Magdalena sat at her kitchen table. Her hands were wrapped around her mug of coffee. She had hardly slept last night, the excitement of George and his offer of power keeping her mind racing throughout the night with a variety of possible scenarios. It had even occurred to her that he might take her to New York with him after the conferences. The sun had finally risen and she now sat in her kitchen preparing to head back to the conferences and the first full day of sessions and papers. Even though she had kept herself up all night, she was ready to begin the day. Fresh. Alert. Ready to begin her new life, the new life that George would make possible.
The phone rang. Magdalena jumped, its jangling interrupting her memories of what had transpired last night on this very table. The black grooves along the table’s edge where the wood had scorched were a silent testimony to the reality of last night’s events. She had not dreamed them.
“Hello?” Magdalena thought her voice sounded more groggy than she felt.
“Magdalena? Good morning!” It was Victoria. “So, tell me, Magdalena. How did everything go yesterday? Did you get everyone registered? Were any of the professors interesting?” The cheer and curiosity bubbling in her voice was irritating. Was Victoria so needy that she had to live her life through Magdalena?
“Yes, everything went well,” Magdalena snapped. “All the professors are registered now, I think, and the papers start this morning. Soon. I should be there before that, though, in order to answer any questions and make sure everything is set up and that the doors to the rooms are all unlocked.”
“What about last night, Magdalena?” Victoria persisted. “How did the walking tour and the drinks at the pub go? I tried calling you last night but you weren’t home yet when I called, so I knew I had to call early this morning to reach you.”
“The tour went very well. So did the drinks and card reading.” Magdalena’s irritation with Victoria dissipated, glad to have the opportunity to share her excitement at the conference opening with her friend.
“Really? What did the card reader say? Which professor had the most interesting reading?”
Victoria would be relentless until her thirst for details was satisfied. “They were all interesting, in different ways,” Magdalena told her friend. “The reader did a three-card spread for each of them that indicated what had brought them to Prague, what they would experience during the conference, and what would flow from their experiences here. You wouldn’t believe all the different things that brought people to Prague, but the Page of Wands appeared in several readings—you know, the card that indicates study and love of learning.” Magdalena reviewed her memory of the various spreads of the cards the evening before. “But one woman was brought by the Queen of Swords. Sorrow. Anger. Mourning.”
“Really? Did everyone want a reading or were they too serious and disbelieving?” Victoria’s voice betrayed her envy of Magdalena’s shepherding of the professors. “Did you have a reading as well, Magdalena?”
“The reader picked one of the professors first, so as to break the ice,” Magdalena said. “Hers was very different from the reading I had done in New York. But after she read the cards for the first professor, everyone wanted theirs read. Everyone but George,” she blurted out. “He threw the cards on the ground.”
“George? You’ve become such friends with one of the professors already that you can simply call him by his given name? Which professor is he? Why didn’t he want any cards read for him?” Victoria pounced on Magdalena’s blunder.
Magdalena bit her lip. She had wanted to share her excitement about the conferences but not give away any information about Fen’ka or the magic she had experienced since meeting the dead woman. Why had she said that? “He… he is a Jesuit from New York,” she admitted. “He didn’t want any cards read for him because it goes against the behavior the Church expects of clergy. But he knows things, Victoria. He knows about magic and the occult as well as the teachings of the Church.” She could not help boasting of George’s accomplishments. “He knows more about the magical history of Prague than anyone I have ever known and more about the ways of power handed down from the Middle Ages—or before!—than any book could ever tell. He is so handsome, Victoria—and he thinks I’m beautiful and talented, as well! He really means it, Victoria! He means it! He offered to teach me the ways of power from those old times and show me what he knows.”
“That… doesn’t sound like you at all,” Victoria said after a hesitation. Magdalena thought she heard a hint of fear in her friend’s voice. “What woman wouldn’t want a handsome man to think she was beautiful? But why would a priest—who is not supposed to even care about those things—say that to you? Why would a priest know anything about magic and the occult except to argue against them? Why would he be more interested in teaching you these… ways of power rather than the teaching of the Church? Isn’t the Church about humility? It doesn’t make sense.”
Victoria paused and went on. “It scares me, Magdalena, this talk of magic and power. I know we play with the cards and Wicca and all that, but I never thought it was anything very serious. But you sound like you believe in this power. You don’t really take all this about magic seriously, do you? Do you really believe it, Magdalena? That would be crazy, Magdalena. Really insane! Not like you at all!”
Magdalena recognized the truth of her friend’s words. “I do, Victoria. I do believe that the magic and occult we have played with are just the surface of a reality so much deeper than we realized! I want to learn everything I can about it. I need to learn everything I can about it. I need this more than I ever realized until I heard him talk about them. I know there is a real magic and a real occult and that they are true, Victoria, truer than anything else.”
“How do you know that?” Victoria asked. “I don’t understand, Magdalena.”
“Because I’ve met the dead, Victoria. I’ve met a woman burned at the stake in the thirteen hundreds and I met that tarot card reader executed by the Nazis for predicting their downfall. I’ve conjured spirits to bring people to Prague to help me clear the name of the woman burned at the stake. I’ve met them and I’ve seen George hold his hand in the fire and not be burned.” The words tumbled from Magdalena’s lips. “Then George held my hand in the fire and it did not burn me either. I’ve seen magic, Victoria, and it is true.”
“When have you seen the dead, Magdalena?” demanded Victoria, as if Magdalena had just thrown a brick at her friend across the telephone line. “What woman was burned for witchcraft in the thirteen hundreds? What people have you conjured? Why didn’t you tell me this before? When did all this happen?”
Magdalena realized she had said too much but she could not take back the words. But how much more should she explain? She had been afraid before that her friend would think she was crazy; was that still a danger or had she crossed that line already? Magdalena took a deep breath.
“Last spring, Victoria. After my trip to New York. I went down to the river, under the Charles Bridge one night, and met Fen’ka—a woman burned for witchcraft in thirteen-fifty-something, she said. Her ashes were thrown into the river and she was riding in the boat of Jarnvithja, the troll who cares for the dead deposited in the river. Fen’ka said she has been waiting for hundreds of years for someone to clear her name and set the record straight. She asked me to clear her name and said two spirits could bring people to Prague to help me do that.
“Then, after that, I met the card reader executed by the Nazis,” Magdalena went on. “I met her several times and I saw how the Nazis had performed a charm at her execution to prevent her from speaking out from the grave. I freed her, Victoria! I performed a spell at Midsummer that freed the card reader from the Nazi charm!”
Victoria was silent.
“The spirits Fen’ka told me about showed me two people who could help clear Fen’ka and the tarot cards told me that they would be coming in August. To the conferences. They’re here now, Victoria, and George is one of them.” She wondered what Victoria should hear.
“George will teach me what I need to know in order to set Fen’ka free to rest after all these hundreds of years. Not just her, either. Set free everyone suffering the same sorts of injustices. He might even invite me to New York after the conferences to study the occult with him.”
From the silence over the phone, Magdalena knew Victoria was having trouble believing what she had heard. “I would have as hard a time believing this myself,” she confessed, “if it hadn’t all happened to me. I don’t blame you if you think I am crazy. But it’s true, Victoria. It’s all true and it’s something I need to do.”
“I half-believe you, Magdalena,” Victoria confessed. “I want to believe you. I don’t want to think you are crazy. But I don’t know. Meeting the dead? Conjuring real spirits? Setting the dead free from charms and curses? And you didn’t tell me about any of it! Me, your best friend! We’ve done simple magic together and then—when something you think is real magic comes along—you do it without telling me a single word!” Victoria hesitated and went on. “You know, I’m not even sure what bothers me the most. Why keep it all a secret from me?”
“I’m… I’m sorry about that, Victoria,” stammered Magdalena, realizing that might have been her biggest mistake but unable to change anything about it now. She ran her hand along the scorched edge of the table and caught her finger on a burned splinter. Reflexively sucking on her finger, she glanced across the room to the clock and saw she was already late for the conference.
“I… I have to go, Victoria. I’ll talk to you later.” Magdalena abruptly hung up the phone, glad for an excuse to cut the uncomfortable conversation short. Would she talk more about this later with Victoria? She wasn’t sure.
“Maybe I’ll ask George what I should do,” she mused as she grabbed her shoulder bag and closed the door of her apartment behind her.
It was after lunch before Magdalena was able to maneuver herself into standing at George’s elbow. Everyone was milling around, waiting for the first session of the afternoon. A few of the professors were heading into the meeting rooms, mostly the ones who would be reading papers at the various concurrent sessions, and they were checking their notes, pouring themselves glasses of water, or double-checking that the audiovisual equipment they would be using was working.
“How did the sessions this morning go?” Magdalena tried to sound interested but not too interested as she spoke with George. She didn’t want to attract attention from any of the other academics. She was disappointed that she had not been able to speak with George earlier in the day. Had he been avoiding her? She thought not, that he was just attending the conference as an interested academic, and was as eager as she was to avoid undue attention. But it had even been difficult to find time to speak with Elizabeth and so Magdalena was feeling a bit adrift, already missing the two she had come to think of as friends as well as confederates in the effort to vindicate Fen’ka. She had hoped to go to lunch with one, if not both, but had been distracted by a professor from Southeast Asia asking about tickets to the Estates Theatre opera house right when George and Elizabeth exited their session meeting rooms and stood in the knots of academics congealing into groups that would go eat together. When she had finally answered all the opera ticket questions the professor had, none of the other academics were left in the hallway or on the stairs. So she had remained at her station, the desk at the top of the stairs, rather than go to lunch; she did not want to miss the next opportunity to speak with the coven-master priest or the Dearg-due.
“Very well, very well indeed,” George replied to her question. “There was a very interesting paper, in particular, about the depiction of female ghosts without legs in traditional Japanese literature and film.”
“Really? I’m glad you were able to get into that session.” One of Magdalena’s jobs that morning had been to get more chairs for the rooms in which more academics were attempting to squeeze in and encourage them to attend some of the more sparsely populated sessions in other rooms. The session on Asian monster movies had been especially crowded.
George looked at her, one eyebrow raised as if he expected her to say something.
She leaned slightly closer to him and lowered her voice. “I have a question I need to ask you. Can we talk later?”
“Of course,” he replied, smiling at her. “We should meet after dinner. There is a great deal we have to discuss and something I need to show you. Something we need to do together, as well, that ought to be performed as soon as possible. Shall I meet you at your apartment?”
Magdalena didn’t quite know what to say in response. She had not expected his response to be so… personal, though she had certainly hoped for it. “Do you think you can find my apartment again?” she asked. “You’ve only been there once.”
“No problem,” George reassured her. “I should be fine. I’ll see you there tonight, then. Around nine or ten, all right? But you’ll need to have a few things ready. We’ll need your magical tools—the chalice and incense burner and athame and staff.”
“Not at problem at all.” Tingles of excitement ran through Magdalena’s body. George seemed to be planning magic of some kind. “Will you… will we be needing anything else?”
“Wine. Spices. Spiced wine. Clean water,” he told her.
“I’ll have them ready,” Magdalena promised. “Will Elizabeth be there as well?”
“No, Elizabeth will have another assignment this evening,” George answered, beginning to move away from her and toward the rooms filling in anticipation of the afternoon papers. “We will have to be responsible for the ritual magic ourselves.” He winked at her and was lost among the chattering academics. Magdalena, smiling and already tingling with anticipation, turned to a professor from Greece standing at her elbow.
Alessandro came dashing up the steps, gasping for breath. He stood at the top of the stairs and looked about, apparently in order to orient himself and decide which way to turn. After pointing the Greek professor towards the session he was looking for, Magdalena approached Alessandro.
“You look slightly lost, professor. Can I help you?” she offered.
Alessandro nodded, still occasionally standing on his toes in an attempt to see over or through the crowds. “Ah, yes… I’m looking for… Um… which session did she say she would be in?”
“Excuse me?” Magdalena asked. “Which session are you looking for?” She opened the conference program booklet in her hand to find the listings for that afternoon.
Alessandro focused his attention on her. “Oh, thank you. I went sightseeing this morning but arranged at breakfast to meet someone at a session after lunch. Now I can’t remember which session we agreed on.” His brow furrowed as he looked over Magdalena’s shoulder.
“What sights did you see this morning?” Magdalena asked as she handed him the program booklet and pointed to the first of the afternoon listings.
Alessandro took the program from her and ran his eyes over the page. “Which one sounds familiar?” he muttered. Then he looked up and answered Magdalena. “Oh, I’m staying at a hotel across the bridge, so I stayed on that side of the river this morning and walked around the Little Town and then stopped in at some of the Baroque churches and ended up at Our Lady of Victory to see the Infant of Prague. The museum they have, with the collection of vestments for the statue and the chalices and monstrances for the church, is pretty amazing. Gorgeous. Have you seen them? Oh, you must have—you live here, after all!”
They both laughed. “Well, I have seen the Infant of Prague but not since I was a girl. It’s one of those sights that most Prague-dwellers only see when they take visitors to see the church!”
“It was a very popular devotion in my home parish. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see the original,” Alessandro elaborated. “I even got a medal with a replica of the image as a souvenir for my mother.” He turned his eyes back to the program in his hand and turned a page.
His eyes lit with recognition. “Of course!” he exclaimed. “It was the session on mo
thers who kill their children! How could I forget?” He smiled and gave the program back to Magdalena before darting in the direction of the room she pointed him towards.
Alessandro found Elizabeth at the end of the last session of the afternoon. The speakers on the panel were still at the head table, gathering their notes and papers while discussing their presentations with those who either had been unable to speak during the question-and-answer period or were pursuing points they had raised earlier. Others were milling around the room, stretching their legs before making plans for dinner. A few darted out of the room immediately to avoid the rush in the pubs and restaurants or to begin the final polishing of their own papers to be presented the next day. The buzz and chatter that filled the room was loud but happy and content.
Elizabeth was one of a knot of people standing together, discussing the themes of the just-concluded panel. “Frankenstein and Friends,” it had been called, and the three papers presented had all raised questions of the role of the monster in pop culture, and of identity and disfigurement, reanimation and immortality. The papers had sparked a lively discussion of the original tale and its subsequent incarnations.
Alessandro caught Elizabeth’s attention as he approached the cluster of people she stood with along one side of the room. They smiled at each other. He winked. Finding a spot to stand next to and slightly behind her, he listened to the discussion briefly before joining in.
“Yes,” he responded to a point made by a professor of literature about similarities of the Frankenstein story with the local tales of the Golem in Prague. “Yes, but don’t you also think that the Golem is—apart from some superficial similarities, such as both being given life by the most advanced technologies of their times—really the opposite of the Frankenstein monster? After all, Frankenstein named his creature—Adam, wasn’t it?—and the Golem was never given a name, never had a personality. Frankenstein reanimated what had been living tissue and the Golem was formed of earth, matter that had never lived before. Frankenstein’s monster was able to feel and think and speak, becoming extremely articulate, but the Golem was mute and mindless, unable to do anything but follow orders in the most literal way. Really, I can’t think of two monsters that are more unlike each other!”
Come Hell or High Water: The Complete Trilogy Page 39
