The Wicked: A Love Story

[ChrisGibson]

Lewis Dunharrow Arrives at 1948 Dimler on the day of Nathan Strausses funeral. As the Keller family and the Dunharrow clan meet is increasingly clear that answers to all of their questions will be found down south at Long Lees, the home of Augustus, the patriarch of the Witch Clan. Marabeth delves deeper into the journals of Pamela while Lawrence Malone, Daniel Rawlinson and Kruinh’s Drinkers are brought deeper and deeper into a story which they never knew had anything to do with them. Everything is linked, all are connected, and the binding die between them all is:



THE WICKED




A LOVE STORY





P A R T
O N E

ASSEMBLY





O N E

THE WITCHES
AND
THE
WOLVES


I give unimaginable joys on earth: certainty, not faith, while in life, upon death; peace unutterable, rest, ecstasy; nor do I demand aught in sacrifice.

-The Book of the Law



Marabeth STRAUSS had retired to her room. After a while she didn’t think she needed to do anything but be by herself. There was no message from Jason, and that almost bugged her. He usually knew the right thing to do, then again, their relationship had been a matter of days and started with a fuck on the floor. Besides, maybe he knew the right thing was to leave her alone. Being alone was, after all, what she really wanted right now.
Also, after all of Myron’s strangeness at church—no, that was not it—Myron had reached into her mind and spoken to her. Myron was Amy’s brother, and her favorite male cousin next to Jim, who wasn’t really a cousin at all, but a brother. She had always thought he was more than a loveable goof, but she was not ready for what he had done. And then he had departed the house as if his urgent words were not urgent at all, and now no one knew where he was.
Downstairs she had played the gracious host, and wasn’t it good enough that she wasn’t going home tonight? It was as if all the misery of the last few days could not overwhelm her, and now she let it. Why must this life be so hard, and with no promise of getting any better? And then she cried till there was nothing else really, until she just lay on her back in the half dark and gathering shadows of a new year that would surely have as little promise as the last.
Even as she allowed herself the rare luxury of this self pity, Marabeth heard something. It was hum, but with rhythm. There it was again, an almost singing. The tune was familiar, and the words were coming over and over again and she realized, Not in the house. On the street. Christmas carolers. But Christmas was over, and now she pushed open her window to the cold air.
In the gathering darkness, holding lanterns, their voices rising eerily from down below, she heard several people singing, low, and then with high intensity:


“THIS ae nighte, this ae nighte,
—Every nighte and alle,
Fire and fleet and candle-lighte,
—And Christe receive thy saule.
When thou from hence away art past
To Whinny-muir thou com'st at last
If ever thou gavest hosen and shoon,
Sit thee down and put them on;

And Christe receive thy saule.”

She sprang from the bed as if this were some sort of Christmas gift, struggled into shoes, then plodded down the steps, trying not to call attention to herself as her family looked up at her, Amy, putting a hand to her cheek, Peter touching Joyce’s hand. Marabeth came through the living room, and wrapping her grandmother’s shawl about her, that she’d taken from the hook on the wall, she opened the great door and stood there, hearing them sing

“If hosen and shoon thou ne'er gav'st nane
-—Every nighte and alle,
The whinnes sall prick thee to the bare bane.
—And Christe receive thy saule.
From Whinny-muir when thou may'st pass,
-—Every nighte and alle,
To Brig o' Dread thou com'st at last;
—And Christe receive thy saule.
From Brig o' Dread when thou may'st pass,
-—Every nighte and alle,
To Purgatory fire thou com'st at last;
—And Christe receive thy saule.”

Their voices had risen and fallen, like an enchantment, and now they rose to their height and then went down to their depths finishing.

This ae nighte, this ae nighte,
-—Every nighte and alle,
Fire and fleet and candle-lighte,
—And Christe receive thy saule.

By now, Kris had come. And Jim and Peter. Cyrus, Joy, Rebecca, too, but they were all behind Marabeth, and from the circle of singers came one, bearing a lantern of cut glass that winked in the night. Marabeth thought people were not like her family, because they did not inhabit the normal world, but they were like her, because she, in a way did not inhabit the normal world either, and the Black man in his wool cap and flashing spectacles, stopped singing, extended the lantern and said, “Marabeth Strauss, I have come to bring you greetings and condolences. This is my clan, and I am Lewis Dunharrow.”

Jim Strauss stood behind Kris and Marabeth, and he watched as the visitors came in. He knew so little, hadn’t really even heard of Lewis Dunharrow, whom Marabeth apparently knew. He was related to that Uriah who had come by the house the night after Christmas. Beside him was an impossibly pale man with high cheekbones and pale blond hair and aside from his looks there was something strange about, but Jim could not put his finger on it. Beside Lewis Dunharrow was a golden girl with a puff of cinnamon colored hair and fine features, grey green eyes, and she was taking off her coat and handing it to Marabeth’s open arms, and then, with them, was a young man with a thin beard around his jaw, and wavy brown hair, creamy skin. Jim had to see his face, and when he turned around, Jim had to keep looking at it, and then, before Jim could look away, the young man was looking at him with brown eyes he’d dreamed of, and Jim could only smile. He couldn’t turn away. Why was he so nervous? And the young man smiled at him.
“This is my cousin, Loreal,” Lewis was saying.
Loreal was the most forward young woman Jim had ever seen. Well, no, that wasn’t quite true. She shook hands with everyone immediately, and Amy said, “I like you. Would you care for a drink?”
“Do you have Bourbon?” the girl asked in her thin voice, and Amy said, “Well, shit, I think we’ll get along just fine.”
“And this is my cousin, Seth,” Lewis said, and Jim thought he was guarding Seth, that Seth, who quickly waved and nodded his head seemed like he was glad the introduction was over. But quickly, before Jim turned, he saw that Seth had sent a glance his way.

The library door wasn’t closed. It was half open, and sometimes children passed in and out, but the family seemed to understand that this was different and some important meeting was happening between the Strausses and Peter and these visitors.
“I wonder if they have something to do with what Marabeth and Peter said the other night,” Cyrus murmured and Deborah looked at her brother and said, “Is that what we’re calling it?”
“That’s what I’m calling it,” Cyrus said.
But in the room, Jim and Seth were in the corners, and Seth kept looking back at the bookshelf.
Jim took a breath, at last, and said, “I’m going to go out and smoke.”
He made a gesture to Seth.
“Yeah,” Seth said. “I’d like that.”
“I’ll grab my coat,” Jim said on their way out of the room.
“Is this a no smoking house?”
“No, not really.” Jim said as they came into the living room and passed into the foyer. “It’s just sometimes I need air.”
Jim turned to him. “We can stay in. If you like. I just thought you might like some air too.”
“Yeah,” Seth shrugged, then said, more clearly “Yes. I would.”
“Don’t make me force you,” Jim said, as he handed Seth his coat and Seth said, “You remembered.”
“Remembered?”
“Which coat was mine.”
“Yeah,” Jim said, pulling on his own green car coat, “Walking in you were hard to forget.”
Jim quickly looked away and opened the door for Seth, and then shut it behind them.



“So, you’re Seth?”
“Yes,” Seth said.
He did not say that Jim had not introduced himself, but Jim realized it and said, “I’m Jim.”
“Jim or James?”
“Well, James is my name, but everyone calls me Jim. I’m named after my grandfather.”
“Was he nice?”
“I don’t know,” Jim shrugged. “He died a long time ago. He died when my dad and his brother and sister were kids.”
“Oh, that’s sad,” Seth said. “I’d say I’m sorry, but you wouldn’t have known him. The man who died, he was your uncle?”
Jim nodded, and exhaled smoke. “Nate raised me. Him and Aunt Rebecca. After my parents died.”
“Nate?” Seth said.
“Yeah,” said Jim. “My Uncle Nathan. You alright, Seth?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Seth said, telling himself to put his eyes back in his head. “My parents died too. My Uncle Owen raised me. He’s not here. He didn’t come with us. I was seven. It was an accident.”
“God, I’m sorry,” Jim said. “My mom killed herself when I was twelve. No one ever says it, but I think my dad did too. My Grandma Natalie had three kids, and they all died, and she’s still here.”
“Oh,” Seth looked so sad that Jim almost laughed.
“You’re a really sweet guy,” Jim said.
“It’s just really sad,” Seth said. “Wanting to die. Feeling that way.”
“My family’s sort of been under a cloud,” Jim said. “And now we’re trying to climb from under it.”
“Because you’re werewolves?” Seth said, plainly.
Jim blinked at him. “Well…well… shit.”
Seth turned a little red and he said, “I probably wasn’t supposed to say it just like that. You didn’t even now we were coming. But your cousin, Marabeth I believe, she was coming to see us. And we met your cousin Kris. He came to Chicago when Lewis was… when he was Made.”
“Can I ask you a question?” Jim said, tossing his cigarette and indicating that Seth could do the same. “What are you guys?”
“We’re witches,” Seth said. “Most of us. Most of my family.”
“Fuck,” Jim said. It never occurred to him to doubt it. “Like, honest the fuck witches?”
“Yes,” Seth said. “Lewis is the head of the Clan of the Child and Stag. Everyone in our family isn’t a member of the Clan and everyone in the Clan isn’t a member of our family, but… the lines converge. It seems like my great-great uncle, Augustus, might have known about you, or known one of you. So…. I guess they’re all figuring it out.”
Jim was quiet for a while, and then he said, “So you’re a witch?”
“I guess,” Seth said. “I mean, you’re a werewolf.”
“I can’t remember ever changing,” Jim said. “I’m told that it’s the pills we take that stop us from changing, but I never took those pills. But…. I guess. Yeah.
“What,” Jim started, sounding a little shy, “what can you do? I know that sounds stupid. I’ve just seen movies. I don’t really know what it means, being a witch.”
“I have dreams,” Seth said. “Really, vivid dreams sometimes. Much too vivid. And I can…. I’ll just say it. Dead people. Not all the time. Some times they come to me.”
“What?”
“I… I got shocked because… Can I ask you a question?”
Jim grinned. “Sure, Seth.”
“Was Nathan… Your uncle…. Was he tall, dark haired, dark eyed, sharp faced. Kind of movie star looking?”
Instead of answering, Jim tilted his head and looked at Seth.
“Nathan… someone named Nathan came to me before Christmas. He came for a while and then he disappeared the same night your cousin Kris showed up. He just told me that… I was about to meet people he loved. That we had to help them do what he wanted to but wasn’t able to. He said, just be there for them.”
Jim bursts into tears right there on the porch, and Seth hugged him. He didn’t think about the fact that it was January in a post industrial city in Ohio and he was standing on the porch hugging a goodlooking guy who smelled wonderful and was sobbing into his shoulder.
Jim sniffed a bit and then wiped his eyes and tried to talk, sobbed and then, tried to talk again, wiping his red eyes.
“What… else do you do?”
Well, okay, that would make sense, trying to be normal again, normal as possible, Seth figured.
“See thoughts. Not all the time. And animals. I can talk to them. A little.”
“You’re really pretty,” Jim said, sniffing. “I mean, handsome. I should of said that or… said nothing, but, that’s how I feel.”
“Yeah,” Seth said. And then he said, “I’m not good at words, and very shy about… feelings and everything, but, I feel the same. And… you smell good.”
Jim burst out laughing and his eyes were still shining with tears. He looked up at the door, but not at the street, because no one on the street concerned him. High on the stoop he said, “Could I kiss you? Would you—?”
Seth kissed him quickly, or it was supposed to be quick. But it felt so good, his lips, his mouth, his tongue, being pressed to Jim’s face. They stopped and then started again, and when they were looking at each other, Jim’s eyes blue under the lamps on either side of the great door, Seth said, “I dreamed about you.”
“I dreamed about you too,” Jim said. “But I wasn’t sure until now.”
They both said, “The day after Christmas,” and stopped, blinking, and then sat side by side saying nothing, looking at the townhouses across from them on the other side of Dimler Street.





Kris 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.”

MORE TOMORROW ​

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a great start to The Wicked! I like Jim and Seth’s interactions a lot! They are cute. I hope Jason calls Marabeth soon. Great writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

The relationship between Seth and Jim is something I love too, and of course I love the meeting between the Strausses and the Dunharrows that, at this point, we've been waiting two books for.

 

[ChrisGibson]

AS JIM AND SETH BECOME CLOSER, MARABETH GETS DEEPER INTO THE HISTORY OF PAMELA AND CONTINUES TO BE SURPRISED



“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.



THE BOOK OF PAMELA STRAUSS

FOR THE FIRST FEW years of their marriage, it seemed as if Katherine was not capable of bearing children. This was in its way fine, for Friederich already had me. Ada, though, had begun to suggest that what might be needful was for me to marry, a thing I had never planned. I still didn’t, but in those day this was the only respectable way to have a child. My plan was to go to college, and I was enrolled into Wallington out in Rawlston. In this day and age Wallington is a trip down the road which can be accomplished in about forty five minutes, but in those times, when much of what is now the city was still wilderness and ponds, when the automobile was new, we took the train, and the journey by train, including the trip to the station, was an hour and a half. I remained in Wallington, in the women’s dormitory four nights of the week for the next four years.
In 1922, about the time I graduated, Katherine was pregnant with her first child, and I returned to the large house on Dimler Street. Her father had died, and Friederich, grown wealthy on his wood business as well as the business of the Dashbach family. Nevertheless, he insisted that the house needed fewer servants. He was truly the master of his domain, and it was as if America was forgetting its hatred of us during the war. Ada and I attended the birth, but when the baby was born, and named Friederich, it died the same night.
“There are charms,” Ada said, “which can be said, if you would say them so that the next time the child will come full and strong. I believe Katherine Dashbach was never a strong woman, and she gets no younger.”
I did not say that my father was getting no younger either, but then, he was not carrying the child. Again, Katherine became pregnant. A bundle of herbs was hung over the doorpost that led to her room, and in the spring of 1923, at last she gave birth to her first living child, my sister Maris. Though she was my sister, I was well old enough to be her mother. A year later Katherine was pregnant again, and by the end of 1925 she had Claire.
Still, with all the magic, Katherine miscarried easily. She lost a boy, and she lost a girl, and around this time Ada died, and her family mourned. Often I worked with her daughter, Liesle, but we were not close as I had been with Ada or with Frau Inga. After this Peter, Ada’s son, became the master of the house, and he already had two sons.
I believed that Katherine was well past childbearing, and also that she was not long for this world. I conceived the beginnings of a plan. Maybe, also, I was afraid that I would lose my own fertility, my own best years. I took herbs for a month, herbs that made me supple, and wet, filled me with life, and then, because I knew Friederich was tired of Katherine, because I knew they slept in separate rooms, I came to him at night, and loved him as I had, long ago, when it was only the two of us in that long gone house. Even as an aging man, his grip was still powerful, his body still strong. His manhood, and I had almost forgotten it, was so thick and so firm, it almost hurt when he was inside of me. I gave myself to him all too willingly until, at last, I knew I was pregnant.




Pamela! Was pregnant? By Friederich? But then, Marabeth thought, she had never known that the Keller side of her family came from the same place as the Strausses, was descended from these two witches. She had never known that Peter’s great-grandfather, hers as well, was also named Peter, or that Friederich and Pamela had once bordered in the house that was now her cousin’s. She hadn’t known anything, anything at all about the Dashbachs or about that faded sepia print in the library of Friederich’s wife, and how many children her great-grandmother had lost. That Pamela, in the very old house Marabeth grown up in, had not only had an affair with her father, but intentionally been impregnated by him…




I CARRIED THE SECRET within me, savoring it like a growing treasure under my heart. My body did not show it, except that my breasts were rounder, my body tighter. I was swollen in a way Ada would have identified, though I doubt even she would have approved, and it was in the midst of my joy that Katherine announced, that, at last, she was pregnant again.
I had no intention of not having my baby, but I could not very well remain pregnant in my stepmother’s house, carrying my own father’s child, so I took much money for myself and went journeying with good clothes, a wedding ring and the sad story of a devoted but rich husband who had died. I felt ripe, and powerful, and I was already making plans for my son, for I knew it would be a son. I even had a name, and this you will learn in time. When I gave birth to him, I planned to have him near me. I had already spoken to a family that had worked for Friederich in our first years, and told them I would give them the child. If Katherine’s baby died, and I expected it would, then I would come for the child, perhaps even switch it with the dead one.
Early in 1928, I returned to Lassador and resumed my life, feeling strangely free and full, and around that time Katherine gave birth to the last of her children, a pale, frail, sickly looking boy who, despite all appearances, continued to live, and who was baptized James. I gradually came to understand that Katherine’s child would live as my father’s heir, and the one I had born would simply have to be loved from afar. And, at last, I began to understand, or to remember, that this baby I thought competition for my own was my own brother, and the child I had born was his brother two, that I had given birth to my own sibling, and to both of these babies I must be a sister and put aside all envy.




They sat in Jim’s car, and they had been quiet a while before Seth said, “You can ask me, you know? If you want.”
“Ask you?”
“If you’re just going to pretend, you can take me home,” Seth said.
Jim blinked at him.
“I’m not really a very forward person,” Seth said. “I’ve never been a person who… I’ve always had a hard time speaking, but not right now.”
“Well, usually I’m just the opposite,” Jim said. “You… you’ve got me fucking nervous, Seth.”
Seth waited for him to continue.
“Cause I like you. I hardly know you, but I like you, and… I don;’t want to leave you.”
“Then ask me,” Seth almost pleaded.
“Come home with me tonight?”
“Yeah,” Seth said. “Yes.”

MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

Pamela’s story is certainly surprising! I think Marabeth still has a lot to learn about her. I still love the Jim and Seth parts. Great writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Between Pamela and Seth and Jim there is a lot going on, and Pamela still has a lot more secrets to reveal. (Though you'd think having her father's child would be big enough!)

 

[ChrisGibson]

Tonight, Seth and Jim have some story time....



T W O

GESCHICHTE



Beauty and strength, leaping laughter and delicious languor, force and fire are of us.

-The Book of the Law



“The first thing to do,” Laurie decided, “is to find Chris and Lewis.”
“That’s easily done,” Myron said. “My cousin Amy called. She said they came to my cousins’ house this very night. Lewis and a guy named Chris. I wasn’t there. I only heard about it, but they’re here, now.
“Then we have to go,” Levy stood up, as if he was about to leave the room immediately.
“Not at this moment, little friend,” Tanitha said with a half smile.
“But soon,” Dan decided. “We should all decide where Levy’s going to be. With us or with Lewis and Chris?”
“Scuse me, guys,” Sunny said, and they looked to him while Levy’s mouth was half open. “Don’t you think Levy should get some say in his future?”
Levy tried to not look satisfied, and Sunny said, “He may not be an adult, but he’s not a baby and, quite frankly, between staying with a bunch of vampires and making camp with a nomadic gay couple that’s one half witch and one half drinker, I feel like he should get to choose.”
“I didn’t even get to spend that much time with Lewis and Chris,” Levy said. “They might not want me.”
“Do you want them?” Laurie said simply.
“I’d like parents,” Levy said after a moment. “And… Lewis named me, and Lewis is a witch. Like me. I don’t know,” Levy shook his head.
“We’ll all find out everything soon enough, I guess. And I don’t guess I’m the most important part of what’s going on anyway.”
“Levy,” Kruinh said in that voice that was always quiet, but managed to cut through so much, “at this moment we are not really sure of what is important. We know that an old threat seems to have been neutralized, and we know that now we have you and we need to find you a home and we know that now, somehow, we are tied up with Myron’s family, and they may need out help.”
“Well,” Myron said, though it looked like he was hesitating to speak, “I don’t know that my family is ready for witches and vampires to knock on the door of 1948 Dimler, but maybe your friends, the Dunharrows, might not mind if I paid them a visit, asked some questions? Is there a chance we could go to them? Knock on their door, ask what they know?”
“Chris is at the Midland Hotel on Springer Street in Lassador,” Kruinh said simply.
When Laurie looked at him, Kruinh said, “Why would I not know that? I’m his bloodfather. You all can go by there tonight.”
“There’s something else,” Dan said.
They looked to him, Anne taking a hand through her hair.
“Evangeline did not tell the entire truth. I have so many of her words, her memories, toward the end. When she talked about that battle where she killed Myron’s ancestors, she left out, possibly from fear, maybe from spite, something else. That there was a spirit with them. A man who was like a spirit or a spirit who was like a man. He was also a werewolf, but different from them.”
“How strange,” Anne said.
“It’s all weird,” Myron said.
“Anyway, she thought it was this man who had hidden Friederich away. The family’s spirit, their totem or somesuch.”
Dan shrugged.
“Perhaps I could pay a visit to Rosamunde,” Tanitha said. “I haven’t seen my cousin for some time, and I’m sure she’d love to talk. Under the right circumstances.”
“You’re good at showing her the right circumstances,” David complimented his wife, blandly.
Laurie nodded, still looking at Kruinh, and then he said to Myron, “Whatever she doesn’t know, Lewis will.”
Dan and Laurie looked at Levy, and Levy said, tiredly, “And I will stay here.”
“Thank you for not making us say it,” Laurie told him.


“Have you ever heard the story about the magic salad?”
“Is this some kind of joke?” Seth asked.
Jim chuckled. “No, it’s a fairy tale.”
“About a salad?”
“Yes,” Jim said, palming Seth’s face and then his palms separating into individual fingers, touching his lips as they lay together.
“So, do you want to hear it or not?”
“Sure.”
“Alright,” Jim lay back in the bed. Folding his hands behind his head.
“My Aunt Pamela used to tell me these stories, and then, after she died, my grandmother.
“As a young huntsman was once going briskly along through a wood, there came up a little old woman, and said to him, ‘Good day, good day; you seem merry enough, but I am hungry and thirsty; do pray give me something to eat.’ The huntsman took pity on her, and put his hand in his pocket and gave her what he had. Then he wanted to go his way; but she took hold of him, and said, ‘Listen, my friend, to what I am going to tell you; I will reward you for your kindness; go your way, and after a little time you will come to a tree where you will see nine birds sitting on a cloak. Shoot into the midst of them, and one will fall down dead: the cloak will fall too; take it, it is a wishing-cloak, and when you wear it you will find yourself at any place where you may wish to be. Cut open the dead bird, take out its heart and keep it, and you will find a piece of gold under your pillow every morning when you rise. It is the bird’s heart that will bring you this good luck.’
“The huntsman thanked her, and thought to himself, ‘If all this does happen, it will be a fine thing for me.’ When he had gone a hundred steps or so, he heard a screaming and chirping in the branches over him, and looked up and saw a flock of birds pulling a cloak with their bills and feet; screaming, fighting, and tugging at each other as if each wished to have it himself. ‘Well,’ said the huntsman, ‘this is wonderful; this happens just as the old woman said’; then he shot into the midst of them so that their feathers flew all about. Off went the flock chattering away; but one fell down dead, and the cloak with it. Then the huntsman did as the old woman told him, cut open the bird, took out the heart, and carried the cloak home with him.
“The next morning when he awoke he lifted up his pillow, and there lay the piece of gold glittering underneath; the same happened next day, and indeed every day when he arose. He heaped up a great deal of gold, and at last thought to himself, ‘Of what use is this gold to me whilst I am at home? I will go out into the world and look about me.’
“Then he took leave of his friends, and hung his bag and bow about his neck, and went his way. It so happened that his road one day led through a thick wood, at the end of which was a large castle in a green meadow, and at one of the windows stood an old woman with a very beautiful young lady by her side looking about them. Now the old woman was a witch, and said to the young lady, ‘There is a young man coming out of the wood who carries a wonderful prize; we must get it away from him, my dear child, for it is more fit for us than for him. He has a bird’s heart that brings a piece of gold under his pillow every morning.’
“Meantime the huntsman came nearer and looked at the lady, and said to himself, ‘I have been traveling so long that I should like to go into this castle and rest myself, for I have money enough to pay for anything I want’; but the real reason was, that he wanted to see more of the beautiful lady. Then he went into the house, and was welcomed kindly; and it was not long before he was so much in love that he thought of nothing else but looking at the lady’s eyes, and doing everything that she wished. Then the old woman said, ‘Now is the time for getting the bird’s heart.’ So the lady stole it away, and he never found any more gold under his pillow, for it lay now under the young lady’s, and the old woman took it away every morning; but he was so much in love that he never missed his prize.
“‘Well,’ said the old witch, ‘we have got the bird’s heart, but not the wishing-cloak yet, and that we must also get.’ ‘Let us leave him that,’ said the young lady; ‘he has already lost his wealth.’ Then the witch was very angry, and said, ‘Such a cloak is a very rare and wonderful thing, and I must and will have it.’ So she did as the old woman told her, and set herself at the window, and looked about the country and seemed very sorrowful; then the huntsman said, ‘What makes you so sad?’ ‘Alas! dear sir,’ said she, ‘yonder lies the granite rock where all the costly diamonds grow, and I want so much to go there, that whenever I think of it I cannot help being sorrowful, for who can reach it? only the birds and the flies—man cannot.’ ‘If that’s all your grief,’ said the huntsman, ‘I’ll take there with all my heart’; so he drew her under his cloak, and the moment he wished to be on the granite mountain they were both there. The diamonds glittered so on all sides that they were delighted with the sight and picked up the finest. But the old witch made a deep sleep come upon him, and he said to the young lady, ‘Let us sit down and rest ourselves a little, I am so tired that I cannot stand any longer.’ So they sat down, and he laid his head in her lap and fell asleep; and whilst he was sleeping on she took the cloak from his shoulders, hung it on her own, picked up the diamonds, and wished herself home again.
“When he awoke and found that his lady had tricked him, and left him alone on the wild rock, he said, ‘Alas! what roguery there is in the world!’ and there he sat in great grief and fear, not knowing what to do. Now this rock belonged to fierce giants who lived upon it; and as he saw three of them striding about, he thought to himself, ‘I can only save myself by feigning to be asleep’; so he laid himself down as if he were in a sound sleep. When the giants came up to him, the first pushed him with his foot, and said, ‘What worm is this that lies here curled up?’ ‘Tread upon him and kill him,’ said the second. ‘It’s not worth the trouble,’ said the third; ‘let him live, he’ll go climbing higher up the mountain, and some cloud will come rolling and carry him away.’ And they passed on. But the huntsman had heard all they said; and as soon as they were gone, he climbed to the top of the mountain, and when he had sat there a short time a cloud came rolling around him, and caught him in a whirlwind and bore him along for some time, till it settled in a garden, and he fell quite gently to the ground amongst the greens and cabbages.
“Then he looked around him, and said, ‘I wish I had something to eat, if not I shall be worse off than before; for here I see neither apples nor pears, nor any kind of fruits, nothing but vegetables.’ At last he thought to himself, ‘I can eat salad, it will refresh and strengthen me.’ So he picked out a fine head and ate of it; but scarcely had he swallowed two bites when he felt himself quite changed, and saw with horror that he was turned into an ass. However, he still felt very hungry, and the salad tasted very nice; so he ate on till he came to another kind of salad, and scarcely had he tasted it when he felt another change come over him, and soon saw that he was lucky enough to have found his old shape again.
“Then he laid himself down and slept off a little of his weariness; and when he awoke the next morning he broke off a head both of the good and the bad salad, and thought to himself, ‘This will help me to my fortune again, and enable me to pay off some folks for their treachery.’ So he went away to try and find the castle of his friends; and after wandering about a few days he luckily found it. Then he stained his face all over brown, so that even his mother would not have known him, and went into the castle and asked for a lodging; ‘I am so tired,’ said he, ‘that I can go no farther.’ ‘Countryman,’ said the witch, ‘who are you? and what is your business?’ ‘I am,’ said he, ‘a messenger sent by the king to find the finest salad that grows under the sun. I have been lucky enough to find it, and have brought it with me; but the heat of the sun scorches so that it begins to wither, and I don’t know that I can carry it farther.’
“When the witch and the young lady heard of his beautiful salad, they longed to taste it, and said, ‘Dear countryman, let us just taste it.’ ‘To be sure,’ answered he; ‘I have two heads of it with me, and will give you one’; so he opened his bag and gave them the bad. Then the witch herself took it into the kitchen to be dressed; and when it was ready she could not wait till it was carried up, but took a few leaves immediately and put them in her mouth, and scarcely were they swallowed when she lost her own form and ran braying down into the court in the form of an ass.
“Now the servant-maid came into the kitchen, and seeing the salad ready, was going to carry it up; but on the way she too felt a wish to taste it as the old woman had done, and ate some leaves; so she also was turned into an ass and ran after the other, letting the dish with the salad fall on the ground. The messenger sat all this time with the beautiful young lady, and as nobody came with the salad and she longed to taste it, she said, ‘I don’t know where the salad can be.’ Then he thought something must have happened, and said, ‘I will go into the kitchen and see.’
“And as he went he saw two asses in the court running about, and the salad lying on the ground. ‘All right!’ said he; ‘those two have had their share.’ Then he took up the rest of the leaves, laid them on the dish and brought them to the young lady, saying, ‘I bring you the dish myself that you may not wait any longer.’ So she ate of it, and like the others ran off into the court braying away.
“Then the huntsman washed his face and went into the court that they might know him. ‘Now you shall be paid for your roguery,’ said he; and tied them all three to a rope and took them along with him till he came to a mill and knocked at the window. ‘What’s the matter?’ said the miller. ‘I have three tiresome beasts here,’ said the other; ‘if you will take them, give them food and room, and treat them as I tell you, I will pay you whatever you ask.’ ‘With all my heart,’ said the miller; ‘but how shall I treat them?’ Then the huntsman said, ‘Give the old one stripes three times a day and hay once; give the next (who was the servant-maid) stripes once a day and hay three times; and give the youngest (who was the beautiful lady) hay three times a day and no stripes’: for he could not find it in his heart to have her beaten. After this he went back to the castle, where he found everything he wanted.
“Some days after, the miller came to him and told him that the old ass was dead; ‘The other two,’ said he, ‘are alive and eat, but are so sorrowful that they cannot last long.’ Then the huntsman pitied them, and told the miller to drive them back to him, and when they came, he gave them some of the good salad to eat. And the beautiful young lady fell upon her knees before him, and said, ‘O dearest huntsman! forgive me all the ill I have done you; my mother forced me to it, it was against my will, for I always loved you very much. Your wishing-cloak hangs up in the closet, and as for the bird’s heart, I will give it you too.’ But he said, ‘Keep it, it will be just the same thing, for I mean to make you my wife.’ So they were married, and lived together very happily till they died.”

“I don’t know if I could be happy with a guy who turned me into a donkey,” Seth said.
“Well, you have to admit, she kinda had it coming.”
“I’m sure they talked about it,” Seth said. “Had a real heart to heart.”
“I’m sure he told her, if you don’t fly right, I’m gonna turn you into a donkey.”
Then Jim said, as Seth burrowed into his arms on the sofa, “Marabeth used to say that story was sexist. She’s probably right, but it’s the story with no wolves in it, and so that’s the one I told. Aunt Pamela liked the wolf stories.”
“And now we know why.”
“Yeah.”
Seth had never felt strong, or capable of protection, and whatever Jim was, he was a strong man, Seth could feel it. But here he was, lying on the sofa with him, curled comfortably into Seth’s arms.
“I feel so safe with you.”
“Safe?” Seth said.
“Yeah.”
“Do you usually feel unsafe?”
“I… don’t think about it, but right now I do feel safe, like you wouldn’t hurt me, and nothing can as long as you’re here.”
“Well, yeah,” Seth said touching Jim’s sideburns and laying a finger at his temple. “I’ll keep you safe.”
“And I’ll keep you safe too,” Jim said, turning to him, the remains of Scotch and cigarettes faintly on his breath.
“You better,” Seth said, his finger tapping Jim over his heart. “Or I’ll turn you to a donkey.”





ON FRIDAY WE WILL RETURN TO THIS STORY AND TO THE VAMPIRES....

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a very interesting story from Jim! Thanks for sharing it! I am really enjoying this story and I look forward to more soon!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Well, Jim loves him some stories about goats and wolves. And more importantly, Laurie and the blood drinkers are back!

 

[ChrisGibson]

JIM AND SETH GROW CLOSER WHILE LEVY GROWS SMARTER




“So,” Levy said, “Kruinh has gone to Chicago.”
“To check out the damage Evangeline might have done. Personally, though he doesn’t say it, I think he went to see about …”
He had spoken too much.
Levy’s ears were perked.
“Lynn. Lynn was Laurie’s girlfriend.”
“The one pregnant with the baby.”
Dan raised an eyebrow.”
“Evangeline was talking about it,” Levy said. “Right before…”
I killed her.
“Well, yeah,” Dan said. “She was before Loreal.”
“Or you.”
“Yes,” Dan not quite frowned. This kid knew too much.
“Anyway, I think Kruinh went to make sure she was safe.”
“He’s a good guy,” Levy said.
“He’s the best guy,” Dan asserted.
“Laurie was friends with Chris?” Levy said.
“He is friends with Chris. They are best friends. Strictly speaking, Chris is his Master.”
“Explain that.”
“Whoever makes you is your Master. Chris made Laurie, but Kruinh told him how to do, and Kruinh is Chris’s master, so he is Laurie’s grandmaster.”
“Flash.”
“What?”
“Nevermind,” Levy shook his head. “And if I ask anything else I’m going to get distracted and forget what I was really curious about.”
Dan grinned and shook his head while he strummed on his acoustic guitar, “Okay. Shoot.”
“So Laurie is your brother?’
“Right.”
“Even though technically he’s like your blood… cousin? Cause Kruinh’s niece made you.”
“I voluntarily became part of Kruinh’s clan, so Kruinh became my Master. You can exchange Masters. Up to a point.”
“Oh.”
“But that’s not what you wanted to ask.”
“You guys are having sex with each other, right?’
Dan hit a discordant note on the guitar then muttered, “And there it is!”
“I mean, but I thought that would make him your boyfriend, like Lewis and Chris, and then, like he’s going to find Loreal, and I thought he was in love with her.”
“He is in love with her.”
“But he’s in love with you too.”
“No,” Dan said. “He’s not in love with me. He loves me, and I love him.”
“Oh.”
Dan began playing the first part of “Silver Dagger”, his fingers moving up and down the strings, and then, as he played quieter he said, “It was something we didn’t bring up because I didn’t think it was something you would understand.”
“My mother used to say that when she had sex with men for drug money,” Levy said. “But when she said it, she just meant she was doing something nasty and didn’t want to explain it.”
Dan stopped playing, but Levy seemed not to notice and, anyway, Dan realized, Levy could probably kill him with the swat of a hand.
“I’m not saying that’s why you said it though,” Levy said. “I’ve had to… had to figure out things about how you all work. I’m guessing that in a way whatever vampires do is different from what humans would do, or even what a human would do with a vampire. So, whatever you and Laurie do must be different from what two humans would do. I can’t really put my finger on it, but that seems to be it.”
“Twelve year olds shouldn’t really be talking about sex.”
“Actually twelve year olds who don’t talk about ti become thirteen years who have it,” Levy said.
Damn, this kid!
Dan put down his guitar.
“You wanna talk like a grown up, fine.”
“I just don’t want to be treated like a dummy,” Levy said. “I want to understand.”
“Fine,” Dan said.
“I… when I became what I am, when I was turned, I became different. I mean, I killed. I drank blood. I liked it. I was able to hunt people. I became a different person who liked different things. I had known about vampires being more or less what I guess you would call, bisexual. I knew that if you really cared for someone you might end up being their lover, for a time. Or forever. And it wasn’t the same as choosing a partner or a spouse. Just, two people who had that connection. I had heard about it, but humans don’t really work that way. Most of the time when you say you’re bi it pretty much means you’re gay and you just can’t handle it. So, I didn’t understand the intensity I felt for Laurie. And then, the other night, when I took Kruinh’s blood, and then Evangeline’s, that changed me more. I felt more of Laurie’s love for me. I was more aware of it, and I was more aware of my feelings for him. And so, we’re doing what we’re doing.”
“When you are with each other, do you drink each other’s blood?”
“Why would you ask that?” Dan looked mildly irritated, or as irritated as Dan Rawlinson ever became.
“It seems natural.”
“Yes,” Dan said, sitting somewhere between amazement and discomfort at Levy’s perception, “that is part of it. It happens and when we share blood, we share ourselves. So I’m more joined to Laurie. He’s more joined to me. And I’m joined to people he was joined to. We can feel each other, sense each other, even be each other to a certain extent, and whatever we do… as a couple... to a certain extent, once we share blood, we’re always doing it.”
“So like, in a way, you’re having sex with Laurie right now.”
“Yes,” Dan answered not willing to be embarrassed anymore, and realizing that Levy had no judgment. He was really a lot like this Lewis whom Daniel had known for only a moment.
“So… like, even if you never slept together again, you’d always be sleeping together?”
“Something like that. And,” Dan added, “the blood has the power and the memory, so I understand him more because I literally become him more, and he becomes me. So, I don’t want you to think we’re all just wildly jumping on top of each other. It’s… a serious thing. I’ve been a vampire for years and this never happened to me till the other night. For Laurie it only happened with one other blood drinker.”
“Chris.”
“How did you know?”
“I… it’s like his relationship with Chris just seems like that. I had wondered if they broke up, but no. It just became something else, right?”
“You’re a smart kid, but I don’t want to talk about my sex life with you anymore. You wanna learn how to play the guitar?”
“Not really.”
“Go upstairs,” Dan Rawlinson said more sharply than he ever spoke, “and get my spare guitar. And then after that, you gotta go to bed.”
“But I’ not--” Levy begins and stops.
The boy has learned at twelve, Dan realizes, what some people never figure out.
You’ve got to pick your battles wisely.


“Here is the kitchen, and here is the living room I never use. And there is the bathroom.”
“Ha!” Seth declares, “I love a man who keeps candles in his bathroom.”
“The bathroom’s one of the most important rooms in the house.”
“I love this kitchen.”
“And I love your enthusiasm,” says Jim.
“And there is the bedroom.”
“I can turn on this light,” Jim offers.
“Don’t worry about it,” Seth tells him. “Light is overrated.”
“It is,” James Strauss agrees.
Jim plops down on the huge bed, watching his new friend look around. Watching him almost look lost in such a small place before, at last, Seth joins him and they lay down looking at the ceiling.
“I feel so at home here,” Seth says.
“Me too,” Jim says, and they both laugh.
“I don’t know,” Seth says. “It’s just… I feel at home with you. I don’t feel that way with that many people.”
“The darkness is good,” Jim says. But now Seth watches him get up.
“I want the moon,” he says and opens the curtains.
Back on the bed again, Jim feels the weight of it as Seth turns over and looks at the white disk in the cobalt sky.
“I think,” Jim says, “the reason we love the moon is because it’s the only way we have of staring into the sun.”
“I used to be afraid of the night,” Seth said.
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“I suppose it’s natural.”
“In a way,” Seth agreed. “But until recently I couldn’t even sleep, just sat up through the night. Too many visions. To many things came.”
“You’re very beautiful you know,” Jim said.
“At the moment I do,” Seth said. “When you look at me like that. It’s… Isn’t it something how you feel beautiful when the right person looks at you?”
Jim gave a grin and shyly touched Seth’s hip.
“I’d like to look at more of you.”
“What kind of underwear do you have on?” Seth says just as simply.
And like this, Jim pulls down his trousers, and Seth runs his hand over them feeling Jim rise under his hand.
“You’re soft you know? In a good way. So soft,” Seth breathes, pressing himself against Jim.
Fairly swiftly Seth takes of his dress trousers, and then they pull off their dress shirts and ties and tee shirts and lay together in their underwear. They lay side by side in the light of the room until, at last, Seth’s hands slip through the soft waistband of Jim’s briefs and Jim begins to stroke and massage Seth at the same time Seth touches him. They don’t look at each other, just at the ceiling, then at the blackness of their eyelids, and, at last, Seth rolls over to kiss him and, at last, the underwear is gone and their limbs link.
Oh, he is soft, Seth thinks, oh his kiss is just what I wanted, oh I could gather him up and be in his arms and feel his body, these thighs, this soft, sweet skin, this warmth, oh God, his thick hair is like, like a mane, these cheeks not shaved for a couple of days, those eyelids and the mouth, the generous mouth, oh, those hands up and down me.

And oh, the hair on his legs! So gentle, the perfect length of legs, the firmness of his ass, the dent in the small of his back, oh his back, Jim gathers as much of him as possible between his thighs, pulls his face down to kiss him in the dark, to luxuriate in his kiss, in his kiss, in his firm kiss, in his tongue thrust into his mouth, in the tangling curls of his hair.
“I love you.”
It slips out of his mouth like a surrender. He never tells it to a lover and has never believed it from lovers in the past. But they don’t know each other. But, they have always known each other. But they have been the stuff of each other’s dreams.
How tender it sounds when Seth says it too.
“Be inside me,” Jim says.
The whole apartment is quiet and dark. The only sounds are small, the small creaking and giving way of the bed, of small moans and gasps. There they are in the big bed, burrowed into the corner of the it, Seth, white assed, on hands and knees. Jim’s legs loop around them, feet hooking together, Jim’s hands clasp his back, caress demand. All of Seth is burning, burning, burning to his stiffness to the tip of his cock where he has to has to has to be inside of Jim, has got to go to oh my God got to fuck him. The rock and move together, thrust and drive in and out like a holy engine.
“I’m about to come,” Seth gasps, desperately while Jim’s hands are hooked around his neck. “James, I’m about to come.”
“Come inside of me.”
Jim is pulling him in, and Seth has not stopped and he cannot stop, and his body freezes, and then jerks. and Jim feels him pumping, pulsing, feels the slick semen coming between his thighs, cradles Seth’s damp head to his, kissing his face, feeling his own hardness, knowing he will do the same to Seth before the night is over. Seth, gasping, separates from him, and they held each other, lying face to face, unable to speak.


MORE SOON

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a great portion! Levy is very perceptive for how young he is. I am glad Jim and Seth have each other. Great writing and I look forward to more soon!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Actually, I think children are more perceptive than adults, and Levy is almost thirteen, so just the right age to be perceptive.A big theme from the Old is the lack of perception and even denial people have as they age and, of couse, Levy is a witch.

 

[ChrisGibson]

Red eyed, but unable to sleep, thinking of Jason McCord more than she probably should, refraining from calling him, Marabeth turns to the journal and continues reading.



James B Strauss, the first of that name, was a thin boy who grew from wasted away to sinewy. Strength came to him, and his hair was honey colored. He looked more like the Dashbachs than any Strauss I had ever seen, and he did not speak.
“What is wrong with him?” Freiderich demanded. “Is his brain slow?”
“He is a quiet child,” Katherine said. “He is quiet, like my father was quiet.”
“He is sickly, as your father was sickly,” Friederich said.
I feel that my father’s accent became thicker, and as the years continued, I cannot pretend that he was not a crueler man. There was little love between him and Katherine, and I often wondered if there was much love that Friederich had for any of his children by her. I cannot deny the shadow that lived in this house spread from Friederich, and his threatening presence filled the place, crushing my sisters and terrifying my brother.
In those days the children were friends with the Kellers. Peter had two sons. He had three daughters as well, and the middle one was golden haired and fair. She reminded me of Ada, and of Ada’s mother, for there was a steel in her and in her grey eyes, and I had an admiration for her. As Jimmy grew I began to think she would make him a good girlfriend, a good wife, a good replacement to the weak Katherine Strauss, a new Mrs. Strauss. This was how I began to think of Natalie Keller.
But James had his own friends, and wasn’t much interested in the Kellers. Very early he had come to be friends with the children of our old friends, the Frye family, and he had become close friends with their youngest child, Steiger. The Freys had born three children, and the last of them was fifteen when Steiger came, the child of their old age. There were no children in his household, and so I suggested to Freiderich that he come and stay with us. Friederich grunted assent, but by now he was old and mean and it was best to ignore him.
Hagano still came, and his presence was stronger and stronger, but I was afraid to let him see my aging body, for his never aged at all.
“What are you?” I demanded, as we lay together.
“I am the first of you.”
“But what does that mean?”
“I will always be here. I am the spirit of you.”
“Nothing, and you still tell me nothing. Well, then,” I decided, “I will not care about this old body if you do not.”
“Pamela,” he said, holding one heavy breast in his hand with deep love, “Your body is not old. It is beautiful.”


And life went on in its normal course until Jimmy turned thirteen. He and Steiger had been at play when, suddenly, the boy came running into the living room screaming, and before I could ask what was wrong, a wolf came snapping into the hall.
“Pamela! Pamela!” Steiger shouted, “That’s Jimmy.”
I sent Steiger out of the house.
“I can’t leave you,” he said, but I told him I would be fine, and he obeyed when I shouted for him to go.
As the wolf, I tried to speak to my wolf turned brother, but there was nothing there where his mind should have been. There was no communication with him as I would with another wolf, and certainly not as I would communicate with Hagano. His mind was gone. He was something else. I had to threaten him my growls and bites, bites that he returned, down into the basement. I could only lock him down and change long enough to let Steiger see I was safe, and then depart, transform and rejoin him. By then Friederich‘s attention was drawn, and it was as I transformed I realized that he had never known I was a wolf, and as he looked on the snarling dog in the basement we were trying to restrain, I told him, “This is Jimmy This is your son.”

There was no time for Friederich to question me about all of the things he wanted to know. How long had I been able to transform? Why had I not told him? He knew nothing about Hagano, and I saw no need to tell him. It was during this time that we showed the wolf to Katherine, and the girls saw him as well.
“Look, look well,” Friederich commanded them. The wife and her daughters nearly fainted away at seeing Friederich change. He commanded me to do the same, and I refused. He attempted to slap me, I restrained his hand.
“Calm yourself, old man,” I said, and went out of the house, taking my little sisters with me. They were nearing an age to court, and both of them were fond of the Keller boys. I brought them to the old house on William Street, a little sad that Ada, who would have understood, was gone. But Peter understood enough, and when I brought him to our house, when I showed him the basement, and he looked down and saw the snarling wolf, he said, “But I had thought these were tales that Mama told. I had thought they were tales. Nevermind, Pamela,” he said, “I will do something.”
This madness, this Change, lasted the three nights of the full moon, and then the next night it was done. For days the women of the house walked about Jimmy warily, and there was a look on Friederich’s face I could not discern. Perhaps it was disapproval, for he always preferred Steiger to Jimmy and thought, “There is a boy who will be man. If only we could give some of what he has to that sickly Jimmy.”
Only Steiger did not change in his love for best friend, and meanwhile, in the basement of the house, Peter Keller set to work. His work took nearly to the next full moon, and when he was done, he showed me a system of rooms, each with a bolted door, that led to one final metal door, and in that room, with the windows high up to let in the light, was a harness hanging from a great iron peg bolted to the wall. And so, at the evening of the full moon, when he was thirteen almost fourteen, when he began to tremble and rave and shake his head until his blondish brown hair fell in his face, we took him down, down into this darkness beneath the house, and bound him, like Jesus in the tomb, three nights, bringing him up, drained and ashamed in the day. This was the beginning of the Strauss werewolves as they are now. I do not know what happened to us, but I had my own reasons for believing it was Katherine Dashbach’s weak blood. From then on I was determined to have my siblings marry the Kellers, and from then on there were no servants on the third floor. Strauss House and all that took place in it would have to remain strictly a Strauss affair.
I wonder if I might have allowed Jimmy this treatment for ever if not for Steiger. Claire and Maris seemed horrified at their brother being locked up, but you could tell they were relieved that he was downbelow and not in the house, and they always went to the Kellers on William Street during the full moons. Friederich was more or less ashamed and irritated by the whole affair, and Katherine wept in her room, but it was Steiger who, like Mary Magdalene beside the tomb, wept at the door to the basement.
“Let me go down there with him!” Steiger said, “If he is restrained then it won’t be a danger.”
“Don’t be a fool!” Friederich raged, and then he calmed down and said, “And yet you have such a strength to you. Would that you were the one who was my son.”
The hand he had raised in anger, he lowered. “There will be no going down there.”
But it ws during this time when Jimmy suffered, that Steiger also suffered, great headaches, tears uncontrollable. It was for Steiger’s pain that I began to wonder if there was anything I could do.
As a midwife, I went all through Germantown. I had gone to all women and Ada and I learned from all women. The Negro women of Saint Agatha’s were Catholic as well, and practiced their own form of magic. And so it was to them that I went, wondering if they knew any kind of cure for strange ailments. I could never have said, “My brother becomes a wolf, what can you do?” But I knew the Negroes had their ways, ways they told very few white people. And who could blame them? I myself had seen what damage white people could do during the years of the war.
But the women and some of them had told me about a strange benefactor of the community. One woman, Florence, said, frankly, “How else would we have been able to build this church?” And it was a fine church, what with its rose colored stone and the great pillars of white cement, the high towers, the stain glass like jewels. “We did pay for it, but we had one benefactor, and he is like us, like some of our number, for he practices the Art and is mighty in his works. There are things he knows that not even I know.”
I waited for her to continue.
“I am a mere conjure women. I light my candles and say my prayers, but this man is a true witch, a sorcerer, and if you were not in such need, I would never you a thing about him. I will write to him, and see if he will speak to you.”
“And if he says no to you,” I boasted, “I will write to him myself.”
Florence shook her head, mocking me.
“The imperiousness of a white woman!”
“The desperation of any woman.”
“Ah,” Florence looked at me differently now. “Well, then, I will send word to him and see.”
“His name?”
Florence stopped and said, “Why do I hesitate. He can protect himself, and if he does not wish to be found, he surely won’t.
“Augustus Dunharrow.”

MORE TOMORROW!

 

[CharmedFan28]

Great to get back to a lot more of Pamela’s story. She continues to have a very complicated life! Excellent writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Oh, Pamela is deeply fascinating, and it's always good to get back to her (for me at least). Of course it will be lovely for Marabeth to meet Jason again too and make some sense of what happened between the two of them

 

[ChrisGibson]

LAURIE RECEIVES A SHOCKING SURPRISE AND HAS A SHOCKING REACTION



I was distinctly at the mercy of Florence, or rather, the mercy of time as I was waiting for a response from her that was in turn from this enigmatic man. I knew that their conjure people must, like Frau Inga, deal in the wealth and wisdom of the land, but that there was a powerful sorcerer among them, and one so powerful he could amass architects and large sums of money, enough money for a Negro congregation to build such a fabulous church as Saint Agatha’s, was a wonder to me.
There were other things on my mind. I was not young anymore, and time seemed to fly. Only a few years ago, it seemed, we were afraid of our neighbors as their love turned to hate and the Kaiser Wilhelmstrasse was turned to William Street. But very quickly, people in the neighborhood seemed to respect the German homeland again. Americans will rewrite their history, but I remember that in those first days, when The Nazis arose, they spoke to a pride in the ancient Germanness of not only us, but all right thinking Anglo Saxon people. They sought a purer race, better order and a certitude as to who should rule, and that who was us, and it wasn’t only in Germantown that sympathy was aroused for Adolf Hitler when he took over Germany in 1933. In America we watched with real interest, and I have to admit, for those of us not entirely sure of what was going on across the sea, his success was our success.
But then Jews fleeing into New York with their own tales began to tarnish the legacy of Herr Hitler. Not as much as you might think, though, for there is something about America that creates a shame in those who immigrated long ago about those just coming in, and even the American Jews did not necessarily wish to hear anything about the suffering of their cousins fleeing Germany and Eastern Europe. As time went by the legacy of Herr Hitler was becoming more and more complicated, and the way we were seen in Germantown was complicated as well. In the night I could transform into a wolf and defend myself from anything, but what could I do as a middle aged woman with the traces of Bavaria in my voice?
All together, it was a time of caution, a time when many people spent more hours than usual in Saint Ursula’s, their fingers moving through the jeweled threads of rosaries, and it was around this time that Katherine brought me a letter with my name in fine spidery script and a return address Curiously, and at the end of another exhausting full moon, I opened it.

My dearest sister,
Your plight has come to my attention as well as the nature of your blood. I have heard of such things, and you and your family are certainly not the first of your kind, for there are many such people who change their skin, though the source of this gift differs from family to family. How it came upon you and yours I cannot say. There are herbs and potions to promote such a skill, and also those which will stop it. I do not feel that I can be entirely honest with you or know you well enough to recommend what will aid you in a simple letter. Please come and see me at my home as soon as you are able. I await word from you, though on second thought it would be best, for expediency’s sake if you left immediately. Enclosed is one train ticket.

Yours,
Augustus Heret Dunharrow






When Kruinh returned from Chicago, the house felt it. It was not that he had taken a long time. He had been gone for only a half hour. He sat in his rooms with Sunny and when Laurie came, knocked on his door and entered, Sunny said, “I will leave you two to talk.”
Laurie, brow furrowed watched the blond curly haired man leave, watched him shut the door behind him.
“What happened in Chicago?” Laurie asked? What could have gone so wrong?”
“As you know,” Kruinh said, offering a seat to Laurie, “as you heard from Evangeline’s own mouth, her clan was doing killings. They are done now, for her clan is done. But Lynn Draper is no more.”
“Lynn?” Laurie’s voice was lead.
“We can never know, for Evangeline was gone and from what Dan says it was not in her mind. Maybe it was not Evangeline, but a henchman of hers. Perhaps, discovering there was no longer a child she was not worth abducting. Evangeline had worked quite a bit for that plan.”
“And in her rage she killed Lynn,” Laurie said, his voice almost toneless.
“Yes.”
They were not mortal. Kruinh never had been. They were not of this age, either one. Small talks did not pass between them or half comforts.
“I wanted to kill her,” Laurie said, at last. “The anger rose in me every day. Almost blotting my happiness, even my happiness with Daniel. The things that ordinary men have, acceptance… modern outlooks… I don’t have. And all I could think of sometimes was revenge. And now she’s gone.”
Lawrence Malone shook his head, unable to understand his feelings.

MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a shocking surprise and reaction from Laurie! I feel very sorry for him. I know she is dead but Evangeline’s actions continue to have horrible consequences and I hate her. I look forward to more tomorrow! I hope you are having a nice night.

 

[ChrisGibson]

Oh, Evangeline!

 

[ChrisGibson]

T H R E E

REVELATIONS


This is the creation of the world, that the pain of division is as nothing, and the joy of dissolution all.

-The Book of the Law




























“We left that boy with Dan,” Lewis said as he stepped out of the shower in their suite in the Midland Hotel, towel wrapped about him, and sat on the edge of the bed.
“There wasn’t much else we could do,” Chris said, “And Dan is safe.”
“True, but, I felt like Levy should be with us. Seeing as I named him, and well…” Lewis shrugged.
“I killed his stepfather.”
“Yes,” Lewis said, “and spirited him off from his mother. And who knows what the hell she’ll do? Call the police? Put out a report.”
“Lewis, I don’t know exactly what you’re capable of. I honestly don’t” Chris said from were he sat on the large bed, nude—he never wore pajamas or anything like that, “But we’re more than capable of hiding a child from the authorities. We are more than capable of hiding anything from the authorities.”
“That may make school enrollment difficult,” Lewis said. “A boy ought to go to school.”
“I thought you said school was overrated.”
Lewis stood up, drying himself and placing the towel on the bed as he reached for the Vaseline, then the lotion, and began to open both and rub them into a mixture.
“Well, a boy should have the chance to be normal.”
“You always say normalcy is overrated too.”
Lewis began to massage his arm, and then Chris crawled over, and began to rub lotion and Vaseline in his own palms. As Chris began massaging his back, Lewis said, his eyes closed in enjoyment, “It is overrated and yet, he should have the chance to choose it or reject it.”
“If he stays with us,” Chris’s hands stopped on Lewis’s shoulders, “He’ll never have anything like a normal life, and I want him to stay with us. I know if he did our lives would change. We would have to get out of that apartment, or at least get a larger one, and you might not—”
“No, no,” Lewis said, “I was thinking the same thing. When we return from this, we can get back to the boy.”
“When we return from this?”
“You know,” Lewis said, turning around and gesturing for Chris to turn around so that he now began to oil his long white back, “going to visit Augustus.”
“You say it so lightly,” Chris said.
“Why shouldn’t I? At the end of the day I am the Master, not him, and though he is longed lived, I am many lived? Lifed?”
“But still, you said at first, not when we come back from a visit, but when we come back from this.”
“Christopher,” Lewis said, “what the hell are you getting at?”
“Just what you said, and not many days ago, for the first time, witches and vampires and drinkers are all together, people who knew so little of each other. Kruinh knows of Augustus, and apparently so did Pamela, and it seems to me that going to see Augustus will really only be the beginning.”
“See,” Lewis said, “I don’t think that this is the first time witches and vampires and werewolves have been together.”
“But even Kruinh doesn’t know of another time.”
“And even Kruinh doesn’t know everything.”
“And Seth?” Chris said.
“Yes.”
“Is he with that Jim guy?”
“I would guess that he is.”
“Then is he still with us?”
Often, Chris was infuriated by how hard Lewis was to read, and as Lewis answered: “I really couldn’t say,” this was one of those times.


























They talked all night. There had been lovemaking, but the talk lasted so long, was so deep, it eclipsed it.
They were awakened by a squawk.
“What the fuck is that?” Jim murmured.
Seth did not laugh as he watched Jim rising, and Jim blinked and cried, “My God!”
A Canada goose walked in from the living room, and was standing before them. It lifted its black bill and squawked importantly.
“How the fuck did that get into my apartment?”
“I’m afraid it’s my fault,” Seth said. He sat up in bed, and wrapping the covers about his waist so that, only for a moment, Jim saw the loveliness of his naked body.
Seth said, quite formally, “Yes, friend?”
Raising its wings so that Jim feared the bird might shit on his rug, and honking, hoarsely, the bird gave whatever report it had and then Seth said, calmly, “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
The bird gave another noise, which Jim fancied to be a sort of your welcome, and then, in a waddle, turned and left the bedroom.
“Do I need to….” Jim began. “let it out?”
“No, Jim,” Seth said, laying a hand on him. “They don’t like you to know how they get in or out. It’s a peculiarity of theirs.”
“Do you think he…?”
“Shit on your carpet? No. He wouldn’t do that. Geese do that outside because it’s outside. They wouldn’t do it in their home, and they certainly wouldn’t do it when visiting yours.”

Now Seth is dimly aware of what a pinhead and or nutjob he sounded like. It makes him laugh. He was so very serious about the whole thing, about a goose walking into Jim’s apartment, and Jim had been so blown away that he didn’t even ask what the goose had said.
“Does this happen… a lot?”
“Not a lot,” Seth said, shrugging.
“But it does happen. More with squirrels. Once with a groundhog. I do love groundhogs. They’re so… serious. But funny and cute all at the same time. I’m going to stop talking now. I sound sort of mad.”
“No,” Jim disagreed. Then he said, “Well, yes. But this whole thing is mad. It’s only that I never knew the world was like this.”
“How do you feel, knowing that it is?”
“I’m not entirely sure,” Jim confessed. “I think, though, that I like it.”
They got up and had breakfast and Jim said, “Let me take you to your family.”
“You want to see them?” Seth offered, and then he said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked that.”
“Of course I want to see them,” Jim said, squeezing his hand. “You’ve seen ours.”
“I just want them to see you,” Seth said, “and maybe you think that’s silly.”
“I don’t think anything you do is silly.” Jim said.
“I’d had a dream,” Seth said.
“That’s right. I remember. You were murmuring something about it when we were half asleep. Before…”
“The goose came.”
“Yes.”
“My father came to me.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes,” Seth said. “And… you don’t mind this, do you?”
“Mind what,?”
“Me talking about my father coming to me.”
“No. Hell, my uncle came to you. And I never really knew my father, and I don’t know what I’d do if my mother came. Did he ever come to you before?”
“Yes. I was twelve. I was living with my Uncle Owen. I went out one day to bring the trash cans in, and there was this man. I wasn’t sure at first. My father, my dad, Kyle, would be younger than me now. He stopped across the street. He didn’t come up to me, maybe he couldn’t. I don’t know, and he just pushed his hair out of his face, because he had dark hair like mine, but it was wavy like yours, a little longer. He was mostly white, you see. His grandfather had been Owen’s brother. Anyway. He looked at me, and he waved at me. He whispered, ‘I love you.’
“I was so happy I didn’t even feel like I wanted to cry. And then I told him I loved him too, and he kept walking. I went back inside and I told my uncle. As soon as I told him I thought he might tell me I was crazy. Or I was wrong.”
“He’s a witch, right?”
“Yes, but he’s not crazy. Anyway, I told Uncle Owen, and he was washing the dishes and he just sighed. Now, you’ve seen Lewis, and Owen is a lot like him, and Owen is kind, but not emotional, you know. But then he just began to cry. Tears ran down his face and he said, ‘I miss your father so much. I wish he had been able to come to me.’
“He told me, ‘Next time you see him, tell him I love him too.’
“It was really… you know, up until then I had known that I loved my father, and I understood that I had lost him, but I never understood that Owen had lost his nephew. I feel like that was the one gift of his first visit. Whenever Dad comes it’s not just to say hello.”
“Does your mom ever come?”
“No,” Seth said. “There was a time, a long time, when I couldn’t dream of them, when my dreams were filled with nightmares and Lewis had to come with me into my dreams to clear them.”
“That’s possible?”
“Not for everyone.”
“Maybe he could clear out my dreams.”
“He is a witch. He is the head of our Clan.”
“What is a clan, exactly?”
“The Clan,” Seth began, then said, “Well, that’s a whole other explanation. That’s a lot of explaining, I don’t even know if I understand it, myself. And right now, I just want to eat.”

MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

Great to read more of Chris and Lewis and Seth and Jim. Both are well matched couples and I enjoy spending time with them. Excellent writing and I look forward to more tomorrow.