Read The Wiccan Diaries Online
Authors: T.D. McMichael
The Wiccan Diaries
The Wiccan Diaries, Volume 1
by
T. D. McMichael
Copyright 2011 by T. D. McMichael
All rights reserved.
Apparition ©iStockphoto.com/chuwy
For more information, please visit:
Volume One of The Wiccan Diaries includes material prepared
by myself and Lennox Lenoir. The point of view alternates between the two of
us, and is marked accordingly. Halsey is me. And Lennox is Lennox.
Halsey Rookmaaker
It’s me, Halsey. I don’t know why I’m writing this down... except...
Rome. It’s a little after two, the sun is shining––I see flashes of
monuments, countryside. We’re getting ready to pull into Termini Station.
I have everything I need.
My bag is so well-worn and frayed; like an old friend. I
know every pocket, and secret, hidden nook. It doesn’t keep secrets from me. In
fact, it keeps secrets
for
me.
I am in Rome––and I am
seventeen––and it’s July––and I feel...
something
....
It’s an odd feeling.
It’s like the words:
hopefully,
perhaps
.
There is a promise there. Though, of what, I’m unsure. Even
this feeling of unsureness is unsure. I get the feeling that all of the things
I ever thought, felt, dreaded, or feared––everything I rejoiced
about, or ever worried over––all the problems that have been mine
for so long––are nothing.
I am in a city that is working into its third millennium.
This journal is to be my city. Every mistake is a blind
alley that leads somewhere new. Every happy accident a cause for ruin. I will
build ruins and blind alleys, and people my city. There will be monuments, no
doubt.
The light is the light of discovery, the darkness the
ever-receding abyss, about which I am unsure. My sureness, in the face of my
uncertainty, is an attempt to defeat my abyss. My words, weapons. I hope to
say,
I know
. I hope to do that very
much.
It’s me, Halsey.
* * *
You leave chapters in the past. You start new ones better.
You try to forget about the letdowns and insecurities, the misfortunes, and the
mishaps.
Termini Station was really my first experience of Rome. I
had the tour guides, the maps. I had the sense that every traveler needs, that
if you just
go
maybe you can
find
.
Termini Station was real, it was modern, it was high-tech.
The high-speed train which had brought me was sleek, shiny. The front of it
looked like a very wise worm, with a face made out of headlights and windshield
wipers. I saw through the glass of the huge terminals.
Rome.
So I set foot in Rome, and Rome set foot in me.
The first thing I noticed was the super abundance of cars,
traffic. Cars are smaller in Europe. These looked tiny. They had names like
Punto
,
Opel
. City cars. One had doors that went up, not out. I soon
understood why.
I didn’t drive––
yet
––but the problem of travel immediately became
apparent to me. My tour guide, a book I kept on me at all times, said that Rome
was a ‘walking city,’ which meant, apparently, everyone hoofed it. That was
so
not the case.
I put my hand over my mouth, looking at all the smog.
Perhaps there was another, secret Rome, I, being a foreigner, wasn’t supposed
to know about yet (inward smile).
I put my backpack on. It had all my personal information in
it, including my passport, which was so well stamped it looked like a piece of
modern art, and headed for the exit––all of those words, hopeful,
etc.
Everyone was zipping around on scooters,
motorini
, as they were called, I was
soon to find were the preferred method of travel, or else stuck in cars,
impatiently bending their horns at the people in front of them.
I pulled out my map, which was basically advertising to
someone, “Hey, come rob me!” The guidebook warned me that Termini Station was
home to pickpockets, drug dealers, and prostitutes. I wanted to go to
Via Condotti
ASAP, where I had rented an
apartment for the remainder of the summer. It had a view of the Spanish Steps!
An agent had set it up for me for a small fee; unfortunately, until I came into
my inheritance, people would insist on treating me like a child. The question
now was, How to get there?
The first thing I noticed on the laminated map I had, was
the big streaking red line, Line A. This was the
Metropolitana
, the subway, which ran underneath the city. Northwest
it crossed the Tiber. But it stopped just two blocks from where I wanted to go.
I had just gotten to Rome, however, and I didn’t feel local
enough to ride the subway. I thought about the money I had in my pocket. It was
all large denomination, multicolored euro, ranging from five to five hundred.
Something about
exact change only
made me scratch the bus option. Plus, I wanted to see the sights. I was very
new to a very old city. If I took a cab, it would be the best of both worlds.
Right? I was guaranteed not to lose my way.
According to the map, it was two miles from Termini Station
to my apartment. I had been on a train all day, and my legs were sore. Two guys
checked me out, so I hid behind my map. They flagged down a minicab.
I followed behind and got the next one in line.
The door was dented, and it stuck when I opened it.
Non-alcoholic aperitifs littered the inside of the cab. They advertised SUCCO
DEL GATTO, a bitter type unknown to me. The red bottle had memorable gold
foiling.
Next came the part that I was not looking forward to.
Interacting with native speakers. I did not speak Italian. Zip, squat, zilch.
Not a single jot. But I was beginning to get the whole
if-you-just-have-money-and-throw-your-hands-up-in-the-air thing, then they
tended to be rather cool about the whole situation.
My cabbie said three beautifully pronounced syllables:
ah-doh-vay
. It didn’t sound like a
question. My gist-o-meter, however, was functioning perfectly correctly. He was
asking me where I wanted to go.
I climbed over the front seat and showed him on the map.
“Cone-doh-ti,”
I said. His gist-o-meter
was better than mine. “I speak
Americano
,”
he said. We were moving. He smiled in the mirror. Somebody cut us off. “First
time to Rome?”
I nodded.
He stopped to yell something out the window I had only ever
heard before in
The Godfather
. “You
will need to be careful, young lady,” he said, still gesticulating at the
offending motorist. “Here, look.” It was evident he lived in his cab. He dug,
while we waited in traffic, through a pile of old newspapers. “You don’t have
to speak Italian,” he said.
I was shown pictures.
“They say there are no
leads
,
yes. No leads, yes.”
I nodded.
“They say that he climbs through the windows, yes.”
Okay.
“Look. He does things to the bodies, see.”
I did see; or was he saying yes?
“They have a name for him, yes.”
I suddenly realized what the cabbie was showing me. “There
is a killer on the loose, yes.”
“Sì,” I said, utilizing my only word of Italian.
“The papers are full of him, every day. They say, Is today
the day?” We moved another inch. He had a little ice chest tucked into the
floorboards. I suddenly found out where the gold-foiled aperitifs came from.
Very moved when he offered me one, he popped it open on the
edge of his dashboard, which he used to pop things open with, and we sat and
chitchatted about the strange case.
I learned that they called him
Peter Panico
. The killer, not the cabbie. It was a name the
newspapers had come up with. “He crawls through windows, yes.”
I got a little chill, when I thought about it.
“All of the victims are girls, yes.”
No wonder he was warning me.
The Succo del Gatto had a strange kick. It was bitter,
potentially habit-forming, goodness. I smacked my lips, unselfconsciously. So
did he.
Saint Peter. Peter
Panico.
The light and the
dark.
The abyss and the
not-the-abyss.
He kept all of the Peter Panicos, he said. I was treated to
newspaper after newspaper. We drank our drinks, and I half read the articles.
Certain words stood out.
Omicidio
,
‘homicide.’ The victims had not survived.
Misterioso
,
mysterious. The cops didn’t have a clue. One last word, and it brought a panic.
Occulto.
Investigators were attributing the killings to certain
strange goings-on, the Questura, which was the police, had listed under
the occult
.
A little aerial of fear vibrated within me.
This is what you were looking for, isn’t it?
I told myself.
Proof?
“Missing people, dead bodies. It is not hard to see what is
going on,” said the cabbie. I lay back and thought it all through, hugging my
backpack protectively.
He put on some music.
A serial killer. He’s
doing things to bodies. The occult....
We were almost there. I took out two crisp blue euro. “Smog
and monuments,” he said, “smog and monuments.”
I took his meaning. “Good-bye,” I said. I left him to the
traffic, and looked from the sidewalk, down the length of Via dei Condotti. It
was full of famous names. Gucci, Bulgari, McDonald’s. I put on my backpack. If
anyone grabbed it, they would have to drag me with them. It looked like Mardi
Gras or the Running of the Bulls. Tourist Rome. Gobs of people were flocking en
masse everywhere the eye could see. I realized why I had wanted a place here.
It felt safe.
Balconies and the open black shutters of private apartments
jutted above wrought-iron gas lamps. It gave that feeling of
je nais se quois
.
I felt tired, at the same time, exhilarated; I wanted to go
nowhere, I wanted to go everywhere. I wanted my room. Four walls, and a bed. I
wanted to relax, and get cleaned up, maybe watch the people down below.
I wanted to get to the bottom of this business.
* * *
My landlady was the suspicious type. She didn’t speak a word
of English. I think we managed by pointing and by looks. And it was these looks
that she was so masterful in; she had a look for every condemnation.
Make a loud noise––
look
.
Come in after what she considered late––
look
.
The biggest look revolved around the boyfriend situation. I
didn’t have one. She gave me a big, fat look.
“I
swear
,” I said.
Why did I get the feeling she didn’t believe me?
That first night, she went over the rules.
No boyfriends. No loud noises. No mysterious
comings and goings. Especially no boyfriends making loud noises, coming and
going.
She waved and gesticulated and pointed her crazy arms.
What the H? I get it. No gentlemen callers. But she didn’t
believe me.
It took an hour to satisfy her I was who I said I was. She
seemed determined to find fault with my room-renting abilities. She was doing
me a favor––a
ragazza
like me. Break one rule––that was it.
No smoking
, also.
I pantomimed I didn’t. She didn’t believe me.
Finally, with one last portentous gesticulation, the
gauntlet was through, she let me have the room. The ordeal had been worth it.
It was beautiful. I immediately felt at home.
She smiled and deposited the key. She plunked it into my
open palm, whereupon I felt its satisfying weight.
The room was immaculate, frilly; it had a balcony, with
French doors, two small windows either side, with louvered exterior shutters.
Curtains hung around a giant four-poster bed decorated in pillows with mauve
bedsheets in thick Egyptian cotton. There was a wrought-iron candlestick on the
bedside table in the shape of roses. Black and interlacing, they crawled up to
lavender-smelling candles, whose wicks were new.
There was a small closet with a dozen bent metal
coat-hangers and a louvered door that could close. There was a small writing desk
and a chair and the floors were unvarnished, lived-on, wood. There was
everything I could need and more. It was quiet in the hall––that
led to the thin slanting stairs––that led to the street. My
landlady monitored everything from a small room, located at the top of the
stairs. To enter, she had to buzz me in.
But this––
my
room... I was a firm believer in Virginia Woolf, who said, All one needs is a
room of her own. I could tell the landlady had been wondering how old I was. I
had one of those faces.
I could look younger or much, much older. Something I had
inherited from my mother. I felt the locket at my neck that was the only
heirloom I had of my mother
or
father.
It had a picture of them both. Her, when she was my age.
Him, on their honeymoon. It was the only personal possession that mattered to
me:
My mom and dad
. I had never met
either one of them, and I never would.
I removed it and hung it on the iron roses, and proceeded to
unpack the rest of my belongings. I traveled light, as a rule, and when I did
travel, it was not necessarily to acquire things.
I was in Rome to meet someone. Not the kind of rendezvous my
landlady was so hung up about. I was there to meet someone who could help me
find information. Or rather, relate certain information
to
me.
About the only thing I knew was that his name was Ballard.
Whether it was a first, last, or nickname, I didn’t know. The postmark said
Roma
, it was sent via
Poste Italiane
, so I knew the envelope
originated from where I was at now.
The address was handwritten cleanly on the front. It was
this Ballard I didn’t know. Where had I ever met anyone named Ballard?
It was the things he said, which had sparked my voyage, and
led me on this leap of faith. In particular, reference to my mom and dad. The
letter literally said: “I think my uncle knew your parents. He wanted me to
give you this.” He continued on, and won me over.
Leaving Massachusetts, when it was the only world I had ever
known, was difficult, but there was nothing for me there. This coincided with a
desire for me to stretch my wings. But was it a premature wing stretching?