When he woke up the day after the women's escape, he immediately ordered a search of the forest and became very angry when he learned that a cottage on the edge was empty. He took it as an insult and ingratitude on the part of the women who got him drunk and robbed him, because the old woman actually took some gold to survive. His godfather and his companions finally returned to the castle. The young man told the whole story, not omitting any details. Maybe if he had left some information only to himself, the tragedy would not have happened. So, the men, interested in the fact that both teenagers were suffering from a wound at the same time, went to a meeting. The council they formed has survived to this day, as you probably guessed."

In fact, the moment her grandmother mentioned the meeting, the word's too high probability immediately crossed her mind.

"They agreed that they would find the girl at all costs, appointing new members, whom they called the Congregation. The boy's godfather incited him at that time, telling him that the women living on the edge of the forest and practicing herbal medicine were witches, which were talked about more and more in those days. The 15th and 16th centuries were, unfortunately, bloody periods in the history of trials over times. The uncle quoted from the Malleus Maleficarum, proving to him that the intoxication he experienced was due to Satan's tricks. He said that the girl had beguiled him by using spells and summoning unclean devil forces."

"But that's not true," the girl said. She waited for her grandmother to confirm what she had just said. "Grandma?"

"Actually the girl had no idea about her grandmother's craft. She found out everything in her own time, after she escaped, on her seventeenth birthday."

"What craft? Was she really a witch?" Dagmara laughed. She couldn't understand what she was talking about with her grandmother.

"The elderly herbalist had abilities that the average person cannot boast of," Genevieve replied, without a trace of mockery. "She treated comas and people mortally wounded in wars, this was an area in which she could work miracles. It was she who prevented the countess and her daughter from dying during childbirth. You could say that she was the godmother of this child, so she treated her like a granddaughter. There was also another reason."

"Wait a minute," Dagmara interjected, shaking her head. "I don't believe it. Maybe she was a great healer?"

"But what other proof do you want, Dagmara, that magic exists?" asked the grandmother, already slightly irritated by her granddaughter's words. "Should I pick up the book without using my hands?" as soon as she said the words, the book began to rise up. Dagmara widened her eyes. The book actually levitated, bouncing slightly upwards. Grandma added:

"Would you rather it shut up?" the book fell onto the pedestal, slamming loudly. "Do you want the light to go out?" dim candles flickered above her, and then, one by one, they all went out. It immediately became dark and gloomy. The girl felt as if a flock of ants were running over her body. She was left speechless by her grandmother's display of ability. "You say it's impossible," her grandmother spoke again, her voice already seemed absent and distant. "And you faced so much tangible evidence in the mansion. Alan, changing the color of your hair, Nikolai on the train, a diary that hides its notes."

Dagmara got scared. Not that she had no idea how her grandmother knew all this, although it did cross her mind that she was an omniscient... She was afraid of the fact that what she had pushed away deep down, this grain of doubt about the world around her, had become her reality. She recalled a few sentences that she remembered from Victoria's second entry, when she also found out the truth.

The thesis that I put forward yesterday, that the world has changed, has today faded into nothingness. It wasn't the world that changed, it was me who discovered a part of it. Just as there are two opposing forces - love and hate, two opposing concepts - good and evil, there are also adjectives human and inhuman. Human is everything that comes from people, that men and women have invented for centuries; what they became creators of. The inhuman is the supernatural, which was created long ago by another Creator. It's not just Earth. These are powers that these humans have not heard of and that have been protected from them for the centuries.