The sharp pain continued to dig into her side, but the baby still did not move. With trembling hands, she pulled another bowl from the cupboard, her grip white-knuckled and firm to keep from dropping it. She ladled out less food this time and sat in the chair opposite Nikolaus, carefully lifting each spoonful to her lips.
Nikolaus finished before her. He rose from the chair and pulled the bowl from her hands, dumping both bowls and spoons into the wash bucket. He stood before the fire, staring into the flames for several moments. Elsebeth dared not move. Finally, he headed toward the washroom door, his steps leaving black prints in their wake, each one making Elsebeth tremble even more.
“I expect you ready when I have finished,” he said, his voice flat and unloving.
“Nikolaus, I don’t think -”
He rounded on her, covering the distance between them in less time than it took for Elsebeth to catch her breath. “No, you don’t think. That’s not what you’re here for.” He looked at her swollen belly, a sneer pulling at the corner of his mouth. “You may be with child, but I am still thy husband, and I will do with thee as I please.”
Elsebeth didn’t breathe again until he had closed the washroom door. She looked around the little room, wondering how quickly she could gather her things. Wondering how far she could make it into the forest before someone found her. She rose, and the pain in her belly knocked her to her knees. She fell, screaming in pain. She felt heat between her legs and lifted her dress to find fresh blood.
“No, no, no! God, no!” she cried.
The washroom door burst open, and Nikolaus stepped out, his face and body still streaked with black. He looked at her, lying on the floor with her dress pulled up and blood on her hands. She turned to him, her eyes pleading for help, for comfort, for anything.
“You witch!” he seethed. “This is no curse. God has turned on you! He has taken this child from us because it was not yours to have! You stole Anna’s child! You witch! God has damned thee!”
Elsebeth sat on the floor, her hands covered in blood, tears streaming down her face.
“Nikolaus,” she breathed, “help me.”
The man shook his head, his dark eyes boring into her. He opened the front door and turned back to Elsebeth. She screamed when he lifted her by her hair. She tried to stand, but her ankle twisted under her weight and Nikolaus’s force. She cried out, her scream echoing through the darkness that shrouded the town. Nikolaus pushed her out the door, and she landed in the cold dirt and mud. Lights came to life in the windows of the little houses, and doors began to open all around her.
“If God has turned from thee, then I cast thee out, witch!”
The men and women, wrapped in coats, cloaks, and curiosity, edged closer to her and Nikolaus, whispering and wondering to each other.
“Help me!” she pleaded to them, gulping and coughing in the cool spring air. She crawled through the mud toward her husband and up the front steps. He stepped back into the house, slamming the door upon her fingers. She cried out again, clutching her hands to her chest. She turned to the crowd that had gathered to stare. She looked at Anna and saw the girl sway where she stood.
“Anna,” she breathed desperately. “Please. Please.”
Anna’s husband pulled her behind him and glared down at Elsebeth. “Turn thy will from my wife, you witch!” he said and spat at Elsebeth’s feet.
The door behind her opened again, and Nikolaus stood wreathed in the light of the fire that still burned from within. In his arms were Elsebeth’s herbs and spices. He threw the entire cabinet. Elsebeth watched it shatter on the ground beside her, her little glass bottles scattering, some breaking. She reached for them, trying to gather what she could into her hands and pockets.
“We never should have let you stay here,” one of the old biddies said from somewhere in the crowd. Their murmured and mumbled cries of agreement were coupled with the sign of God crossed over their bodies again and again.
Elsebeth looked up, trying to see the old woman through the tears. The woman didn’t even know what had happened. None of them did.
“I’m not a witch!”
But her voice was drowned out by the cries of a maddened crowd, a crowd that had finally found the courage to turn on her. They called for logs. They called for fire. They called for the heaviest stones they could find. Elsebeth scrambled in the dirt for what was left of her life, what was left of the little glass bottles filled with herbs and spices that had fed and healed the people who screamed and spat on her. She filled her pockets and bodice, the cracked glass cutting into her flesh.
Nikolaus pulled her to her feet, shoving her further from her home and into the crowd of terrified and confused onlookers.
“Burn her!”
“Drown her!”
“Stone her!”
The threats echoed all around her. Elsebeth found a long branch on the ground and used it to pull herself to her feet. Her ankle cried out in pain, and she leaned into the staff, twisting to stay upright.
“Look! The devil has crooked her back!” someone called.
They took up the chant again, throwing dirt and mud in her face.
“Witch!”
“Burn her!”
“Drown her!”
“Curse her!”
“Witch!”
“Let the forest have her,” said a trembling voice above the crowd. They calmed, if only for a moment, to turn and look at Anna. Her eyes locked with Elsebeth, a silent cry of apology, a plea as if to say, “I want to save you.”
Elsebeth felt rough hands all over her as the crowd pushed her toward the edge of the forest. She tried to fight them, tried to dig her one good heel into the wet dirt and leaves. But they kept pushing, dragging, chanting.
They left her, cold and alone on the path at the mouth of the forest. She wrapped the cloak she still wore tight around her, leaning on the staff for support. She tried to go back, to speak to the townsfolk, to reason with them, but they kept sentry at the mouth of the forest all night.
Finally, when the pains in her belly and side were too much to bear. She nestled in the crook of a tall tree, black and slick with the curse of the forest. All night she screamed. All night she cried. No one came for her. She could see men pacing at the top of the path. They ignored her cries.
As the light of dawn crept over the horizon, another cry was heard alongside Elsebeth’s. She held the child in her arms and cut the cord with a broken piece of her herb bottles.
She held the infant close to her, trying to quiet the thing. The men who paced at the mouth of the forest converged, and quickly swooped upon her.
“Give us the child,” they demanded.
Elsebeth clutched the baby closer to her.
“Give it here, witch!” another said.
Footsteps came flying up the path, and Anna pushed her way through the men.
“Anna! Stay away!”
She did not heed their demands. She knelt beside Elsebeth, her blue eyes searching Elsebeth’s brown ones. Carefully, she lifted the child into her arms, squeezing Elsebeth’s hand as she did so. They stared at each other for a long moment, silently praying the other understood. Then Anna turned, wrapping the child more tightly in the blanket she had brought. Elsebeth watched her go, not realizing her face was streaked with tears. Not from the pains of birth, but the pains of loss. The men turned away, each spitting on her as they did so.
She watched until she could no longer see Anna, could no longer see the bundle held tight in her arms. She pulled herself to her feet, leaning on the staff, blood still dripping down her legs, and staggered into the forest.
Chapter Five
Forest dark and forest deep,
Forest doth thy secret keep.
Forest that they turned upon,
Forest without love so long.
Three times knock upon thy chest,
When the moon is waned and ravens nest.
Three times cross the sign of God,
When townsmen sho
w their face a fraud.
Three times spit upon the graves,
For deserters that thy God won’t save.
Three times is the time for luck,
When children play and run amuck.
Three times is the sum of sin,
When neighbors turn upon their kin.
Three times you shall be betrayed,
And fall before the deathly shade.
The forest of Eisenwald was no longer dying. It was dead. The eerie silence that surrounded Elsebeth as she shuffled up the path was deafening and deceptive. It crawled inside her mind, unwelcomed, twisting and tormenting her until she was sure she was being followed. She mumbled to herself, hummed to herself, the song that had become too familiar to her. But the forest dark and forest deep would not give up its secrets.
The path grew narrower, overgrown with crooked, black brambles that pulled at her cloak and skirts. The twigs broke beneath her feet, the sound echoing all around her until she screamed, sure that the devil himself was about to set upon her.
But there was nothing there. There was never anything there. No birds, no beasts, no mysterious dark figure. She found a fallen beech tree and carefully lowered herself to the smooth bark. She saw the blood that poured still from her body, dripping down the peeling black bark and pooling on the ground beneath her. Her stomach groaned and grumbled, protesting its lack of nourishment. Elsebeth breathed deep, holding back the heaves that threatened to rip her body in two. She had to conserve her energy. The thought of returning to her child, staying alive to one day hold it in her arms again, fueled her beyond what any bread or stew ever could.
Darkness was falling quickly. She needed rest, and despite her determination, she needed food.
She pulled herself to her feet again, now searching behind every tree and log for any sign of food. Stark white cronks, spongey little mushrooms, wriggly earthworms. But there was nothing. Hours passed, and so did her wave of hunger. She trudged on until night fell completely and she could no longer see the hand before her face. She nestled in the crook of another tree, pulling her cloak up around her and trying desperately to block out the silence, focusing on the beating of her heart.
Thump thump thump.
Thump thump thump.
Caw caw caw.
The sound broke through the eerie quiet, and Elsebeth woke with a start. She scrambled to her feet, her ankle less tender now from rest. The sky above was shrouded in a blanket of gray clouds, but the light of morning still filtered through. She scanned the area, the ground, the horizon, the treetops. Perched upon the deathly black boughs of the trees were three ravens. They stared down at her, heads cocking back and forth with their unnatural movements, and their beady eyes glinting in the dawning light.
Elsebeth stared up at them in earnest. Her stomach growled and grumbled again, and she was sure they could hear it from where they sat upon their twiggy thrones. She turned away from them, searching again for anything that resembled nourishment. Anything that could keep her going for just a bit longer.
She dug at the bark of the tree she had rested by, and it pulled away from the trunk, leaving long, black tendrils in its wake. She set a piece on her tongue. The bark immediately dissolved into the sticky black death that appeared when the curse took a child. Elsebeth wretched and spit. It tasted unlike anything Elsebeth had ever had. Decay and rotten earth. She wiped her tongue on the inside of her cloak and heard the little glass bottle clinking within.
The ravens above her hopped excitedly to and fro upon their branches, cocking their heads and flapping their wings. Elsebeth pulled out one of the bottles. Belladonna. She stared at the herb within. She could do it. She could swallow the whole thing and be done. She would fall into a peaceful slumber, her body warming from the pounding of her heart.
Then all would be quiet. All would end.
Elsebeth shoved the bottle back into her pocket. “No,” she said, though it sounded so loud to her she thought it would carry all the way to the town of Eisenwald. She didn’t care. Let them hear her. “Not yet.” Not until she held her child again.
The ravens took flight in a flurry of feathers and a cackling caw, showering Elsebeth with the last few blackened leaves that still held on from Autumn’s past. She watched them until they landed farther down the path in another tree. They looked at her again, hopping and snapping their beaks with hurried little clicks. Her heart pounded.
Thump thump thump.
Thump thump thump.
Caw caw caw.
She followed them down the winding path, now somehow free of branch and bramble. She still leaned upon the staff, her ankle not yet fully healed. The ravens hopped from tree to tree, turning only to make sure Elsebeth still followed. Where they were leading her, she did not know, but she did know they had to eat. Somewhere within the wood or out, there was a source of food. One way or another, they would lead her to it.
She stopped only long enough to drink from a puddle she found along the way, its icy contents not yet tainted by the blackness of the forest. The blood between her legs had dried and chafed her skin, yet more still came, leaving a trail of crimson behind her as she followed the ravens deeper into the wood. Her pace slowed when her stomach heaved, then quickened again when the wave of hunger passed. Elsebeth didn’t know how much longer she could push back the hunger. The edges of her vision began to blur, and the caws of the ravens began to sound like words to her.
I am the hunger that growls in the belly of the wood. Hunger. Hunger for flesh and forgiveness. I am the darkness that infests the forest. Dark. Dark that comes from greed. I am that which reflects the night. Which. Witch.
In an instant, the ravens took off from their perches, scattering into the dusky sky. Elsebeth stopped, watching them disappear into the night. She huffed but would not curse them. They might return, she told herself, to guide her again. She stepped carefully along the dark path, with no moon to guide her way. Her heart raced again as she searched for a place to rest for the night.
Thump thump thump
Thump thump -CREAK
It was unmistakable. The sound of a door.
Elsebeth stopped, standing as still as a doe caught downwind of a wolf. She scanned the tree line, searching, straining, staring. Then she saw it. The black, twisted trees ended, giving way to new, green growth. The cottage was adorned in lush green moss and surrounded by flowering cherry blossoms. She stepped past the black trees and immediately heard the sound of birds coming to roost in the boughs and branches, creatures scurrying into and out of their dens. A little stone path lined with mushrooms and honeysuckle led to the front door.
Elsebeth lurched forward, throwing herself upon the path and devouring every mushroom she could reach until there were no more. She was so hungry. So, so hungry. The door creaked again, swaying upon its hinge. She rose from the ground, her feet carrying her across the mossy stone path, up the little wooden stairs, and toward the creaking door.
For a moment she stood and listened. Where had the ravens led her? Had they led her? Or had it all been a sickness in her mind? A sickness from tasting the sickly black bark, or a sickness from the hunger that made her shake and sway? She gently pushed the door open.
The house was warm and inviting, though no fire burned within the hearth. The sitting room was dotted with cozy little chairs adorned in an array of many-colored quilts and throws. In the kitchen, the center of the cottage, a fire long-expired still smoldered beneath a mound of ash.
Elsebeth lifted a poker from the rack and prodded the pile of ash. Immediately, a roaring fire sprang to life. Elsebeth jumped back. More lights flickered to life around the room. She stared, her mouth open in wonderment. The contents of the kitchen came into focus before her. Jars of flour, sugar, and rare, decadent chocolate took up every inch of the counters. Bread paddles as tall as she lined the walls beside shiny black pots and pans.
Outside the windows, the ravens cawed again, and this time, Elsebeth knew she could understand them. “Witch. Wi
tch. The witch of Eisenwald Forest comes to take her place.”
“Hungry dear?” said a voice.
Elsebeth turned and gasped. She staggered back, her heel catching the edge of her cloak and pulling her to the floor. She scrambled to her feet, not daring to take her eyes off the dark figure or the clouded eyes that reflected the firelight. She backed away toward the door, feeling blind for the handle. She looked away, just for a moment. She set her hand upon the doorknob, then looked up and screamed.
The old, bent woman was so close to her now, she could see the flecks of white cloudiness in her eyes. She smiled and set a hand on Elsebeth’s. Her touch was warm and gentle.
Dreams of Darkness Page 3