Early Days
Ten-year-old William Tavington ran into the family library, and slammed the door shut. His parents were going at it again, and the library seemed to be the only place in the house where he could not hear the bickering. He pulled the book he was reading off the shelf on the far side of the room. The Briquet De Vie Volume Three is what it was called. Many of the other children had told him stories that they had heard of this strange group, but William had believed none of it.
"If they are real," he had said," They would be hung for witchcraft."
The others had disagreed with him, and said that they only allow themselves to be seen when a death has occured, or if they are captured.
"Why is it only when a death has occured," William asked.
"Because they take the souls, and lead them up to heaven, and then they make the bodies disappear."
"That's rediculous," William had said. Now as he read the books, he was beginning to believe the stories more and more. There was even a picture in the book that someone had drawn. The artist claimed to have seen her when hiswife was shot by a soldier who had claimed to need water and medical aid. Her hair was very short. It came down to about the center of her neck. She wasn't wearing a dress like the girls and women William was used to seeing, but she was wearing a long cloak with a rather large hood. He wondered if the artist really had seen one of the Briquet De Vie. The third volume of the Briquet De Vie series was as far as William got before his father told him never to read the books again, and then burned the books while William was sleeping. William later thought to himself that having a knowledge of the Briquet De Vie was useless anyway. Whether he knew of them or not, he doubted he would ever see one.