The Witches Of Denmark (27 page)

Harris was repairing the clapboards directly below where he had worked the day before. He didn’t see me… or so I hoped. But to be safe, I crossed the street and walked on the crumbling sidewalk along Chaffin’s Bend. I thought everything would come crashing down on me when a large Doberman growled menacingly from what I realized in horror was the Martins’ screened front porch. I had momentarily forgotten that Harris’ family lived across the lower edge of our property.

What in the hell? Bas, you frigging idiot!

The smarter thing would be to let the dog bark and try to make it to a nearby abstract bronze sculpture that marked the beginning of the school property before anyone noticed. Not likely, but smarter than disturbing the atmosphere with what would amount to a double spell: shutting up the damned pooch and distorting Harris’ recollection of what he might have noticed about my presence nearby.

Blame it on latent hormones set on edge.

The air rippled around me as I sent forth my spells. Then I bolted for the tree line, adding a slight push with my hands to harness whatever energy I could pull from around me to propel my legs faster. The spell I worried about most was the one on Harris, since my thrust was a tad high and it likely reached Grandpa’s awareness atop the tallest roof in the neighborhood. It would alert him to my presence for certain, if he hadn’t already heard my incantation. Adding further worry was a thicker disturbance in the air to the right of me, not far from Daciana’s and my appointed meeting place.

She’s here? God I hope so… and please be alone!

From that moment on, I grew even more careless, I admit. It was as if something stronger than my willpower called me, and I stumbled through the smaller saplings as I headed into the woods behind the Nathan Bedford Forrest Academy of the Arts complex. I soon came upon the abandoned hideout that was in worse shape than anticipated. Unless we could ignore a variety of vermin that included snakes, spiders, and maybe even a feisty raccoon or groundhog hiding beneath the piled debris, it seemed foolish to even attempt to talk in such an environment.

“Sebastian… I’m over here!”

The voice definitely sounded like her, and I followed it to the northern side of the ravine, across from the dilapidated shack. When I still didn’t see anyone, I started to worry about a possible trap and slowed my pace. Then she stepped out from the trees.

I doubt I’ll ever forget how heavenly she looked at that moment. Her long, dark flowing hair caressed her bare shoulders. Despite the woods’ ever-present wiles, she was dressed in a light blue tank top and blue jeans, and wore sandals on her feet. Her toenails sparkled in the same emerald shade as her eyes. Her features so perfect… she looked like a frigging angel to me.

“Hi,” I said, feeling a large lump form in my throat.

“Hi,” she echoed, followed by a gorgeous smile making her look even more like a goddess. “I’m glad you could get away.”

“Me too.” I meant it. “I only wish….”

I couldn’t finish, as overwhelming sadness washed over me. I had never felt this much emotion in the presence of any female I had ever known, and I worried our connection was destined to be a fleeting thing. It didn’t feel permanent, like the petals of a tulip at the end of its spring bloom; strong one moment and drifting to the ground the next.

“I know what you mean,” she said, stepping toward me. My heart began to race as she drew near. “I don’t understand this anymore than you do… but there
is
something about you that calls to my heart. I dream of you.”

She suddenly looked down, as if she had carelessly spoken, revealing too much. I wanted to take her in my arms, to protect her… to hold and caress her.

Daciana looked up into my face as if she clearly heard or read my musings. I didn’t care. I wanted her to know my heart…. I would’ve shouted from the tallest steeple in all of Denmark, for
everyone
to hear, that I loved her. I thought it before, but I knew it for certain right then.

“Damn our families’ screwed up feud,” I said, softly, drawing closer to her.

I could feel her body’s heat invade my space. Two more steps and we would be as one. But, I hesitated out of respect for her aura and person. The merging would have to be completely consensual, and yes I know, she had pretty much told me by her actions already that such a move would not only be welcomed on her part, it was desired.

“Someone will likely die today,” she said, and her tone sounded forlorn, as if she could see the future event in the present moment. “My uncles… your uncles… they could wipe out every one of us and carry on their personal war after ours becomes obsolete. They will always hate each other. The bond that still exists in your grandparents’ and my grandparents’ hearts has not completely died…but might very well perish this day. It is the same for my mother’s bond to your mother’s.”

“Dad misses Simion,” I said, thinking about the loneliness I sometimes sensed around my father. But even without the lowering of her eyes I knew that Simion hated my family far too much to care about the closeness he once felt to my father. I would’ve expected all the Mateis to be this way, and especially Irina, who started the whole damned mess in the first place.

“Our feud wasn’t started by her,” said Daciana, looking up sharply. Anger simmered behind her irises. “But it wasn’t started by your family either.”

What in the hell? Then why….

“Why are we fighting?” she asked, finishing my thought. “Not because of the women in my family. The men in my family, including Europe… they hate you.
All
of you! And I don’t know how to
fix it!
….”

She began to weep, and as her shoulders shook, I took her in my arms. She didn’t resist, and an immediate surge of energy flowed through me. A surprised look on her face told me it was the same experience for her. It was quite powerful, beyond anything I had ever experienced my entire life! She looked up into my eyes, and the longing was unmistakable. I caressed her neck and slid my trembling hand under her chin to bring her lips close to mine. As a precaution I peered to either side of us, then beyond, and kissed her.

I’ve heard the tales of enchanted kisses, and I won’t go on and make a bigger fool of myself here. But I don’t care if anyone thinks I’m an idiot for saying it was magical—in a very real, but natural, sense. The kiss led to more kisses, and as I held her trembling body close to mine, I wanted her. I wanted her more than I had ever wanted any other woman before. Our kisses became more and more fervent, and I lost myself in this incredible experience. All the while, I saw images of her and me… together in love and freedom, far, far,
far
away from the acrimonious environment we presently resided in. There was hope….

Suddenly we were pulled apart. Roughly.

Huh?! Oh, shit… we’re surrounded!

Somehow, quietly, every member of our combined families had descended into the ravine. I might’ve even seen the blurred arrival of some, but was too entranced by Daciana’s supple lips and caress of my own to notice. Regardless, both families stood across from one another, and I soon discovered it was my uncles who pulled me back while Daciana’s uncles did the same to her.

“Daciana!”
I cried out, reaching for her as she screamed my name, while begging for Cristian and Serafim to let her go.
“No!
Let her go! Let
me
go!”

“No, Sebastian,” whispered Adrian from behind me. “You have no idea the danger you were just in, and the compromised security you’ve brought upon us all!”

Things couldn’t have turned out any worse, though surely my family would disagree. Powerless to resist Adrian’s incredible strength, my final glimpse of the ravine before the wormhole closed around me revealed both families retreating with their disobedient offspring in hand. Daciana shouted out a promise to find me someday, followed by sudden emptiness and silence on the north side of the ravine. The Mateis—all of them—had disappeared.

A brutal chastisement awaited me, once I arrived at wherever Adrian was taking me. The anger on my mother and father’s faces before Adrian’s wormhole separated them from me said so. The disappointment in my grandparents’ countenances, along with the sadness I saw fleetingly in Alisia’s eyes, told me that I had royally screwed things up.

Had I known how things would turn out, including the punishment that now awaited me, I might’ve chosen to act differently….

Might’ve.

Chapter Twenty-two

I had assumed that Adrian would bring me home… or at least to the place that had steadily gained a foothold in my soul the past two months: “Twin Magnolias” or the ‘magnificent white elephant’, as Julien had become increasingly fond of calling our house on Old Dominion when in Dad’s presence. As I mentioned at the outset of my tale, home had been Wheaton, Illinois for more than a century, and I felt incredibly alone and betrayed when we traded the Chicago suburbs for the little town with a frog in a cowboy hat for its welcome sign.

Much had changed… and not simply because the youngest daughter of our sworn enemies had bewitched my heart. The town’s quaintness, our quirky neighborhood, and one grand old house’s powerful mystique were equally responsible. Somehow, the combination of all these factors had worked together to cast a spell upon my entire being. As a result, the guy I’ve become is no longer the aloof and disenfranchised warlock I was in May.

For that, I am thankful. My heart overflows with gratitude and passion. Trouble is, I can no longer act on any of it. At least not at the moment….

As the wormhole Adrian dragged me into closed behind us, I could already tell the tube’s interior was a little off. I had assumed it was due to my distress over what had just happened. I had literally been pulled from heaven, in Daciana’s embrace, and forced to watch it all vanish before my eyes. And, if losing her wasn’t enough, my family’s immediate disappointment rivaled a level of shame I had never experienced before.

“It’s for your own good, Sebastian,” Dad told me from somewhere close by, though I couldn’t see him. To my horror, I could no longer see Adrian either. I was completely alone and speeding faster and faster, flying through the air as the powerful and now invisible grip continued to pull me backward.

“What in the hell’s happening?”
I cried out, while desperately trying to turn to where I could face the direction I was headed.

The contents of my stomach felt like they were getting ready to erupt through my throat, and the normally soft, grayish pink light that defined a wormhole’s interior steadily dimmed. I was terrified. Terrified enough to scream… and I did, like a frightened schoolgirl.

Destined to spill my guts
and
load my shorts if relief didn’t come soon, my insane, backward flight suddenly slowed to a smooth stop. By then, I couldn’t make out anything around me in the darkness that had become impenetrable.

“We love you, son.”

My mother’s voice seemingly resounded from everywhere at once.

“Where am I?” I asked, trying to trust… and fighting to remain calm. “Where are
you
, Mom?!”

“I am near, and will remain so for as long as you are here,” she said. I heard giggling around her; loving laughter from the rest of my family that seemed incredibly cruel at the time. “We will not desert you, Sebastian…. But you must stay here until the Elders are satisfied you have learned your lesson.”

What the…?

“Please….
Please
don’t leave me in this place, Mom!”

No reply. But before I fell into total panic, the darkness began to dissipate. As it did, the songs of birds and the pulsing rush of water emerged, carried towards me in an orange and blue haze.

“Holy shit,” I whispered, when the haze evaporated.

A beautiful white sand beach spanned for as far as my eyes could see, and the dark cushion of air that had supported me was now a soft feather bed. A thatched roof above my head defined a hut with what looked like additional rooms to either side. A glass wall containing several panels stood open in front of me, allowing the sound of waves caressing the shore and the gulls’ and other birds’ merriment to reach my ears undeterred. Tall palm trees flanked a wooden deck, and what looked like either a stunning sunrise or sunset caressed the horizon in the distance.

“Where is this place?” I asked, to no one in particular. I stood up from the bed, feeling dizzy from the unsettling ride to get there.

“It’s the kinder version of
Băjenie
,” said Adrian, sounding less angry than earlier. “Credit goes to Father and Mother for appealing the original sentence meted out to you, Sebastian. But make no mistake… the dark void you found yourself in is nothing compared to what the Elders originally deemed fitting for your crime.”

“Crime? What crime is that?!” I demanded, unable to not sound indignant.

“The same crime that Manuel is also being punished for,” said Grandpa, his tone somber. “But we were not the only ones affected. Serghei Matei has also been sequestered. As for the rest of us… the terms of the European Truce are now enforced in America. Until the Elders make a final ruling, both families must avoid even slight contact, including visits to frequented establishments at the same time. It is forbidden, and any further violations will be dealt with harshly. This will be especially difficult to abide by, given how both families are restricted to Denmark’s city limits until the Elders make their pronouncement.”