Of Lorenz Theory & Love

Denis and Terezinha

Charmed CW characters belong to Charmed CW. Light historical and anthropological research was conducted for contextual purposes, then fictionalized for the purposes of this story (e.g., AskAHistorian Reddit, Azores Reddit, Azores Tourism websites, ResearchGate, Wikipedia, etc.).

8 Denis and Terezinha

12:30 pm, Madalena Village, Azores, Epicenter Pico No. 23, Kitchen Table

And the conversation at the breakfast table then turned to Epicenter Pico—the condo—itself. Harry wasn't about to inquire, as he felt an inhibited sense of whitelighter decorum; the Elders hadn't mentioned anything about a piece of island property, and if it didn't concern the Elders, then it certainly wouldn't have been a trouble to him.

Still, Harry looked around while seated, surveying the airy interior; sensing his unasked questions, Macy decided it was her cue to speak.

"Denis Serge lived amongst the foothills of what is now Guinea's Mount Nimba Strict Nature Reserve. From my research, the area borders Cote D'Ivoire and is a UNESCO World Heritage site that provides jobs with fair pay for the locals, but back in the 1670s, things were much different."

"How do you mean?" Harry inquired. "And who is Denis?"

Macy exhaled slowly. "I'll explain from the beginning." Harry sat back, intrigued; he could already tell this was going to be a most peculiar tale.

"A Portuguese man, António Garcia, obtained an Asiento contract, which he held from 1674-1675, solely meant for the obtaining of indentured persons from Guinea. Slaves."

"—bloody hell" Harry muttered.

Macy nodded, continuing. "Deception and bribery wasn't uncommon back then; the Asiento contract was somehow reintroduced in the year 1680, leading to what was probably the worst years of Denis' life. According to Vaughn family lore, Denis had brought his meticulously-tied bundles of melagueta peppers to the local market, which was suddenly raided in a flurry of weaponry and abject, unjustifiable violence. He was captured in the melee and sentenced to forced servitude on the sugarcane fields of the Azores Islands."

Harry looked horrified. "Did he have any living family in Guinea? Parents, brothers, sisters?"

Macy shook her head. "None that I know of—but there's so little information out there right now. But I assume, at the very least, he had an aged aunt or two waiting for him to come home. And he never did." She swallowed hard after a couple minutes' pause. "Basically, Denis' ship disembarked on Pico (one of several Azores Islands), and he was assigned to the fields of the prosperous Giordana family, one of whom was named Terezinha (Tera) Giordana."

"And this Tera woman—what was she like?" asked Harry curiously.

"I'm not 100% sure, but my grandfather said she later emerged as the town eccentric. Tera was immersed in the healing arts and one might suppose, magic. She was adopted into the Giordana family after having been left on their doorstep as a newborn. Within several weeks of Denis' arrival, Tera noticed that he had skills in the way of preparing melagueta peppers and similar spices, and convinced her father to let her apprentice him (to further the spice trade, she claimed). The Azores back then was extraordinarily diverse (Africans, Chinese, and Indian people living among the European transplants) but hierarchical, with plenty of ambiguity in between. Tera took full advantage of that. Things grew tense when her father passed away suddenly, and she was left to the mercy of her older, abusive stepbrothers, who tried to marry her off to a Mr. Morton Chase, Esquire, a traveling evangelical who like Tera, was of ambiguous ethnic origin. Fortunately they failed—Denis and Tera ran away together, eventually returning once the stepbrothers were dead, to buy up a small plot of land that stayed in the family and became the Epicenter Pico condo you know today."

Harry whistled. "Wow. I must ask—do Mel and Mags know?"

"...Not exactly, no," Macy admitted. "To be honest, I had no idea myself, until my dad passed recently and left me with the property deed. I thought it was all too wild of a story to be true. This was the stuff of bedtime stories he would tell me when I was little—the lifelong adventures his Guinean ancestor Denis and Azorian matriarch Terazinha, he called them. He claimed he was their namesake—that he was named after them—as Dexter."

"And to clarify, the Valensi sisters Della, Dora, and Darcy descended from Denis and Tera—two centuries later, circa the 1920s. Born and bred Azorians?" Harry inquired.

"Correct." Macy rose and Harry followed suit, clearing the kitchen table of the dishes, and placing the leftover fruit in the refrigerator.

Harry couldn't for the life of him imagine why, but the name Darcy Madalena Valensi sounded eerily, oddly familiar...