Undying Witch Read online

  The mirror fast forwarded three centuries to the end of the 4th Century. The ancient gods of Egypt, Rome and Greece were then outlawed, yet the Walnut Witches continued to practice magic for the next three hundred years. In 662, Romuald, Duke of Benevento even joined in the celebrations at the walnut tree.

  A year later, Benevento got a new bishop by the name of Barbatus. He preached against the witches and even cut down the magical walnut tree. His aim in destroying the tree was to wipe out what the bishop considered pagan cults. He was successful in destroying the Cult of Isis but he was unsuccessful in annihilating magic. The tree had stood on the banks of the Sabato River at the exact spot where the three crossroads meant. Crossroads was the dominion of the Roman goddess Diana Trivia, protector of witches.

  The witches of Benevento then turned from Isis to Hecate, the Greek goddess of magic, witchcraft, the night, moon, ghosts, and necromancy. Through the magic of Hecate, the walnut tree reappeared during Witches’ Sabbaths, on nights when supernatural folk the world over gathered.

  Well, it was nearly midnight, the beginning of the Witching Hour and the sabbath. Dima flew as the huge owl, her shapeshifting familiar. She could see in the dark and turned her head nearly around to the back of her head. She was searching for any sign of the walnut tree. True, she was a bit early for the gathering. It was not yet midnight but Dima allowed for some time to get lost.

  The air felt good on her furry face as she soared over Benevento.

  Down below, she eyed a light and dived towards it.

  She swooped up, nearly hitting the translucent branches of a tree with a trunk the size of a house. The twisted, gnarled branches resembled streaks of grey lightning, and the tree seemed to crackle with electricity. All the foliage in Benevento was green except for this giant walnut tree. The many main branches were as thick as Dima was tall, and moist with algae. The thousands of smaller branches extending from the main branches appeared dead. The tree was a tangled mess of grey, hair-like vines, which made the tree resemble an ancient man.

  The tree must be over 120 feet tall, she thought and marveled at the enchanted tree that must have sprouted 20 centuries ago.

  Careful. Careful.

  Dima flared out her talons, attempting to land on one of the branches.

  For centuries the tree instilled fear. It had been rumored that if one fell asleep under the tree, the roots seeped poison, infecting the brain of the one who dared nap beneath the shade.

  Dima landed on the tree, clinging to a branch, and closing her eyes expecting the branch to fling her to the ground.

  The air was still and Dima breathed a sigh of relief that the tree was not hostile. She was, after all, a supernatural being thanks to the magic in the Starostavne Books.

  She cooed to the walnuts and petted the bark.

  The tree purred with invisible, rustling leaves. It was a still night. There was no wind.

  The tree was but partially visible and still attempting to manifest itself into life.

  When the tree finally bloomed, the branches and leaves emitted a green glowing light.

  Dima simply perched on the tree and watched in the darkness the witches gather.

  The women flew in from all directions. Until Dima discovered the Starostavne Books of Magic, she was not as powerful as these women were. The gypsies who raised her were crystal-ball gazers and palm readers. They practiced low-level magic, such as spells to find stolen items, love charms, good-luck talismans, and spells to protect cattle or sheep. They did occasionally curse the guilty with bitter spells of body aches and nightmares.

  As a hydromancer and token-object-reader, Dima had been more sensory gifted. She could never fly as these women did. The witches looked like ordinary women by day, but at night some of them rubbed their underarms with an extraordinary unguent which allowed them to fly. All the while they chanted, “Unguent, unguent! Carry me to the walnut tree of Benevento! Above the water and above the wind! And above all other bad weather.” These witches rode to the walnut tree on brooms made of sorghum. They were stereotypical witches who were lazy with little imagination.

  There were others who arrived as spirits like the wind. These witches normally flew during storms to avoid detection, but a Witches’ Sabbath made them bold. The world of the witch was a secret society and spirit witches were even more secretive and stingy of their magical powers.

  Dima hooted while the ceremony began. As always, the sabbath began with the reading of the dead witches. The witch who was in charge read from a long scroll.

  Dima cocked her owl head at the talisman the woman wore around her neck. The walnuts from the magical tree had powers and the pyramid-shaped walnut gave off a soft glow. The Walnut Witches once sold the walnuts from the tree as amulets for protection against misfortune, disease, and other bad events. A group of the witches who gathered for Summer Solstice wore walnut talismans around their necks. These 12 women currently made up the coven of walnut witches from Benevento. A coven had 13 members so there was an opening because their oldest member recently died.

  The witch named Gianna unrolled a scroll and announced, “We honor those who have died.” She then began the monotonous task of reading off the names. The first name she called was the deceased member from the walnut witch coven. The remaining dozen bowed their heads.

  After half an hour, Dima nodded off to sleep.

  She felt herself falling and opened her eyes.

  She fluttered her wings, but too late, she hit the ground.

  Dima did not need to spin while holding Pompeii since she was in her shapeshifting familiar form. The jolt of hitting the ground made her turn back into a woman.

  All the witches jumped back and gasped as the large owl on the ground transformed. First, the legs formed into a woman’s legs, the wings into arms, and then the breast into a woman’s bosom. Lastly, the owl face turned into a woman’s head and face.

  The three-foot woman lying on the ground then stretched into a normal-sized woman.

  Dima slowly rose from the ground peering with satisfaction at the look or respect on the witches’ faces.

  Dima made sure she did not appear too attractive. She remembered Zenochka, her adopted cousin who had Dima thrown out of the gypsies for sleeping with her husband. She had lived alone then on the streets or with various men until Zenochka died. The gypsies then welcomed Dima back.

  Dima thought, I was lovely when young but not as beautiful as Pompeii can make me. In her aged place stood an ordinary-looking woman who was slightly pretty but not in a threatening manner. Her legs were not so shapely and her bosom flatter. Her waist was thicker. Dima, also, gave herself a small mouth in order to keep her identity secret. Others might kill for her prized, magical possessions. Therefore, she used a spell from the Key of Solomon to lock the pages on the books of magic. She did not worry about anyone stealing Pompeii. The shapeshifting rock decided who it wanted its owner to be and could protect itself. Besides, Dima locked the rock in her trunk with the rest of her valued possessions. Her cats were guarding the trunk back at the hotel and would scratch anyone’s eyes out who dared to go near it.

  Summer Solstice was the shortest night of the year and covens worshipped the sun on this night, as only magical folk can. Thus, Dima wore a robe with shimmering rays like the sun, over a yellow shift. In her hair she wore a wreath of 16 yellow roses and 8 black-dragon roses. Around her neck was her own talisman in the shape of a dragon. Her adopted gypsy father Boris had forged the talisman of a golden dragon and placed Dima’s dried caul inside. He had then hung the caul around Dima’s baby neck, saying, “You will walk the crooked path.”

  Well, her crooked path led Dima to these witches and wizards who gathered at the enchanted walnut tree, staring at her suspiciously. She had already proven that she was one of them and had meant for her entrance to be more dramatic than clumsy. “My name is Dima and I am one of you,” she said.

  “Why have we not seen you before this?” Zenochka asked.

  “I a
m Russian,” she said.

  “Well, why are you here now then?”

  “The Tsar has been arrested,” she said.

  “Italy has its own king.” Zenochka and the Italian witches spit on the ground.

  Dima lifted a fist and snarled, “Grand Duke this and Grand Duchess that, Tsar fool and Tsarevich bitch. I was sick of the royal family dictating my destiny.”

  “You are welcome to stay as long as you wish, sister, and rejuvenate from the tyranny you were under in Russia,” she said.

  Dima bowed her head in thanks.

  “What magic did you use to become such a strange-looking creature?” one of the witches asked her.

  “Yes, you were quite a large owl and so white,” another witch added.

  “We all have our secrets, do we not?” Dima responded. And I know your secrets, she thought. The Looking-Glass-of-Time had revealed that the Walnut Witches used a magical ointment to become invisible. At night, they could pass beneath doors and brush against sleepers like a breeze. They could make the sleeper feel an overwhelming unhappiness or worry. Dima smiled innocently at the High Witch of the Walnut Witches.

  The reading of the dead witches then proceeded without any more incident.

  The witches welcomed in the longest day of sunlight of the year by lighting bonfires, roasting wieners, singing, eating, laughing, and dancing around the walnut tree. They all drank Strega, but this was a more potent liqueur than sold at the stores. The Strega was glowing like the sun.

  The Witching Hour was normally between midnight and 2 a.m. but on Summer Solstice, the Witching Hour continued until about 5 a.m., until the third crowing of the rooster, right before dawn.

  When a rooster crowed for the third time, Dima turned back into the owl.

  Chapter 9

  AFTER A WEEK, DIMA STILL STRUGGLED FOR THE WALNUT WITCHES TO ACCEPT HER. The women acted friendly to her but with a superior reserve.

  A week later, on the Fourth of July, Dima’s American sailor celebrated the birth of his country with fireworks. Dima felt bloated, tired, and in a touchy mood. She had cramps in her stomach and her back ached. Plus, she swore that someone was watching her. Hence, she was careful not to shapeshift again nor to display any other extraordinary magic.

  Damn, I must pee again, she thought. She left the soldier to his fireworks while she went into a public bathroom.

  The woman in the next stall, she is a Walnut Witch. Dima narrowed her eyes at the telltale sign of the talisman hanging around the woman’s neck.

  “I know who you are,” Dima said to the woman when she came out of the stall. Dima was washing her hands. She turned and the witch had vanished. She is one of those witches who can become invisible. Dima felt a chill in the air which made her stomach cramp even more. She could feel the woman’s cold breath following her out the door.

  In the second week following Summer Solstice, Dima had to show the Walnut Witches that she was a working witch so they would not suspect that she had other ways to get money, in other words her valuable pearls. Dima had 383 pearls left after she paid for her trip to Benevento and her other expenses since she arrived. To keep the witches fooled, Dima went back to her old ways of reading the future in palms and bodily fluids. Her nights she spent with the sailor though she would not let him touch her breasts which had become tender and sore.

  About two weeks later, Dima sat on the bed rubbing her breasts which felt fuller. I am growing voluptuous, she thought and frowned because this was not magic from her shapeshifting stone. Somehow, her breasts were growing.

  The sailor saluted her goodbye. He was leaving to catch a train for the coast. There was no love between them and he threw some cash at her.

  “Is American bucks, no?” she said and sniffed the money which smelled like grease and pocket lint.

  He laughed. “Yes, it’s American money.” He wiped his neck with a handkerchief. It was a hot, sweaty mid-July night. When he put his hanky back in his pocket, a piece of paper fell out and slid under the bed. He did not notice and Dima was too tired to tell him. Besides, the paper must not have been important or else the sailor would not have dropped it.

  “Bye, sailor,” she said in broken English. He had taught her quite a few sentences. American was not hard to speak and Dima had an ear for languages. She was already semi-fluent in Italian and what she could not request with her mouth, her hands and head gestures did the rest.

  “You’re Russian. Did you hear about the Tsar and his family being executed?” he said.

  He shut the door behind him, leaving a stunned Dima clutching her chest. News of the deaths shocked her so that she changed back into her ancient self. Luckily, the sailor did not turn around but shut the door behind him after firing his bombshell.

  The cats ran out from beneath the bed and hissed at the closed door. The cats were happy to see him go.

  Dima had expected the Bolsheviks to murder the Tsar and his family since Nicholas was too stupid to flee with his family and too selfish to send his children to safety when he had the chance. Their deaths were a reminder of her own vulnerability. She took a few deep breaths, exhaled and said, “I am no longer in Russia. I am safe in Italy.”

  Dima had been sleeping for about an hour when she flicked open her eyes.

  Someone is in my room, she thought.

  The fact that the cats had not awakened Dima meant that the person rustling about the room was magical. Moonlight shone through the window but did not illuminate even a shadow.

  Whoever is in my room is invisible and has enchanted the cats to keep silent.

  Dima lay perfectly still. Someone was trying to open her trunk but the magic held. The trunk glowed, illuminating the initials and crown on the trunk.

  The jiggling of the trunk stopped.

  There was the faintest sound of movement and then something brushed against her, fluttering from her toes to her face.

  Dima’s scalp crawled against her skull.

  A heavy weight crushed her chest and it took all of her will power to pretend to be sleeping.

  The door clicked open and then closed.

  The cats came to life and started meowing and scratching at the door.

  Dima could breathe again. However, a deep anxiety consumed her. My panic is from those damned Walnut Witches and their powers of oppression.

  She lay awake imagining Lenin pushing her into a room and shooting her for being a Romanov. Dima went over every conversation in her head to ensure that since leaving Russia, she had bragged to no one about her identity.

  She attempted to cheer herself but cried the rest of the night, sobbing into a pillow. Dima had never felt such melancholy, even at the thought of being unwanted by her parents.

  In the morning, Dima dragged herself from bed. She drank a glass of warm beer, which dulled her sadness enough that she was able to spin with Pompeii. She shapeshifted into her younger self. Dima resented the fact that she had been masquerading as a non-attractive woman so that the Walnut Witches would not be jealous of her. She now stared at the hand mirror and smiled. Seeing herself looking young and beautiful cheered her.

  There was something under the bed reflected in the mirror.

  Ah, now she remembered. The sailor had dropped something from his pocket.

  Dima ordered Vodka, “Fetch the paper. There.”

  The cat walked under the bed and came back with a sheet of paper in his mouth.

  The paper had a picture of an alcoholic beverage on it with a big X through the bottle and then a lot of words in English.

  She recalled that the sailor had spoken about wanting to stay drunk for the rest of the year because of something called Prohibition that was sweeping across America. State after state had been passing this law that prevented the drinking of alcohol. The sailor believed that the United States government would eventually ban booze across America.

  Dima said in Russian to the cats, “Is it not crazy that America will make drinking illegal? Ha! Denial will only make people thirstier.”


  She folded the paper and placed it in on the table because paper was expensive and this was a nice scrap to write a note. She had cashed in another one of her pearls before traveling to Benevento. It was the money from the pearl which allowed her to live at a fancy hotel. Bah! She would starve if she had to rely on telling fortunes for a living. There were too many fortune tellers in Benevento.

  Dima shapeshifted into the unattractive woman the Walnut Witches were familiar with. She fed the cats and then went shopping for a sow’s ear.

  Once more, Dima knew that a witch or witches were following her as she walked around the farmer’s market, making a purchase here and there.

  She stopped at a butcher’s shop and locked the door behind her. She then ordered the butcher to quickly sell her the ear of the biggest hog he had slaughtered that morning and to wrap it in the back room in brown paper, along with some cooked pork rinds.

  She took the package from him and peeked through the seams of the wrapping. “This ear does not look fresh,” she hissed.