The Witches Of Denmark Read online

  “Oh, I suppose you will have to wait until Meredith gets back to take that up with her,” said Julien, chuckling. He looked beyond the little girl to my father and me, motioning for us to come inside. Twyla moved to come inside, too, but he gently blocked her way. “Darlin’, I promise you can come in for a while when Meredith gets back in a few hours. If you play your cards right, she might even share an ice cream sandwich with you. How does that sound?”

  “It sounds great!” said Twyla, excitedly. But for a moment, she still persisted in trying to get around him, finally sighing in frustration when he successfully blocked her every attempt. “But I’m still tellin’ on you for not lettin’ me in!”

  She turned around and ran down the brick pathway, deftly moving past us. We watched her move through the gate, carefully shut it behind her, and grab her bike.

  “Bye Mister man and his son—and Meredith’s husband, too!”

  The three of us waved, and watched her pedal her bike up Old Dominion, heading for a small park at the end of the street. When she reached Sadee’s house, halfway along our block, she stopped and threw down her bike near the curb.

  “Hello Miss Sadee’s husband!” she said, before running up to the covered front porch where Dan Dean sat, looking like he was reading a newspaper. We heard his surprised greeting and returned our attention to Julien.

  “She’s a little jitterbug, that’s for sure. But I worry someone is going to snatch her from us, since her parents let her go wherever she wants, and unattended,” he remarked. “Come on inside, Gabriel and Sebastian. I do believe I’ve got a tour to deliver.”

  We followed him inside, and Julien cast a warm glance to my father that turned amused when he brought his attention to me and my reaction to his house.

  “Wow… this is really cool,” I said, allowing my gaze to follow a staircase nearly as grand as ours to an antique crystal chandelier hanging over the foyer from a twelve foot ceiling. The extensive woodwork dressed in Victorian style was truly something to behold. Lots of ornate detailing, to the point anyone unfamiliar with the Queen Anne aspect might consider garish or gaudy. My eyes settled on an old pipe organ built into one of the main parlor’s walls.

  “You can play it if you like,” offered Julien, holding the remnants of a drink in one hand, as he went over to turn on the organ. His genteel drawl was more pronounced, no doubt influenced by the liquor, and he was dressed in khaki shorts and a polo shirt—the very thing almost everyone wore the other night at our house. “The older folks of Denmark tell me how George C. Brown, a noted organist in this region, used to blast out his neighbors every now and then, especially whenever they had pissed him off. That was back in the early 1900s, just before the outbreak of World War I.”

  I almost took him up on his offer, but a slight brush across the back of my hand by Dad kept me from doing it.

  “That’s okay… can I see the rest of your house?”

  I couldn’t hide my excited smile.

  “Of course… but are you sure you don’t want to see, or rather, hear what this bad boy is capable of?”

  Lead me not into temptation….

  Dad shot me a look, and unlike the subtle message from a moment ago, Julien caught this one.

  “Or, perhaps you can come over in the fall, when I play it while the courthouse bell rings at kickoff for the high school football games. Last year when I did it, we had all the neighborhood dogs, cats, and raccoons howling together.”

  Dad and I laughed.

  “Gabriel, will you join me for a drink?”

  “Sure,” said Dad, earning a surprised glance from me. “I’ll take scotch on the rocks, if you have it.”

  “Good man,” said Julien. “Sounds delicious, but I’ll stick with my preferred standby, vodka and cranberry juice…. Anything for you, Sebastian?”

  He looked over at me from behind an elaborate bar that appeared to have once served patrons in a New York pub. Well stocked, I might add, with every shelf in the mirrored case behind him loaded with booze.

  “I’m not old enough to drink down here,” I lied. “I’ll take a Dr. Pepper if you have one handy.”

  “Well…. You’re in luck,” he said, after opening a refrigerator hidden from view and pulling out a glass bottle version of my preferred carbonated beverage. A rarity at home, I imagined it would be near impossible to procure glass bottles in this wee town of inhospitable restaurants and scarce grocery stores. “Now, how about that tour, gentlemen?”

  And, so began my initial exploration of the ‘Mays Mini-Castle’, as I have come to fondly refer to the place. The house was bigger than I pictured from the outside. From what Dad said, it rivaled the square footage of our famed antebellum sitting across the street. In addition to the turrets in front, there was a larger turret in the back of the house. Beautiful mahogany mantles and stained glass windows that were designed and installed by an apprentice of Louis Comfort Tiffany graced both floors. Julien joked that the seven windows themselves had recently been appraised for an amount three times the value of the rest of the house.

  After our tour, which ended with a brief visit to Julien’s office and personal library on the second floor, we returned downstairs to share another round of refreshments on the covered front porch and shoot the shit—what seemed to be a favorite pastime of Denmark. Surprisingly, the ceiling fans kept the sweltering heat and pesky mosquitoes at bay.

  The heavy worry hanging over my father had been admirably hidden, until the news that the Mateis were seeking to invade our new stomping grounds. From the moment Mom had revealed what Julie Paris had told her at the beauty shop until now, his apprehension seemed to be worsening. In fact, I believe if Mom and her new lady friends had been any later in returning from their outing, he would’ve gotten smashed—and not unintentionally. I could tell that a remarkable bond was beginning to form between him and the guy I had found to be my favorite resident of Denmark. Julien’s lack of societal inhibitions made him almost irresistible.

  As it was, the conversation between the two men, that I got to occasionally participate in, had some amusing moments. Amusing and enlightening moments that specifically dealt with our neighborhood’s colorful past—including its recent history, which featured our surly neighbor on the Chaffin’s Bend side of our property.

  Most entertaining was the “Tale of the Four Harrys”. Harrison Crawford was considered the most cultured of the bunch, with his luthier skills, musicianship, and board membership for the locally prominent art school. The neighborhood fondly referred to him as ‘Music Harry’.

  ‘Music Harry’ and his wife, Jennifer, lived in a nice craftsman next to Julien and Meredith, on the right. A quarter mile away lived another ‘Harry’, whom we hadn’t met yet. Harold Gustafson. He and his wife, Betsy, and their daughter Sandra and her three kids moved from Wisconsin two years earlier and lived on the corner of Lafayette Avenue and Forrest Street—directly across from the art school that also faced the rear of our property. Their small bungalow’s backyard bordered the Dean’s backyard. Harry was viewed as one of the few dependable handymen in town.

  “The third Harry is the youngest, a black teenager,” said Julien, pausing to light a slim panatela. “He is the hardest working of the bunch, and might just be the brightest—of all of us. Harris Martin is the kid I mentioned to you over dinner the other night, and is the only dependable kid living around here—no offense, Sebastian. He lives with his mom across from the other end of the school, and would be in direct line of my front porch, if not for a damned magnolia blocking my view.”

  He grinned at his little joke about one of the majestic trees in our front yard, and it took my father a moment to catch the drift, and another to understand that what was said was strictly in jest.

  “So, he lives across from us, too? From the back edge of our property, I mean,” said Dad, pointing as if that would help Julien better see what he described.

  “Yes, I guess that’s true,” said Julien, nodding as if this was the first tim
e he had considered the simpler way to describe where the kid, Harris Martin, lived.

  “You said there were four Harrys,” I said, drawing a raised eyebrow from Dad. “Who’s the fourth Harry?”

  “Why, I do believe you’ve already met him.” Julien subtly nodded toward the home of the crazy man with the kid who scowled just like his daddy.

  “So, that guy is a Harry, too?” I considered the irony of how the four Harrys were nearly aligned as a square surrounding our house.

  “Yes, sir,” he drawled, tapping out an ash into a nearby shrub. “That would be Harry Turner.”

  “Not Harold, Harrison, or Harris, I take it?” Dad snickered.

  “No, sir… He was born just ‘Harry’, with no middle name either.” A gleeful light danced in Julien’s eyes. “I guess the sort of laziness that has become part of Harry’s repertoire here in Denmark was passed on by his dear pappy from the day this particular Harry came squallin’ out of his momma.”

  Not knowing how to respond to that assessment, Dad and I smiled and looked back at the house littered with junk on the porch and throughout the yard. Meanwhile, Julien drew in a mouth full of smoke that he proceeded to exhale in a row of diminishing rings. Sometimes magic happens unconventionally in the world around us, without the aid of a wand or spell.

  “Your realtor, Julie Paris? What a sight for sore eyes she can be…. Especially on a day like the one where she went up to the Turners’ front door, intending to kindly ask them to clean up their shit, since the Clarke family wanted to make the highest impression on y’all.”

  “Seriously? Silvia and I scarcely noticed the crap out there on our initial visit. We only remarked about it on the day we came back to sign the final paperwork.”

  “And it didn’t scare you off?”

  “No. Silvia and my mother loved the house, and that was enough for me.”

  “I noticed,” I said, eyeing Dad with a pretend pout. “Why wasn’t I consulted about it?”

  “You think this is bad, son?” asked Julien. “You should’ve been here three years ago when Harry and his wife, Jolsteen, moved in. The place was bought at auction, so everyone around here was patient, knowing it would take some time to get settled and bring things up to the standard we are all trying to achieve and maintain…. But then old Harry Turner decided to pour two dump truck loads of horse manure in a big pile in his driveway, and shoveled all of that shit into the yard. Covered the grass completely, and from what I understand, he believed he was properly fertilizing his entire yard.”

  “Are you serious?” asked Dad in disbelief.

  “As a friggin’ heart attack.”

  “It’s a miracle it didn’t burn the grass all to hell.”

  “Actually it did, but not before sending swarms of flies everywhere in the neighborhood,” said Julien, pausing to sip his cocktail. “Ever since, we have referred to our four Harry’s as ‘Music Harry’ next door to us here, ‘First Harry’ for Harold near the school, ‘Black Harry’ for the nice kid at the corner of Forrest Street at Chaffin’s Bend, and… ‘Horseshit’ Harry for the asshole rulin’ the roost across the road from y’all.”

  We laughed for a good five minutes, and another hour’s worth of periodic chuckles followed. It was exactly what my father needed. He seemed at peace by the time we headed back to our side of Old Dominion.

  Peace. If only it were enough to protect us from the return of a deadly feud drawing closer; a conflict that could potentially consume Denmark and everything I was beginning to dig about the place.

  Chapter Eight

  A few days spent in worry, denial, and battle plans finally resolved itself in the reality that the Mateis bought the old Bresden place on DeWitt Street.

  Exactly one month to the date of our move to Denmark, the enemy threw down a gauntlet. And, from what my parents gathered from Julie Paris, the Matei family added twenty grand to help move Mrs. Leslie Porter out of her ancestral home by the closing date. The Code had meant very little to our adversaries since the unfortunate event of 1877.

  As for the Bresden mansion? It once belonged to the wealthiest family in all of Herschel County. Located about a mile from downtown, the brick antebellum was the most notable showplace in western Tennessee—including Memphis—from what I gathered from the courthouse archives.

  Seven thousand square feet, with a ballroom on the third floor and eight bedrooms, five bathrooms, and a theater room. It wouldn’t be a paranoid statement to suggest the Mateis were trying to show us up. Not that I’m jealous… okay, maybe a tad envious about the theater room, and the Olympic-sized swimming pool in the back yard. But, like I alluded to earlier, we have the money to buy a dozen places like that and be ‘no worse for wear’, as folks also like to say down here. Really, money is no object for either clan, with millions stashed away in American currency and portfolios with investments spread throughout the world. Still, the lavish habits of the Matei family speaks to the compulsive one-upmanship that has hallmarked their behavior in the feud.

  The patriarch of this proud Romanian clan is Valerian Matei, born in 1494. Roughly the same age as my grandfather, the two were childhood pals. Both were born into two of five families that had been admitted into the Dark Realm by the naștere la întuneric ceremony, more than a thousand years before. By then, the lifespan expectancy of 640 years had been verified, and in strict accordance with the original traditions marriages were prearranged. Of course, since most witches and warlocks back in those days also had sentient gifts that told them who amongst the kids would be compatible, most of these marriages were successful unions.

  That’s how my grandparents became an item, as people like to say in modern times. It’s also how Irina Matei was betrothed to Valerian from the most wealthy of the clans—a family that disappeared from the face of the earth because they tried to cheat the devil of his dominion over the witch clans spread throughout the Romanian kingdoms at the time. Yes, I admit that this last part is likely nothing more than an old wives’ tale. But the family and its name did die out, and it is considered extremely bad luck to say this name, much less write it down. So, I won’t.

  Three families exist today, one preferring the old ways in rural central Russia, far away from modern society and convenience. To protect their continued privacy and lack of interference from outsiders, their name will also remain a secret. In addition to Irina’s family, my Grandma Florin’s clan became extinct by the time our families traveled to the newly formed United States of America in 1801. We didn’t fly by broomsticks through wormholes across the Atlantic, as some might suppose. The intent has always been to blend in so we don’t stand out. Though it is difficult to kill us, it’s not impossible—especially if a mob of angry, superstitious people is involved.

  Thank God that Alisia and I were spared the brutal hardships of traveling by ship across the cold Atlantic. I can only imagine how much fun that was…. But I doubt it was ever as horrible as the conditions normal humans dealt with on a ship back then. Grandpa refers to that trip fondly. Grandma says his memory is tainted… although Dad says it had much to do with Grandpa’s turning the sea’s bitter water into the finest Chardonnay they had ever enjoyed. Unlike Grandma—and apparently the Mateis—Georghe Radu enjoyed the challenge of masking his hubris from the captain and crew.

  So, the two clans that arrived in America at the turn of the nineteenth century are the only ones to my knowledge with the sanctified distinction of being semi-immortals gifted in the dark arts, and able to enjoy all the earthly excesses that physical youth and vigor, and virtually unlimited wealth can provide them. Almost nothing is out of reach for us, with the right spells. Contrary to how this sounds, we don’t serve the devil. Belief in God and a final reckoning for all mankind still pervades everything we do, and always has. This is where The Code originated, and to my knowledge it’s strictly adhered to by most of our brethren throughout the world.

  But, back to the Mateis….

  Irina was born in 1502. I’ve often thought she
and Valerian look like brother and sister—more so than any other Romanian couple I’ve ever encountered. None of their children gravitated to such ‘alikeness’ in their marriages, as such a word defines the Matei American patriarch and matriarch physically. They seem only distinct in personality. Blonde with green eyes, Valerian’s hair is as long as Grandpa’s. It has something to do with the Samson tradition in the Old Testament, although Grandpa lets his wavy graying hair rest upon his shoulders like the Quaker Oats’ guy. Valerian wears his in a ponytail, which makes his chiseled features less Fabio-like than they’d be if he let it hang. Irina is more matronly, and frankly is sort of what Denmark is missing. There are very few high-class bitches as compared to the Chicago suburbs. Gotta keep things in balance, ya know.

  I won’t bore everyone with full genealogies, other than offering names and corresponding birth dates to make it easier to picture the alliances once shared between the Mateis and my parents and grandparents.

  Simion was my father’s buddy, born in 1715. He’s a dead ringer for his father, at least physically. Dad sometimes talks about missing him. After all, for roughly sixty percent of their three hundred year lifetimes they were as close as brothers. Their personalities were quite similar, too, from what I understand. But after the death of his youngest brother, Toma, something changed in Simion. He developed a mean streak that later endeared him to gangsters like Al Capone. Even so, according to Grandpa, Simion was part of the movement to make sure Capone never regained his Chicago crown when released from prison in 1939. Simion loved being the hidden backbone behind the deadliest Chicago crime syndicates, and became increasingly selfish in that role as his influence increased.

  Magdalena, Simion’s wife, was another outsider brought into the fold—just like my mom. Drawn to the dark arts despite her strict Catholic upbringing, Simion found her during his travels in 1795 and wanted her to be his bride—to match the good fortune of my father and mother. Like my folks, they were teenagers in love—despite Simion’s seventy-eight years on planet Earth. However, unlike my parents, Simion has never been able to stay faithful. He loves the ladies, and his dalliances number in the thousands, from what I’ve been told. Apparently it has worsened since our families parted as enemies. He and Magdalena have appeared cold to each other the few times I’ve seen them together, like the forced marriages of old that didn’t work out so well. Only, in this case, Simion can’t replace Magdalena with someone else—his mother would never have it, since Irina has revered Magdalena as her own daughter. It’s eerily similar to Grandma’s view of Mom.