The man gestured into the room. “Miss Douglas, if you will.”
I took a deep breath and walked into the room ahead of him. It was an office, with a heavy wooden desk and a plush executive chair behind it. There were two green-upholstered wingback chairs in front of it, and to the left was a globe showing a set of continents and countries that I had never seen, and I aced geography. On the right side of the desk stood a flag pole, and the same flag that had been on the tower hung in soft folds, the silver pentacle elegantly embroidered on the black silk background. There were three huge windows behind the desk that overlooked a formal garden that put every other garden I’d ever seen to shame. The walls were covered in bookcases, and there were stacks of books on the floor and on the desk, along with silver statuettes of birds and horses. The desk was neat but occupied with blotters and fountain pens, and there was a crystal ball on a stand that looked like three women with interlocking hands.
The man let me stand there and take in the sight, and then he closed the door, reminding me that he was there. He walked around to stand behind the desk, where he leaned his walking stick against the wood and sat down in the black leather chair. He gestured toward the seats before him.
“Please, sit. Would you like some tea or some water?”
I sat slowly, self-consciously feeling that I would dirty his fine furniture. “Yes, please. Water.”
He smiled and took a crystal decanter out of his desk. A crystal tumbler was overturned and sitting over the top of the decanter, and he put it on the blotter. He poured water into it as he spoke.
“You are no doubt in some form of shock, and I understand that the things you have experienced today will take some getting used to. I will be patient and will give you time to adjust, as much time as you need.”
He handed me the glass, and I took it in trembling hands. He smiled kindly.
“There’s no need to be afraid, Miss Douglas. You are finally among friends.”
I drank, and the water was cool and crisp, with a little sweetness. It was the best water I had ever tasted. There wasn’t the least hint of the swamp to it, and unlike the tap water in Harmonville, there was no slick on the top. I drained the whole glass, and he sat and smiled the whole time.
“You look like Santa Claus,” I blurted.
The man chuckled. “I will take that as a compliment.”
He refilled my glass, and then he sat back with his hands folded before him. I gulped that water down, too. With every swallow, it seemed like my nerves were settling a little more, my mind whirling a little less. I wondered if he’d put something in the water to sedate me so I could get out of my shocked bewilderment.
“There is no drug in the water, I assure you,” he said.
“Did you just read my mind?”
“No, but you’re not the first young person to worry that way. The water is imbued with healing properties, and it does, in fact, have a calming effect on the nerves.” He held up the decanter, which looked no more empty than when he’d first brought it out. “Would you like more?”
“Yes, please.”
He chuckled and filled my glass for the third time. When I’d finished that glass, too, I was calmer and my head felt clear. I also noticed by its absence that the hungry ache in my stomach was gone as well. Funny how you get so used to something that you don’t even realize it’s there anymore.
“My name is Nicholas Allenby, and I am the headmaster here at Acadamh Draiochta.”
“What language is that?”
“Irish.” He smiled. “Ireland was the last refuge of European magic when the forces of Christendom pursued their policy of subjugation. You have seen the same enemy at work here in Harmonville.”
I nodded. “Reverend Tompkins.”
“Exactly. He and his kind have pursued us for centuries, and it is their stated desire to see us eradicated and all magic removed from the world. No doubt you’ve heard him preaching his hate from the pulpit in his church.”
I nodded again. Every Sunday, Reverend Tompkins warns the congregation about the evils of witchcraft and about how there are witches everywhere, just watching and waiting to cause the downfall of the good Christian men and women of Harmonville. I always thought he was a complete kook, but now that it seemed like the ravens in town were really witches from this school, he was starting to make a lot of sense.
“Are you evil?” I asked.
“Define evil,” he responded.
I felt a chill.
“If evil means wishing ill on people, plants, and animals, then, no, we are most definitely not evil. If evil means not worshipping the way the Tompkins of the world want us to, and if evil means having the power to work with nature instead of being afraid of it, then yes, I suppose we are.”
“Those things aren’t evil.”
“I’m glad you think so. Men like Tompkins have been reared to believe that anything natural must be controlled and exploited. That anyone who works in concert with the natural world is either a fool to be mocked or a danger to be destroyed. Look around you at the world outside. The deforestation, the mad pursuit of fossil fuels, the burning, the toxins, the waste… what is the creed of the men of power and privilege who benefit from these things?”
I thought about the industrialists, politicians, business leaders, and other bigwigs who profited from the destruction of the world. “They’re Christian.”
“Are they, though? Really? Is it a loving Christ that they follow? Or do they worship the almighty dollar?” He shook his head sadly. “I fear that they are as Christian as I am. In truth, the true faith of the Nazarene calls the faithful to be stewards of the land, not the plunderers of it. They have lost their way. They have become dangerous and they’ve forgotten that witchcraft and Christian piety are not so far estranged. Did not their own Savior calm the seas with a word? Didn’t their St. Francis speak to animals? Doesn’t their own book of Ecclesiasticus, at verse 38:4, state, ‘the Lord hath created medicines out of the earth, and he that is wise will not abhor them’?”
I felt like he was conducting an argument with someone else and that maybe I should be leaving. “But… Is that all witchcraft is? Talking to animals and calming seas and making medicines out of herbs?”
“Witchcraft is working with nature and your own will and creating something new.”
“It’s not eating babies, or flying on brooms and selling your soul to Satan?”
“On the first, certainly not. On the second, flying on brooms is an option, but we prefer to take the shape of ravens for our flight needs. On the third, we sell our souls to nobody, not even to our gods.”
My palms were sweating. “I only know of one God.”
“There are many gods and goddesses in service to the One. But forgive me. I teach philosophy and multicultural dialectics and it colors my discourse. Let’s start over.” He poured himself some tea - and I had no idea where the tea service came from. I hadn’t seen it on his desk before, and then it was just there, and he was pouring tea into two cups. He handed me one of them. “Sugar? Milk?”
I declined, and he poured the milk into his cup, adding a sugar cube as well.
“My mother would be horrified at the way I drink my tea. She always advocated for strong tea, unaltered. I like things to be a little sweeter. Sweetness makes many things more tolerable, don’t you agree?”
“I suppose.”
The tea smelled green and flowery, and when I sipped it, I felt more than tasted daisies and clover and sunny summer days. The fear that had been building in me faded away, and then it was just me and this kindly older man sitting in a book-filled room, normal as can be.
“This is another sedative.”
“It has a calming effect, yes. I find that I need it sometimes, myself, especially when I get caught up in my own thoughts. A busy brain needs a restful silence.”
We drank our tea quietly. Outside the window, a trio of ravens flew past, and I heard their cawing. The wind blew the fluffy clouds across the blue
sky, and everything seemed peaceful and innocent.
He was waiting for me to speak, and I wrestled to get my thoughts in order so I could ask questions that weren’t completely stupid. I cared intensely about what this man thought of me, so much that I was afraid to look or sound foolish or uneducated. It kept me bound up in anxiety so I remained silent.
“You have questions,” Mr. Allenby finally said, his voice soft. “You can ask me anything, and I will answer to the best of my ability.”
“Are you a witch?”
The question was so abrupt and rude that it startled me, and I was afraid that he might take offense. Instead, he smiled. “Yes, I am. As are we all, except for the three who brought you here.”
“Adziel, Ipfimel, and Setmon.”
“Yes.”
“If they’re not witches, then what are they?”
He smiled. “They are angels.”
I almost dropped my cup. “Angels? Like, from God’s heaven?”
“Indeed.” He smiled. “The one we serve is the same God you pray to in your churches, and he has found it in his best interest to help us in our quest.”
“What quest?”
“I will answer that, but not yet. Too complicated to dive into right away.”
I took a deep breath. “Fine… So, you’re a witch, but you serve God, and he sends his angels to help you.”
“Precisely.”
“Why did… they said that I was chosen.”
“Indeed you are.”
“Chosen to be a student here?”
“Precisely,” he said again, this time with a little nod.
My instincts niggled at me. “But… that’s not all I’ve been chosen for.”
Mr. Allenby smiled. “No, indeed.” He put his cup aside and folded his hands to smile at me again with that guileless look. “Tell me, Maysie. If God exists and takes an active hand, what does that mean?”
I was at a loss. “I don’t know.”
“God loves this world and all the people and the creatures in it. He spent his energy to create us all, and he’s guided all of us into existence exactly as we are. Man and woman, gay and straight… mundane and witch.”
“Good and evil?”
“Evil was not created by the one we serve.” He looked sad. “The one we serve created free will, and it was from that will that evil took shape. The fallen one exists, and so do his minions, creatures of the one who have chosen to live in rebellion. And sometimes they wear friends’ faces, and the devil can quote scripture, too.”
I squinted at him and put the cup down on the desk. “Like Reverend Tompkins? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Maysie, the one we serve would never want to see any of his children oppressed. It is not his law that says love everyone, but only if they look like you. It is not his law that encouraged and supported the Burning Times.”
I was unfamiliar with the term, but it still made the small hairs on my neck stand on end. “The Burning Times?”
“A horrible time when Christian priests and preachers convinced the authorities to murder witches. For five hundred years, they persecuted our kind, chasing us from one end of Europe to the other, capturing us, torturing us, killing us... “ He looked away, but not before I saw bald pain in his pale blue eyes. “The smoke from the stakes lasted for years, and when it was over, a million souls had been destroyed in pain and terror.”
I shuddered. “That’s horrible.”
“It was. It was like the end of the world.” He looked back at me, and he had mastered his emotions. The pain no longer showed on his face, but his eyes were still clouded. “The magical creatures ran from those who would do them harm. The angels, the shapeshifters, the magical animals, the witches. We fled to the New World, but we weren’t safe here, either. The forces of the enemy continue to harass and pursue us, and so we have learned to create havens, special pocket dimensions carefully sewn into the fabric of the real world.”
“Pocket dimensions?” I asked. “I don’t understand. There are only three dimensions, aren’t there? Height, width and depth.”
“There are actually ten dimensions known to physics. The fourth dimension is time, the fifth is the ability to travel through time, and the rest are possibilities and probabilities regarding what is, was and could be at any point in any plane at any time… everything that you could imagine really does exist in these dimensions, and through magic - the eleventh dimension, if you will - we are able to create miniature universes that we can travel to through manipulation of the dimensions.”
My brain literally felt like it was going to spin out of my skull like a fat kid on a Tilt-A-Whirl. I put my hands on my head. “I don’t understand.”
“Theoretical magic is a fourth-year class. Don’t worry if you don’t understand the mechanics. Just know that all things are possible.”
He silently offered me more water, but I shook my head. I didn’t need to be calmed down. I needed to understand.
“So this school is in a different dimension?”
“Exactly. The entrance point is through the ruined gate at the old Harmon plantation - which does in fact exist. If you were to climb the fence instead of using the key, you would find only what you expected to find: the ruins of houses and the evidence of one couple’s depraved cruelty to their fellow men.”
A flash of panic lanced through me. “The gate! I -”
“Setmon has closed it. He and his brothers are the gatekeepers.”
That made a certain sense to me. “The angels guard the entrances to other dimensions?”
“Some of them. Some are guarded by demons, and others by nature spirits. It depends upon who created those other dimensions, and where they lead.” Mr. Allenby sat back, his hands settling on the arms of his chair. “Miss Douglas, I have so much that I can teach you. Our staff would be honored if you would join us here and let us bring you into the fullness of your power.”
“But I’m not a witch. You’ve made a mistake,” I disagreed. “I’m just… me.”
Mr. Allenby smiled. “There is nothing ‘just’ about you, Miss Douglas. You have natural abilities that you haven’t even begun to explore, and you’ve been recognized by the others in our community.”
“Others?”
“You know them as Mrs. Washington and Mr. Burney.”
I frowned, remembering my former neighbor. “Mr. Burney? The one who killed himself?”
“Did he?” I looked up into Mr. Allenby’s face, and he raised one neat white eyebrow. “Are you so certain? It’s very difficult to shoot oneself in the chest with a pistol, especially when that pistol was fifteen feet away.”
A suspicion I hadn’t even realized I was forming fell free in spoken words. “Reverend Tompkins?”
He nodded. “Or Jeremiah, or Billy Collins, or one of his other brutes. But yes. That was no suicide. Tompkins ordered the execution of a witch, and it was done.”
It made sense to me. Mr. Burney had never been secretive about warding his property with his goofer dust. The fertilizer that Mrs. Washington had sent for our garden, which had to be applied by the light of the full moon, was so obviously witchcraft now that I wondered why I hadn’t called it for what it was before.
“Is my mom a witch?”
“She is. But she’s too afraid and too wounded now.”
He didn’t say it, but I knew that the wounds he spoke of had been put there by my father. Patrick Douglas was a drinker, a womanizer, and an automobile mechanic who always smelled of oil and cigarettes. He was angry all the time and blamed my mother for all his misfortunes, even though he was usually more volunteer than victim. We’d left him in the middle of the night, his beer still stinking up the house, my mother’s nose still broken and bleeding. I didn’t miss him.
“He knew she was a witch?”
Mr. Allenby nodded. “He did. It was part of what soured him against her. He once loved your mother, but love can turn to hate with the right provocation.”
“If she’s a witc
h, why don’t you ask her to come here? Can’t she move here, where she’d be safer?”
He looked at me for a moment, choosing his words carefully. “Your mother no longer has enough contact with her true nature to hear us when we call to her. It would be impossible for her to come through the gate at this point. Nevertheless, she is still a part of our community, and we will care for her and protect her to the best of our ability. Mrs. Washington has been tasked with looking after her.”
“Thank you. My mom needs friends.”
“We’ve seen. And we will be her friends, I promise you. Adziel and his brothers will continue to provide her with gifts in exchange for kindness.”
The thought of angels scrounging for scraps of shredded chicken was suddenly so ridiculous that I almost laughed out loud. Whoever would have known? And when my mom started calling them angels, I wondered if she maybe knew more than she realized.
Mr. Allenby said, “You have been chosen for more than tutelage, Miss Douglas. We need to have eyes and ears in the outside world. If we stay here in our protected bubble, we will never know when threats are approaching. Mr. Burney was one of those watchers for us, and we would like you to take his place.”
I sat back and clutched the arms of my chair, starting to feel overwhelmed again. “Okay. Let me get this straight. You want to teach me to be a witch…”
“You’re already a witch. We want to teach you how to access and use your powers.” He inclined his head. “Sorry for interrupting. Please continue”
“You want to teach me how to be a witch,” I amended, “and you also want me to be a spy?”
“Yes. Precisely. Also…”
“Oh, there’s more? Terrific.”
He smiled apologetically. “We look after our own, and our Mr. Burney was murdered in cold blood. We need someone with standing in the outside world to help bring proof of his murder to the authorities.”
Draiochta Academy: All Genres Academy Anthology Page 9