The Wicked: A Love Story

“What is this?” Marabeth wondered.

“It was in my grandmother’s book, her journal. She left me her journals, the family history,” Loreal said.

“There’s a lot of that going around,” Kris commented, but Marabeth was still looking at the quartered circle with the spirals in the center, and at the middle of the quadrants, markings for castles.

“Northwest, The Glass Castle. The Crystal Orb. Northeast, the Golden Castle…But what does it mean?”

“Is it like the Watchtowers?” Peter Keller asked, frankly

“What?” Lewis said.

“Don’t be so shocked,” Peter said. “When we were kids, Amy wanted to be a Wiccan, and she was into the Circle and calling the corners and the Watchtowers. Is it like that?”

Loreal hesitated over the answer, but Lewis said, “Yes. It is like that.”

“Except real,” Peter filled in for him.

“I do not know if what your sister or many a teenage girl does is real or not,” Lewis said. “I do know form requires force. And will. People of little will can call up very little. When we call up something, we expect it to show up, which is why it is a thing not done lightly.”

“But our castles were never to the north, east south and west,” Seth said. “Or, at least, those were called, I think Owen called them, the Hidden Castles.”

“Yes,” Lewis nodded.

“And when you called, you called the Gods, the High People, the Ancestors, the Aspects of God, whatever was in that particular castle, or place,” Seth said.

“The Castles are real,” Joyce said.

“They are names for what is real,” Lewis said. “And, also, there are actual places which correspond to them. Real in this world. Loreal, since she got Susanna’s journals, is looking for clues, for things our family has lost, so that she can become what Susanna was, the Maid. Or one of the Maids. The Maid is the other side of our clan as I am the Master.”

“The only problem,” Loreal said, “is that I do not know what the Maid lost. Onnalee had the Crater. She used it in the ritual, so the Cup is not gone.”

“Unless the Cup and the Crater are not the same?” Lewis suggested.

Loreal looked at her cousin in amazement.

“Let me guess,” Peter leaned forward. “May I?” he asked holding his hand out.

“Yeah,” Loreal said. Then, “Yes.” She liked him and thought Peter was a stable sort of fellow.

“You have marked it. This is a new one. You drafted this from the old?”

“Yes?” Loreal said.

“The Maid, you say her castle is in the South?”

“I’m guessing.”

“That’s very vague,” Peter said.

“I know. That’s why I’m going with your cousins to ask my grandfather. He must know more.”

“But surely Owen would know too?” Seth said.

“Owen may not know as much as we thought,” Loreal said, regretfully. “I’m not saying my grandfather is perfect, or even good. But it seems as if Augustus innovated while Owen only preserved.”

“It seems that way at the moment,” Lewis said sternly, “but let’s not be so quick to judge what we are just coming to understand.”

Loreal opened her mouth, and Lewis said, “At any rate, we are closer to Augustus than we are to Owen, and it is Augustus who has the answers to Marabeth’s questions, so it is to Augustus that we will go.”

As they walked up the street,Jim said, “I should have parked closer.”

“No,” Seth said, “I told you I wanted to walk.”

“I know,” Jim said, grinning. “And that was really crazy of you.”

“I shouldn’t have asked you to walk.”

“Why not?”

“You just fainted!”

“I’m over it.” Seth brushed it off.

Jim looked at him, and Seth said, “What?”

Suddenly Jim kissed him.

“James, what are we?”

“What?”

“I think I love you. I know I love you,” Seth said. “But that sounds ridiculous and… I wanted to call you last night. I thought of it.”

“I thought about it too.”

“And… I didn’t sleep alone last night. I… I have been in something. But… if we are something… we should decide that.”

Jim nodded and he said, “I’m sort of in the same thing too. And I didn’t think there would be anything new. Any you. This is…”

Jim stopped talking, and then he said, “Well, now that we know, now that we know everything, do you want to work through it together? Figure us out?”

“Yes,” Seth said. “I do.”

They were in car coats, and Seth’s cap was pulled down over his ears, but Jim wasn’t wearing one at all, and when Seth looked to him his breath was frozen and his ears were red.

“Are you still coming home with me?” Jim asked him.

“Yes.”

“Excellent,” Jim said.

“The moon is so beautiful,” Jim’s voice almost cracked.

“You know the sun is wonderful, but the moon is better. The sun is so bright it makes the sky blue and all you can see is the earth. But the moon? The moon shines on everything, makes everything down here a pure white light, and the sky isn’t black, it’s this brilliant dark blue, and you can see all the stars, the road to heaven.”

Jim said, “Do you know, I never did have the Change, not what Chris and Peter talk about. I just got really ill and funny and I got the pills. I wonder what would happen if I didn’t take them.”

Jim’s eyes turned on Seth. “Just once.”

His eyes were large and blue and almost laughing and Seth said, “Could you do it?’

“In the basement of the house,” Jim said, “once I found the chains. I didn’t know what they were for. The chains and the harness. It must have been where Uncle Nate was locked up. Or maybe my grandfather. But, what if I could do it, do it well and not be a monster? Or… whatever. There’s so much I don’t know. So much that growing up I suspected. I always knew something was wrong, but I never knew what it was.”

“Did you look at the book yet?”

“No,” Jim said. “Peter has, some of it. Marabeth looked at the rest, but I haven’t seen any of it.”

“I don’t like the way they treat you.”

“Who?”

“Your family,” Seth said. Then he said, “I mean, they’re great, but, you need to know. You’re not some side character. You can’t let Peter and Marabeth make all the decisions.”

“What do I say? Give me the book?”

“Yes,” Seth said.

Jim though. “Well, maybe I will.”

As they continued walking up Case Street with its stylish apartments, Seth heard Jim muttering, as he looked up at the moon.

“Virgin most prudent,

Virgin most venerable,

Virgin most renowned…”

Seth started, “What’s that?”

But then he also said with Jim,

“Virgin most powerful,

Virgin most merciful,

Virgin most faithful uh…”

Jim looked at him tenderly and lifting a gloved hand said, “Mirror of Justice?”

“Yes?”

“Mirror of justice,

Seat of wisdom…

“I’ve forgotten the rest,” said Jim. “That’s usually when I start making stuff up.”

“My grandmother used to pray it,” Seth said, “In front her Virgin Mary.”

“We had to learn it in school,” said Jim, “but I always said it to the moon. I thought she was the real Virgin and Mary was just sort of a stand in. I don’t know,” he shrugged.

As they stood on the corner across from the three storey white building with its balconies and square windows, light peaking through white curtains, Seth said, “You don’t have to come with me, you know?”

“But I want to.”

“Well, then let me be next to you when you tell your family you deserve to look at that book.”

“Alright,” said Jim.

“Tower of David,” Seth said.

“What?”

“The rest of it:

Tower of David, .

Tower of ivory,

House of gold,

Ark of the covenant,

Gate of Heaven.”

“It’s cold,” Jim said, pulling Seth by the elbow across Washington Street.

“Let’s get inside.”