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  How do I describe the emotion I felt toward Magda? Looking at her through a veil of tears, I watched as she extinguished the incense and purple candles, the herbs. She redonned her scarlet robe. I do not recall so much as a physical tremor as, in pulling on the robe, she momentarily revealed the voluptuousness of her body. I was beyond mere sensation, suffused, instead, with such loving gratitude that I began to cry. Helplessly, joyfully. “Thank you,” I managed to say before my voice was lost beneath a torrent of sobs.

  “Oh, my dear,” she murmured, coming over to where I was sitting. I did my best to stand and meet her, but my legs were simply not up to it. Not because of pain but because impassioned gratitude had taken all the starch out of every part of me except—I can use only the one word—my heart.

  Magda caught me falling and held me up. I wrapped both arms around her, clutching at her soft warmth. “Thank you, thank you,” I was able to repeat before uncontrollable weeping beset me again.

  “My darling, I’m so glad,” she murmured, kissing my cheeks and, once, my lips. I made nothing of that, so emotionally bound that only grateful love was in charge.

  Then she laughed. She actually laughed. “Is that enough magic for you?” she asked.

  I laughed, too, through the tears.

  * * *

  Life with Magda continued harmoniously after my healing. I transferred my belongings from the Nazi bunker (I’ve explained that) and moved them to her house. We became good friends, prior to somewhat other.

  I remember one of the early evenings after I became her houseguest. (I didn’t know, then, that in her eyes I was considerably more.) We were having dinner in her kitchen. She had made—she was a superlative cook—a delicious stew, chunks of tender beef, gravy immersed with vegetables including carrots, onions, zucchini, turnips, and the like. Small red potatoes also. She had a garden behind the house where grew (most successfully) all these items. If there were any bugs or other vermin to be dealt with, she was not required to deal with them. Some kind of protective “armor” to prevent such incursion? I never knew, but I suspected. Wicca had to be valuable for something in excess of religion. (An unkind remark. Scratch it.)

  At any rate, dinner in her kitchen. And pleasant conversation. At one point of which I made the innocent suggestion that perhaps my healing was, at least partially, due to me, my mind in a state of hypnosis. I didn’t even know the word I used in place of it. I knew nada about Freud’s activities.

  Anyway, however I expressed it, Magda didn’t care for it at all. At first, her features hardened, chilling me. Then her customary expression of kind affection returned, and she said, patient as always, “No, Alex, that’s not true. It had nothing to do with you. The ritual summoned outside forces. Without that summons being responded to, nothing would or could have taken place.”

  Immediately, I expressed apology. Whatever had taken place—and I accepted every word of her explanation—to me, it was a total miracle. I mentioned the long walk along the path we’d taken that afternoon. There hadn’t been so much as a hint of pain in my hip and leg. “Forgive me, please forgive me. I wasn’t trying to take credit for my healing. I was talking out of turn,” is what I said.

  Magda reached across the table and took my hand in hers. She understood completely. All she meant to convey to me was the truth that, as humans, we had no individual control of our welfare. If we needed help, it was available—from external powers. Wicca knew this, respected it, and utilized it as needed. “Remember that, Alex,” she said. “Keep it in your mind always.”

  “I will,” I promised. I had no idea how wrong she was. Well, not exactly wrong. Say, rather, limited. But I was not to learn that for some time.

  * * *

  We became lovers soon after. If I do not exceed myself, to describe my teenage bedroom abilities (crude at best) as worthy of the word “lover.” Magda, yes. She excelled at every aspect of the word. How she endured my clumsy—but honest, I protest—approach to lovemaking, I have no idea. She never found fault with it, God bless her. There was little but love in her lovemaking. Whatever negative responses she must have had (remember, I am eighty-two now and see with clearer, at least mental, eyes), she never voiced discouragement in my undeveloped (though, understandably youthful) crudity at bedroom tactics.

  It began like this. I had just bathed and was headed for my (Edward’s) bedroom, when Magda came out of her library. Her smile of greeting was, as always, warmly welcoming, as though she hadn’t seen me for a day or so. “Are you all clean now?” she asked.

  “As much as possible,” I said, returning her smile.

  “Good,” she said. She moved toward me.

  Now, I will admit that, more than once, I had admired (a polite word for “stared at”) her figure. Numerous times when she leaned over (a table, a chair, me) I’d regarded her outstanding cleavage with more than casual appraisal. Once, my groin had reacted so equally outstandingly that I had to try hiding the obvious protuberance, although I knew full well that she noticed it.

  I remember thinking that the room—the main one—had suddenly grown overheated, affecting, mostly, my cheeks. I also remember trying to initiate some pointless conversation regarding turnips—or potatoes—or some equally absurd growth, which she kindly responded to, although I know she understood what I was seeking to obscure—the obviously thrusting bulge in my trousers.

  On this occasion, unlike others of similar proximity, she didn’t stop but kept approaching until she’d reached me and pressed herself against me. I started as she drew the towel from my body and dropped it on the floor. “I think we’ve waited long enough,” she murmured. What had it been, a week, two weeks? It no longer mattered. Her lips were engaged with mine, so soft and warm, they turned my flesh to fire. I gained in rigid size with amazing (I thought) speed. I felt her warm, strong fingers wrap around it, tightly. I couldn’t help it. I groaned with excited desire, reached up both hands, and grasped her breasts. Had they also swelled in size? I had no idea, but the fantasy I’d yielded to for some time now came true. Amazingly, her lips continuing to caress mine, somehow she’d opened up her dress and both her breasts were in my hands, their nipples as large as I’d imagined them to be, as rigid as me.

  How much further can I go on? Despite my elderly, less than working-order condition, the recounting of that afternoon’s enterprise, shall I call it, has even stirred a far-off echo in my trousers that, testosterone deprived, I am hard-put (wrong words) hesitant to acknowledge much less conform to; God forbid, the consequences doubtless would be inconsequential if not humiliating.

  At any rate, she finished kissing me and led me to her bedroom (that incredible bedroom) by hand, now gripping mine and not my nether region—which, unaided by her, did not abate rigidity for a second. What am I saying? Of course it was aided by her, by her very presence, which became entirely present by the second as she removed all her clothing. By the illumination of the one candle she wick-flamed into light, I saw, not through the veiling of the gown she’d worn during the healing ritual, her beautiful body. Which she used to draw me down onto her amazing bed and in several moments, guided my member deep inside her body. Into which, in a very brief time—seconds, I expect—I cannon-shot the full volume of my boyhood juices. I hoped—in vain, it turned out—that Magda experienced some measure of the vivid ecstasy I’d felt. Not so, I soon discovered. Still, after I’d achieved my virtually instantaneous gratification, she smiled and kissed me tenderly. “I’m glad we did it,” she whispered in my ear. “We’ll do it again.”

  And do it again we did—repeatedly, night and day. On her bed, then, later, on the main room sofa (or whatever it was called), even in the kitchen, me spread open on the voluminous chair, Magda straddling me, her lovely face contorted by what I must call lust, her breasts in my face. “My darling,” she repeated again and again, pulling back my head to kiss me with passionate ardor. What teenage boy ever had it so good? I thought. I didn’t know.

  The number of times we made love s
eems countless. Magda seemed insatiable. If that’s what Wicca did, I decided at first, bully and good show!—as the Brits say. Sex became a habit. In Magda’s case, I would say, rather, an addiction. As insane as it sounds, after a while I became worn out and even inured it. At eighteen? I seemed to be taking on the demeanor of the old coot I’ve become. Why I didn’t know—when I considered the problem at all, which wasn’t much. I know now. Or at least, I believe I know. It wasn’t that I was inured, wasn’t physical fatigue.

  It was fear.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Fear is a strange, insidious phenomenon. Especially when there seems to be no reason for it.

  Take my case. Why was that rat crouched in my stomach, gnawing on my innards? I kept visualizing the trench rats chewing—with great relish—the eyeballs and livers of dead soldiers. Why should that grisly image keep recurring to me? But it did, day by day, worse by night when I was trying to sleep—either by myself in Edward’s room or in bed with Magda, our nude bodies pressed together. I simply could not rid myself of the terrible vision. I actually felt teeth nibbling on my stomach, cold ones. I did my best to will the images away. In vain. I even allowed myself—my belief system affected by my forced acceptance of the Middle Kingdom as a frightening reality—that Edward’s spirit, resenting my presence in his room (in his house) was haunting me. I seriously considered asking Magda to perform some kind of exorcism ritual to compel Edward to leave me be. I realized then that the request would offend—and, more likely, hurt Magda, since it was so obvious, by everything she said, not too often but often enough, that she still grieved for her lost son. How deeply she grieved for him became—alarmingly—evident one night when we were in the throes of physical arousal and Magda whispered, frenziedly it seemed to me, “Fuck Mama! Fuck her!” In that moment it, somehow, excited me. Later, it dismayed me. What exactly was my position in her life? Was I only substituting for her dead son?

  Which left me where? In a state of greater fear. Uneasy fear. Discomforting fear. I wasn’t sure it was legitimate fear, but as time went by, I began to think that it was something like that. Which made no sense at all. Magda, on a daily basis, was as kind to me as anyone could be. Our sex life continued unabated—conditioned, of course, by my mounting disengagement from it. That, alone, was senseless. I was 18, not 180.

  She made chefworthy meals for me, washed—and ironed—my clothes, conversed with me whenever I felt inclined to do so, was constantly affectionate, never mentioned my poorly disguised lack of involvement with our lovemaking, though I knew she was aware of it. Often, when neither of us had achieved fruition (is that the proper word—you know what I mean), she only kissed me warmly and permitted me to sleep. Which, as I have indicated, was scarcely achievable by me anymore.

  Accordingly when, one evening at supper, she told me that she had to leave for three days—the Wicca celebration of the summer solstice—I didn’t feel the pang of abject anxiety I know I would have suffered at the outset of our relationship. I felt, instead, almost a feeling of blessed relief—for which I inwardly—if dishonestly—castigated myself. I hoped there was no outward evidence of my spurious emotion. “Do you have to leave?” was what I said. Did it sound insincere? I didn’t intend it to. “Yes, dear,” Magda replied. “It’s something I never miss.” Good, I thought, hoping my reaction was not evident on my face.

  * * *

  So she left and I was alone in her house. Which, at first, rather unnerved me. Did she have it “booby-trapped” with arcane witch protections? Was Edward’s spirit, now untrammeled because his mother had departed, going to pounce on me? I slept on the main room sofa the first two nights. Then, little by little, the rat gave up its chewing residence in my gut and I began to feel free of anxiety. I realized that the freedom had to do with Magda’s absence but attributed the distressing emotion to imagination brought on by my being so stunned by the magic of her healing ritual.

  Why I felt that way, I couldn’t tell you. The magic accomplished nothing but good. So powerful, however, what would prevent it from being equally as powerful in the service of evil? Which thinking plunged me into an abyss of dark imaginings about faerie evil combined with Magda’s magic power, all intermixed to reduce me to a rat-devoured distress once more. I fought away the horrid blend of superstitions, but it took me time. Days, in fact.

  It all came back, full force, one morning when I went—let’s be honest—intruded into Magda’s library. There I found what was, in the beginning, no more than a tastefully furnished, bookcase-laden room that would encourage reading, bring on studying.

  Then I found the manuscript. Perhaps I should write the word in capital letters. MANUSCRIPT. That does seem more appropriate. To me, at least. The manuscript was centuries old, brown at the edges. Yet somehow clearly readable.

  I wondered why in God’s name (His presence nowhere evident in the MS.) Magda had not hidden the manuscript more judiciously. It was in one of the bottom desk drawers, easily visible. The thought did not occur to me that Magda assumed I would respect the privacy of her library. I was too shocked by what I saw to consider that.

  What did I see? I’ll describe it briefly as I can. To me, it ran a close second, if that, to the horrors of trench warfare. What were they? I hesitate to describe them at all. I’ll try.

  A potion prepared (apparently) in a caldron to induce invisibility. Not too shocking that, though totally incredible. Read on.

  Shape changing (I believe it’s called “shifting”), the ability—or power to alter form to whatever different form one chooses to achieve. In the illustration, a young woman was changing her form to that of a wolf. The vivid depiction showed, in disgusting, graphic manner, her body opened up, her bone structure being cracked and reshaped, her head distorting to the vulpine appearance of a wolf—with every gruesome step of the transformation totally diagramed. Ending with her congruence to that of a red-eyed, slavering wolf. That was the initial shock I underwent.

  Shock number two, even worse. I will not (I refuse to) describe every loathsome detail of it. Perhaps the very words will tell you enough. Self-aborting of unwanted chimera (monsters). Illustrated in realistic minutiae. Enough said about that. I came close to losing breakfast as I viewed it.

  I could go on, but taste prevents me. I will do no more than sketch a few more of the manuscript’s abominations. Sexual attacks from a distance. Summoning of chosen demon. Restoration of the dead. Et cetera and God help us all. I cannot go on. The illustrations were virtually pornographic in their unmistakable detail. That held my attention for a while. But, even at eighteen, I was so sickened that I had to turn away, restore the manuscript to its drawer, and leave the study as I would a satanic temple—or some such. I could not allow myself to believe that Magda approved—much less, God forbid, practiced these profanities. Wicca permitting such dreadful disciplines? (Now there’s a worthy A. Black combination!) Impossible. The manuscript had to be used as a research tool, nothing more. I made myself believe it—although that damned oversized rodent returned to nibbling at my insides. It wasn’t Wicca, I kept telling myself; it couldn’t be. It was more like black magic. Magda practicing black magic.

  * * *

  I did no more unwonted investigation of Magda’s home. I acted like a well-behaved houseguest from that point on. I’d already had more than my share of freakish incidents, enough to last a lifetime. How about my term of service in the trenches? Weird enough. Add the lump of gold proffered to me by Harold Lightfoot. On top of that, the unexplainable appearance (A. Black combo—good) of the gold lump in my duffel bag. The almost unlocatable existence of Gatford. The bizarre behavior (I’m getting A. Black combos, head over heel now!) of the barkeep in the Golden Coach. The odd behavior of Gatford’s jeweler, Mr. Brean, including his eager purchase of the gold lump, his guidance of me to the absurdly named Comfort Cottage. Joe Lightfoot (his name another anomaly—A. Black again!) warning me about entry into the woods. My first experience there, strange if not fatal. Joe informing me that Mag
da was a witch. Strange again. Her rescue of me from my second experience in the woods, strange and almost fatal. Her explanation of her particular witchdom. The commencement of our sex life. The onset of the nibbling rat. Finally, the terrible manuscript. I’ve overlooked Mr. Brean’s agitated entry into my cottage with his handful of gray dust, claiming that it was all that was left of the gold. Dear God, hadn’t I already lived through enough strange ordeals? More than enough. I’d had it. Give me respite.

  At which, the strangest incident of all occurred.

  It happened on a lovely sunlit afternoon. So lovely, in fact, that the house seemed stifling (not a workable combo) to me, giving me a desire to go outdoors, maybe for a walk along the path—avoiding the woods, of course. So I sallied forth into the inviting afternoon, ambling along the path. I felt certain I was safe from faerie intrusion so long as I remained on the path. It really was an enjoyable day, warm with a slight breeze, the sky blue and cloudless, the woods beautifully—though, I sensed, threateningly—lush with greenery.

  Then I heard the singing.

  I call it “singing,” but that is too elemental a word. Call it angel singing, if you will. For surely, if angels do sing, that is precisely what they sound like, what I heard. I stopped in my tracks and listened, entranced, as the singing went on. What never struck me as foolhardy was that, after a brief hesitation—probably less than a minute—I had entered the woods, absolutely spellbound, unafraid, drawn by the heavenly singing. It did not occur to me for an instant that I might be being hypnotically drawn to my doom. (Not an A. Black combination, but a most acceptable phrase—“drawn to my doom.” I love it; A. Black, that is.) I moved on, heedlessly enraptured by that angel voice. Now I thought I heard the sound of water splashing from a height. A waterfall? I couldn’t tell. But I was sure I heard it as well as the singing. On and on through the completely unmenacing woods, through a grove of birch trees, constantly drawn by the angelic singing.