Bewitched

by Mark Jay Harris

  “I was enjoying that,” Samantha complained, her eyes still closed.

  “Yeah, it was fantastic,” Darren spluttered.

  “I take it he’s clean?”

  Darren turned to the hallway off the kitchen to see the beautiful Jamaican girl, Serena, enter the room.

  “I knew he would be. I could tell.” Samantha beamed.

  Darren turned back to Samantha. “What’s going on? What are you talking about?”

  Samantha smiled at him, then took his face in her hands and pecked him on the lips.

  “Looks like you were right,” Mike explained.

  Darren wheeled around, totally stunned to find Mike following Serena into the kitchen. “Mike!” He jumped off the stool. “What’s going on? Am I being punked?”

  “Oh, I wish,” Mike replied.

  “I don’t understand. I seriously don’t understand what’s happening! What is going on?”

  Samantha gestured toward his stool. “Sit back down, please, Darren.”

  Darren stared at her, but something in her expression made him relax. Slowly, he took his seat. Mike joined him on the opposite side of the kitchen island, accompanied by Serena who sat next to him.

  Samantha took Darren’s arm and turned him so he faced her. “I am a witch, which I’m sure you’ve already figured out. The reason I couldn’t tell you is because up until just a few seconds ago, I wasn’t sure you hadn’t been bewitched. A witch can detect a bewitchment by an intimate touch with a willing participant. When I kissed you, didn’t you feel something?”

  “Yeah, but I thought that was just—so that’s what it was? Magic?”

  “Same thing happened to me,” Mike replied. “For a magic spell, it’s not so bad.”

  “In any case, I couldn’t tell you anything until I confirmed you weren’t bewitched, otherwise you might be reporting back to someone, telling them who I am, and I couldn’t have that.”

  Darren turned to Mike. “You didn’t tell them?”

  “And ruin all the fun? You’d have never forgiven me.”

  “What are you talking about?” Samantha asked.

  “My grandfather already tested me. I’m no longer bewitched.”

  “No longer bewitched? Meaning you had been bewitched?”

  “Yes, but I thought you had done it.”

  “I never put a bewitchment on you.” Samantha glared across the island at Serena.

  “I didn’t bewitch anybody!” Serena retorted.

  Puzzled, Darren glanced at the beautiful black girl. Mike, anticipating the coming question, answered it. “She’s not Jamaican. All part of their master plan to rope us in and kiss us.”

  Darren shook his head. “If it wasn’t Samantha, and it wasn’t Serena, then who bewitched me?”

  “I don’t know,” Samantha admitted. “But it confirms something we suspected. There are other witches here in the Valley of Hidden Skins.”

  “Wait,” Mike broke in. “I’m behind the curve. What is this Valley of Hidden Skins?”

  “It’s an expression the demon used,” Darren replied. “I spied on you the other day. I saw that...what do you call it?”

  “A viewing from a witness stone,” Samantha explained. “Witches call up demons to inquire about the future. When their viewing is completed, a witness stone is formed. What you saw yesterday through the window was the viewing stone’s reenactment.”

  “You knew I was spying on you?”

  “Not at first, but we found out later.” She looked across at Serena. “Grimalkin told us. Let me introduce you to my familiar.” She indicated the beautiful dark-colored girl sitting next to Mike.

  “What’s a familiar?”

  “She’s like her side-kick,” Mike replied. “I’ve already been told some of this. I can’t believe you were right about everything, Darren. Sorry I gave you such a bad time.”

  “As my familiar, Grimalkin does my bidding. She can come and go through the Appensus at will and use magic if I allow her to.”

  “Which she does,” Serena said, smiling at her witch.

  “Okay, so how did, Serena, or Grimalkin, know I was at the window?”

  Samantha looked across the island at her familiar. “You better show him.”

  “This is totally going to freak you out, Dare!” Mike jumped up from his stool and backed up.

  “I told you the spell won’t affect you,” Serena said.

  “I just don’t want to get caught in any up-stream magic current that might be around you.” Mike moved up against the far wall.

  “Show him Serena,” Samantha instructed.

  Serena nodded and put her hands on the edge of the island as if she were preparing to launch herself at Darren, when suddenly a black cat jumped up on the island and stood in front of him. He jumped back, startled, before realizing that in the blink of an eye, Serena had changed into the cat Samantha had shooed from the room moments before.

  “You’re...You’re the cat. The cat that was just in the room. And from yesterday that jumped in the window.” He held out his arm and added, “And gave me these.” The cat licked his scratches with her rough pink tongue.

  Samantha picked up the cat and stroked it between the ears. “Serena’s natural form is that of a cat. That is when she becomes Grimalkin. She’s been with me since I was a baby. Shortly after a witch is born, a familiar arrives. There are legends about the origins of familiars, but all I know is they locate their witch shortly after her birth. Grimalkin was a little kitten when she was drawn to my cradle.” She caressed the cat, running her hand down its long slender back until it began to purr.

  “They aren’t always cats,” Samantha continued. “Although, I know that seems to be the stereotype. But honestly, it just worked out that way in our case. My aunt’s familiar is a raven, Saba.” She indicated the large bird, silently sleeping on its perch at the top of the kitchen cabinets. “He’s very old and never takes human form anymore.

  “In any case, Grimalkin told us about your being outside the window and that helped us solve a mystery that has been bothering us for years. And I’m sure we’re the first witches to figure it out since that part of the prophecy was just fulfilled yesterday.”

  “The Warder at the window,” Darren said hollowly.

  “Correct,” Samantha replied. “Although I believe the term you use is Pessum Ire. In any case, perhaps it would be helpful if I gave you some background as to how we ended up here in Cache Valley. It should help you understand a lot of things.

  “Four years ago, my aunt and I escaped from my mother and the Central Coven. We knew we couldn’t stay in any one place for long because they would send condign or neccray for us—dark magical creatures that can detect the use of magic. We moved from place to place, me pretending to be a student, and my aunt a shut-in. At first we were happy to survive and not be caught. Later, as we began to feel safer, we took a closer look at the objects we’d stolen from the coven, which included the witness stone you saw. With that, along with additional information we received, we formulated a plan. Aunt Clara knew the Grimoire of Moloch was a powerful spell book, one she feared if the Central Coven were to ever recover would make them so powerful they could basically take over the world and enslave mankind. We knew we had to get the Grimoire before the coven, so we set to work to locate the Valley of Hidden Skins. Aunt Clara has dozens of old tomes of ancient lore and the study and history of thaumaturgy.”

  The shared look of confusion by the two boys caused her to stop.

  “Thaumaturgy is witchcraft, magic,” she explained. “But Aunt Clara could find nothing referred to as the Valley of Hidden Skins. You’ve got to understand, demons speak the way they speak; they don’t know any other way, so what they tell us, quite often, sounds like a riddle. Amazingly, after consulting all my aunt’s books, and other sources, it was the Internet that led us to the answer.

  “I broke down the term into individual words. Valley was easy enough, and we assumed there was no secret meaning to it, so we were loo
king for a valley. I spent two days at a Denver public library using an online thesaurus to look up other words for hidden and skins. Skins of course kicked out dermis, epidermis, fur, hide, membrane, parchment, and pelt. At first, I pursued ‘parchment’ because a parchment could have been made of cured skins and contained spells or an ancient record. But I came up with nothing. There was no Valley of Hidden Parchments or Valley of the Vellum Records. By the second day, I decided to go after the terms ‘hide’ and ‘pelt.’ I had also begun incorporating some of the synonyms for ‘hidden.’ That’s when I hit pay dirt. The French word cacher means to hide. I immediately found that there is only one ‘Cache Valley’ in the entire United States, and that’s in northern Utah. I looked it up and found Cache Valley derived its name—”

  “From trappers who hid their pelts and furs in the valley,” Mike said. Everyone, including the cat turned to him in surprise. “What? I know stuff.”

  Samantha took her place next to Darren and set Grimalkin back on the island. “Mike is correct. This valley was used to cache the trappers’ pelts when they went trading in other areas. It is also the valley in which Moloch hid his Grimoire four thousand years ago.”

  “About that prophecy thing I saw,” Darren inquired, “why am I in it, there at the end? Seeing as I happen to be this warder at the window?”

  “Yes,” Samantha admitted reluctantly.

  Darren jerked in surprise when suddenly Serena was stretched out on the island, looking directly at him. “And just how often do you peek through other people’s windows?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Samantha said. “But the fact that you’re the Warder at the window is very important. More important than you can possibly imagine.”

  “And while we’re at it, who is this Ghohol person I’m supposed to face?”

  “Don’t speak that name!” Serena hissed as she slid off the island and back into her seat.

  “It doesn’t matter, Serena. Aunt Clara finished the blanket spell; nothing can be heard outside this house.”

  “I don’t know, Samantha. The Warder heard everything from outside the window. How can that be?”

  “I wondered about that, too, but I think I figured it out.” She turned toward Darren. “Were you at the window before my aunt finished the blanket spell?”

  “Blanket spell?”

  “The spell she was performing with the cauldron.”

  “Oh, yeah. I saw you give her something you didn’t like the smell of.”

  “Well, there you go,” Samantha said. “He was caught inside the spell because he was just outside the window when she finished it.”

  Serena huffed.

  “Let me finish what I was talking about,” Samantha said. “If something is maintained by magic we can find its location by using a Disonium. It’s a fork shaped object that amplifies magic and detects its source. It works sort of like a GPS device. Shortly after arriving in Cache Valley, we used the Disonium and located where Moloch hid the Grimoire. Legend says he created a vast cavern, and inside that cavern he placed the Grimoire. Well, the Disonium led us directly to Sky View High School.”

  “The high school?” Darren and Mike sounded like a two-note chord.

  Samantha nodded. “I came to the high school under a blind-man’s spell, curious about the building that was hiding so much magic. I was as surprised to find that you could see me as you were to see a transparent witch floating in the gymnasium. You have no idea how intrigued I was to find that a Warder existed right here, so close to the location of the Grimoire.”

  “You made the ball bounce out! We won because of you.”

  “Well, I figured it was my fault you hadn’t won the game sooner, so I sort of owed you.” Samantha shook her head. “There is so much to tell you about, and we’re not going through this in any kind of order. Let me tell you what I know already about you. First of all, I know your grandfather is a Warder, and not just any Warder, but Atavus.”

  “You’ve heard of him?” Darren asked.

  “Oh, yes. He’s a legend in the world of witches. He disappeared about fifty years ago, and all sorts of rumors spread that he’d finally been killed. But no one claimed to have killed him or seen him buried. Finally, word spread that he had been exposed to Witches’ Powder about forty years ago.”

  Mike pulled his eyes away from Serena. “You are going to tell us what that is, aren’t you?”

  “It’s made from Tambour roots. They don’t grow anymore, but some of the powder still exists. It’s extremely lethal. When enough is inhaled, it desiccates the air sacs in the lungs on contact. Atavus rushed into a building to save some people, but they were already dead; the Witches’ Powder had killed them on contact. Particles of the powder must have still been in the room, and he inhaled them. Most witches believe the exposure killed him instantly, the rest think it killed him slowly over time. But of course, as you know, he’s still alive.”

  “Just barely,” Darren added. “Do you know any magic that can cure him?”

  Samantha looked sadly back at him and shook her head. “I’m sorry. Over the years, spells have been lost, and our powers have diminished from what they were originally. Healing was never important among witches, so those spells were the first to be lost to the ages. There was a time when such spells existed, but not anymore I’m afraid.”

  “Atavus thinks I should kill you,” Darren admitted bleakly.

  Samantha and Serena shared a look.

  “That’s not surprising,” Samantha explained. “He’s been killing witches for over two hundred years.”

  “I don’t get it,” Darren said. “You two, and your aunt, you don’t seem like witches—not wicked witches anyway. But your mother, on the other hand, is right out of a Grimm’s fairytale.”

  “Yes,” Samantha agreed. “Wait, I want to go back to what you were saying earlier. You said Atavus could tell if you were bewitched and was able to remove the bewitchment?”

  “Yeah, he used this knife and some powder that not only removed the bewitchment but made me immune to that kind of bewitchment for at least a month.”

  “Where did he get these things?” Samantha asked.

  “Some Warlock named Stybyx.”

  “Stybyx?” Samantha and Serena said in unison.

  “My your grandfather got around in his time.” Samantha had a look of admiration on her face. “Stybyx was a nasty piece of work, but a very powerful warlock. He was supposedly from a line of warlocks that had retained hundreds of old spells from the time before the Great Deluge.”

  “You mean the flood with Noah and the ark?” Mike asked.

  Serena turned to him. “It was before the flood that witches and warlocks used great power to deceive mankind. There were horrible wars before the Great Deluge. No current wars have even come close to the antediluvian wars. Since that time, the power and spells of Baal have been fragmented and lost. That is why the Grimoire of Moloch is so important. It could return those spells and power to the witches.”

  “Let me explain,” Samantha said. “Five hundred years following the Great Deluge, witches and warlocks used powerful magic to control the minds of humans. They had almost uncovered the spell Baal wanted to use on all of humanity to drive them to hell with no hope of redemption. But a great prophet rose up and broke the pieces of Baal’s great spell into fragments, which he scattered across the earth. One of those fragments is with the Grimoire of Moloch hidden in this valley. Then he raised up a race of warriors and gave them power to kill witches. These great Warders fell upon the hordes of witches in huge numbers during the time of the Great Uprising, and they killed most of the witches and drove the rest into the Appensus.

  “Wait a second, you guys are spilling a lot of information too fast for me,” Mike admitted. “Grimoires, Stybyxes, antediluvians, and now Appensus. What’s that?”

  Serena picked up the explanation. “The Appensus is the witches’ plane, a dreary netherworld that exists alongside this one. Familiars, like myself, can travel there an
d back again. It is one way we come and go in aiding our witches. Witches themselves cannot leave the Appensus without their familiars.”

  “Oh,” Mike said. “Sounds like a real rockin’ place.”

  “Witches don’t like the Appensus. It is their refuge of last resort. It is the only place they can be truly safe from Warders. But in truth, it feels like a prison to them.”

  Samantha broke back in. “It was during this time that spells and enchantments were lost in the world of witches. There was a powerful sorcerer who had separated himself from the covens on the earth in those days. Legend says he received a prophecy from a demon who told him it was his destiny to gather all the spells and incantations and record them into a single book. There were letters and histories, too, that he was to combine into this volume. Some think he was the darkest wizard that ever lived; some say he spoke with a prophet named Enoch who turned his soul away from Baal. In either case, the Grimoire of Moloch has been the thing of legends and superstitions as well as strong belief, even faith. It’s supposed to come forth one day and be released into the hands of whoever finds it—good or evil. And the future of mankind and witches will finally be determined once and for all.”

  They were quiet for a moment contemplating this. At length Darren asked, “Let me see if I’ve got this straight. You have an interest in me because of my connection to witches and warlocks as a Pessum Ire, or what you call a Warder, but why have you dragged Mike into all of this?”

  “Ah, that is a good question,” Samantha replied.

  “Yes, it is!” Mike echoed.

  “Although, I must say, I would have thought Atavus had already explained this to you. Mike is your Guardian.”

  “His what?” Mike asked.

  “Your job is to fight to the death to protect your Warder,” Serena explained. “But don’t worry; you have the power of the Guardian.”

  “That’s right,” Samantha explained. “As Darren’s Guardian, you have power and reflexes beyond that of mortal men, as long as you are fighting for your Warder. Many witches have been killed or thwarted by a Warder Guardian.”