The Witches Of Denmark (6 page)

“He’s kind of creepy,” Alisia remarked two days before.

After that, she made a point to ignore him, though he could never present a physical danger to either of us.

I decided this would be the day I took matters into my own and made contact with him. An opportune moment came after I had cleared several rows of dandelions and stubborn clover from the sides of the main brick walkway to the house. The guy came out to get something from the back of his truck, and we made eye contact. I waved cautiously. The man eyed me as if I had just flipped him off, and I could sense the anger exuding from him. I thought maybe he misunderstood my gesture, and waved more boldly. His eyebrows furrowed as if in disbelief. He stormed inside his house, slamming the front door loud enough to get Alisia to look up and pull down the headphones to her iPod.

“What did you do?” she asked, looking toward the house, which truth be told carried enough crap in the front to count as a salvage yard, or more appropriately, a mini-dump.

“I waved to him,” I told her, snickering while shaking my head. After getting snubbed twice, I decided that was it for this idiot.

Alisia and I moved on to one of the bigger flower gardens and were making great progress when a kid came up to us. Even if we didn’t have a single intuitive gift, figuring out that he was the strange man’s son would be instantaneous for most people. At least that’s my assumption, based on him wearing the same befuddled expression with furrowed eyebrows. Only the unprovoked psychotic rage was missing.

“Can I help you with something?” I asked him.

“Need some help? I can pull those for y’all.” He was thinner than his father, and a few inches shorter, being maybe five-foot-ten, and he avoided the genes that gave Daddy the bush of red hair that framed a gaunt, near-toothless face. Same lifeless brown eyes, though.

Roughly Alisia’s physical age, the kid turned away shyly when she looked up at him. She then turned a hopeful look to me, since she hates manual labor in the humid southern sunshine even more than I do. In fact, she had just been joking about how she was turning into the green-faced witch from
Wizard of Oz
—both in irritation and in the literal sense of melting.

The pleading look in her eyes intensified, which made me hesitate on dismissing the kid’s offer to take over for us.

“This is part of our assigned chores,” I told him. “But, I’ll go ahead and ask our parents, and get back to you on your offer. Okay?”

He nodded, and seemed somewhat relieved. Probably didn’t want to be stuck doing this shit in near-ninety degree weather and high humidity either.

“You should’ve had him wait a moment while you or I went in to ask Mom and Dad,” Alisia lamented. She groaned as we returned to our task.

Less than a minute after the kid disappeared inside his house, another angry door-slam pulled our attention. Dude’s dad stormed across the street and didn’t stop until he threw open the side gate and reached the edge of the garden we were working on.

“Y’all think yer too good for us, do ya now? You northern city-slickers might know a thang or two ‘bout us, but y’all don’t know the half of it,” he snarled. “That thar’s some shit!”

Without waiting for a reply, he turned and stomped toward the gate.

“What in the hell was that all about?” Alisia asked, worriedly. “And what’s with this asshole’s attitude?”

“Well, it depends… mostly on what the mess pouring out of his mouth translates to in proper English.” I chuckled. “Maybe we can teach him a lesson in that regard.”

Not that either of us were afraid of the guy, since physically, we could break his neck like a chicken’s and push his corpse down into the earth so deep the moles would come running out. And, yes, there were signs of moles tunneling to their gleeful content throughout the yard. Apparently, the little blind bastards are as tough to eradicate as they are destructive.

“Or, we could turn him into a mole,” offered Alisia, privy to my thoughts. An unfortunate and advantageous gift she shares with Mom.

She and I watched the guy navigate the medieval-looking pathway that’s so very
Lord of the Rings
, with its uneven stones that have been pushed up and aside at various points by the roots of several immense black walnut trees. The exposed nineteenth century bricks were apparently once covered by cement that had since crumbled and deteriorated to look like random flat stones intermixed with the bricks. Totally badass in appearance, and certainly fun to watch our ill-natured neighbor stumble on.

“He might be happier as a slug to feed a mole,” I said.

Footsteps on the grass behind us pulled our attention.

“Can I help you with something?” Dad called to the man, eying us suspiciously, despite our hands filled of weeds. We looked productive at the right time… or did we? Meanwhile, our surly neighbor had just opened the side gate, which resounded with a loud screech.

“Nah… don’t think so,” said the man, over his shoulder. “You just keep a watch on those kids, ya here? Teach em’ to respect where they’s at…. Y’all ain’t livin’ in the big city no more!”

Dad watched him leave and then turned to us again.

“You didn’t do anything… foolish. Right?”

“Like what?” asked Alisia sweetly. “That guy’s son wanted to pull the weeds for us, which might be kind of nice. Bas told him we had to talk it over with you first.”

“Which is true,” I said. “After all, you and Mom said we’ve gotta look like we don’t know where our next meal’s coming from. Right?”

“Must you always make your allegories so extreme?”

“It’s not really an allegory, Dad… just an observation.”

“That’s not what we told you. Just look like two kids with summer chores… like how everyone else lives around here.”

“Why can’t we be like the kids living two blocks from here?” I persisted, unable to zip my lips. Maybe it was the heat… or maybe it was the fact this latest con of trying to act like normal people seemed especially asinine to me. “The ones in the confirmed ‘hood’ Sadee told us about? You know, sellin’ crack or waitin’ on the mailman for that government check?”

“Cool it, Sebastian,” said Dad, sternly. “We need to fit in, and if this guy is already saying we stick out like a sore thumb, then we’ve got a lot of work to do. Don’t we?”

“Maybe Mom can use some help inside.” Alisia wiped her brow, and exaggerated her panting. “Can I take a break?”

“Well… your mother is why I came out here in the first place. She picked up the image of a frightened man that looks a lot like that guy being forced into the body of a mole, which is why I came outside to investigate,” he said, laughing to himself after scanning the front yard that lay littered with the corpses of dandelions and anything else that wasn’t a tulip, daffodil, or iris. Or a rose… forgot about them. “Would either of you have any idea where that image came from?” He eyed us both knowingly, and with playfulness.

Alisia and I exchanged uncomfortable glances.

“Tell you what… let’s try to keep this to ourselves,” he said quietly, an elfin glint dancing in his deep green eyes. “I’ll confirm you both have done enough for one day, and you can assist me in helping Mom hang the rest of the pictures. Deal?”

We responded in unison that we were fully on board for an alternative assignment out of the heat, and away from any other crazies who might be lurking about. Most of the neighbors had seemed cool… seemed normal. But now we knew it wasn’t the case for everyone.

And Dad broke a rule, one that inspired a widening grin as I closed the front door behind us. Maybe he thought I wouldn’t notice, but I watched the tender blades of grass steadily enwrap the wilted weeds we had carelessly tossed throughout the front yard, pulling them down into the earth. I smiled at the thought that in the next few minutes, should Mom venture outside to verify our work, she would find near-pristine gardens and no mess anywhere.

It seemed, after all, even in Denmark there was a place for magic.

Chapter Five

As May died and gave way to June, the southern heat grew meaner by the day. I began to lose hope that things would ever change for the better. Admittedly, I don’t do well with heat, and greatly preferred the arctic blizzards that sometimes rolled over Chicago from Lake Michigan. Part of me understood that hating the present could inadvertently invite more of the same angst for my future… but I couldn’t help it. Even so, despite the unforgiving swelter and the fact time was passing slowly, a few notable events happened during the two weeks following our unfortunate encounter with the crazy guy across the street and the full-on advent of summer in the South.

Mom and Grandma became increasingly popular in Denmark, and their presence was pretty much expected at a monthly luncheon for a local book club and another for the town’s historical society. Alisia’s presence was requested for July’s meetings, which made her much easier to deal with since her emancipation from yard work was coming soon. Meanwhile, the art school approached my father about joining their board of directors. Dad hadn’t served on a board since the 1940s, when he was the chairman for a Chicago bank, and was quite thrilled. “This gives me something new to focus on,” he said, sounding hopeful, while he and Mom waited for affirmation that a massive energy shield they placed around Denmark with my grandparents actually worked. Designed to keep the Mateis and their affiliates from finding us, the fact Grandpa and Grandma even tried to create something like it clearly announced they didn’t trust a similar shield surrounding the greater Chicago area to remain effective.

With the prospects of becoming the official caretaker for “Twin Magnolias” looking more likely by the day, unless the folks at Wal-Mart or the string of fast-food joints gave me a call, I had less and less to smile about. The only thing on our immediate horizon that sounded interesting to me was Mom’s mention of having the author across the street and his wife over for dinner one night soon. The suggestion to do so came from Sadee, who remained determined to introduce us to the exclusive, and diminutive, ‘in crowd’ list of Denmark.

Mom’s announcement that “Meredith and Julien Mays have accepted our invitation to dinner” brought a huge smile to my face, and she eyed me curiously. I figured she had noticed my gloominess, but likely assumed I would get over it in time. And remember… time for us has a whole different meaning than it does for most people. Maybe she didn’t get how bored I was, since she and Dad had given me and my sis daily lists of chores that sometimes kept us occupied from dawn to dusk.

More than likely, though, neither of my parents realized I was intrigued to learn more about the eccentric man across the street; this author who concocted tales of horror in the dead of night. A loner, who managed to succeed as a maverick, living life on his terms.

What’s not to like about that?

Anyway, the dinner event happened on the first Friday evening in June. Sadee and her husband planned to be there, too, along with Harrison and Jennifer Crawford. Harrison was a locally famous banjo builder, musician, and ‘pointillism’ painter. I had briefly met him and his wife, when they came over to shoot the shit with Mom and Dad. He brought them a housewarming gift of an amazing portrait of a nineteenth century man that featured a melting clock in the background. I can’t adequately express how frigging cool this sucker is, and it’s hanging on a wall in Dad’s office. That was just over a week earlier, and it was Harrison’s suggestion to drag Julien Mays away from working on his latest bestseller and force him to socialize a bit. Harrison and Sadee vouched for how much fun Julien was to be around, if one could wrest this author’s focus away from his obsession. I already had heard from Mom and Grandma that Meredith Mays was a blast to hang out with, and they had been pushing hard for this get-together since the previous weekend.

“Well, hello,” said Mr. Mays from our doorstep. I was the first one to respond to the light rap on our front door window, just after six o’clock that evening. “You must be Sebastian.”

Although I could’ve let Mom, Dad, or my grandparents handle this in the traditional manner for accepting guests into our home, I wanted the honor. However, I didn’t let this man know I was impressed with what little I knew about him, or even acknowledge I had ever heard of him and his wife—a lovely blonde with flowing curly locks and eyes that seemed to change color as she stepped into our house. I thought they were blue when I saw her on the porch, but they became turquoise soon after I led the couple through the foyer and into the front right parlor, that served as the living room for us and the previous owners.

As for Julien, he sort of looked like an author, or like I pictured Stephen King or Clive Barker to be like. But his mannerisms belonged to a sophisticated southern gentleman, like John Grisham. Dinner parties in Denmark could be quite formal from what I understand… unless held in the heat of late spring or summer. It would be anything goes at that point, since formalities meant little when you’re pouring sweat.

While the other men, including Dad and Grandpa, were dressed in shorts and polo shirts, the only thing they shared in common with him were sandals. Julien preferred jeans and a ‘Metallica’ T-shirt. With lightly salt and pepper hair pulled back in a ponytail and a full moustache, he kind of reminded me of the actor Kevin Spacey, but with hazel eyes.