Matt Legend: Veil of Lies by Denis Mills - HTML preview

Chapter 41 – WITCH HOUSE TWO

When they landed Cathy knew with just one look. Her parents were dead. Her dog too. Her mother’s ever vivacious sister stood on the tarmac, head hung low looking haggard wearing oversized sunglasses, clutching a hanky.

“. . . She was celebrating her anniversary,” her aunt sobbed . . . “It was f-f-f-fourteen years ago Ted proposed on bended knee on FedEx Field’s jumbotron not knowing whether she would say yes. The sportscaster said he was very brave. “She had tickets for you and Zak. I missed the flight,” she cried in heaving convulsive gasps.

Cathy burst into tears. “The bomb was meant for us. Mommy and daddy are dead because of me,” she wailed inconsolably.

Once again grief counselors consoled the survivors.

Seeing the chaos on tv Matt feared for his own mother’s safety. But there was nothing he nor anyone could do. No phones were working in California and getting there was impossible. He would have to trust she would be okay. It would be a long time before the full magnitude of their loss would sink in. Grief is like the stages of disbelief.

* * *

Matt swung a one-eighty, dropped his bike, kicked open the white picket gate, passed the two weeping willows that drooped to the weed garden like a Portuguese Man o’ war and climbed the creaking steps. He pressed the doorbell.

The front door flew open.

“I know you didn’t just kick my gate in!” Before him was a feisty little old lady wearing a violet-box pleat dress, red cashmere sweater and black pointed-toe flats. Not quite the black gown and pointy black hat he had expected.

“You don’t look like a witch,” Matt blurted.

“A witch? My goodness. What gave you that idea? Won’t you kids come in,” the kind lady beckoned.

“No thanks,” said Chase.

“Sure, thanks,” Matt said.

“Oh, my goodness,” said the lady. You’re those kids from ZNN. What on earth made you think I’m a witch?”

Matt explained.

“Oh. Years ago, more than I care to admit, I was a medium. My sister, Esmerelda, was into Ouija boards, tarot cards, palm reading, you name it. I tried to talk her out, alas no luck. We used to give readings right here in this house. People came from far and wide to have their fortunes told and to talk with their dearly departed loved ones. I was very well known. I brought her into it.

“I’m Maddie. Sit down please.”

“Is Esmerelda a good witch?” asked Chase.

“Chase! Enough with the witch stuff already,” Cathy said.

“Esmerelda passed last winter I’m afraid,” said Maddie.

Matt gulped. “Who did this then?” he asked, showing her the Monster energy drink scratches.

“Oh dear,” was all she said.

“There’s no such thing as good witches,” she said to Chase. “Witches are witches. That’d be like a good serial killer. Call them what you will . . . wizards, warlocks, shamen, medicine men, voodoo priests, mediums, witch doctors, fortune tellers, storefront psychics, necromancers, those calling themselves ‘spiritual’, whatever . . . All no good, all serving the same evil demented master, every one of ‘em on the express elevator to hell.”

Matt admired the polished hardwood floor and fine woven rugs. A fine old dining table ringed with exquisite handcrafted chairs stood beside an ornate china cabinet next to a regulator that announced the hour with a single melodious chime. Bookcases overflowed with volumes of every size and color. In one corner a vacuum-tube television, the kind that’s furniture, sat on four legs sprouting a telescoping brass V-antenna. On a nearby table an ancient radio and an old Commodore 64 computer competed awkwardly for space. Colorful floral vases and burgundy leather wing chairs with brass rivets flanked the fireplace in a room fragrant with the scent of jonquil, hyacinth and marigold.

“You have a nice place,” Matt said, studying her stuffy Victorian furniture that some people call antiques.

“Alas, if it were but a fraction of its glory days.” She pointed out a black and white photo showing a finely landscaped home surrounded by vintage luxury cars and people dressed funny.

“That’s how it looked when my husband Walter was alive.”

“Why’d you stop being a medium,” asked Chase.

“I became a Christian,” Maddie said proudly. “Believe me, that doesn’t happen much in the medium world. I paid a hefty price for turning away but it was nothing compared with the joy I’ve found.” A youthful vitality filled her eyes.

“Leviticus 19:31 says not to turn to mediums or to seek out spiritists. It says we defile ourselves if we do. So I stopped. Little did I know it wouldn’t be that easy. I was punished. That’s what they call it – punished. The pennywises hate it when a medium turns from the dark side and goes to the light. I mean they really hate it. Like when John Ramirez turned away and exposed their secrets. And like when you kids exposed them on ZNN. Ephesians 5:11 says to take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness but instead expose them. If angels weren’t protecting y’all, y’all’d be dead now.” Matt flashed to the mattresses falling out of the sky and the bulletproof chest incident. Like the Monster scar, the scars were still fresh.

“Like a deflector shield?” Matt asked.

Maddie’s eyes brightened. She raised her hand in the Vulcan greeting, “Live long and prosper.”

“Live long and prosper,” Matt returned, shaping his fingers into the two-fingered ‘V.’ Who would have thought Glinda the Good Witch of the South was a Trekkie.

“When I went over to the light they started doing all kinds of bad things. There were bangs and loud noises day and night. Doors opening and closing. Horrible smells. My bed would tremble every night. And night paralysis. That’s when they press you against the mattress when you’re half asleep and you can’t move or speak. It seems like a dream but it isn’t. They even sent vicious animals to my home. It’s night when they’re at their worst mostly,” she said softly, “but stuff happens during the day too”.

“They own the night? I thought the LAPD did,” Chase chuckled, having seen something about that on tv somewhere.

Maddie lifted a brow.

“He’s making a dumb joke,” Cathy said.

“That stuff’s been happening to us too,” Matt said.

“I’m not surprised,” said Maddie. “And something would go bump every night around the same time, 11:25. What was so special about 11:25? Never did figure out what that meant but Jesus gives us power over Satan and his spirits. When I asked Him to, He took control and the bad things stopped. “It’s an endless cycle. I pray. It stops. It comes back a week or two later. I pray. It stops. It comes back a week or two later until finally it stops once and for all.”

Chase rolled his eyes. “My philosophy teacher says there is no God.”

“Oh, well you can tell your philosophy teacher he’s full of it. Have you heard of James Edwards? He was a famous English medium. They used to call him the medium’s medium. For thirty years he filled public halls with people who came to hear him speak. He was on tv, radio. He wrote books, gave readings. He used a tape recorder to record his readings because when he was in a trance he didn’t know what was being said. One day he decided to play back the recording of a reading he’d given a woman who came to him regularly. Later he told the newspaper that when he and the woman heard the slowed tape and heard the disgusting, foul-mouthed language in the horrible threatening voice of the spirit, he knew right then and there who he’d been working for. How did he put it? … that he’d been ‘deceived and deluded for nearly thirty years.’ He quit them right then and there. When I found out, I quit too. Rudyard Kipling knew about the medium world. He blasted it in his poem En-Dor, a warning to the world.” Cathy raised an eyebrow.

The frail-looking lady raised her voice, “And don’t think what the mediums learn about people isn’t used to ruin their lives and their friends’ and families’ behind their backs.’ ”

“I don’t believe in God,” Zak snorted.

“Oh dear, do you believe in demons?”

“Yes.”

“You can’t believe in one without believing in the other, dear. There’s only good and evil. There’s no in between even though evil often tries to disguise itself to look like good. There’s only one kind of spirits - evil. And there’s no such thing as white magic. It’s all dark. Demons, I call them pennywises, are like any other organized criminal element. Each has a name and a rank. And each has a specific principality they’re responsible for whether it’s a country, a state, a city or even a city block. And they specialize. Some in suicide, others murder, others drugs, whatever. It’s war I tell you and we’re right smack dab in the middle. There’s a child who swings at night at a playground in Nevada. Whenever anyone approaches his eyes glow red and he disappears. Evil spirits have the world thinking ghosts are dead people. Just look on tv. People are eating it up. It was good what you kids did on ZNN. Woo hoo! That was some ballyhoo. You aren’t supposed to know that stuff.

The things the lady was saying were making sense. Matt had never heard them before.

Maddie spent a minute just looking at the kids before she said anything more at all. Then with a good deal of effort said,

“It wasn’t Esmerelda who scratched you, Matt.”

Matt bit his lip.

“That’s what I thought.”

“I don’t get it,” said Zak.

“No matter what you do there’ll always be people who want to believe a ghost is some little girl who died and loved where she lived so much she can’t leave. Hogwash. They need to spend a night with a malevolent one. That’ll cure them fast enough.”

“Before you go do you know about automatic painting?” asked Maddie. “It’s like automatic writing. It’s art created by a medium but it doesn’t come from the medium . . . There’s a Brazilian Gaspareto. Luiz Gasparetto. Google him. Is that what you call it? . . . Google? He creates exact replicas of old masters down to the smallest detail in just a few minutes holding a paintbrush between his toes hanging upside down blindfolded in the dark. Replicas so exact it takes an art expert to tell the difference. He says the power behind his so-called ‘gift’ is a source other than himself and that he’s been told to tell people. Told to tell people.

He’s been quoted as saying, ‘We want people to know there’s life after death.’ So you see, they don’t just use ghosts in their deception. You know who ‘we’ is don’t you?”

“We scratched my wrist,” said Matt.

“That’s impossible,” said Zak.

“Goodness child,” Maddie replied turning to Cathy, “Is he always this way?”

“Pretty much,” Cathy replied.

“Who’s we again?” asked Chase.

“We is them - demons,” Maddie replied. “Pathetic filth. Rabid dogs who’ll soon be put down.” Maddie picked up a fly swatter. “So tell me . . . What made you kids decide to tell the world ghosts aren’t dead people?”

“Payback,” Matt replied, “for Anne Frank . . . for all kids . . . and for me. We is the reason my father’s dead and Cathy and Zak’s parents.” Cathy stared into space.

“You kids are getting help you know. You’ve made some powerful enemies but your friends are more powerful.”

“You mean The Force?” said Zak.

“You can call it what you like. By the way, there’s something you should know. It’s easy enough to tell if a psychic’s powers come from the light side or the dark side. The light side’s predictions are one hundred percent accurate in every detail one hundred percent of the time. If even one tiny detail is off even once it’s from the dark side.”

Matt decided to ask the question he had been burning to ask …

“Why does God let bad things happen … like the Holocaust?

Maddie sighed two deep sighs … “Before the devil became the devil he sat at the right hand of God. But he became jealous of God’s power and led a rebellion. He was kicked out of heaven. The whole universe is watching. God has to let evil run its course. Otherwise the universe won’t see evil for what it is and something like it could happen again. The universe must see evil’s true face.

It’s like those science fiction movies when they travel through time to prevent a crime. But if you do that, how do you exact justice when you prevented the crime?

“Auschwitz? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet. The worst is yet to come. That’s why. God’s infinitely wiser than us. I think He knows what He’s doing.

“There’s a contract out on you kids. Remember to keep prayed up. I’ll pray for you too. Y’all come back now, hear?