9.
Jack smiled.
"If I told you what's up, you might decide to run."
They entered a
huge lounge on the building’s first floor. Music of a band Jack did not
recognize blared from speakers. The air was heavy with the smell of grease. At
one end of the room there was a serving counter with students lined up in
front. Others students sat at tables scattered around the room.
Jack scanned
the room.
"This
way," he said abruptly, and began weaving between tables. Frank followed.
Suddenly, a
woman rose from a table and wrapped her arms around
Jack.
"Sweetheart," she cooed so everyone around them could hear.
"Shh," Jack in an equally loud voice, "you'll blow my
cover."
The woman
released Jack and looked at Frank. "Is this the virgin you promised
me?"
Frank felt
suddenly hot. But his discomfort did not prevent him from appraising her.
She was short,
perhaps only 5'1." She wore her blond hair short. The hair framed a face
that narrowed to her chin. Green eyes sparkled at she looked at him. She was
wearing a black oversized shirt that hung loosely to below her hips. Legs
draped in black stretch pants emerged from the shirt, only to disappear into
black calf-length boots.
"Frank
McMann, Liza Lotewcheski," Jack said.
Frank, trying
to cover his discombort, took her hand, and kissed it with mock gallantry.
"Charmed," he said.
"Hey,
watch what you say," Jack snorted. "She just might cast a spell over
you."She's a witch."
Liza poked
Jack. "Oh, sorry," he said, "a Wicca" _ drawing out the "wic."
"Well,
witch or Wicca, I can see how she could cast a spell," Frank responded.
"Ah,”
she cooed, “a potential charmer.”
They sat at
her table.
“I heard your
interview with Soehner,” Liza said to Jack. “He wiggled away again.”
He frowned.
“He’ll slip someday.”
“Maybe you
could cast a spell on him,” Frank suggested.
Liza’s eyes
flashed.
“The kind of
spell I’d like to cast would cost too much,” she spat.
Seeing the
quizzical look on Frank’s face, Jack explained, “According to the rules of
witchcraft, the power of whatever spell you cast comes back on you.” He looked
at Liza. “Right?”
She nodded
and added, “So if you’re going to unleash a bad one, you have to be ready for a
nasty backlash.”
Frank glanced
at Jack, then at Liza.
“Come on,” he
said. “You’re talking as if this witchcraft stuff is real. This is all a joke,
right?”
“Not to me,”
Liza replied.
“I’m sorry,
but magic and witchcraft, that’s all superstition.”
Her green
eyes flashed. “One man’s superstition is another woman’s faith.”
Frank looked
at Jack for a sign that this was all a put on.
“It is her
faith,” Jack said simply.
Frank shifted
his gaze back to Liza. “Okay, I don’t mean to be rude, but I was always taught
belief in magic and witchcraft was just fear and igno” … he caught himself … “not knowing the rules of nature. Like back in the Middle
Ages blaming the Plague on old women who were mentally ill and acted strange or
on Jews, rather than on germs from rats and the fleas they carried.”
Liza sighed.
“The labels placed on witches were due to fear. Men wearing robes and collars
were afraid of women with knowledge and power. Some of the women who were
labeled witches were midwives or practicing folk medicine using natural cures
that actually worked. But that interfered with the power of educated men who’d rather bleed a
patient to death than give him moldy bread that contained penicillin.”
She took a
drink from her coffee, then continued.
“So much for
ignorance about the way nature works. Some of those women had knowledge of the
world that predated the Christianity and Judaism and the Greek Gods. Wiccanism
is a faith that taps into that ancient knowledge of the ways of the world.
Maybe eye of newt and tongue of toad don’t work – but then maybe other odd
concoctions do because they contain chemicals that science is only beginning to
understand.”
“So you’re
saying its all male chauvinism,” Frank said.
Liza smiled.
“Partly. But it’s more. In the West, as Christianity spread, it had to stamp
out the older faiths. You either had to co-opt the faith – like turn the winter
festival into Christmas – or declare it all the work of the devil and burn the
believers of the old faith. The
same thing has happened everywhere one religion tries to replace an old.”
“Okay, so to
you it’s a religion,” Frank said. “Who do you worship?”
“Not the devil
or evil, as the Christian propaganda machine has tried to make it. We honor the
force of creation, the creative power itself. Different people use different
names for it – goddess or God, for example.”
“So all that
magic stuff is just anti-woman propaganda?”
“Oh no,” she
beamed. “It’s real.”
Frank smirked.
“I have a hard time with that.”
“Why?” Liza
fired back. “You’re a Catholic, right?”
“Yes, but how
…”
“Guilty,” Jack
said. “I told her about you.”
“I was
Catholic, too,” Liza said. “Jesus performed miracles, healing people, making
bread and fish multiply, walking on water. Some saints did the same sorts of
things. And at every Mass Catholics believe that the bread and wine is turned
into the Body and Blood of Christ. Doesn’t that sound like a lot of magic?”
“Yes, but …”
“But it’s real
and witchcraft isn’t, right?” Liza demanded.
Frank leaned
forward. “No, not exactly. First of all, I’m not a practicing Catholic any
more. And I don’t believe all those things were miracles with supernatural
causes. The mind has remarkable powers to heal, for example. When a holy person
touches you and you believe in that person, your mind heals you and it looks
like a miracle. Even modern medicine has begun to accept prayer as a way to
ease people’s minds and help with healing. And the fishes and loaves thing,
maybe the miracle was that Jesus got everybody to share what they had so there
was enough.”
Liza leaned on
the table, her face close to his. The gentle scent of her perfume reached his
nose. The air seemed thicker. His heart beat faster. She looked him in the eyes
and a small, knowing smile blossomed on her lips.
“What about
other things,” she said, “like knowing the phone is going to ring and who it is
for?”
Frank looked
at Jack. Jack smiled weakly.
“I told her a
lot about you.”
“Okay,” Frank
said. “So sometimes I get a sense about that. My brother did, too. More than me.
As I said, sometimes the mind has the power to do many things. We haven’t all
developed those powers. Maybe there’s a part that can sense the energy flowing
into the telephone a split second before it rings.”
“And knowing
who it’s for?” She said softly. The sound of her voice seemed to flow into in
his mind. His heart beat faster yet. But he refused to turn away.
“I don’t
know,” he said slowing, gathering himself. “I guess you could call it a sixth
sense. Like in games, sometimes I get a sense what my opponent is going to do
next. I used to get a lot of steals in basketball not because I was fast, but
just because I just knew where the ball handler was going next. I remember the
same thing happened when I played chess sometimes. I used to beat people who
were better than me because I could see what they were going to do.
“But that’s
all a power in my mind,” he stated. “Not magic.”
“Oh, so the
power is in you,” she said, tilting her head, but keeping her eyes on his.
“Sounds as if you think you’re a god of some sort.”
A few strands
of blond hair fell down over her forehead. Without thinking, he reached over
and pushed them back in place, his thumb brushing across the soft skin. He
allowed his fingers to linger for a minute on her hair, then slowly pulled his
hand away. Her eyes never left his.
“Of course
not,” he replied. “Just a person who has a little something extra. It’s no
different than some people have large bodies so they can play football or have
highly developed math abilities.”
“And that’s
all that Wiccanism is about,” she said. “Finding the gifts we have and using
them.”
“What about
that backlash part?” he said. “Do you really think that if you cause something
to happen something will happen to you?”
“There’s always a consequence for
everything we do,” she nodded.
“Sometimes they’re not immediate, but there’s always payback. Jesus used
his gifts and they crucified him.”
Frank leaned
back in his chair. “What gifts do you have?”
“Oh, they are
many,” she purred.
Jack winked.
“Liza could make a gay man straight.”
Frank nodded,
suddenly feeling self-conscious.
“But what
about Soehner?” he said, changing the conversation’s direction. “What could you
do to him that makes you afraid of what would come back on you?”
Liza glared.
“The man is
evil. That’s who you should burn at the stake.”
Frank cocked
his head. “What did he do?”
“You met
him,” she grimaced. “What did you feel?”
Frank thought
back to the encounter, a chill passed through him. “Uncomfortable. But did he
do anything to you that makes you hate him?”
She opened
her mouth as if about to say something, then glanced at her watch. “Too long to
explain. I gotta get to class.” She turned to Jack. “Are you two free Friday
night?” Jack nodded. “Come over. We’ll spend the night on Soehner and other
devils.”
She stood,
before Jack or Frank could respond.
“And maybe
we’ll end the night by sacrificing a virgin,” she cackled and rushed off
through the tables. Frank followed her with his eyes.
Jack smiled
broadly. “That went well.”
“What went
well?”
“Jack
Plantir, matchmaker. Just call me Mame.”
“Come on,”
Frank said, “she’s pretty, sure, but all that witchcraft stuff. That’s too
weird.”
“She grows on
you,” Jack smiled. “My sixth sense tells me there’s more to come.”
“What is she
studying,” Frank said, trying to change the
conversation again.
“Actually,
she’s teaching a course on 16nth century drama,” Jack said. “She’s a teaching
assistant finishing her doctorate in English. She’s almost finished her
dissertation on the women as diarists in the 15th and 16th
centuries.”
“Including
some witches, I assume,” Frank said.
“If that’s
what you want to call them.”
Frank looked
off in the direction Liza had gone. Suddenly he smelled incense and felt as if
eyes were staring at him. He looked around.
“Frank?” Jack
said.
He turned to
Jack, and saw not his friend’s face, but a skull looking at him. He closed his
eyes. He saw again the skull in his room. Smoke rose from its eyes.
“Frank? You
look as if somebody walked over your grave,” Jack said.
Frank opened
his eyes. No skull. Only Jack looking at him with concern.
“Hey, I
didn’t know meeting her would freak you so much,” Jack said. “Maybe we
shouldn’t go to her place. It can be kind of spooky there.”
“No. I’ll be
fine. My brain just went into vapor lock, that’s all. Happens every now and
then,” he said, glancing at the clock on the wall. “I’d better get to the
bookstore to see what I need for Staples’ course.”
Frank stood
and walked to the door. He turned to look back at Jack, smiling and waving from
the table.
Better my
grave than yours, he thought.
Pax et bonum
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