Prologue: 1729

 

     Wise to the ways of the night, Cassandra slipped unafraid through the forest, basket in hand. Moonlight filtered through the dark trees, the mist glowing like ghosts as they floated above the forest floor. Bent over, her worn shawl wrapped around her to ward off the night chill, Cassandra crept slowly between the trees.

     “Where are you?” she whispered. She stopped and with a slow wave of her hand parted the mist as though it was solid. “Ah, there you are. So lovely.”

     She knelt to pick the white mushrooms and place them in her basket. Then, murmuring words known only to herself, she carefully dragged a finger in a circle around the spot where the mushrooms had been. In only a few minutes little caps of white began to poke through the mossy ground, reaching up until a cluster of new mushrooms stood gleaming in the moonlight. Her brother Belasco's favorites. She picked them and put them in the basket. She'd cook them for him when she returned to camp. Looking up to the night sky, she said, “Thank you.”

     She eased herself up, realizing with a pang that she was beginning to age and was not as spry as she had once been. She picked up the basket and continued her search.

     An owl hooted, startling her with its ominous portent of impending death; she blessed herself with the sign of the cross. She started back for camp but then froze, her head cocked to one side, listening. What was that? From somewhere far off, she heard a wolf howl but that wasn't what had stopped her. No, something else.

     There! A plaintive cry. Human. The Shaitaan! And again. No, a woman's cry of pain.

     She dropped the basket, the precious mushrooms spilling onto the ground, and ran toward the sound. She heard the woman call out in agony just as she reached her. On the banks of a creek a young woman lay on her side, her water bucket overturned in the grass. Her eyes were wide with fright, her breathing labored.

     “Anna!” Cassandra dropped to the ground beside her and rolled the woman onto her back.

     “Get . . . Belasco,” the woman said, fighting for breath.

     “No time, Anna,” Cassandra said. She pushed up the woman's skirts. Oh, merciful angels! So much blood!

     “Please . . . my baby!”

     “Be strong. I'm here for you,” Cassandra said, even as the baby's head began to crown. Her hands slick with blood, she guided the baby as Anna screamed.

     “Hold fast, Anna!”

     Suddenly, the baby dropped into Cassandra's hands, squealing like a banshee. She grabbed the knife from her belt, cut the umbilical cord and tied it off. She placed the baby on the grass and turned her attention back to the mother. But the blood, the blood! How could she stop it?

    Anna's eyelids fluttered, then closed. Cassandra shook the woman by her shoulders. “Don't you go away on me, Anna! Your baby needs you!” No response. She pressed her fingers against the woman’s throat, just below her ear and felt a feeble pulse. Once. Twice. Then, nothing. “No!” Cassandra sat back on her heels, staring mutely at the young woman's face turned marble-like in the cold moonlight. She wiped the tears from her face with her bloodied hand, feeling the warm blood leaving a sticky trail on her skin.

     The squalling baby brought her back to her senses. She picked up the baby. She wrapped it in her shawl and noticed the leg cocked at an odd angle. A tear fell from her eye, anointing the baby’s forehead. “Ah, poor little boy! The Fates have played you false.” She slowly pushed herself up, the baby a burden in her arms, and walked toward the camp.

     In a forest clearing, over forty Romani wagons nestled in a fortress-like circle. Belasco, a tall, handsome Roma with hair dark as a raven’s wing, sat on a stump. He took a deep breath, the sweet night air reminding him that nothing in this world could stop him from enjoying his magic, performing his juggling, and being rewarded for his talents. How easy it was to have gorgers toss their coins in appreciation of his talents!

     He laughed loudly, catching his friend, Rafael, by surprise. Belasco looked at his stout friend and took a long, cool drink from a bottle with a crude label portraying a juggler entering a similar wine bottle. He placed the near-empty bottle on the ground.

     Rafael picked it up for yet another swig and slurred, “You know Belasco, the more I drink, the more the juggler on this bottle reminds me of you.”

     Belasco smiled, took back the bottle and wiped the neck with his billowy sleeve, He took a drink. Somewhere, the distant cry of a wolf split the quiet night, worrying Rafael. “It's just a love-crazed wolf. Not to worry, my old friend. Here,” said Belasco, handing him a coin. “Tell me, what is on the coin?” 

     Rafael held the coin up to the light from the campfire. “It's the face of the king, the bastard that he is.” 

    “And on the other side?”

     Rafael turned the coin over. “Britannia sitting on a throne.” 

    “Now,” said Belasco, “give me back the coin.” Rafael handed the coin to Belasco, who flipped it high into the air. “Catch it, Rafael!” 

     His friend stumbled from his seat but caught the coin before it hit the ground.

     “Take a look, Rafael. What do you see?”

     Rafael looked at the coin resting in his hand. “Why, it's the image of a coiled snake!” Curious, he turned the coin over. “And it's the same on both sides!”

     Belasco sat back and grinned. His astonished friend grabbed the wine bottle and took another drink. Belasco was about to reach for the bottle, but something stopped him. He looked around the camp. The fire burned brightly, making it difficult to see into the surrounding woods. He heard twigs snapping in the darkness, as if a large animal was rapidly approaching.

     Rafael jumped up. “Did you hear that?”

     Belasco felt a cold breeze, turned, and stared into the dark forest. “Hush, my friend, something is in the wind this way.”

     A silhouette of a woman emerged from the dark and was illuminated by the campfire. For a moment, the woman neither moved nor spoke as she struggled to catch her breath.

    “Cassandra? Is that you?” Belasco said.

     She walked toward him, carrying something bundled and twitching in her tattered shawl. He saw the distraught expression on her face. Now, only a few feet away she held out the bundled baby.

     “Cassandra! What . . .?” Looking at the baby, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. “Where's Anna? What’s happened?” She sadly shook her head, fighting back tears, and held the baby out to him. At that moment he understood. “No! That can't be! She can't . . .”

     Cassandra again attempted to place the child in his arms. “It's a boy, Belasco. My dear brother, you're all he has now. Here, take him.” As she moved closer to him, holding out the child, her shawl fell away, revealing the baby's deformed leg.

     Belasco backed away, horrified. He looked to Rafael, who didn’t understand what was happening. Belasco turned back to his sister and stared at the child's left leg, crooked and bent to the side. “No,” he said, almost whispering, “I can't.”

     “He's your son!”

     “And born with the Devil's mark! No, I won't care for him. I won't!”  The anguished father suddenly grabbed the wine bottle from Rafael, shoving him out of the way, and ran out of the camp. The darkness of the forest swallowed him up.

     Tears slid down her cheek. Cassandra called after him, “Belasco! Come back!” Her cry became an echo. The wolves howled in reply.

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Chapter One: Twenty Years Later

 

Cassandra stood in the shade of the trees, contentedly smoking her pipe. Surrounding her, gaily painted Romani wagons stood like a wall, circumscribing a ring in the forest clearing. Several Romani were gathered around a cooking fire in the center of the camp, singing and passing a bottle among them. Someone was playing a hammer dulcimer, the bright notes of the “Fire Dance” lifting into the sky like colorful butterflies. That tune always brought back memories for Cassandra, some beautiful, others not so. Her attention drifted to her nephew, Stefan, sitting with the others on a log around the fire, his walking stick lying beside him. The young man was always up to some prank, or busy practicing his magic, and apparently, today was not to be an exception.

    “Ah, a four-legged assistant,” Stefan said, grabbing a black cat that had rubbed up against his boots by the scruff of its neck before it could run off. As the others laughed, he stuffed the struggling cat into a leather bag. “In you go, my friend.”

Stefan held the bag aloft. The bag pulsed and jerked in his grasp as the screeching cat tried to claw its way out.

   “Careful, Stefan!” a woman called out.

He smiled, shook the bag hard one time and suddenly, the bag went limp, deflated. He opened it, turned it upside down, crumpled it in his hands and threw the empty bag on the ground.

Cries of astonishment rose among the group. “What devilry is this?” a man said, making the sign to ward off the evil eye.

   Twenty feet away, the black cat glared at Stefan, hissing, then turned tail and ran off into the woods.

Stefan beamed. He had their attention now and played it up for all he was worth. Picking up his walking stick, he held it to his lips as though he were playing a flute. By now, the dulcimer music had stopped, suspended in mid-note by the antics around the fire, and all was quiet. Stefan took a breath, placed his figures along invisible holes on the stick, and blew. The very same tune that only moments ago had echoed through the camp, now emanated from the walking stick turned flute, dulcet tones, clear and lovely.

The people were mesmerized, listening raptly to Stefan's music, but suddenly they were on their feet, scrambling to get away as they noticed simultaneously with the musician that the stick-flute was now neither stick nor flute, but had morphed into a writhing black snake. Stefan shrieked and threw the snake down, falling off the log, his lame leg preventing him from running away.

   “Damnation!”

   The coiled snake bared its fangs at him. The others backed away to a safe distance but Stefan, wide-eyed with fright, could not move.

   From the shade of the trees, Cassandra calmly walked to the fire, her pipe still clenched between her teeth. The snake turned its head to her, hissing, its forked tongue flicking. She raised her right arm, reared back, then made a violent throwing motion toward the snake, as though hurling a stone at it.

The snake froze.

She approached it but the snake did not move. She grabbed it by the head and picked it up, the body still coiled. The snake had turned to wood. She tossed it to the huddled onlookers, who ran away. She chuckled and reached down to where Stefan lay sprawled on the ground and helped him stand.

  “How . . . how did you do that?” the shaken young man asked.

She removed the pipe and smiled coyly. “Do what?”

  “You know what I mean. The snake.”

   “You assume much, nephew.” She tapped the ash from the pipe onto the ground. “Come, walk with me.”

    Stefan leaned on her as she led him to her wagon. They sat on the steps. “I certainly didn't conjure up that snake, Cassandra. It scared the daylights out of me.”

  “Maybe you didn't but your skills are escalating. You have the makings of becoming truly great,” she said.      “You could do that.”

   He sighed. “Do you really think so? I want to be, great” he said, looking down at his deformed leg, “but I have the Devil's mark.”

  “No! You have the mark of the conjuror.”

   He looked across the camp to where the others were still marveling over the wooden snake. “What more must I do? What more is there to learn?” He turned to her. “I'm bored with simple sleight of hand tricks. Any fool can do those. I want something that will make me famous. I want people to say, 'There goes Stefan, the world's greatest conjuror.'“

   She looked into his dark eyes and saw traces of her brother Belasco in their depths. He had the same good looks, the same dark hair, the same longing for something beyond his grasp. She hoped, no, she prayed Stefan would not end up like his father.

   “It will happen, Stefan.”

   “When? I'm twenty years old, practically an old man!” She laughed. “I'm serious, Cassandra.”

   “Yes, I know. I can see that you are. You're ambitious. I've seen that in men before. It's not always a good thing. But you are who you are, for good or ill. I have always looked after you, haven't I?” He nodded. “I will always do so.”

   “So, tell me,” Stefan said, “what must I do to learn real magic? There must be something no one has ever done before.”

   She looked away, peering into the gathering shadows in the forest, seeing again all that had transpired twenty years ago, all that had brought them to this time, this place, and knowing that it had always been fated.

    “There is . . .”

    “Yes?” Stefan said, leaning closer to her.

    “It's . . . no, I can't tell you. There are so many other astonishing things you can learn. And I don’t mean parlor tricks. Feats of wonder. True magic!”

   He looked at her silently, searching her face for deception, but not finding it. “Like what?” he finally asked.

She smiled. “I’ll show you.” She pushed herself up from the step and entered her vardo. Stefan heard her rustling around inside. She returned and sat down beside him. She held something wrapped in a shawl on her lap.

   “What I’m about to show you must never be trifled with. I’ve long debated even showing it to you but think that now may be the time.”

   She carefully unwrapped the shawl, revealing a small, worn leather book, Liber Tenebrarum inscribed in gold. She gazed at it with reverence and, Stefan thought, sadness.

   “The Book of Shadows,” she said, softly. “What you may learn in these ancient pages, Stefan, could truly make you the world’s greatest conjuror.”

   His eyes burned with excitement. “Please! May I see it?”

   She held the book out to him, but a twinge of doubt unsettled her, and he almost had to tug the book from her fingers.

   His fingers moved quickly but cautiously through the parchment-thin pages. He saw strange drawings and symbols, chants, and invocations in Latin and other languages he didn’t recognize. So many chapters with beguiling titles promising truly wondrous magic: “How To Draw A Fountain From A Stone,” “Walk On Water And Not Drown,” and “The India Mango Tree.” He had no idea what these were about, but he could feel in his bones that they promised greatness. Then he came across, “Revenants,” and felt a chill course through him.

   He paused; his eyes riveted on the page. “What’s this? The Bottle Conjuration? It looks fascinating.”

   “Oh, Stefan, put it out of your mind!” She had to lure him away from that conjuration, turn his thoughts elsewhere.

   He looked up, confused. “What’s the matter?”

   She looked at him as if seeing him for the first time. He was no longer a child. Fate is fate, she thought. It cannot be denied. “Many people have tried to do the Bottle Conjuration. It's dangerous. Life threatening. How could anyone ever fit inside a wine bottle?”

   Stefan's eyes opened wide. “Fit inside a wine bottle!”

   “Yes. Imagine the endurance, the excruciating pain it would take to do such a thing. The sound of bones crunching. The sight of a man disappearing before your eyes!”

“I would surely become the greatest conjuror of all time,” he said, his eyes glowing. “That would be spectacular!”

   “No. That would be suicide.”

   He heard the sadness in her voice, and saw it written on her face. There was a mystery there, he could see that, but could not fathom what it may be. As Cassandra sat lost in her thoughts, his eyes drifted, and he saw as if for the first time, the magnum wine bottle tucked beneath a stool in her wagon. The bottle whose label depicted a harlequin half-descended into a wine bottle.

   His voice low, he said, “You say it can't be done, I say I can do it.”

   Suddenly, fear swept through her. How could she prevent him from trying the conjuration? She snatched the book from his fingers.

   “What the . . .?” he said.

   “No, it’s too dangerous!”

   Slowly, he pushed himself up from the step and stood, clutching the side of the wagon. “I vow to learn this magic,” he said.

   She shook her head as he started limping across the clearing. “Stefan!”

   He stopped and turned, swaying unsteadily. “Cassandra, don’t worry,” he said. He noticed the snake, once again alive, slithering out of the brush. He stood his ground, then made the same throwing motion he had seen Cassandra make. Instantly, the snake transformed back into his walking stick. “I’m not afraid.”

   She said, “Maybe you should be afraid. Remember, the borderline between good and evil magic is as fine as a spider's web.”

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