Forest of Whispers Page 15

  I shuffle my way over to where she is curled up on her side and stretch my hand through the opening. I am clammy from my damp clothing, but her hands feel strangely hot to me. Feverish.

  “Are you all right, Anna? Do you not feel well?”

  “I’m just tired, that’s all.”

  I nod once, giving in to her, but if there is anything Matilde ever taught me, it was how to read the signs of illness.

  “How far along are you?” It’s difficult to tell when the baby might be born. Anna’s frame is slight, and she’s bone-thin.

  “My mother told me sometime around the first planting of the fields, but I don’t really know. I only feel it move now and then.”

  She keeps her eyes closed, and I can’t help but wonder if perhaps losing the child would be best for her. Slowly, I let the back of my hand glide across her forehead, feeling beads of perspiration form beneath my touch. Her breath is sour, and I see purplish swellings beneath her eyes that I didn’t notice from across the room.

  “You won’t let them take the baby, will you, Rune? Promise me you won’t.”

  I open my mouth to tell her I can’t make a promise like that. What does she expect me to do if they come for the child she carries? I am nothing against these guards, and Anna is practically a stranger to me. My answer sits on my tongue but refuses to come out, and it’s for the best, because Anna is soon drowsy.

  “The father…he never loved me, but this baby is mine. It doesn’t matter.”

  My skirt is wet enough to work as a compress; I find a spot along the hem where the fibers have thinned and rip off a strip the length of my arm. Wadding it up, I press it to her forehead, then stand to inspect the tray of food that was delivered earlier.

  “Do you suppose it’s safe?” I ask, knowing my voice is too low for her to hear.

  We were reluctant to taste it when it first came, even though our stomachs burned and growled mercilessly. They slid it beneath the bars before the sun came up, and we couldn’t see what it was. I lift the tray to my nose and smell it. There is a watery gruel, with a small chunk of bread that is more than a day old, and the unrecognizable meaty fat of an animal.

  My finger dips into the gruel. I carefully touch it to my tongue. It seems to taste fine, so I consider it safe. The fat has seen its day, but Anna needs her strength, and I know the little bits of meat I can pull from it will be good for her. My greasy fingers scrape along my dress, and I am actually grateful for the wetness to clean them. I carry the bowl to her sleeping form.

  “Anna, please try to eat this.”

  She rolls over and murmurs words that are incoherent, but manages to pull herself up enough to lean against the metal. From here I can do the rest. I wiggle my arm between the bars, up to my elbow, and grip her sleeve so she doesn’t slip back down to the straw.

  “Just open your mouth,” I say, coaxing her.

  She begins to giggle, but in a dark strange way that I have trouble understanding. “This is how my mother tried to get me to eat those mushrooms of yours.”

  “Well, this is much better, I can assure you. Now just try it,” I say back. “If we’re going to get out of here, you’ll need to be strong.”

  I can tell the fever is taking hold of her. When she looks up at me, her eyes cannot focus on my face, but she opens her mouth, and despite the unpleasant appearance of the meal, she takes the gruel.

  “That’s it, Anna. Just a little more, and then you can sleep.”

  But she hasn’t the appetite for more than a mouthful and immediately lies back upon the rank straw.

  “It’s not that bad, is it?” I try to convince her. “If I were home I’d add some herbs to it, something to give it life.”

  This stirs her somewhat, but she won’t take another bite, so I give her imagery to entice her, hoping it will make her hungry enough to eat a little more.

  “I’d add sage to it. That would be almost perfect,” I tell her. “Or maybe a little apple cut up inside it, with fennel. Matilde would cure our sausage with fennel, and on cold winter nights, we’d sit by the fire and eat bowlfuls of it until our stomachs burst.”

  But my words do nothing to help her, and before long, her chest rises rhythmically and she begins the fight against the fever in her sleep.

  You can help her, Rune. You have the power to make her well again… You didn’t need Matilde to teach what you already hold within you.

  “Matilde taught me the bare bones of survival. Not witchcraft,” I whisper back to the voice in my head. How on earth can she say I didn’t need Matilde?

  Yes, but some crafts are not learned. They are passed down…

  “Passed down by a mother who was never there for me?” There’s a bitterness inside me that is slowly taking shape. I’m not used to being confined, not after having grown up as a wild wraith, and all I can think of is how I might never get out of here. This room echoes every movement I make. It’s growing smaller by the minute, and the voice in my head makes it feel ten times worse.

  I look at Anna’s inert form and breathe in the filth that surrounds us. What will become of her baby when it is born? What will become of us? There’s a part of me that believes if her child does survive it will be better off knowing it was taken, not that Anna gave it away.

  I did it so you would live… Everything I did was for you…

  “Was it, Mother? Was it really for me?”

  I don’t understand what I am asking, only that I’m feeling something tremendously powerful build inside me. It has no name, for no words describe it, but if I try to harness the tiniest taste of it, I fear it will explode.

  And it scares me.

  I’ve never known a force so strong—never felt a power so untapped, like a bottle begging to be uncorked.

  Do this for her, my child, and you will unleash all the power you need to set yourself free…

  “What is it that you are asking me to do? There is no medicine. There are no herbs for me to use.”

  You know…

  “No, Mother. I don’t understand.”

  She will be better off…

  “Better off? How?”

  Kill her…

  I grip the iron bar that separates me from my quiescent neighbor and pull myself up, bringing my face to the edge of the window. A turbulent stream of energy rides on the wind, and it blows toward me, kissing my cheeks, urging me to listen, urging me to set myself free, as my mother wants. I look at my hands, speechless, and see the air quiver at my fingertips, like heat stretching to the sky in mid-summer.

  This is what my mother wants me to see.

  This is who I am.

  I am no longer the simple girl hidden behind the safety of a make-believe forest. I am the story. I am the tall tale.

  I am the witch.

  What she asks is so horrendous and against everything taught to me—against everything the Sacred Mother wants for her children. I can’t take Anna’s life, or her child’s, no matter what future this dreaded place holds for them. I can’t bring myself to cast.

  “I won’t do it!” I shut my eyes tight. “This won’t set me free! This will condemn me!”

  Ah, daughter of mine, this will save her from a life of misery and pain. This will save you both…

  Finally, I know what my mother wants from me. I understand why she has come, after all these years. Tomorrow I will turn sixteen. I will come into my own.

  And her greatest wish is that, through me, she will be set free.

  Chapter 25

  Laurentz

  The sound is deafening as my horse tears through the forest, its hooves grinding the pulpy mulch floor, churning it into bits that spray behind us. I have only a day to reach Bamberg, perhaps only hours. In the distance, Eltz’s rooftops poke through the trees, and I’m suddenly aware that I’ve made it through the forest unscathed. Gone are the prospects of ghostly specters and spirits to charm me, or worse, the wrath of a witch to turn me into a toad, or a stone, or whatever witches do. Perhaps it’s because th
e witch is now dead, and the only one to follow in her place has been taken away, where she waits for her own death—one that I must stop.

  I am filled with something I haven’t felt in a long time—a mission to find answers. A mission to put a stop to something horrible, and to reverse it. I hadn’t felt this way since the day my brother died, when all I had wanted was to turn back time and make that day never happen. I asked “why” a million times, cursed God for taking away my only friend—and the one person who should have been there to comfort me, to give me answers, turned away from me. But this isn’t about my brother. This is about someone else now. I don’t expect my father to side with me against the bishop, but I can only hope he sees how important this is to me. That this time, I can stop something senseless from happening.

  I jump from the saddle, my feet landing hard on the gravel, and I march inside. There is little time to waste and I am every bit determined to put an end to the events I witnessed earlier. My fist closes around the decree from the bishop, crumpling it. I am like a storm blown in from the south, causing the servants in the entry hall to stop and gape at me, their mouths hanging open in silence. Every door I barge through hangs wide open; every polished stone I step on rings with the heel of my boot, announcing I’ve come for an answer. And I will get one.

  “Where is he?” My voice startles the maid who polishes the silver at the top of the stairs. She motions with her head that my father is at his wife’s bedside, and I charge down the hall, not bothering to announce myself at the door, which I thrust open—and then I stop.

  The room I enter is a tomb closed off from the rest of the world. The air, thick and dark, hangs profoundly around me. In the corner I see my father, who leans heavily upon the mattress where my stepmother lies deathly still, his head buried within her covers.

  I watch for a moment. When he doesn’t acknowledge me, I bring myself to ask what we’ve all feared for weeks.

  “Is she…?”

  “No, just sleeping,” he replies thickly as he lifts his head and rubs his eyes.

  It has been this way for months, with no sign of her recovering. Any day now, she will be gone. I will be all he has, but he will only see what he has lost.

  Seeing his devotion sends an overwhelming determination coursing through me. I can’t let his emotional state stamp out what’s going on, and the balled-up paper in my fist reminds me I’ve come for something equally important that cannot wait.

  “Father, there are…”

  He turns ever so slightly my way, keeping his face from being fully exposed. “Yes, I know. There are people dying in the village.”

  He must think the Plague has finally hit Württemberg and will be furious when he finds out I didn’t leave as soon as I’d delivered the message. I throw the paper to the floor at his feet, knowing what I am about to tell him comes at a terrible price, but I am willing to do so in order to save Rune’s life.

  “Yes, there are people dying, but not from disease.” I keep my voice low for my stepmother’s sake, but it still sounds coarse and urgent, no matter how quiet I keep it. “They are being murdered, and I was sent to deliver a diversion.”

  My father smoothes the crumpled covers over the still bed.

  “Have you nothing to say about this?” I bend down to retrieve the parchment, holding it out to him so that he cannot ignore it.

  “And you believe these people are being murdered because you’ve seen it with your own eyes? You lingered in Württemberg, even after I told you not to.”

  “I…”

  “You’ve deliberately disobeyed me,” my father says coldly.

  I pause, knowing I must own up to the truth. “Yes.”

  Then, much to my surprise, he utters, “I know well of the tyranny that has started.” He continues to fuss about, making sure the draperies are closed against draft, stuffing warm rocks from the fire at the foot of the bed, everything a servant should be doing, instead of telling me more. I suppose my honesty has prompted him to be frank with me as well, but I can’t help the anger that rises in me and am having trouble keeping it at bay inside me.

  “You know?”

  The muscle in his jaw twitches, and all that fills the air for a sequence of agonizing minutes are the crackle of the fire and the raspy breaths coming from the bed.

  Finally, he looks me square in the eye. “You’d do best to avoid the village, like I told you.”

  He says nothing more of this “tyranny,” nothing more of what is really happening around us, as if pretending I am still a little boy he cannot trust with important issues. I begin pacing. I’d never planned on returning home. I’d planned on riding all the way to Bamberg, but I’d hoped to find answers, or at least an alliance. What I have found instead is a brick wall, much like all the other times I’ve tried to converse with him on a level other than what he wants me to know, and I am running out of time. Rune is running out of time. I turn to leave, realizing I’ve made a grave mistake in coming here.

  “I disagree with it.” His voice comes from behind me, stopping me. “I’ve worked too hard to restore peace to the village. It will take too many years to build it again.”

  “Why did you have to restore peace?” I ask, stepping back into the room. “What happened there?”

  “There was a girl—beautiful, dark hair, the color of night. Her face was like a porcelain angel.” My father’s eyes are cautious, and I want to believe I see a glint of sadness in them, but I blame it on the glow from the fire. “Her heart was a wicked thing, though, and she was put to death before she could do any more harm—burned at the stake in the center of the village, where the market is now.”

  A long sigh escapes my father’s lips. He presses his hands to his thighs and stands. “It was a long time ago, and I had hoped the village would learn from that day, but I see now that there is never any insurance that all will be right with the world. The village cannot let the past go, replacing their fear with a witch hunt.”

  “The witch who burned… Do you believe she was guilty?”

  “I was never quite sure.” He looks at the sleeping body on the bed. “But witch or not, I do believe there’s a power a woman holds over a man.”

  My mind turns to Rune. She has definitely cast a spell over me. I watch as he walks slowly toward the bedside and gingerly places his hand on top of my stepmother’s. “I’d give anything,” he whispers.

  “But the doctor…”

  “No doctor can help her.”

  I am certain my father has given up all hope, for even after the doctor’s daily trips to Eltz, it is quite evident she continues to fail. His hand moves from hers to the edge of the coverlet, and quietly lifts its corner, revealing the delicate ankle beneath. The skin is mottled with color, sickly, and while the rest of her body lies incredibly still, her leg twitches as if moved by an unseen hand.

  “The Prince Bishop comes each morning now to bless her. It was he who alerted me to this new symptom, not the doctor. See how she convulses, how she moves erratically, as if a mere puppet to Death’s dark hand.”

  A low moan escapes her lips, followed by a shallow breath, and then a string of strange phrases that I have trouble deciphering. My father tenses beside me.

  “Father?”

  My reaction is quick, and I am eager to see his face—surely it is a sign from God himself that she will be cured. But my father shakes his head.

  “She speaks in tongues.”

  “Yes, but she speaks.” I stress, “which is better than lying as still and pale as death, is it not?”

  My father pulls the covers back over my stepmother’s legs. “She speaks, but not to us.”

  When my father sees that I do not follow him he tries to explain.

  “It is the language of death. She speaks to those who have gathered, waiting for her to succumb.” His face is a pale mask of sorrow. I have not seen him in such a state since the day my own mother’s lifeless body emerged from the forest on the back of a cart. “Her illness astounds us a
ll. I thought we lost her the moment the child slipped from her womb, but this game that plays us bewilders me. One moment she is tranquil, and then her body is seized by uncontrollable tremors so fierce I fear she will break in two.”

  I watch him sigh deeply and rake his fingers through his grayed hair. “The bishop has expressed his fears to me…”

  “Which are?”

  He does not continue for many breaths.

  “He believes something unholy works amongst us all, and the people trust him and his word.”

  “Trust him, or fear him?” I ask.

  “Both,” my father agrees. “They will go along with his little witch hunt and believe they are doing it in the name of God—that it will save their souls.”

  “And will it? Do you believe this as they do?”

  His sigh is long and weary, “I don’t know.”

  My thumb grazes the soft linen lying deep within my pocket, searching for something hopeful as I leave my father and pull the heavy door closed behind me. I pray against what the village fears. I pray that Rune is a witch, and that her power is strong, strong enough to turn against death and find the life that still flows through my stepmother’s veins—for my father’s sake.

  Bounding down the steps and out the door, I climb up onto my horse. I should reach Bamberg by noon. I want to believe this is a sign that God has forgiven me for all I’ve done wrong in the past. That saving Rune will save others, and that perhaps I do have a soul after all.

  Chapter 26

  Rune

  Today I am sixteen.

  I haven’t told Anna. Instead, I’ve set myself to fussing over her in order to keep myself occupied.

  It isn’t working.

  I find myself remembering the mornings Matilde would wake me with something new to mark the year—the tiny crystal bead she threaded for a necklace, the warm cake she baked early before sunrise. Today, I find new bruises upon my flesh and a searing pain across my back from my jailor’s strap. Today there is only stale bread and gruel that is more water than meal. It is the same as yesterday, and the day before that—pain and starvation. My mind wanders as I stare beyond the tiny window, for it is easy to imagine I have been a prisoner for weeks rather than three hopeless days.