The coven (3)

Aurora was surprised to hear witches had successfully set up a shop in the Harlow kingdom. It was common knowledge such creatures were long killed off by the kings and everyone thought witches, Gods, werewolves, etc were all extinct. They were very wrong and perhaps the kings were not truthful.

Aurora had to be cautious around these witches. She didn't know a lot about them other than constantly hearing they were evil. When someone called you a witch they weren't doing it to say you're a good person. It was why in the stories she had snuck and read, villages had burned witches and anyone they believed to be one. It reminded her of the chants in her head with people shouting to burn her.

"Are you able to spot other witches?" Aurora questioned wanting to know if she was somehow a witch.

"Just by looking at them. You can't hide that lingering darkness around our sisters," Agatha smiled showing her black sharp nails. "Side effects of what we do."

"Then, am I a witch? I've had a memory of people wanting to burn me," Aurora said and secretly hoped it wasn't true. She did not want to be a witch. Aurora just wanted to be normal like everyone else.

The three sisters burst into uncontrollable laughter when their guest claimed to be a witch.

"Maybe you were mistaken for one but you are no witch. You might be something but not one of us. When humans don't understand something, they view it as a threat and try to get rid of it. Just like they did to the Gods who came to help them."

"Now back to why you came here. We do have a special book you might be interested in but it will be pricey. It has quality information on wolves and a few other creatures. If you buy this, you will need to be careful," Morgan warned her as she placed a small dusty book on the counter. "The king doesn't like anything like this in his kingdom and has his subjects all around watching what his people are doing. Get caught with this and you might be burned for real."

Aurora looked down at the brown book wrapped around in what looked like rose thorns. "How much would you like for it?"

"Thirty gold coins. A book like this isn't easy to come by and thirty gold coins is a good deal. My original price for it was fifty coins."

That only raised a bunch of red flags in Aurora's mind. She hadn't forgotten the fact she was dealing with a witch. Something had to be wrong with the book for her to be given such a discount.

"Is the book cursed or was it was maybe stolen and someone will come after me?" Aurora was apprehensive about buying the book.

"Smart girl but there's nothing wrong with the book. It's been rotting away in our shop for a long time. It's about time it has an owner again," Agatha said, pushing the book towards her customer. "Not all witches have bad intentions unless you make one angry. Are you taking the book or leaving it?"

It was her only option right now considering she wanted to get away from this side of the town as soon as possible. Who could have better information on the wolf than three witches? She might be dead anyway because she didn't fully trust the wolf had no intentions of killing her. If there was something wrong with the book it would have to wait in line after the wolf.

"I will take it but I will pay your original price. It doesn't feel right taking the discount for something like this," Aurora said, opening a bag of gold coins and starting to count the fifty coins.

"You're too nice for this world to miss. I know you didn't give us your real name," Minerva said, counting each coin Aurora placed on the counter. Her eyes lit up having more money to spend, specifically gold coins. If only she could get this young lady to buy more things.

"I still think we should've asked her for frogs or maybe worms. I'm tired of searching for those things," Agatha grumbled, stacking up jars with live grasshoppers in her hands to place on the shelves. Frogs were a great ingredient for making potions. Too bad the little things kept hopping away when they saw her.

"Nice people are the ones to die first," Morgan commented, ignoring Agatha's request for frogs. The gold coins were much better. "Bad ones live a tiny bit longer by using the nice ones. It might be the reason why I am still alive. That and the king has not found us yet and I plan to keep it that way. Right, miss?"

"We wouldn't want to hunt you down and turn you into a frog for Agatha."

"I won't tell anyone," Aurora said, putting the last coin down on the counter and then picking up the book to flip through to quickly check the information. She saw images of creatures she would expect to only see in nightmares. Her hand stopped flipping through pages when she saw the werewolf. "This is it," she whispered, running her against the drawing titled the alpha.

Aurora pushed the coins towards Minerva accepting the deal.

"Pleasure doing business with you. Come again," The three witches said at the same time.

"Goodnight," Aurora replied, placing the cloth back over her head. She had to hurry back home now in case Minnie wanted to double-check to see if she was sleeping. She thanked the witches once more and exited the shop with the book close to her body but careful of the thorns.

As she was fixing the cloth over her head as she left the shop a note tied unto a stick fell from the book. Aurora bent down to pick it up and read the note. "Say our names and break this stick when you want to do business with us again. Why can't I just…" Aurora paused when she turned around and noticed the shop had disappeared. "Visit again," she ended her sentence.