Elfish by Julie Steimle (best historical fiction books of all time .txt) 📕

“No one has ever been able to handle my fire,” she murmured. “Yet you both absorbed it as if it were nothing.”

Peter and Daniel exchanged looks. They had long been acquainted with that sort of fire—but they did not say anything.

“Well… we have a special circumstance that makes it so—”

“And you… do you know what it took for me to remember who I was?” she said, still soft as she gaze at Daniel.

Peter and Daniel both shook their heads, thinking over the absolute torture it had been to hunt her down. It was utterly ridiculous that one of their previous Sevens had been the problem in the first place. And the Elf had been blamed all those years. They wondered if that one chosen had lied to the others—another traitor perhaps.

She smiled at them. “You two. It wasn’t those damn witches. I’ve been handling witches since forever. It wasn’t even that damn professor. This wasn’t the first time I’ve been taken from my home against my will—even by a professor. Heavens. I’ve been abused numerous times in my long existence, and triumphed. And yet I did not once recall who I was—even with my loyal Robin checking in on me. But when you stepped into my wood,” She looked to Daniel, “I recognized a presence I had not felt since Egypt.” She then looked to Peter. “And you. I could tell you knew who I was. I now need you to tell me. My head is still a mess. It feels like my thoughts are tumbling about in a kaleidoscope, constantly fracturing. I need you to help me sort it out.”

Peter exchanged a look with Daniel. “You mean, who you are besides our patron Elf? I only know what I’ve researched and what Prof. Birtwistle surmised. We’ve been guessing this entire time, but my research matches his.”

“Then what did he surmise?” she asked, almost amused that a professor knew her past better than the Holy Seven. “Your guesses have been as good as my spotty memory. I have been living as Heather Wood for decades—Rowan for centuries. And I gave myself those names. I’ve been simply known as ‘the Elf’ for eons. Who am I really?”

Peter drew in a breath, thought on the lecture and summed up, “The professor assumed you were, and I quote, ‘a god-elf’—that is an elf that was once worshipped as a god in a pantheon. My research led to the same conclusion. Before you were our patron, you played god for a while. I ran across a name of who you were originally, but I don’t want to say it just yet. Names have power.”

She nodded, then shook her head. “What a foolish thing to do. Playing god. Ah me. What an idiot I was. But… yes. That is true. What a fool I was. Prideful. Impatient. Tell me, what gods or goddess did he presume I played? What is my written history? Who was I?”

Peter exchanged another look with Daniel, thinking on her choice of words, then said, “Well… if I go backward in time from now, there is not solid record of your life as a nameless Elf or of when you were our patron. But before you were called to help the Seven, you were an angel of death.”

She nodded. “Yes. Yes. I was a reaper—called to punish my fellow wayward elves of Egypt….” She stared into space. “That’s right. I remember now. Ra, Isis, Osiris, Hathor, Set… all of them. I had to punish all of them.” She shook her head, her mind lost in vague memory. “But who was I before I became a reaper? I was one of them once. I forget. But I came into Egypt with power. Then I had diminished.” She seemed lost, thinking on that.

Peter nodded. “The professor believed you were Bastet or Obest—the cat goddess.” He paused. “What was your real name? Hieroglyphs are difficult to decipher. They leave off vowels—”

“It matters not how it is pronounced now.” She smiled fondly at him, amused he wanted to give her due respect by properly saying her name. “That was just a name for the time. Who was I before they made alabaster boxes in worship of me, and let me keep cats?”

Daniel shrugged, nudging Peter to say more.

Peter sighed. “He believed you were also Udjat or Wadjet. Again, I don’t know exact pronunciation.”

She nodded. “Ah… right. I remember now. I had relinquished some of my power to the service of Ra. I was the eye of Ra. The lady of flame. I lost my sword in Egypt.”

“Sword?” Daniel blinked at her. He then drew his sword from his hidden sheath. “One like this?”

She blinked at him, then shook her head, chuckling. “No. Mine was a flaming sword. Made of heavenly ore.”

Immediately he made his sword flame up.

Lurching back, the Elf laughed, hands quickly moving over her mouth. She looked to Puck who shrugged, as clearly he knew Daniel could do that. She smiled more fondly at Daniel. “Amazing! Though mine was still more powerful.”

Daniel quenched his fire and shrugged. He sheathed his sword. “So… you’re missing a magic sword?”

The Elf who had once been the Egyptian goddess Wadjet, nodded. She even seemed to look more Egyptian as they stared at her. The memory flickered in her form. But she glanced to Peter again and asked, “Who was I before that? Because I know I was not of Egypt originally.”

Peter shrugged. “Yeah. You were in Greece for a time. But we assumed you were from another place—most specifically that England was your homeland and that you were a minor deity here.”

“Minor deity?” The Elf shook her head. “No. And yes. He would be correct in that I was once called Brigidt—”

Daniel drew in a breath.

“Calm yourself,” she said to him fondly. “I am not that Brigidt—the pagan three-aspect goddess.” She shuddered as if the concept made her angry. “She, I’m afraid, usurped my title and place. She put forward and sold magic to the witches. She has a lot to answer for. And I do believe her real name was Ceili. And if I ever do find her, I am going to tear her a—”

“But if you are the ancient Brigidt—or Brigitania—that means Briton is in fact, your entire domain,” Daniel said, his cheeks coloring. “It was named after you, right?”

She shrugged, coloring a little as if embarrassed by it. “Was. It isn’t anymore. I had abandoned it, and therefore lost that privilege. What you call Briton as my territory was a gift to me for a job well done—but I, like all the other elves, abandoned my duty and let pride take over. I was lured away. And like a fool, I left my Eden.”

Puck lowered his head as if he felt ashamed of himself. Daniel wondered why.

“What job well done?” Peter asked, not sure if the professor was correct about who she was. The man had that strange theory after all based off the book of Enoch, for pity’s sake. Yet there was that one name, which made him wonder.

Smiling at him, she angled her head and said, “What did the professor surmise? He has been correct thus far.”

Sighing, Peter said, “He thinks, and I don’t know how reliable this source is, that you are in fact a fallen angel. I honestly don’t know if that is a real thing or not.”

The Elf laughed. “I could be. Angels are, in the end, only messengers and servants. There are angels of devils out there. And angel is, in fact, a status—not a species of being.”

Daniel lifted his head. “We have a friend who is currently a death angel. She was born a demon but—”

“That’s good news then,” the Elf said approvingly, dusting off her charred tee-shirt and straightening it as if she wanted to be a little more presentable for him. “Demons who become angels are on the path to redemption. I had been one, remember?”

Peter exchanged a look with Daniel. He said, “So… it is not for life.”

She shrugged. “It depends upon the one called to be a death angel. Repentant elves sometimes serve the rest of their lifetimes. Others, like myself, had a specific charge—a test of loyalty and faith.” She closed her eyes, openly grieving. “I was the death angel who brought the seven plagues to Egypt when Moses called for the freedom of the Israelites.”

Both men stared. They peeked at each other. That was power. They imagined her raining those plagues on Wells if further infuriated.

“I had to prove I was truly repentant by turning my back on all those who had worshipped me as a goddess. Those I had misled.” She closed her eyes. “And I did it.”

“Why?” Daniel asked, breathless.

She laughed. “Are you kidding me? I knew I was in the wrong by misleading them and playing goddess. And I knew the true God was fulfilling all his plans for this earth when I saw that young descendant of Abraham being brought in and sold as a slave. What was his name? Yosef? I could see the hand of God on him. I knew he was chosen to perform a marvelous work. Because of that, I allowed Sekhmet to supersede me as the goddess of cats. I fled Egypt and went into the desert, seeking forgiveness. By that time, all my grandeur as an angel for God had diminished to nothing. I was nothing but a wayward Elf far from home. No sword. No tree. Nothing. I was almost powerless.”

They stared.

“Yet God sent one of the faithful angels to fetch me, to give me a second chance.” She shook her head. “I was called upon to destroy my companion Egyptian ‘gods’ and ‘goddesses’ if they did not give up misleading humanity into idolatry. I had to also punish those human beings who had followed us.”

“You were still in Egypt when you were called to be the elf advisor to the Holy Seven, weren’t you?” Daniel asked.

“To the Eight,” she corrected him again, shaking her head. “The Eight Magi. They were first selected when Abraham was in Egypt, but I was not an advisor then, of course. I was causing problems, remember. They were faithful for a few generations, even combating me. They called me ‘the opposition’. I became an advisor long after I repented and Moses had left Egypt. I was no longer a destroying angel then. That was when Judges were reigning in Israel and the Pharaohs of Egypt were considering that maybe the God of Israel was true.

“I was called in by the Eight themselves to help them deal with the witches who were gaining power in the region. I had be released of my reaping service when I agreed.” she said, recalling it more clearly, her memory returning. “Little did I know they were already too late. The Holy Seven were the ones who had stayed true. One of them had been tempted by power and glory by that coven of witches who intended to frustrate the plans of God. They even created a demon to haunt each generation of Seven and slay them so there could never be another full eight chosen again.”

Both of them frowned, recognizing the story. Daniel mouthed, ‘Eve.’

Peter asked, the Elf, “Why was he tempted?”

“She,” the Elf said to him. “She was tempted. Her name was Shaphupset. She was a beauty. Intelligent, strong, and unfortunately also envious. She was never quite satisfied with what she was given.”

“What was her…” Daniel peeked to Peter. “…color?”

“Purple,” the Elf replied, her smile at him growing fond as this was more proof he was one of the Seven. “She was royalty. Purple was the color of royalty, thus her color.” Yet she saw their looks. “Oh… but don’t assume that means anything. Eight were chosen because that is two squares. Four men. Four women. They originally were couples who worked together. Surely that