Dave's Anatomy: My History as a Writer, #86: "The Conduit."

Pierce Brosnan as James Bond

I have several ongoing characters: Sossity Chandler, a popular singing star; Martin Rollins, a guitarist; Jancinda Lamott, a vampire; and Alessia Bernini, who is a streg, a kind of witch or sorceress. Some writers use ongoing characters. Lucy Maud Montgomery gave us Anne Shirley, who continues on from Anne of Green Gables to Anne of Windy Poplars. Ian Fleming wrote fourteen novels about his character, James Bond. And W. Somerset Maugham, wrote a book of stories featuring a character named Ashendon and also made him narrator in the novels Cakes and Ale, The Moon and Sixpence, and The Razor's Edge.  

This is a good thing to do, I think, for a writer. It allows you to develop a character in various ways, through different situations, and through the years. The character I’ve published the most stories about is Sossity Chandler (twenty-eight stories). I’ve had to build a consistent biography for her and have written stories about her at various stages of her life. And it enables you to know a character well. I know Sossity likes whiskey, her favorite oath is “for Christ’s sake,” her favorite musical group The Rolling Stones. I know about her marriage, her divorce, her children, her boyfriends, her very good friends Heather and Lydia, her band, and her early failures and, later, massive success as a singer. It is a good exercise, I think, to develop ongoing characters.

Alessia Bernini

The story I want to talk about here is one about Alessia Bernini. Alessia is a streg, a witch or sorceress from Italian tradition. Strega practice natural magic, not black magic. In other words, they don’t sell their souls to the Devil but rather gain magical skill through study, discipline, and, most importantly, from inclusion in a line of practitioners that goes back, for Alessia’s order, a thousand years. She has inherited, and is guardian of, the accumulated power of the women in the succession before her. She will train a young girl to succeed her when she turns thirty.

Strega are benign. They cast spells only that they think are just and do no harm to the innocent. In the story, “The Conduit,” Alessia must use her power to rescue a local girl who dabbled in the occult and to save a woman who has been enslaved by oculists and used to further their designs—used at a terrible cost to her.

Alessia has known Genesia, daughter of a local mob boss named Corsi, for him Alessia has done spells (though never to further his Mafia interests). Her unstable, mercurial nature has led her to aspire to be, at various times, a Communist, an atheist, and a nun. When she dabbles in Satanism, however, and she and her boyfriend make a pact with the dark powers, she finds it’s not so easy to back out of the associations. They are bedeviled—literally. And feel malevolent power manifesting itself again them. Mr. Corsi has sought Alessia’s help. She is wary. “I’m not afraid of many things, Mr. Corsi. I am afraid of this. When you go up against the powers of darkness, it is no small matter. It’s dangerous—as dangerous as a thing can be.” Still, she agrees to take the job.

When she consults her crystal, she gets confusing images—some that are very dark and troubling but, but some that shine light. After consulting with a mentor, she eventually is transported by magical power to Elizabethan England where she witnesses the hanging of a young woman for witchcraft. But she also notices that the woman does not die. Back in the present, she does research and finds out about a group of people who practiced magical arts in Elizabethan times and were found out and executed. Further research gives her the name of the woman she saw hanged, Moira Whitman. The occultists with whom Genesia deal threaten Alessia, but she is equal to the threat. And the images of dark and light come together in her mind. 

Corsi and his men round up the occultists. Alessia draws a magic circle and reads and incantation they had taken from a captured occultist to summon spirits. They summon Moira Whitman.

Alessia sees the same woman she watched mistreated and scorned in old England. The woman is not defiantly wicked but submissive. Alessia tells her she is safe and they are there to help her. They found out her role was to be a “conduit” for demonic forces to enter the world. Alessia imagines how she was treated—the abuse, perversion, and abjection she must have been put through—to allow demonic powers to come through her. She speaks with Corsi:

“They brought this woman from the past,” he said. “They planned to use her as a conduit—a door through which the dark powers of hell could come to the earth and attack Floriano and Genesia. That would have been a most undesirable situation.”

Corsi looked at the girl, his eyes evaluative.

“She is innocent—a victim of their brutality. No harm is to come to her. We made a covenant and you are required to obey me in this. She can’t hurt anyone herself. The others are the real culprits. You know that a streg cannot take life. But I can say that once those four people you captured are gone, you won’t have any more trouble.”

He nodded.

Corsi and his soldiers dispatch the occultists. Alessia wants to rehabilitate the girl, who has never know good, love, or kindness. She suggests Genesia might profit from caring for her and teaching her to live in the modern world. Her father agrees, saying that is just the sort of thing she needs. Alessia knows Genesia and Floriano will not be bothered by vengeful spirits again. In an epilogue, we learn that Genesia is doing well and Moira is quickly learning the ways of the modern world.

The story appeared in Wake the Witch, an anthology of stories on witches. Get a copy here.

For more stories, check out my Writer's Page.

I would love to hear your comments.