The Witches Of Denmark Read online

  Unlike most of us, my mother wasn’t born into our special kind of ‘witch-hood’, or ‘warlock-hood’ if she had been a male. She had gifts from birth, and was practicing what my grandmother disdainfully refers to as ‘Roma witchcraft’, a form severely tainted by Roman Catholic traditions. However, my grandmother felt compassion toward my mother, ever since Grandma noticed her as a little girl wandering the poverty-stricken streets of Warsaw. Eventually, my family took her in and treated Mom as one of their own.

  When my father became romantically interested in my mother, my grandmother was less than thrilled. However, after much debate among The Elders in our family and their associates throughout Europe, they decided to allow her to partake in naștere la întuneric. From that moment, just days before their marriage in April, 1798, Mom became endowed with the gamut of gifts we all share, including the fact that her lifespan went from forty to eighty years in those days to the standard six hundred and forty years we can expect to survive as ‘semi-immortals’. Her strength became superhuman, almost overnight, and the special gifts she was born with were now formidable—even to those in our clan, many of whom carry extrasensory abilities such as clairvoyance and clairaudience, along with the ability to bend reality to fit their whims.

  But allow me to move on, since we can chat for days on what all this means.

  The oldest people in our family who remain amongst the living are my grandfather and grandmother, Georghe and Florin Radu. Both were born and raised in Bucharest, Romania. Grandpa’s birthday is October 5th, and his birth year was 1496. Grandma was born in April 9th, 1505, in a small village just outside of Bucharest that no longer exists. Her family, which to be honest I’ve forgotten the name, was one of Romania’s oldest witch clans. They have since been wiped out by the growing pestilence of the Mateis, who pounced on the death of Toma Matei in 1877 as an excuse to wage war against any family still friendly to the Radus. They used their American cousin’s horrific death as a battle cry to purge the witches and warlocks from Grandma’s people, as well as other families residing in Romania and the surrounding nations. If not for a powerful intuition coming to my mother shortly after my birth, the three of us would’ve journeyed to certain death in my father’s former homeland.

  So, aside from uncles, aunts, and cousins that will come into play in my story, we are ready to continue. I last left you with my parents getting ready to enter our brand new home—through the back door, no less. How ironic, in light of what has since come to pass. Maybe our luck would’ve been better had we decided to do things more formally, and entered our new palatial home through the front door.

  Regardless, it’s too late to reclaim that mojo now.

  Chapter Three

  I shouldn’t have been surprised that the opulence hinted at by the home’s exterior would continue the very moment we stepped through the back door. An alarm system chirped and a woman’s voice announced that the ‘kitchen-back-patio door’ was open. The British accent was kind of sexy in a James Bond sort of way.

  “Not that we’d ever need protection, but your father likes the way she talks,” Mom quipped, as we stepped into our new pad. I fought hard to keep from smiling… to keep the urge to act impressed at bay. “I’m going to check on Florin and Georghe, to see if they need help in directing the movers.”

  A sudden thud resounded from upstairs, and though I couldn’t be certain at first, I thought I heard my grandfather’s voice. Then I heard the Romanian profanity stream. There were other voices, too, apparently from the movers, who likely had no idea they had just been served a helping of Grandpa’s finest.

  “I’ll go check on Father.” Dad disappeared up an ancient staircase at the rear of the kitchen before Mom could respond. “I’ll be back in a moment!”

  Alisia grabbed my arm and pointed to a pair of broomsticks in the corner of the large kitchen. Meanwhile, Mom smiled as I nodded slightly at the appointments—including all top-end gourmet appliances. My best cover to hide my true thoughts became a sham when it met her obvious discernment.

  “I thought you said being a ‘frequent flyer’ was a thing of the past?” I asked her, while my sister joined me in pointing at the broomsticks. Never mind the fact I was still quite worried we were going to be in a world of shit if the Elders ever decided to pay us a visit. Hell, I didn’t even need to see the rest of the place—and neither would they. Just thirty seconds standing in the kitchen that was as big as our previous home’s living room, with four sinks, two ovens, a restaurant-sized fridge, and a granite island as big as our dining room table… I could go on. “You sure Jay Cutler doesn’t live here?”

  “Will you quit worrying about the damned code, Bas?” she chastised, setting her purse down on an expensive-looking glass table near a grand fireplace. The irony of her words wasn’t lost on either my sister or me. “And, as for the broomsticks?… You already know the careless nature of your Grandpa…. Gabriel!”

  “What?!” Dad replied from upstairs.

  “Is everything all right?”

  “It is now!”

  Dad sounded amused. But I could tell that the unidentified noise, Romanian cursing, and the presence of ‘his and her’ broomsticks—which had been in my grandparents’ possession for as long as I could remember—irritated Mom. Irritated her big time.

  “Hello, my darlings!”

  Grandma suddenly emerged from the dining room, on the other side of the fireplace. Her long dark brown hair that had only recently begun to include strands of gray was pulled up in a bun, and her pressed beige pantsuit seemed more appropriate for her Tuesday afternoon bridge club, that she recently gave up, than for getting a house ready for move-in. Only a few loose strands of hair on either side told of her wormhole flight. Her makeup was perfect and her warm brown eyes flashed mischievously. On her worst days she looked late fifties, and on a good one—like this day—she could pass for a decade younger. Not bad for a gal beginning her sixth century on planet Earth.

  Grandma’s smile faded when she noticed how perturbed Mom seemed. Admittedly, Mom and Alisia likely thought the same thing I did, that our grandparents had in all probability suddenly shown up inside the house after visiting an old friend in a Chicago nursing home—the last of their tasks before heading south to join us in Denmark. Hopefully, the two of them got here before the movers did. Otherwise….

  “Ummm, excuse me, Mrs. Radu? We’re ready to set the china cabinet where you want it, and I think we’ve found the best place where the floor is most even,” one of the movers advised, a white-haired guy peering in the doorway from the dining room.

  “I’ll be right there—‘

  “No, I’ve got it!” Mom interrupted Grandma, lightly touching her shoulder as she moved past her and disappeared through the doorway.

  “What does the floor being ‘even’ have to do with anything?” asked Alisia, alternating her gaze between our grandmother and me.

  “It’s nothing to worry about, sweetie,” said Grandma, her eastern European accent clearly discernible—a sure sign that Mom’s uptightness was catching. “Just part of the charm of an old place such as this, where the house has settled over time. Your Papa joked after doing his own inspection that we now reside in a true Salvador Dali house, where there’s nary a straight line to be found.” She laughed, nervously looking over her shoulder as if expecting Mom to reappear at any moment.

  “I thought you and Grandpa were supposed to fly to Memphis on Delta and then rent a car to come here,” I said. “But I see you had your own version of first class.”

  I grinned to let her know this was mostly in jest, though I was a little perturbed that we might’ve endured a nine-hour road trip needlessly. She nodded thoughtfully, as if preparing a witty response.

  “Oh, no!” came a panicked yelp from the dining room.

  I could hear my mother rummaging through what I assumed was a box of her prized crystal… the sound of broken glass wrapped in paper announced this wasn’t going to be good. Alisia and I trailed Grandma
, as if this diminutive woman could somehow protect us from the ire and heartbreak of a shattered heirloom, literally on both counts. God help the dudes who apparently were a little too rough handling the box it had been packed in, and worse if not wrapped carefully enough. There could be another member added to the tree frogs we heard chirping outside in a nearby ravine, when we exited the car and stepped onto the porch.

  Oh, and the broomsticks? Yeah, that part of witch lore is true. But the flying part is an illusion, most often. Although, if a witch or warlock wanted to create the ruse of flying through the air like Theodora in Oz: The Great and Powerful, they could pull it off as a strenuous exercise. I have seen both of my grandparents successfully pull that stunt, too, but not since Alisia was the physical equivalent of a five year old, on her thirtieth birthday. Most of the time, broomsticks are merely to help us focus on aligning our mind, body, soul, and spirit energy-wise so we can move through wormholes to reach an intended destination. The very same pathways defined as Einstein-Rosen bridges. And, I don’t necessarily mean something as straightforward as a trip from Chicago, Illinois to Denmark, Tennessee. I have visited both the past and the future eras on Earth, as surely anyone else in possession of a charmed broomstick and the ‘know-how’ to use it can attest, as well. There are literally thousands of such ‘highways’ that move in and out of the various magnetic layers and dimensions surrounding the earth’s surface. Some say there are even far more advanced wormholes that move through the earth’s core, and others that travel through the vast expanse of the universe to reach other worlds with the same ethereal networks.

  But, for our purposes, wormholes are mostly for emergency travel, when there simply isn’t time to get from point A to point B to either save someone or alter a situation. I should mention here that one could stop briefly along the way to a destination—which is what I alluded to with my father about visiting Kentucky Lake on the way down here. You can slow the trip for a moment, and take in your surroundings. But to hover too long will drop a broomstick and its passenger out of the wormhole faster than Lucifer falling from heaven with an anvil tied to his ankles. It’s probably why Dad opted for a straight road trip. Besides, we would’ve had to tow the Escalade behind the moving van if we had traveled by broomstick. Based on Mom’s misgivings in the dining room, that might’ve turned out badly.

  Oh, and warlocks and witches can float through the air, too, which in a way is like flying for much shorter distances. That’s how Grandpa and I messed with the chapel bell at Wheaton College….

  “We’re coming, Silvia!” Grandma assured Mom. Rather than enter through the dining room doorway, we stepped into the grand foyer from another exit from the kitchen, which offered a huge columned entrance into the dining room. Another grand fireplace and other columns threatened to distract my sister and I, but we realized it was best to focus on Mom’s crisis first. One of the movers was trying to help her find all the pieces to an eighteenth century serving platter, including the tiny glass chips and splinters.

  The guy looked like he thought she was being extreme in her grief about losing an irreplaceable piece, and he had already taken out a ‘damaged inventory’ notebook to record the loss and begin the process of compensation. He was wasting his time.

  “Robert… we will take care of it,” Grandma assured the man, who from the looks of how the other guys regarded him must’ve been the supervisor for this job. He regarded her with a confused look on his face, which made me feel better about Grandpa and Grandma making it inside the house unnoticed with their broomsticks. Had they popped into an occupied kitchen out of thin air, it would’ve been a far crazier deal to contend with than a middle-aged woman telling this guy not to worry about an expensive broken crystal tray. Robert would be on edge, if that were the case, and he wasn’t so far. “I’d like a word with my daughter-in-law, if you don’t mind.”

  She motioned for him and his two attendants to move into the living room, through the open pocket doors.

  “You can fix this, and make it exactly as it was? ...Yes?” Mom sounded hopeful and a lot less upset.

  “Well let me take a look at it, my dear,” said Grandma, moving over to inspect the glass shards lying on the dining table. “As long as most of it remains… yes, there’s enough here. I can make it as good as new!”

  “But you’re not going to do it yet, right?”

  “Silvia Elena! What kind of a fool are you living with?” Grandma chided her. “Just as soon as they’re gone.” She motioned to the moving crew presently out of earshot.

  “Sorry, Mother,” said Mom.

  With that small crisis put to bed, it was time to check on Dad and Grandpa. So, I left Alisia to help unpack the other dining room boxes. I was surprised by some of the furnishings that remained in the house from the previous owners, starting with the foyer’s decor. A slightly gothic credenza stood below a massive gilded mirror with a pair of manor lamps on either side. A house like this had large parlors back in the day, and as I came upon the one that served as a living room, with the same type of columned entrance as the dining room, I heard my father and grandfather coming down the main staircase behind me.

  “Holy shit!” I whispered, my eyes drawn upward after whirling around. “This place really is like frigging Tara!”

  The stairs were on the opposite side of the Gone with the Wind iconic antebellum, but the effect was the same. Especially, since somewhere in time, someone had cut out a sizeable portion of the upstairs landing to accommodate an immense brass chandelier. That sucker hung down from a ceiling at least thirty feet off the ground.

  “So, you like, eh?” Dad chuckled at my reaction, where my mouth had dropped open. Again, not because the place was the most incredible building I’d ever seen—far from it. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of homes around the world far more impressive than this one. But not in the middle of Timbuktu. “I think you might learn to enjoy this place, son.”

  “Might,” I echoed.

  “Sebastian will surely find much about this property to his liking,” added Grandpa, eyeing me impishly. “Especially, once he sees the future plans I have for the house and grounds.”

  “What about ‘The Code’?” I asked again. “If the Elders find out about this—and they will at some point—as well as demand a visit, what then? They won’t believe you’re trying to be modest! You know I’m right, Dad… and Grandpa, you should know it, too!”

  “Code, shmode… Elders, felders, stuck-up-in-the-ass smelders!” said Grandpa, laughing as he moved past my father, whose suddenly clouded countenance made me think he might be seriously considering my worried warning.

  Grandpa’s emerald eyes glistened with amusement, and he pushed back his long, graying locks from his lightly lined and still handsome face. ‘The image of cavalier’, as Mom liked to refer to him, his air had always been a little ‘Devil may care’ to me. Maybe that’s what happens to a man who has been alive since shortly after Christopher Columbus got lost on the way to India.

  But something told me the relocation to the south was going to exaggerate those qualities. Like a jailbird being released after decades hidden away from society, such freedom could lead to excessive carelessness. Grandpa was in seventh heaven, and I believed I would be the one to take his place in purgatory.

  After my introduction to my bedroom upstairs, and seeing the same level of luxury from the gallery to the master suite, and the crazy double bathroom with a shower Wilt Chamberlain would enjoy, the movers finished unloading the remaining boxes from the truck. Grandpa told me the reason he and my father had bought the furniture in the foyer, and elsewhere in the house from Ned and Julie Clarke—the previous owners—was to incorporate enough of an energy blend to keep our Chicago enemies from finding us anytime soon.

  Dad shooed the crew of six movers on their way, taking out a rolled wad of Grants to tip each one as they exited via the rear of the house.

  “Well, should we spend the rest of our day unloading everything, or, perhaps thi
s is the perfect opportunity to test the latest wand I’ve created?”

  Grandpa posed the question when it appeared only the guys and Alisia were listening. Grandma and Mom were hard at work in the dining room and kitchen. But when my sis alerted Mom that our grandfather was about to engage in a disdainful act, the pair joined the rest of us in gazing up at the old man hovering above the upstairs newel post, his new toy at the ready.

  “Georghe? Georghe, get down from there!” scolded Grandma.

  “Florin… when did you become such a party pooper?” he replied, drifting closer to the chandelier. He smiled amusedly at us all, waving the wand made from the finest mahogany, its lavender tip beginning to glow. “I can tell that you, Silvia, and even Alisia are tired and could use a helping hand. Why not let me help out with a little fun, and then we can enjoy a quiet evening together?”

  “Because it will be the beginning of mischief that will eventually escalate to big problems for us all,” said Mom, and supported by an emphatic nod from Grandma. “We need to live like everyone else—like normal people. We discussed this, Father, and more than once. ‘The best way to appear normal, is to behave normally.’ Remember?”

  “So, you don’t want me to direct our things to their proper place and alignment in the house? It could save us hours of getting the energy flow just right, you know.”

  “No!” said Grandma, sharply. “Listen to your daughter-in-law, Georghe, and put that damned thing away before you hurt someone with it!”