Memories in Bone (Season of the Witch #12)

Prologue

Cesar

Revelations.

Depending on who you were, that word meant different things.

For some, it was a reference to a religion whose believers, once strong, fierce, and mighty, had dwindled to a mere fraction of what the world once held.

The vast number of those who believed in a one-god-belief-system quickly died out when shown their saviour wasn’t the only way to redemption, forgiveness, or even resurrection.

There were many gods, some benevolent, others cruel. Some had hordes of worshippers, while others had but a mere handful of faithful followers. Some existed in spirit; others walked among us. The old religions had become new again; the recent regimes of all kinds continued to crumble.

But then, everything in nature cycled.

We spring to life, grow and mature, age and gain wisdom, create memories and experiences, until the one thing that inevitably comes for us all arrives upon our doorstep.

Death.

We all die. Everything rots and decays. But even when life ceases to exist, one cannot say that is the end. Not anymore.

Even when the spark of existence is extinguished, the end of one life could be the beginning of another.

Truly, the world was filled with magic, wonders, and horrors.

For most of us, though, the great Revelation had come in the year 2025, and we knew that once we stepped forward, there would be no going back. We thought we had the solution. Answers to the societal problems we all saw forming.

Dictatorships. Fascism. Wars.

We had been so confident that exposing ourselves after hiding in the shadows for centuries would bring balance to the world.

We had clung to the hope that by revealing what we were capable of, by showing everyone both the beauty and horrors of the supernatural, that the world held so much more than the common stock knew.

Our existence would end the marginalization of so many.

We had longed to step out into the light and show our powers.

The political landscape at the time had grown volatile, angry, and hateful.

Segregation between ideologies tore families apart.

The notion of ‘Do unto your neighbour as you would have done unto you’ ceased to exist. Kindness evaporated.

Goodwill became a historical concept. Suspicion spread, and the population grew paranoid.

It all had to be stopped.

And stop it we did.

By ripping away the veil and casting our secrecy aside, we proved to everyone that we had always been here. Our proclamation of existence shocked many, divided everyone even further, and introduced more chaos.

It wasn’t the result we had intended.

Now, what lay before us was uncertain, dark, controlled by the magically talented and the resource-powerful, feared by the weak and mundane. Segregated communities continued to exist. Marginalization persisted. I personally did not believe that our actions were for the better.

We now had no other choice but to live with our consequences, and to hope we would remember, to keep alive a glimmer of our original intent.

To understand that our ways – the paths of the wyrd and wild - would help reshape the culture we now lived in.

I wished to see the customs we followed adopted by the common stock, and the rules by which we governed ourselves become the law of the land.

That above all else, no matter which clan you belonged to — Obscurus or Illuminatus — love, hope, kindness, and integrity were foundations that all followed.

For centuries, we had managed to cultivate a magical world hidden from the rest of society. It had prospered. We all fared well.

We wanted a better world.

The intent was to share what we had.

I’m not sure that’s what we ended up with.