“Please,” he says in a voice loud enough to be heard over the clamouring crowd. “Please stay calm. You know how this is. It is safer for us all if information is not widely disseminated. I have met with the Piper, as have a selected number of your delegates. She will do what we ask, and the price is no more than any of us are willing to pay, I promise you.”
The outraged cries die down into disgruntled rumblings and the people begin to disperse. An odd few here and there shoot discontented looks at my father as they leave, but he pretends to not notice, and soon the room is empty again except for my father, his cronies, and me.
Not long after the room clears, I leave my father with his conspirators. I am already sick of their self-congratulatory ways. It is true that our lives under the Ratgebers aren’t our own, but they saved us when not much else could. I felt we owed them something for that, though perhaps our children was taking it too far. Regardless, I believe this is cold-hearted disloyalty. My father would tell me I am too soft, that freedom is hard-won, that it has a price. Perhaps he is right.
I am lost in my thoughts as I wind my way back to our house when I notice someone slipping through the shadows around me. I don’t pay them much attention, but then the cloak of the Piper appears right next to me, her steps in time with my own, hiding in the noises I make. I gasp as I realize that she is there. She touches my arm in warning as she gestures to the houses nearby. I am surprised by her attention; she must not know who I am.
Carefully she manoeuvres us so we are both shrouded in shadow and then asks, “The Mayor, he is your father, yes?”
I nod in the darkness. Apparently, she does know who I am and yet, she still wishes to speak to me. Even if we are only talking about father, my heart still flutters. “Yes,” I whisper back.
“Is he a good man?”
I do not know how to answer this question. Is anyone truly good in this world, especially when we are forced to live the way we do - secrecy and lies at every point - by the Ratgebers? “He tries to be,” I finally manage in response.
“Can I trust him?” I do not know why she is asking me these questions. How does she know if I am trustworthy? Is she going to go to every person in turn and ask?
“I think so,” I reply cautiously. “I know reuniting our families and freeing us from the Ratgebers is his priority. There is no reason for him or anyone in the town to betray you.”
She stands still for a moment, digesting what I have said. “Good,” she replies, and then a ghost of a smile whispers across her face. “But if I were you, I would try to avoid having such questions asked of you by the Ratgebers. Your face,” she says as she trails a fingertip along my cheek, leaving shivers in its wake. “It gives everything away.”
Her hand drops and she steps back, fading further into the shadows. I can no longer see her, and her departure leaves no sound. Still, I stay peering after her in the darkness, my hand clasped to my cheek where my skin still tingles where she touched it.
***
I am lying on my bed in the darkness when my father returns. My mother stayed home during the meeting in case anyone stopped by, but she now comes out to meet him. I listen to their hushed conversation and I wonder if they even realize I am here.
“Is it done?” my mother asks him.
“It is done,” my father responds, his voice a strange mix of triumph and weariness.
“And the Piper?” my mother asks.
“It has been arranged,” my father says.
“Good,” replies my mother, satisfied.
I find their words oddly troubling, but I cannot make sense of why. I lie there puzzling over it for a while and then let sleep pull at me. There will be time to work it out later.
***
It has been two days since the Piper arrived and nothing seems to have changed. We watch over our shoulders in fear that the Ratgebers will somehow discover what is going on. After what the Piper said I feel even more self-conscious when I am in town, worried that the Ratgebers will read our plans in my face.
***
I am hurrying home from the market when a hand from the shadows reaches out and clasps my shoulder. I jump and whirl around, afraid of what I might see, but it is nothing more than the Piper. She places her finger over her lips, indicating that I should stay silent. “Tonight,” she says softly. “Tell your father.”
“Tell him what?” I ask quietly, but she is already melting away. This time, in broad daylight, I dare not dally and draw attention to myself. I continue on my route home, the whole encounter taking only moments.
***
When I arrive home, my father is in his office and I knock on the door. The voices inside fall silent as my father calls for me to enter. I open the door and step into the room.
“What do you want, Katja?”
“The Piper came to me in the Village,” I say, almost as if I’m embarrassed.
“She approached you?” my father asks sharply. “Why you?”
I shrug uncomfortably under the pressure. “I don’t know,” I answer. “She didn’t say.”
He stares at me for a long moment before looking away. “Very well,” he finally says. “What did she say?”
“She said to tell you ‘tonight,’” I reply. He continues to stare at me, his piercing gaze attempting to see through me, but he cannot see what is not there. I have nothing to hide
“Did she say anything else?” he asks.
“No,” I reply. “Just that.”
He nods and turns away. I take that as my cue to leave. As I am walking through the door, I hear the murmur of voices start up behind me.
“Can she be trusted?” one of them asks.
“Oh yes,” my father says dismissively. “What could she do anyway?”
My cheeks burn with shame as I close the door, and it is enough to erase the lingering memory of the Piper’s touch.
***
The news passes quickly around the townspeople, though I am never quite sure how it is done. Underground whispers that have been perfected through decades of oppression. No matter how it happens, the instructions are clear: no matter what, stay at home tomorrow. No matter what you hear or what you think you see, stay inside. Something is going to happen. The next morning: chaos. It fills our normally subdued streets with noise and urgency. The sound of running feet is only overpowered by the desperate shouts. The sounds come closer, and then fade slightly, only to be repeated again and again. I edge closer to our front window trying to determine the cause, though I have a sneaking suspicion I already know what it is. I am almost at the window when my father appears in the room. For a large man, he has always been able to move silently when it suits him.
“Katja,” he says disapprovingly.
“I just wanted to see,” I explain. “Curiosity would be expected, surely.”
“We can do nothing that draws attention to us,” he says. “Especially not now. Let us pretend that this is normal, that there is nothing they can do that would cause us to question anything.”
I let my hand drop from where it had been poised to pull back the curtains enough to see outside. “Very well,” I agree.
He nods at my compliance and walks away. I stand there staring at the curtain for a very long time, wondering whether I have the courage to disobey, whether I have the courage to accept the consequences. I do not.
***
We do not dare to meet that evening, not in the numbers that we have been meeting, not until we can be sure that the Piper has finished her job. My father works in his office late into the night; I am not certain he sleeps.
***
The next morning the chaos has been replaced by an eerie calm, as though we are in the centre of a whirlpool. My father asks me to dress in my nicest clothes and I pull them on, puzzled by his edict. When I am dressed, I meet him in our front room. He and my mother are both dressed in finery that I have never seen before. My father guides us outside, and we join the stream of people walking towards the city of Rathaus.
At every intersection we are joined by more and more townsfolk until it feels like we are a giant river flowing towards the sea. As we approach, I see that the gates stand wide open. I have never seen Rathaus unguarded before and a shiver works its way down my spine as I walk carried by the crowd through the gates. The city center stands at the top of a series of steps with a large courtyard below. Many of the townsfolk are milling aimlessly around this large square, and I hear questions being whispered on the wind.
What has happened?
Why are we here?
Where are the guards?
Where are the rats?
My father alone dares ascend the steps, though he is soon joined by his compatriots, Wilhelm and Heinrich, who walk a respectful distance behind him. His slow, measured rise up the stairs soon draws the attention of the people. Before he is even at the top, the square is silent, except for the sound of his shoes clacking on the stone steps.
“People of Hamelin,” my father declares once he has arrived at the summit. He stands before the large, iron doors of the main building of Rathaus. Doors that have always been closed to us, in the way that the gates have always been closed to us. “Today, we are free.”
For moments his words just hang on the air, then the people catch the sound as they pass it back and forth amongst themselves. Free, free, free…
“The Ratgebers – the Rats,” this word is filled with disgust as it always is. “Have been, let us say … taken care of.”
Though I was sure that most of the people gathered here must have been aware of this plan, a sense of shock still seems to reverberate around the area, as though they cannot believe that their audacity has paid off.
“Be assured, the Piper has done her job thoroughly,” my father continues. “The rest of the guards have been corralled right here, in the main building of Rathaus, from whence they ruled for so long. And your children, our children,” here he lets his voice catch with emotion, “have been found and are being cared for by our good medical men and women. Once we are sure that they are all healthy and not in need of any further care, we will begin reuniting families tomorrow.”
Tomorrow. Again, the word dances amongst the people who whisper it with awe, with astonishment, with gratitude. My father could say anything now, do anything now, and these people would still revere him. Any lingering distrust has melted away with this news.
While the crowd celebrates their good fortune quietly, with tears of joy streaking across faces and hands clasped tight, too overjoyed to find the sound to rejoice, my mother has ascended the steps and joined my father upon the temporary dais. He reaches across and clasps her hand in his. They nod to me and reluctantly I climb the steps to join them.
“Let us no longer live in fear of the rats,” my father finishes. “Let us no longer have our families in fear. Let us no longer cower behind closed doors hoping that this time they won’t notice us, that this time we will escape their notice, that this time it will be different. From this day forward it shall be different. Go in peace, my friends, for tomorrow will be a new day.”
At the end of his speech, he looks around the crowd, nodding to those who catch his eye, and then turns to me.
“Let us go home, now, Katja,” he says, and as a family we go, leaving those who are not yet whole to watch after us with hope instead of pain for the first time.
***
It is late that afternoon when I hear unusual noises and I creep to the hall to see what is happening. The Piper has arrived and is demanding that my father give her an audience. Her back is to me and her voice is low, calm, but uncompromising.
“You promised me payment, Mayor Veraten,” she says to my father, and he smiles. There is a cruelty in it that I have never noticed before.
“Indeed I did,” he says as he throws her a small sack. She opens it and glances inside.
“This is not the agreed-upon price,” she says.
“No?” says my father in mock-surprise. “Oh dear,” he continues. “You must have made some sort of mistake.” His gaze flicks aside and from the shadows appear two men who grasp her arms and move her along to a back exit.
“I will go,” she states as she shakes the hands of the men off of her. “But remember: those who call for the Piper must always pay the price.”
My father laughs softly. “Or else what, Piper?” he asks her. “You will bring all the rats back?”
She glances back over her shoulder, piercing him with her gaze. “There are always new rats to be removed,” she says, and there is a threat in her words.
“There is nothing you can do if you have no power,” he gestures once again to the men who grip her harder and begin to pull her away. “Place her in the underground tunnels which she loves so much.”
“There will always be a price to pay,” she says calmly, as if she isn’t being taken as a prisoner.
My father obviously does not believe her, though, and he turns his back to her as he re-enters his office. I stay hidden in the shadows until I am sure that there is no one left to see me slip away.
***
The ringing of the doorbell startles me from the reverie into which I had sunk. My heart starts racing, an automatic reaction when normally the only people ringing the doorbell at this time of night have been the Ratgebers. This time, however, my mother opens the door and for the first time in memory my father’s compatriots step through, daring to openly visit him. Before today they would never have risked such a thing.
“Welcome,” says my mother softly. “Gerhard is in his office.” She steps to the side, and they all walk confidently through the house to his office door, as though it is a journey they have made a million times. Perhaps it is, though never this openly.
I am restless after the events of the past few days, and so I throw on a cloak and head into our back garden, hoping that the cool night air will somehow soothe me. I’m not sure why my father has imprisoned the Piper, but I don’t dare ask. I wish there was something I could do to help her.
As I walk, I find the curtains to my father’s office closed, but the window slightly ajar. Unable to resist temptation I move closer, eager to listen to their conversation.
“Have you met with the doctors?” my father speaks.
“Yes,” says one of the men. I think it is Willhelm. “They say that most of the children can be released, but that they’d like to do further tests on another dozen or so.”
“Do they have the gene?” asks my father eagerly.
“They believe so. If they survive the tests tomorrow, then they’ll know for certain.”
“Excellent,” says my father in a satisfied tone. “Expedite the tests tonight. We need to know how many families we must prepare for the bad news that their children have not survived. The money we get for pharmaceutical development should keep us well cared for, whether the river flows or not.”
“How are you going to explain their absence?” asks the man I think is Hans.
“We’ll blame the Piper,” says my father, his words sounding rehearsed but malicious. “She must have decided that she could extract more money from us, and when we refused, she killed the children in retribution. That is why we have imprisoned her. We’ll have her publicly executed in two days, after we have reunited the families.”
I stay frozen where I am for a moment, unable to believe that my father has been arranging all of this behind the scenes. Even without these children he would have been revered by the townsfolk, their official leader for as long as they wanted. This desire to continue to hold some children for testing could only arise from greed, and the idea that my father could leave them and their families to suffer like this sends my belly swirling in disgust. I cannot let this happen.
***
I steal through the dark tunnels to the room where the Piper stays, the room where she is kept. She is a prisoner, now awaiting death, and I wonder if she knows it. I creep to her door, unwilling to risk opening it, and press my lips to the crack between door and
wall.
“Piper?” I call in a hushed whisper that susurrates down the shadowy corridor.
“Who’s there?” Her voice calls back assured, confident, and I am jealous of her strength.
“They are going to kill you,” I respond, my tone still hushed and wary. I failed her. She asked if my father could be trusted and I told her he could. I feel betrayed as well.
“Katja, is that you?” Her voice sounds closer now, softer, as she calls to me.
“Yes, but listen, you are in danger. I was wrong. My father - he intends to kill you.”
“Why?” She doesn’t seem surprised just in want of more details.
“My father wanted the Ratgebers gone, and the children freed. But not all of them because they still need some for the town to remain prosperous. For my father to remain prosperous. More children will go missing. They’ll go into the main building of Rathaus and we’ll never see them again. You must go.”
“Go?” she answers. “How can I go?” Her words are double-edged; she knows as well as I do that she is a prisoner here. But I know that even if she were free, she could not just walk away. Not after all she had done to secure the freedom of Hamelin and its children.
“I will come.” I lean forward earnestly, my hands pressed against the door as though I could push my way through it to secure her freedom.
“I will be waiting,” she says in response, and somehow there is no hint of irony in her words. “And then we must go far from here.”
I nod in agreement even though she cannot see me, and then I slip away, leaving her alone in the darkness with nothing to do but plan.
***
Back in my room, I wait until the household is asleep and then I steal down the stairs to my father’s office. I am lucky because there, in the top draw of his desk, are a bundle of keys. I wonder whether he is foolish to be so trusting, or just too arrogant to think I would ever betray him. I take them with me as I slip back down through the garden to the tunnels that take me to the Piper.
Dawn is not far away as I return and release the Piper from her involuntary confinement.
Once Upon A Dystopia: An Anthology of Twisted Fairy Tales and Fractured Folklore Page 28