The Witch's Trinity (16 page)

“I want to find the dark-haired woman,” I said. “Know you such a neighbor?”

“When all are flaxen, I know whom you speak of. The sisters. You must mean Fronika, since the other one is dead. But you do not want to seek her.”

“I have traveled all the way from Tierkinddorf. I want to speak with her.”

“We don’t know where she lives. She has no cottage. She and her sister…they lived in the woods. Do not seek her. She is strange, passing strange. Such that any woman should shun her.”

Now her eyes did show something: fear.

“We have heard about your village,” she continued. “Beset with witchery. If anyone should come to us and ask who of our people might be the same, there’s no need to sit upon a bench and think. Fronika has always been odd, as was her sister. How can anyone live without a house? You shiver in this wind, and they
lived
in it. Please. Return to your village and speak her name no more.”

I backed away from her.

“Go home,” she said as she shut the door.

I climbed the hillside again, using my hands to help haul my body. My hands and feet were now entirely numb. I believed they were still there by the fact that I saw them, but in my mind I trod along on my ankles and my arms ended at my wrists. Back I went into the dark woods, away from the stone cottages, away from Jost, wherever he may be.

I walked back to Irmeltrud, toward the fire.

“Where were you?” she demanded as I walked in.

Although I was shaking with cold, I went straight to my tick in the corner and collapsed. I could not have walked another step if the dear Lord asked it of me.

“In the woods,” I moaned into my bedding.

“All this day?”

“Aye.”

“Whom did you meet with?”

“No one. I walked to look for Jost. I went as far as Steindorf.”

“A foolish lie! You never walked that far.”

“I walked to Steindorf and saw their stone cottages,” I replied, although truly I didn’t care if she believed me. I wanted to sleep.

“The only way you could have gotten there is if the devil put you on his back and flew there.”

I stiffened.

“Who did you meet with, Güde?” she repeated.

“I spake only with a woman there, who answered my knock,” I faltered. “I walked all day. Look at my shoes, worn away to nothing.”

“You must have worn them away dancing,” she said lightly. “I’ve heard of the dances. I thought they were at midnight, though, not in the very heart of the day. Did Künne teach you the steps?”

“No, Irmeltrud, no. Please. Jost will return soon and he’ll have food. More than he can carry.”

“What am I to think when you are gone all day? What shall I say if anyone asks me about your doings?” It was as if she was trying to convince herself.

“Irmeltrud, all this hunger will pass. We aren’t being punished; we have to keep our faith.”

“We aren’t talking about hunger,” she said. “We’re talking about you disappearing for an entire day. What is an old woman up to for such a length?”

I saw where her reasoning led, and I spake as quickly as I could to deter her. “I gave birth to Jost,” I said. “I brought him into this world and I am dear to him, if not to you. If he should return and find me gone, he—”

She arched her eyebrow at me. “You’re babbling nonsense. What does it matter that you gave birth to Jost?”

“I don’t know how you would repair such a fault with him,” I said.

“What fault?” asked she.

I cringed, for if I spake it, it would make it true. I preferred that we speak in unknowns. “I hope that I will die soon,” I said. “I want to be buried next to Hensel, and God willing, it will be soon.”

“There are knives on the board and a cold outdoors,” said she. “You can hasten God’s willingness.”

11

O
NE WEEK SINCE
K
ÜNNE BURNED

I
n church the next day the priest stepped aside and the friar gave the sermon. He spake of the great glorious fire and the intense love of Christ he felt as he watched the flames consume the wicked woman. “But one thing I found troubling,” he said. “The woman made nary a sound. In town after town, I have heard women shriek out their vile souls, with the torrid sounds pouring from them as the fire undoes their malefaction. Never have I seen a woman burn with such silence. She never screamed.”

He paused to watch the villagers nod, each of them, like him, puzzled.

“It makes me fear that she took pleasure knowing her ill work was still being carried out.”

This time only Irmeltrud nodded.

“I have word that the hen is still enchanted, and we shall not know for a time whether Frau Zweig may bear children again. Perhaps Frau Himmelmann’s instrument still works a spell upon this village.”

Instrument?

“Perhaps another, equally tainted, has taken up the plow at that blasted field,” he clarified.

I could not swallow. Had they talked already? Lord God, would it happen now, this minute?

“Love your neighbor as you always do,” he said, “But watch your surroundings and be careful with your souls. It may be that we have not yet vanquished what we intended to.”

I sucked in an unsteady breath. I had not been accused. Yet.

Before he finished, the murmuring began.

After the service ended, I stood in the snow, of many minds. Should I walk again, as I had done, with my aching body and ragged boots, this time not to return? Throw myself upon the mercy of the people of Steindorf? To manufacture a lie, say I had lost my way but had not the strength to return to my home? Or should I walk again, but with the purpose Irmeltrud suggested? Walk until I sank into the cold and give myself to the bitter winter, an offering to God? I would not touch the knives, but wouldn’t it be easy to sink into the snow, to curl up under an evergreen tree?
My bed shall be under the evergreen tree….

Faultless, without offense…

I could settle my cloak under a tree and lay down with a prayer on my lips for Jost; I could shiver under the soft drift of pine needles, hearing the wind move the boughs and the snow. I could watch the light grow dim and hear the wolves moan, could let the snow build up on me, flake by flake, until the forest forgot I was there.

One other choice awaited me. It was a harder choice; it involved the risk of brutality, of seeing myself tied to a stake of wood cut by my son’s wife, with flames under my feet. But if I chose this option, I might be able to see my son again. I made my excuse to Irmeltrud, seeing the blaze of interest in her gaze, knowing that she would use this against me.

“Where?” she asked.

“I’ll be back soon,” I mumbled. “An hour, perhaps less.”

“But where?” Irmeltrud was smiling. She now had a second reason to go speak to the friar: disappeared for two days in a row, shortly after Künne was burned!

“I just have to go,” I said. I looked down at Alke and Matern, wondering if I should take a kiss from each now. How would it work?

“Can I come?” asked Matern.

“No!” said Irmeltrud fiercely, and she threw him against her skirt.

I reached out and touched the blond curls on his head, then caressed the softness of Alke’s cheek. “Beautiful children,” I murmured. Their eyes looked up at me trustingly. Blue gentians in the snow. They walked off before I did, so I stood in the wind while those dear bodies walked from me, with Irmeltrud in the center like the hilt of a sword.

I worked quickly in Künne’s cottage, plucking the leaves from the remaining plants and heating the wax again to create the
Pillen.
She had said one was enough, to assure me I had done well, but with what I had I was able to make two. Then I crawled on my hands and knees, hunting for her needle. It was thrust into a blanket she was mending, with a line of wool still hooked through its eye. I used my front tooth and hands to tear a patch of the blanket off.

I pulled my skirt up, still sprawled on the ground, and sewed the
Pillen
behind the blanket patch. Hidden.

As I neared home, I looked at the tracks in the snow for signs of any visitors. With my hand on the door, for a brief moment I allowed myself to imagine that Jost had come home and there was a bloody hunk of stag meat hanging in the corner.

I pushed and went inside. He was already there.

“Where have you been?” asked Irmeltrud. She sat next to him, her hands folded in her lap. She was scared about what she was to do, but determined anyway.

I made no answer.

“That cat has been meowing for you,” she continued. “The one you said had eyes that glowed in the dark? It was here again for you. It meowed almost as if it were trying to speak. Like it was asking for you.”

I looked at the friar. In his lap was that book he had held up in front of the villagers the week before. All of a sudden my vision tilted and I blurted out, “I didn’t sign the book.”

“What book?” he asked, interrupting Irmeltrud as she spake further about the cat.

“I didn’t sign my name, but it signed for me,” I said. My hands were quivering. I tried to sit down, but instead lurched onto one knee, as if being knighted.

“When you passed by Herr Kueper’s door, his milk went sour,” Irmeltrud said.

“Who has milk?” I agonized from the ground. “No one drinks, no one eats.”

“I’m ready to denounce you,” said Irmeltrud. “The signs have been so apparent, I wonder that our cottage hasn’t been lit from inside with a hellish fire color, signaling to everyone what is harbored here.”

“The book of the devil?” asked the friar.

“I didn’t sign,” I said.

12

However much they are penitent and return to the Faith, they must not be punished like other Heretics with lifelong imprisonment, but must suffer the extreme penalty.

—M
ALLEUS
M
ALEFICARUM

T
he tower was cold. The straw was not fresh like the tick Jost prepared for me each year, but was dusty and brittle and filled with fleas. I had a little fire in the fireplace, but there were large slits in the stone, high above my head, that let in air from outside. As much as I shivered, I was glad for the slits, because I thought in time they could air out the horrible earthy spice that reminded me of Künne’s stay here.

I had been left alone in the tower for two days. I had done little else but kneel on the dirt and pray for Jost’s return, either with meat or without. I closed my mind to the thought of Alke and Matern, because they had screamed and cried as the friar took me to such extent that I wondered if God would allow me to die right then. They were old enough to understand that Künne’s fate could soon be mine. I wondered how Irmeltrud had steeled herself. Surely she had told herself she was doing this to help the children, but then to hear their absolute panic…wouldn’t it have made her doubt herself? Little Alke sleeping without her nightgown, and Matern in his perpetual tears…