Come Hell or High Water: The Complete Trilogy Page 22

  “That’s not possible in my case,” Magdalena realized. “I could invite Victoria and the others but none of them really takes this seriously. For them, the night is just a reason to have a party and go drinking. None of them, especially Victoria, would understand if I tried to explain it to them.”

  Magdalena tried to think of some way she could celebrate Walpurgis Night herself. She decided finally that the best celebration would be to follow the book’s advice: an evening of meditation and divination. “Tomorrow is Tuesday night and not one of my usual meditation-practice nights,” she muttered to herself, staring across the room as the book slumped against the tabletop. “But I will make an extra meditation session this week. I’ll celebrate Walpurgis Night with an especially attentive attempt at meditation with my candle and hope for the best!”

  The next evening, Magdalena prepared for her meditation as she had done each Wednesday and Friday throughout April. She set her candle on the kitchen table and drew the magic circle with the dagger. She lit the candle and placed her palms on the table on each side of the circle. She closed her eyes and took a series of long, deep breaths to calm herself before opening her eyes and daring to peer into the depths of the candle’s flame.

  Nothing. There was no sound in the kitchen to distract her but the sound of her own breathing. She struggled more so tonight than most nights to release the thoughts that came to her: the mounting pile of dirty laundry demanding to be washed, the stack of e-mail and other correspondence she needed to reply to in preparation for the conferences, the officious overbearing behavior of Lida in the office and her taunting voice checking to see what Magdalena might have overlooked in the conference preparations. She shook her head and began again.

  Magdalena waited another several minutes and caught herself nodding to one side. She jerked herself back upright in her chair, the rough and sudden movement sending vibrations through her palms and jostling the table so that the pool of liquid wax atop the candle cascaded down its side. She bit her lip, refocusing her eyes on the burning wick.

  A spark sizzled and floated away from the wick. She stared at the dark smudge of burning wick with more concentration and determination.

  “Walpurgis Night!” she muttered in frustration. “It’s not supposed to be so difficult tonight…”

  Without warning, the dark wick blossomed in the heart of the flame into a small, dark room. Magdalena gasped and peered more closely, leaning forward to see better.

  She saw a small room, one naked light bulb swinging in a fixture hanging from the ceiling. She saw a handful of men in uniforms standing around the room. One of the men took a step to one side, holding his chin with one hand as he rested his elbow in his other palm. In the center of the room, directly below the swinging light bulb, Magdalena saw an elegantly dressed woman, a fox stole draped around her shoulders. She sat in a wooden chair as the men stared at her and seemed to be discussing her. Magdalena recognized the woman she had encountered on Golden Lane and outside the former office of the Gestapo in Prague.

  Madame de Thebes sat in the wooden chair, her wrists bound to the arms of the chair by metal clamps. Magdalena could not hear what the men were saying, but they seemed to alternate between talking amongst themselves and then directing questions at their prisoner. Madame de Thebes looked from one to another, apparently answering the questions put to her, but the answers did not seem to please her interrogators. One man stepped forward and slapped the bound woman across the face, his own contorted with rage. Blood dribbled from the corner of Madame de Thebes’ mouth.

  The flame wavered and the image rippled, the position and number of men changing as did Madame de Thebes’ clothing. She remained bound in the chair beneath the single light bulb but her stole was missing and the dress seemed more worn and tattered than before. The officers circled around the famous tarot reader, asking questions again but not talking amongst themselves so much. Some questions Madame de Thebes seemed to answer and others she seemed to ignore, judging by the resolute determination with which she kept her mouth closed at times. Again, officers stepped forward and struck the woman with frustration at either her answers or refusal to speak.

  The flame dipped and the vision shifted again. Magdalena thought Madame de Thebes’ skin looked paler than it had when the stole had been draped around her shoulders. Dark circles threatened to engulf the woman’s eyes and her dress was even more ragged and stained. Another interrogation session seemed to play itself out before Magdalena’s eyes, this time the Nazis passing a cigarette among them to puff and occasionally press its glowing ashes into Madame de Thebes’ exposed arms. Magdalena saw the card reader’s mouth open in cries and screams as the cigarette was held against her arms with more force and for longer periods of time by the various men who questioned her.

  Magdalena’s instinct was to look away, to avoid watching the rough interrogation play itself out before her. “But I must see this,” Magdalena told herself. “This is important. I am being shown this for a reason! I know it…”

  Again and again the vision shifted as Madame de Thebes was subjected to additional sessions of questioning and torture. Her clothes became more ragged and she became thinner, paler, more bruised and lacerated. The men involved were not always the same, but several faces became familiar to Magdalena as each scene revealed itself. The tortures Madame de Thebes was subjected to became both more brutal and more sophisticated and more difficult to watch. Magdalena felt her own lips parch and crack, her own stomach rumble with an intensity she had never known.

  “They must be starving her,” Magdalena realized. “Starving her and giving her nothing to drink!”

  The scenario in the flame shifted again and abruptly the interrogation room was replaced with a cell containing only a threadbare mattress on a cot and a bucket in the corner. The scent of urine and feces assaulted Magdalena’s nose. Again, a single light illuminated the scene and Magdalena’s eyes felt dry and burned, as if she had not slept properly for many days.

  Madame de Thebes—thin, pale and bruised—was stretched out on the cot, one arm flung across her eyes in a seeming attempt to block the unrelenting electric light that glared above her. The door to the cell was wrenched open and one of the Gestapo officers Magdalena now recognized stepped into the cell, accompanied by an escort of two soldiers with machine guns, as if to protect him from the prisoner on the bed.

  At first, Madame de Thebes did not respond to whatever order the officer barked at her. He gestured to one of the soldiers, who then walked across the tiny cell and pulled Madame de Thebes to her feet. She stood there, reaching for the wall behind her to steady herself. Magdalena felt her own head swim with the effort to stand upright.

  For the first time, Magdalena could hear something of what the Gestapo officer was saying. The sound of his voice was thin and distant and the words were German, a language Magdalena recognized but did not understand. She could not really make out anything of what he said, but the menace in his tone, the threat of further violence was clear. He seemed to wait for Madame de Thebes to respond and when she did not but simply hung her head, he turned his polished boots sharply and strode briskly from the cell. The soldier-escorts followed him, pulling the heavy door shut behind them. Magdalena heard the wood scrape against the concrete floor.

  Madame de Thebes stood in the cell, her head bowed. A shudder ran across her emaciated shoulders. She pulled her head up with great effort and determination and spat defiantly at the door.

  Once more the images shifted like reflections on the surface of a pond and Madame de Thebes was again bound in the wooden chair of the interrogation room. The naked bulb was gone, however, and a single flickering candle was set on the floor beside Madame de Thebes’ feet. Magdalena could see no one else in the room but thought she saw movement in the dark shadows that engulfed most of the room. Only Madame de Thebes was illuminated clearly by the candlelight, and as the toe of a polished boot stepped into the feeble light, Magdalena realized that a circle of chalk
had been traced around the chair in which Madame de Thebes was bound.

  Along the edges of the circle, Magdalena could see other markings in the chalk, some of which she thought might be astrological signs but she could not see them clearly enough to be certain. She thought she heard the same Gestapo officer’s voice somewhere in the darkness and then heard the soft click of a revolver being cocked to shoot.

  Madame de Thebes looked up, directly into Magdalena’s face, and their eyes met.

  “NO!” shouted Magdalena, jumping to her feet and knocking over the chair she had been sitting in. The table she was leaning on shook, the candle toppled over, and the flame winked out. The vision was gone.

  The next day, Magdalena knew she was shaken as she struggled to make it through that Wednesday’s tasks in Professor Hron’s office. Lida was smirking, surely ready to pounce if she discovered Magdalena to have made a mistake, but Magdalena was barely able to focus on the computer screen in front of her. She kept seeing Madame de Thebes’ face, hearing the Nazi officer’s voice, remembering what she had read of the Nazi charm used to prevent the card reader from communicating with anyone ever again.

  “That must be what the chalk circle was part of.” Magdalena put the pieces of the puzzle together. “That, and the astrological signs marked along it. A charm to keep Madame de Thebes from ever speaking out against the Nazis!”

  That evening was one of Magdalena’s usual meditation practices. She lit the candle in hopes of seeing more of Madame de Thebes, but saw nothing in the candlelight other than the wick curling like a piglet’s tail as it burned. Throughout her next attempts, she was unable to clear her mind of what she had seen of the card reader’s suffering and apparent execution at the hands of the Nazis, unable to let go of those visions that she realized must have begun with Madame de Thebes’ arrest and initial questioning. Determined to repeat her experience of Walpurgis Night, Magdalena’s attempts at meditation were more frustrating than before. The candle flame would only flicker and dance, refusing further revelations.

  Magdalena knew she had to do something.

  “I wasn’t shown those visions for nothing!” she told herself when she admitted more than two weeks later that no further visions would be forthcoming. “Maybe I cannot change what happened and Madame de Thebes cannot directly communicate with me, but she has made the effort to contact me. Like Fen’ka did. Madame de Thebes has contacted me—twice since I met Fen’ka!—and Madame de Thebes was unjustly executed—just like Fen’ka! Maybe… if I can free Madame de Thebes from the Nazi charm silencing her, that will prove my skill to the two conference delegates Flauros and Halphas are bringing to Prague!”

  Magdalena considered this possibility. “Madame de Thebes was executed much more recently than Fen’ka,” she reasoned. “The charm the Nazis used was probably not such a difficult piece of magic. What did the Nazis know about real magic, in any case? It will probably not be simple to set Madame de Thebes free of that charm, but it should be easier than trying to clear Fen’ka’s name after several hundred years! Even if I don’t completely succeed, accomplishing some part of freeing Madame de Thebes will prove my worth to whoever is coming to help free Fen’ka.”

  But how? Magdalena looked through her books for information about loosing charms and contacting the dead. She felt sure there was more, much more, that she needed to know. She would have to consult Professor Hron again, as she had done to identify Flauros and Halphas.

  Magdalena knocked on the half-open door of Professor Hron’s inner office.

  “Yes?” The professor looked up from the book he had been reading and the pad on which he was busily scribbling notes. “Magdalena!” His face broke out into a broad smile. “How are you making out with all these conference preparations? I’m afraid it’s not nearly as glamorous as you might have hoped!”

  “Oh, no! I’m enjoying it all a great deal!” Magdalena hastily and truthfully assured Professor Hron. “I think it’s terribly exciting to be e-mailing scholars from all over the world who will be coming to Prague in August. And they are asking me—me!—for recommendations about arriving early or staying after the conference and about what to see and do! I’m looking forward to the conferences so much!”

  “Well, I hope the reality of the work continues to meet your expectations,” Hron said. He leaned over as if to return to his reading and note taking.

  “But I did have a question or two, professor,” Magdalena continued. “Not about the conferences themselves but… about some folklore, some occult practices I was reading about in a book from the library.”

  Hron looked up again. “Yes? What can I help you with?”

  “I read about a charm used to prevent the dead from communicating with the living.” Magdalena took a step forward nervously, coming closer to the great desk Hron was ensconced behind. “It was a charm using a circle and some astrological signs that the victim was… I think… killed within. Some men did not like what she had been accusing them of. Things that were true. So they killed her but wanted to be sure she was never able to repeat them from beyond the grave, as it were.”

  Hron seemed interested. “Where did you read this?”

  “It was in… a collection of short stories,” Magdalena repeated the explanation she had worked out to justify her interest. “It ended with the murder of the woman and the casting of the charm. But I was wondering… if such a thing had actually been done, how would it be undone? How might the murdered woman be set free from the charm?”

  “Ah, a short story with a kernel of truth at its heart, heh?” Hron’s eyes twinkled as he made a tent with his fingertips against his chin.

  “Yes, that’s a good way to describe it!” Magdalena agreed, still nervous but reassured that Hron did not think her interest in such a thing was crazy.

  “Well, let me think a moment,” Hron mused, looking away from Magdalena and staring out the tall windows that ran along one wall of the room. “Let me think…”

  There was a long moment of silence. “Thistle, I think…” Hron muttered. He turned back to Magdalena.

  “Yes, thistle is one of the best plants for hex or charm breaking,” Hron said aloud. “In order to break the charm, a person would burn some thistle on the murdered woman’s grave on the anniversary of her death. Or burn it with some article of her clothing. In a circle of course, maybe marked with some of the astrological symbols if those were used in the original hex.”

  “Which astrological symbols?” Magdalena pressed him. “What if the story wasn’t clear about when the woman was murdered?”

  Hron laughed. “Such attention to detail! Wonderful, Magdalena!” He looked out the window again, thinking.

  “Mercury,” he finally said, continuing to look out the window. “Mercury was the god associated with communication and with journeys between the living and the dead. Saturn, perhaps, as one of the classical gods associated with death. Aquarius, associated with thought and freedom, would also be appropriate. Also Pisces, connected with change and mutability.”

  He looked back at Magdalena. “What else was it? Oh, yes… what if you did not know the anniversary of the woman’s murder? Well, I think you’ve done enough reading to maybe puzzle that one out. What do you think, Magdalena?”

  “Midsummer,” she answered without thinking. “Midsummer was said to be the… the zenith of natural magic to be used for good.” She heard herself repeating some of what she had read about Midsummer and Walpurgis Night.

  “Indeed! A most auspicious time for such a charm breaking!” Hron congratulated her. “Most appropriate!”

  “Thank you, professor,” Magdalena stammered.

  “Think you’ll be writing the sequel to that short story?” Hron winked.

  Midsummer. Magdalena had no idea when the Nazis had killed Madame de Thebes or where they had disposed of her body but she knew where the murder had been committed. The ghost of the card reader she had encountered outside the former office of the Gestapo, as well as her visions in the candl
elight, seemed to underscore that the Nazis had killed Madame de Thebes there. Just up the street from where Magdalena worked.

  But it was a public street. Somehow she would have to cast a magic circle, inscribe it with the four astrological symbols—Mercury, Saturn, Aquarius, and Pisces—and burn some thistle there on Midsummer Eve without being noticed.

  “But,” she wondered, “even so, will all that be enough?” She could not go back to Hron and ask again. That would seem odd, she was sure. Her books confirmed what he had said about thistle being used for hex breaking. The most she could do in addition to what Hron had told her was to burn a few more herbs or plants with the thistle that were associated with breaking hexes or charms.

  She set about collecting the plants she would need. Midsummer was only a few weeks away. August and the conferences would be a little more than a month after that. Magdalena was excited at the prospect of working real magic, of proving herself, of meeting the conference attendees who would come to help clear Fen’ka. It was an intoxicating mix.

  Magdalena continued her meditation efforts, her herbal flashcard identification practice, her daily tarot exercises. She tended herbs and plants for magical use in her back garden, either planted anew or already growing there. In early June, she began to pluck the herbs and plants she would need to break the Nazi hex so that the cuttings would have a chance to dry and be better able to burn on Midsummer.

  Midsummer finally arrived. That morning, Magdalena was so excited she could hardly keep down her tea. She had everything she would need that night laid out on the table. She inspected everything again. Nothing was out of order or misplaced. She consulted her notes and made checks in the margins (again!) to indicate that all was ready.

  She made it to Hron’s office. The conferences were little more than a month away and the conference programs were in the midst of the last revisions before being sent to the printer. She spent the day double-checking the confirmed conference participants and comparing that list to the scheduled speakers and presenters, removing the most recent withdrawals from the program and adding the most recent additions to the sessions Hron had indicated in his handscrawled notes. The names were beginning to swim before her eyes, and after lunch she found it more and more difficult to concentrate as the time for the evening ritual approached. When at last the old grandfather clock in the corner of the office chimed the end of the day, Magdalena shot out the door and along the hall and down the grand stairway to the street.