The Wicked: A Love Story

Cris handed Lewis a cigarette and a lighter, and as he sat across from him in the library, he said, “What exactly,” turning to Loreal and Chris, “can you guys do? I mean, you all have… abilities. And I was… I saw… I mean… I was at the thing and…”

Marabeth said, “I think my brother’s trying to say, you are witches, right?”

“My God, this is so crazy!” Peter almost shouted.

“What part of it is crazy, Mr. Keller?” Lewis asked him. “The part where I’m a witch, or the part where you, who have transformed into a wolf every month since you hit puberty, tells me this is crazy.”

Peter stared at him, but had no immediate answer, and Natalie Keller said, “We’re all getting used to this.”

“It was my private madness,” Peter said. “It was something that happened to me, that I knew was happening to others, but that we could put away. It was our family thing. Does that make sense? But now you all show up out of the blue, only not really out of the blue and it’s like…”

“Like the world you thought was the creation of your mad mind is a real one after all,” Loreal said.

Peter, his hands still in his hair, stared at the girl and nodded.

“Yes,” he said. “That’s it, exactly.”

Joyce gently tugged at his jacket, and he sat down beside her, his long legs wide apart. He said nothing else.

“What we can do,” Lewis said, “is a hard question to answer. The truth is, I am not entirely sure what I can do, and most of the time what we do is nothing.”

“Nothing?” Kris said.

“A witch waits.”

“I’m afraid Lewis is a bit of a Taoist,” Chris said, touching his hand.

“Any good witch is,” Lewis said. “There are many poor witches who are a step above hoodoo doctors, mixing potions, piercing animal hearts, collecting bones and skulls on their altars, walking counterclockwise circles to turn their will against the way of the universe, conjuring up and trying to trap spirits. Some of this, doubtless, works, but a true enchanter joins his will to the will of the universe, for the universe does have a will. You join the God in you to the Gods you serve, see how they are all One. You bring the above to the below. This is all I can say. I’m afraid it’s not very exciting.”

“So you’re a Wiccan,” Peter said.

“In the same way that you’re a German Shepherd,” Lewis returned not missing a beat and not offering a smile.

Peter went red and said, “I didn’t mean to… I simply… don’t understand.”

“None of us does, really,” Loreal said. “It’s only that you’ve seen so much in the movies. In silly books. The Craft is subtle and people don’t understand subtle. The Craft is not against nature. It is nature. It is the most natural thing there is. It is union again. After all the Nine and Three Quarters and Every Flavor Beans, after all the magic wands that shoot fire and Elizabeth Montgomery sitting on a cloud talking to Endorra, it’s hard for people to understand the Craft and, what’s more, people don’t want to. It scares them. But it is part of you. I can see it. It’s part of all of you. You may not be witches in the same way that my mother and father were not, but you are witch blooded.”

“In our family journal,” Marabeth began, looking to Kris, and then to Peter, “we learned that Grandma’s great-grandmother, and maybe her grandmother, were witches. She was just what you are talking about.”

“My grandmother Ada walked in both worlds,” Natalie said, simply, and Rebecca looked at her. “That was what my father said, but he did not say it often. He said that she did it back in Bavaria, as did her mother, and that we gave it up, but that it was in us, and in our children.”

Loreal nodded.

“If you are thinking of a witch as someone who controls things,” Loreal said, “then maybe it is better to think of a witch as an enchanter… who is enchanted, who is entering the enchantment. We do not inflict our magic, we enter into the magic of the world. We are always watching for it, always joining to it,”

“So it really is like the Tao,” Kris’s eyes lit up a little and he half smiled.

“Zauber,” Natalie said.

Marabeth looked to her.

“Magic, enchantment. In German the world is Zauber.”

While they’d sat on the steps, several of the family had come out, saying goodnight, grabbing hands and sometimes embracing Jim, speaking kindly to Seth, and Jim now said, “I shouldn’t have kept you out in this cold so long. Let’s go in.”

“I’m from Chicago,” Seth shrugged, and smiled. “You gotta do more than this to get me cold.”

The living room was semi empty, and they could hear a haunting singing from the library.

“Come, come with me out to the old churchyard,
I so well know those paths 'neath the soft green sward.
Friends slumber in there that we want to regard;
We will trace out their names in the old churchyard.”

Jim turned and saw that Seth’s lips were moving and he said, “What is that... some kind of folk song?”

“It’s a ballad,” Seth said. “It’s a death ballad.”

Seth could hear Lewis’s voice clear and high, and the alto voice of Loreal:

“Mourn not for them, their trials are o'er,
And why weep for those who will weep no more?
For sweet is their sleep, though cold and hard
Their pillows may be in the old churchyard.”

“They’re singing it in honor of your uncle.”

“Oh.”

“I know that it's vain when our friends depart
To breathe kind words to a broken heart;
And I know that the joy of life is marred
When we follow lost friends to the old churchyard…”

As they sang, Jim said, “You know, he was the only father I ever had.”

Then he turned to Seth and asked, “You wanna ride around with me? Would you like to hang out?”

“Yes,” Seth said. “I would.”

“There are more than enough rooms in this house for you all to stay,” Natalie said, and Rebecca had said nothing, but nodded.

Lewis looked to Loreal and then to Chris and said, “You are kind, but we already have Uri waiting for us. Marabeth, did you say you wanted a ride back to your place?”

“I did, and what happened to your cousin? Seth?”

` “Whatever happened to him is what I think happened to your cousin.”

Lewis smiled.

“They’re both grown ups, and if they get into any danger that’s what phones are for.”

“I thought you were staying,” Rebecca said, and Marabeth was about to say no when she said, “Mother, yes. Yes, I can stay tonight. So don’t worry about it,” she told Lewis. “But I would like you to see the book.”

Lewis nodded and headed up the stairs. The second floor was dim but for one hallway lamp, and Lewis said, “This is a large and lovely house.”

“You don’t see the shadows?” Marabeth said, half jesting.

“I see shadows,” Lewis said, “but not the ones you’re talking about.”

Marabeth stopped and turned to him.

She said, “I understand how Kris feels. And even Peter. You all are like us, and different, and truthfully, I’ve never met anything like us. Except for… your man. Your Christopher. He is different. He is…. I can’t place my finger on it.”

“He is a vampire,” Lewis said simply, and Marabeth dropped the towel she was carrying.

“Shit,” she said, bending to pick it up. “Then everything’s real.”

“I don’t know if everything is real,” Lewis said, “But vampires, werewolves and witches are.”

“What a lovely book,” he was saying as Marabeth said, “There’s so much I want to know. Do you really mean that that tall, sweet man is… a real and actual…? But you do. That’s what you said. I want to know so much.”

“I imagine you’ll know a great deal before all of this is over,” Lewis commented, turning over a fragile page and saying, “More. More later. More tomorrow. Goodnight, Marabeth. It’s good to finally meet you.”

Marabeth watched Lewis head down the stairs and stood frozen in her house, thinking that she had sat across from a vampire, and whatever that meant, she was sure it meant more that was frightening than more that was not. She sat down on the bed, with the door open, and turned up the imitation Tiffany lamp to gain as much light as possible, before sitting down to read.