The Witches Of Denmark (18 page)

I nodded and sighed. I wasn’t interested in possible cowboy sisters to roll in the sheets with. Not that I expected that to happen with Daciana—even if she wasn’t a Matei. I had been content with my loner life until then, and I prayed silently it wasn’t too late to get that treasured aloofness back. It would be a hellish punishment if what was awakened that afternoon couldn’t be reburied and forgotten someplace deep inside my psyche.

“What was that all about?” asked Alisia on the way home.

“I don’t know,” I said, still trying to sort it all out. “I’ve never felt anything like that before. I should’ve known it would be with someone like us.”

“I’m surprised to encounter a non-blonde Matei. But Magelelena’s hair is the same color. Same eye color, too, so anything’s possible…. Have you ever seen Daciana before?”

“No. Have you?”

“No… but now that I think of it, I’ve heard the name before,” she said. “Mom said it once, I think, when describing Magdelena’s kids. It’ hard to believe our parents hate each other so much. It wasn’t always that way… they used to be close.”

“Yeah. That’s what I understand,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound like a jerk, although here was my sis talking like she knew the story of what happened and I didn’t know shit. “I guess we’ll forever need to watch our backs with them. Otherwise, there will be only one family still standing.”

“Maybe that would be best,” said Alisia, drawing a surprised look from me. “One family would definitely be best for everyone, I think…. As long as it’s us and not them.”

Chapter Fifteen

The next week was difficult.

No, that’s not quite right…. The next week was a veritable hell, complete with levels of torment once described by authors like Dante and Milton.

My heart, mind, and soul were at constant war with one another. On the one hand, there were thoughts and images of her… Daciana. Lovely, and unfortunately immortalized by my heart’s desire to be with this mysterious and dangerous woman. And, I do mean woman in the full literal sense. Even my kid sister is truly a woman, despite looking all of sixteen at times. Walking the earth for eighty-seven years will bring a perspective that most people count as maturity. After all, it is the so-called ‘School of Hard Knocks’ that changes a person’s perspective from foolishness to wisdom—and it’s all just another name for ‘life’, is it not?

Daciana looks a year older than Alisia, so I’d say she is pushing one hundred at least. Not flattering for most human beings, but she is still in the first sixth of her life on earth, and technically thirty years younger than me, though I might appear to be two years older than her at most.

After spending a week fantasizing about impossible solutions that would bring Daciana and me together, and furiously hating the very essence of Serghei, I was more than ready to get away from Denmark—even if it was just someplace several miles away. Fortunately, my family’s decision to rent a cabin, pontoon boat, and pavilion for a huge Fourth of July bash proved to be exactly what the doctor ordered.

“Perhaps getting out on the water will lift you out of the doldrums, eh?” Adrian asked, while we loaded up the Escalade mid-morning that Saturday. “Your mother says there will be other youngsters to mingle with.”

“If they’re like most of the college kids around here, and even the juniors and seniors from Herschel High School, I doubt we’ll have much to talk about,” I said, trying to think about raccoons and moles tearing up the yard—anything that diverted attention from my secret obsession with the youngest member of the hated Mateis. “But I promise to be a good sport about it. Being on the water sounds pretty fun.”

“Indeed, it does,” he agreed, eyeing me thoughtfully.

….Raccoons have bandit masks and humanoid fingers that make them look like Disney characters…. And moles are blind…blind and stupid… they eat grubs for Christ’s sake….

“Hmmmm…. You’re hiding something, Sebastian,” he said, studying me intently while my personal menagerie waltzed past my mind’s eye. “Why carry a burden in silence, when so young?”

“I’m fine,” I assured him, forcing a smile that I could tell from my distorted reflection in a side view mirror was a horrid acting job. I forced it even more, to where my cheeks began to hurt. “Just a little bored, is all.”

“Do you want to move to a city that has more to do?” he asked, fully knowing I didn’t want that. In fact, I had confided my growing comfort in this sometimes-shitty little town the night before I met Daciana. “I can push to move on to Austin, Texas, you know. Manuel and I own a majority stake in a ranch near there… and Austin is a great city with lots to do and lots of beautiful women to choose from.”
He added a smug, confident, and knowing smile that I wanted to rip from his face.

….What in the…? Shit, he’s testing me! What if he has Mom’s ability to filter the truth or a lie from an aura’s bending light bands?! Shit, shit… SHIT!...

I said nothing more, worrying about what my most fearsome uncle was gleaning from my thoughts. Or, were his comments based on a lucky guess? It made me ultra cautious during the ride to Shady Landing, where the cabin, boat, and apparently most of our neighborhood awaited our arrival. The other kids mentioned by Adrian were Sadee’s granddaughter and her friends, along with grandkids of the Crawford’s and two nephews and a niece of Julien and Meredith’s.

“You really need to work on blending in today,” Alisia whispered, shortly after we left Denmark’s city limits. We sat together in the very back of our fully loaded SUV. “The cabin sounds pretty fab, and Dad’s renting a dozen ski-doos, too.”

That last part sounded pretty sweet, I must admit.

“Okay… from this moment on, I’ve got a song in my heart and smile on my face,” I told her, offering a goofy look to go with a pained second attempt at the sterile smile from earlier. “But can you please be mindful not to think of what happened last weekend when around Mom, Grandma, and Adrian?”

“Adrian? Why do I need to worry about him?”

“You’ve already seen that he’s not the same warlock we knew back in the eighties,” I said, keeping my voice low. I glanced up to where he sat with Manuel, two benches in front of us, and I felt grateful for the extra space in the custom version of the Escalade model that General Motors had created for Dad last year. At the time, I thought it was frivolous. But the edict to act like normal people made having the extra bench a necessity, despite our hovering near the top end of what The Code would allow. At present, Grandma sat between her boys while Dad drove and Mom occupied her usual perch in the front passenger seat. Grandpa was catching some z’s in the seat directly in front of ours, after spending a late night finishing ‘phase one’ of his barn clean-up project…. At least I hoped he was sleeping. “Adrian has the power of Grandma’s and Mom’s sentient gifts.”

“Seriously?” Alisia sounded surprised, and it garnered a subtle head turn from Mom in our direction.

Great. Just frigging great.

“Yes,” I told her, motioning with my eyes to the front of the Cadillac.

“Oh… sorry,” said Alisia, peering over Grandpa’s bench seat to where Mom had returned her attention to the road ahead. Meanwhile, it looked like Adrian’s head was tilted slightly toward us. “I’ll be careful. Let’s talk about the ski-doos.”

And so we did. Mainly we talked about the boat and water fun we enjoyed each summer on Lake Michigan. Our conversation lasted until we pulled up to the rental office at the Shady Landing Marina.

“I’ll be right back, everyone,” Dad advised, once he parked in front of the office.

“Me, too,” said Mom, getting out to join him.

While waiting for their return, Grandma relaxed with her cherished sons, and shook her head when Grandpa’s snores caused her to look over her shoulder.

“Did you prepare any of your Romanian masterpieces, Grandma?” I asked.

“Not this time, sweetie,” she said, turning in her seat to better view my sister and me. “With everything going on these days, I decided to stick with traditional American fare for this time of year.”

“Hot dogs, hamburgers, and apple pie?”

“No, Sebastian,” she replied, chuckling. “I tried my hand at Southern fried chicken, using Sadee’s award winning recipe, and ‘all the fixins’.” She added a playful wink.

“I bet it will be awesome!”

Alisia’s enthusiasm stirred our grandfather from his sleep, and he sat up looking slightly confused.

“There’s no suitable substitute for wormhole travel, is there, Father?” teased Manuel.

“We should really discard all the unnecessary nonsense and handle things like we do in Europe,” Adrian added. “You are all far too worried about what your neighbors think of you… and yet a simple spell here and there can allow you to be who you truly are and they would all be none the wiser.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, unable to suppress my interest, despite a cautionary glance from Grandma. “I thought trying to fit in as much as possible is the key to The Code?”

“The Code spells out how we are to appear to the rest of humankind,” said Manuel, to which Adrian nodded. “Whether we do things the exact same way, or pretend to do it and bewitch those around us to see what we want them to see, it makes no difference. Just as long as The Code is not violated.”

“The very point I have been trying to make to your mother for the past fifty years!” Grandpa chimed in.

“Oh, so it is okay to play with magic and then cover our deeds and misdeeds with careless spells?” Grandma was not amused, and I could feel simmering anger beneath her words. “Have you all forgotten the purges from the past two centuries? And the Nazi experiments on your cousins betrayed by King Carol in 1939? All because of such carelessness! When we bewitch someone there is no way to know if the subconscious is also being fooled. If it’s not, recognition
will
come… and with it follows—”

“Okay, Mother, you made your point,” said Adrian. “Manuel and I won’t share the darker secrets with Sebastian and Alisia. But, prepare yourselves for the fact our Matei enemies will have that advantage, since Serafim and Cristian have undoubtedly begun teaching this skill to their siblings, as well as to their nephew and niece.”

He looked at me after saying this last part. Under his penetrating gaze, I felt certain my secret encounter with the daughter of our enemy lay uncovered. Maybe Adrian was unaware of what had transpired last weekend at the movie theater, but I felt certain he felt some tie regarding Daciana and me. Perhaps it was a feeling of destiny, and that we were supposed to meet someday. Hopefully, if he didn’t know we had already met, he would merely regard it as a possible encounter in the future. Of course, that could be just as bad. If he was watching for it using his superior warlock skills, he could easily intervene to prevent any other encounters between us.

My heart sunk, realizing my fantasies of getting a chance to know Daciana were foolhardy. I decided to try harder to forget her—to take the advice my sister had given after Serghei made it beyond clear that the Mateis would also have none of our potential budding romance.

“Okay, we’ve got the keys to everything,” Dad announced, brimming with excitement once he and Mom returned. “We’ll check out the cabin after the picnic, in case you gals want to freshen up before we go back on the boat for the fireworks tonight. We don’t have to check out until noon tomorrow, and the cabin has a pool table.”

“Sweet!” I said, taking my first step in forgetting about her. I was a pretty good hustler on a pool table.

“Now, that’s the brother I know!” enthused Alisia, affectionately smacking my shoulder.

She smiled lovingly, and I let it warm my soul and energize my spirit. Meanwhile, everyone else eyed us curiously as if wondering what was up, but were either unable to get a clear picture or didn’t care enough to try and steal a better image from inside our heads. Not that they all could do that… but even if they could, I no longer cared. All I thought about was having fun with those who loved me most, and whom I cared about above all others: my family.

Maybe this Independence Day would bring true freedom for me. I sent a silent prayer heavenward for deliverance and lasting peace for my heart.

* * * * *

In retrospect, I must say that this Fourth of July celebration was among the better times I could remember. Definitely true of any summer party I’ve enjoyed since the Kennedy Administration was brought to an unexpected end in 1963. We spent the entire afternoon on the lake, with both water skis and sea-doos. Dinner under the pavilion was festive, and I had a chance to hang with Julien and Harrison, who also brought my new buddy Harris along. I think he has a thing for Alisia, and despite how things are in the south still, no one in my family would mind if Harris, or someone like him, eventually became part of the family. Race wouldn’t be a factor… whether he could be accepted to join our lengthened lifetime would be the trick.

But that’s neither here nor there at this point. Speculation is such a meaningless pastime, and a vice affecting me just the same.

Anyway, the cabin must’ve been one of the biggest on the lake, as it comfortably slept twenty of us. The next morning we enjoyed a huge country breakfast prepared by Mom, Grandma, Alisia, Sadee, Jennifer, and Meredith. Us guys were being pampered incredibly so, and though most of the other males might expect this sort of treatment to last into the future, I have seen enough changes over the past forty years to know it will soon be a thing of the past.