The Wiccan Diaries

Chapter 7 – Halsey




Lia chewed her gum, waiting for one of us to tell her what was going on. The family dynamic was immediately apparent; she was Big Sis. Ballard looked at her and then at me. “You should come in,” he said.

“Just a minute,” said Lia, not unkindly. “Who is this? And what is she doing here?”

Ballard just shrugged. “I’m his pen pal,” I said; it wasn’t a lie. Cottoning on, Ballard said, “I’m allowed to have friends, aren’t I?”

She looked at us dubiously.

“I swear, Lia is so old-fashioned sometimes. It’s like she thinks I’m going to put a move on you,” he said, as he led me through the garage. I saw bikes and cars being worked on. There was a lot of chrome. I didn’t know much about motorcycles, but I wanted to learn. I enjoyed the wind in my hair. “Don’t let how she looks fool you. Ever since Risky died, she’s become like this matriarch.” He tried the word on like an unusual taste he was thinking of acquiring.

“Who’s Risky?” I asked, following behind him. He walked really fast.

He turned around. I had had to shout, he had gotten so far ahead. “Sorry about that,” he said.

“That’s okay.”

He smiled. Talking to him was very easy. He put a rag he was carrying in his back pocket, pointing to a picture framed on the wall of the bike shop. “That is Risky,” he said. “My uncle.”

I saw a picture of a distinguished-looking older man with salt-and-pepper stubble on his face. He had a twinkle in his eye, like he knew things.

“I know,” said Ballard, approving of the way I looked at him. Lia was still watching us from outside. She put on her helmet and got ready to leave.

“Do they just ride around all day?” I wondered out loud.

“And at night,” said Ballard. He opened a door, and held it open for me unselfconsciously. I passed through. We were in what must have been their home––Lia’s and Ballard’s.

It was attached to the shop. The hallways were very narrow. I saw a small kitchen down the hall. It had a draining board at the sink, and a white towel with sunflowers to dry the dishes. There were curios and other things on spindle-legged tables and family photographs on the walls. Ballard followed behind with his hands in his back pockets. I turned around. He nearly bumped into me. “Sorry,” I apologized. I had to look up at him.

He wasn’t as tall as his brothers. Which was another thing.

“Are all of those guys related to you?” I asked.

He got a quizzical look. “You mean them? No. Why?”

“I just wondered,” I said.

“This is my family.” He pointed at all of the photographs. “My mother and father. They’re retired now. They’re living in Greece. You know those white cliffs?”

I assumed he was talking about all of Greece’s coastline on the Mediterranean.

“Yeah those. They live in a little place. It has no running water. They have to fetch it in buckets. But they do their own thing.”

“So you and Lia?”

“There are two others of us,” said Ballard, “but they moved to the States.” He pointed to his two older brothers.

“So Lia...”

“Lia is popular,” he said, immediately grasping what I was getting at. It made me blush, slightly. I looked down. He seemed nervous. One foot was standing on the toes of the other.


“It must be hard, running this shop, with just the two of you.”

“You have no idea,” said Ballard. He offered me a grattachecca. It was a delicious concoction he whipped up in their tiny kitchen. I sat at a table while he worked. There was a lovely lemon scent to their small home. If I peeked over the edge of the window I could just see the street from where we were at. I saw Lia disappearing down the alleyway on her motorcycle, her legs straddling the chassis, in a group of all the Six Nine Guys.

“Grattachecca,” he said, in his lovely Italian. It was like a slurpee, but better, very refreshing. He sat down at the table, taking a bite of his own grattachecca. It was blue-colored flavored ice. “So….”

I knew what he meant. “I bet you’re wondering why I’m here,” I said. None of my fear at meeting him remained. He just had a face: so young, so innocent....

I knew, in that moment, that I could tell him anything, just as I was equally sure that there would be no ridicule, no censure, in his eyes. It was like I had been floating––he was my bright horizon. I was leaving the abyss.

I unzipped my backpack and took out the strange book. He looked warily at the cover of the nondescript volume.

It was very old.

Black leather encased it, although in some places it had been worn so thin, the binder’s board showed through. But that wasn’t the most interesting feature. The most interesting feature––without having opened it first––was the symbol, a pentacle within a pentacle, wrapped in a circle, surrounded by glyphs––magic symbols.

And when one opened it....

“Do you know what this is?” I asked him.

He ate his blue, flavored ice, his dark eyes seeming to bore into mine. He captured some of it from running down his lip with his tongue, and said, “Yeah.”

It was like we had made a secret pact, right there, in the kitchen.

“I know a little, not everything. The Internet is full of rumor––half-truths, false leads. I looked into it while Lia wasn’t looking. Sometimes she noses,” he said. “From what I understand, isn’t it something like the Munich Manual or some other ‘grimoire’––?” He put the word in quotes, careful not to drop his grattachecca.

I opened the book. It was thick with dust. I blew some of it away, revealing the signatures, written in different hands, and at different times––

I saw those of my father, my mother––someone else’s. They were faded with age. My mother’s hand looked the newest. “A grimoire, a book of magic,” said Ballard.

“I couldn’t believe you found me,” I said.

“Like I said, I only read the inscription,” he said.

I looked at it again. His uncle had written, in a hurried hand, “If I die, Ballard, find her––find Halsey Rookmaaker; she is the last of her line; the final Rookmaaker. This is her copy of The Magus Codex. ‘It being different, accordingly.’”

“That’s the bit that threw me,” said Ballard. “When I went to look, I mean. I mean, magic? It’s a lot to accept. My uncle believed in this book. He made sure I found it. I want to know why. Until then, no one knows. Not even Lia.” He made me promise.

“I won’t tell anyone, Ballard. I promise. I want to know how you got this book, too.”

“I did find a few things,” he said. “Leads...”

I listened on, interested.

“That’s how I found you. And that... school...”

I grimaced... St. Martley’s. How could I explain it?

“It’s all right, if you don’t want to tell me,” he said.

I looked at him. “Ballard, St. Martley’s is a school for girls––there’s nothing sinister, I swear...”

That wasn’t entirely true, and he knew I was keeping things from him. “Suit yourself,” he said, “but I was hoping I would get to see you so we could talk about it. I just didn’t realize it would be happening so soon. Aren’t you a student there? Shouldn’t you be in school?”

I asked him the same thing.

“I asked you first,” he said.

I sighed.... Teenage boy....

“Its full title is St. Martley’s Academy for the Gifted.”

“You being the gifted one?” he said.

“What can I say?” I said.

He didn’t respond. Instead, he just ate his ice. Mine was dripping on to the table. We ate in silence for a while. I looked at the Codex.

You can’t lie to him. It isn’t right. I sighed.

“Okay, it’s a school for Magic, all right? There, I said it.”

It was like he won, or something.

“I knew it,” he said, with altogether too much satisfaction.

I glared at him. “You shouldn’t gloat,” I said. “It’s unbecoming.”

“So what do you do there, being all gifted and all?”

“Stuff,” I said, either defensively or evasively––I wasn’t sure.

“‘Stuff?’” he repeated, skeptically. “What kind of ‘stuff?’”

It was obvious that he wasn’t going to let this go. “You know. Math, Science, Geometry. You should see me foil. I do great Algebra.”

“I see. So it’s just P.E. and fifteen-minute breaks and every other week you get a half day on Friday, is that it?”

“Sure,” I said, enjoying his irritation.

“What did he mean when he said you were, you know... ‘the last?’” said Ballard, referring to his Uncle Risky.

I saw his heartbreak, then, his soul. It was like mine at seeing my father’s and mother’s signatures. Ancient ink-strokes on a yellowing page, filled with dust.

It was the kind of dust I would never be able to get out. Just as I would never be able to get out the feeling that I had lost them.

“He meant my mother and father. These are their signatures.”

Ballard looked at them. “I didn’t know they were... dead,” he said.

“Yeah well.”

“Say,” he said, choosing to brighten up. “We’re having a little get-together. You should come tonight. It’s at Lia’s boyfriend’s place.” He said the last bit like he was going to gag. “But it’ll be really fun; it’s really cool there. It’ll give you a chance to ride your bike, at the very least.”

“Do you have a bike?” I asked.

“You betcha.” He nodded.

“I don’t know,” I said. After all, I had a date. “Can I bring a date?”

His face fell. “Sure,” he said. He told me where it was at. “So my uncle knew about magic. And that is what I don’t get. I would love to know what he was doing, caught up in it. Hey, can you conjure? I mean, can you do like magic spells, and stuff?”

“Erm...” I said. “It wasn’t really that kind of place.”

He did the frowning thing again. “What d’you mean?” he said.

I knew this would happen if I ever talked to anyone about what I did at St. Martley’s.

“You are a witch, aren’t you?” he said, pawing me relentlessly like a playful puppy. “I mean, aren’t you?”

“Erm...”

He looked so embarrassed.

“I mean, maybe,” I said.

“What?”

“Well, to tell you the truth, St. Martley’s isn’t so much a school of magic as it is a school against magic...”

He just stared. “You’ve got to be kidding!” he said.


“I’m afraid not,” I said. I felt embarrassed.

“So you’re saying... Let me see if I’ve got this straight,” he said. “You’re a witch––whose parents were witches––”

“Well, a witch and a wizard,” I interjected.

“Of course, sorry,” he said. “...And you go to a magic school, but you’re not a witch.”

“It’s more like I’m waiting,” I said. “It’s complicated.”

He shrugged. “I guess we have time. Oh, and it’s summer. That’s why I don’t go to school.”

“Duh! Geez! Of course!” I said. “We go–– no kidding. Gah!”

“What? You don’t?”

“We go year round, yeah. I told you, it’s all about abstinence, denial, conforming, rather than accepting who you are.”

“I don’t like this word ‘denial,’” he said. “You mean they teach you to reject who you really are?”

“Pretty much,” I said.

“Sounds like hell,” he said.

“It wasn’t that bad,” I said. “I had friends.”

“Were they all abstainers, too?” he asked.

“Becca, my best friend,” I said, “she started a Coven.” He looked on, intrigued. We pretended like we didn’t have a copy of The Magus Codex open between us. “But it was just like pretend, mostly. You see, a witch is taught abstinence first, so that she can gain all of the other things a supposedly well-rounded individual should have. Only, all we wanted to do was cast charms and do transformations and stuff––and we could, if we wanted to, if they taught us. But magic was strictly forbidden at St. Martley’s. It was like you couldn’t be... anything.”

Even now I felt restricted, here in his too-small kitchen that smelled like a scent I was beginning to associate with Ballard: clean, fresh, lemony....

“It wasn’t like we had it rough. To tell you the truth, it was pretty posh. Everyone tried to do stuff anyways.”

“Were you able to do... stuff?”

“You mean conjure? All that. Never. I’ve never crafted, no. Not even once. Some girls said they did, but we didn’t believe them.”

“Then how did you know?” he asked. “That you were...?”

“‘Gifted,’” I asked? “We didn’t. We don’t,” I said.

“I think I understand,” he said.

“I’m sure you do.”

We stopped talking after that. I read the inscription again. ‘It being different, accordingly.’ What the H did that mean?

“Who’s the other guy?” he asked. “The guy at the top of the page?”

“I don’t know,” I said, looking at the signatures. It went Frobenius Foucart, then my dad’s name, then my mom’s. It bothered me. I didn’t like seeing his name above theirs. Whoever he was, I had never heard of him before.

“Maybe it’s weird,” I said, “but I would like to find out about him. Who he is, where he lives... If he is even still alive....”

“Why wouldn’t he be?” said Ballard. He reached for the book. “It looks like a library book, almost. Like how libraries used to stamp books. You could tell who checked out what.”

That was an interesting thought––I finished the grattachecca. In fact, I was sure he was right. “That’s probably exactly what it is,” I said, smiling. He beamed at me. I was going to like Ballard.

* * *

I left with a map he drew for me, to the location of Lia’s boyfriend’s party tonight; I promised I would try to come. It made me feel bad. I had only been in Rome one day and already I had prior commitments.

“Be there,” he said. “It was nice meeting you.”

I told him likewise and hopped on my Vespa, speeding home. I didn’t pass any motorcycles coming back the way I had come, but could hear them in the corridors.

It was like they were prowling around. I was soon across the river, with the evening to look forward to.

* * *

Dear Diary,

If that is what you are,

Today, as I drove to Ballard’s, I felt a strange tug; it began at the Questura, which, let us never speak of again, but it intensified as I came around the Piazza Venezia rotary. I drove in a circle, lost for a long period of time, trying to get my bearings and avoid being run over. Around and around I went. Wherever I was headed, it seemed like I should turn off, go back to where I came from. I don’t know if it was a tug into the past, or else a protective instinct, shielding me from what I might find.

What I didn’t tell Ballard about St. Martley’s was more for his protection than honoring ardanes. St. Martley’s instructs girls how not to craft, but there is more to it than that. For instance, teacher slips. We have all seen one or more of them lose their cool. I suspect foremost Mistress Genevieve. She seems a wicked bad witch. I would hate to fight her.

I hope I made the right choice. I left in such a hurry. Three months, but still. I have effectively burned that bridge. There will be no prodigal Halsey, returning.

When we come of age, we are indoctrinated into the Craft. I don’t know how I feel about that. Particularly the whole abstinence bit. If they knew what some of us get up to... Sometimes with each other... although, I never did....

Having an all-girls’ school is like waving a banner to every healthy hormonal boy in a hundred mile radius. It is the enzyme in the equation. The spark that lights the blaze. I am a furnace of heat.

But I’m getting off track.

Mistress Genevieve said it was a kind of test. Not the no-sex bit. The Magical abstinence, is what I’m talking about. It’s a kind of badge. It’s supposed to teach you resourcefulness, patience, discipline––all of the multitudinous virtues. Instead it has us cracking up.

Her analogy was a piece of fruit. How we were all like little plump plums or other dumplings on the vine. Like a peach, a peach was good.

And if we got picked too soon...

How about not getting picked at all? What if we just fell off the magical tree, which, in the analogy, was St. Martley’s? What if we just fell off and nobody noticed? What if we just lay on the ground, wormpecked and rotting? Who would eat us, then?

There were 8 Virtues, according to Mistress Genevieve: Insight, Discretion, Virtuosity, Malleability, Severeness, Humor, Goodwill, Grace.

Hers was clearly Severeness. Sometimes Becks would do a rendition of Mistress Genevieve. “We must be beautiful, powerful bitches,” she would say. “Stern when we need to be.”

That had me thinking what my Virtue was? Knowing me, I’d probably get stuck with Malleability, whatever that meant. Virtuosity sounded cool. That must be badass witchcraft.

* * *

There was a storage compartment on the back of the Vespa under the seat. I bought some laundry detergent, shampoo, and bars of soap, and headed back to my apartment on Via dei Condotti.

My landlady nodded her approval. She had facilities onsite: washers, dryers. It got me thinking of Trastevere, and how freely its occupants aired their dirty laundry. ‘I’m too much of a coward to be so free. Instead I have you, Diary.’

* * *

He hasn’t come yet. I stood around down in the street, for a while, window-shopping. Drooling is a better term. Waiting for him to show up. I swear I don’t drool at the thought of boys and whether or not they remember promises ever, Diary. There are so many boy rules when it comes to second contact. It’s coming on nine o’clock at night. The summer days are long. I think the nights must be mercurial in response. Who knows what may happen? I think I will change into some fresh laundry. Yes.


I want to see more of Rome. I find all I want to do is mix, mingle, and be single. All those Six Nine Guys can’t all have girlfriends. Drool.