"Damien, do you think there was something in the teacup yesterday?"

"Mhmm, I am glad you turned the tea into the water."

"You knew," Penny smiled to receive a smile back in return, "How did you know?" 

"I think it was Mrs. Artemis who was interested in giving you the pots of tea over and over again which you drank like water yesterday. Having already discussed what they are or could be, I didn't want to take the risk while I also knew you would change it. The woman slipped up because of her eyes that kept moving back forth between you and the teacup. Witches have often put things in what we eat or drink to make them listen to you so that they can take advantage."

Damien let go of her and leaned forward to pick the filled water in the gla.s.s. Putting a red pill that started to submerge and fall down, releasing red color and turning the colorless liquid to bright red and in time thickening it. He took a sip from the gla.s.s. 

"It isn't anything new for witches to not do it. My guess would be that they have been making use of spells and making people eat such that it makes one forget or rid thoughts about them."

"Like the memory spells?" her mother had used to erase the memory. 

"This might be running along the same lines," replied Damien. It was just speculation from his side but it was possible, thought Penny to herself, "Do you know what are the other rituals that need to be done for the unbinding?"

Penny's lips pursed as she tried remembering it to feel her thoughts only going in closed circles, "The swamp in the children," she mentioned to see a dark expression come to settle on his face. They both had not forgotten the way they had found the little children there in the forbidden forest where no one went. She still remembered the pain in the parent's voice as they cried for their dead children. 

It had been too much, the pain raising gooseb.u.mps even now on her skin. No one deserved to go through such pain of loss. The world was already dark in the past but it had turned like a black hole of darkness after the white witches had stopped and pushed the magic out of reach to the black witches. 

"All these things that are happening. The death using ma.s.sacre, burning of witches, killing children...it is all to get the power back that had been stolen and thrown away by the black witches. They want it so desperately that they won't stop until they have found a way to get it and they are already on the path of it."

Damien took another sip from his gla.s.s, "It isn't possible that every walking black witch is trying to reach out for it but there must be someone who is running this show without coming forward to let us know who it is. Whoever the black witch or witcher is, they have stayed out of the spotlight."

Her mother was part of it, thought Penny to herself. 

"My mother is involved too," she reminded him, "She has been in the front line so I don't think it is possible that it is her."

"Your mother might be an old witch but it doesn't appear she has been old enough to run the whole scene."

"You are right," Penny agreed, "Could you bring the books of Lady Isabelle up here so that I could take a look at it? It has been bothering me for a while on where I found out about the ritual."

After Damien had brought the books to the room, Penny went through them. Flipping pages trying to remember where it was but she couldn't find it, "Do you think it was somewhere in the church back in Bonelake?" Damien asked after she had stopped searching the books.

Penny was usually sure to find out because of her memory but at the same time, her very memory had turned weak. She didn't damage her memory more after the blood got drained right? asked Penny to herself before finding it to be stupid. 

"I don't think such information would be freely available to all the witches out there who have access to the secret room," Penny replied back to the question he had asked. She spent some more time thinking about it and her lips parted, "Ah..."

"What is it?"

"It wasn't from these books or in the church. I read a list about the black witches ritual to unbind the magic when I was young. My mother was carrying the list with her and she must have thought she had hidden it well until I found it when we were cleaning the house. It was the first time when she wiped my memory," she hadn't realized it before but now that she did she finally understood why her mother had panicked and taken the step to wipe her very memory on how to read and write. 

It was so that Penny would never be able to utter what she read to her father. If she had left Penny without meddling with her thoughts then there was a possibility that she would have blurted it out to her father who would have finally found out that his wife was not an ordinary human but a black witch. 

She wished she could remember the rest of the details in the parchment but she couldn't right now. 

"If my mother had the parchment to bring back the black magic, it means she had been involved in all these events since the very beginning," Penny's hands clutched tightly together, "I wish I could remember what else was written in that parchment."

"How big was the parchment?" he asked and went to thinking as the piercing pain came back, hurting her head.

She raised her hand, "The size from my fingers to my wrist," now that she thought about it, it wasn't too big.