Castle of Sighs

by Jennifer Murgia

  I don’t know how to be tender in the presence of others—my life has never called for such expression—yet being near him soothes me in a way I don’t know how to describe. He calms my heart, yet the very closeness of him entices my pulse to race in a fashion that makes my head spin. “At one time, the bishop loved my mother, as she did him,” I whisper. “I have to believe there was something good about him, even if it was long ago.”

  “Even if it ended badly?”

  “Yes. Even that.”

  His weight shifts and I lift my head to meet his eyes. “And this is why you won’t come to Eltz?”

  I take a long look around the room, noting how the past and present have collided after all these years. “Yes. It is the reason. It must be protected…with sigils and wards, anything to preserve it. That, I believe, is what I’m meant to do here.”

  “I’d like to see what you see, Rune. I’d like to believe not everything concocted or planned in this chamber was evil-born or held aspirations of mal-intent.”

  My toes bend, lifting me higher so that I might reach him easier. “You were the one who convinced me to claim what has been left to me. Help me by believing we are supposed to be here to do right by my family’s name. That what turned sour here can once again shine bright.”

  His eyes soften. He knows well the honor I speak of. For years Laurentz has worked to earn his father’s respect after the devastating death of his older brother, Freidrich. It is a weight his soul still carries, but amends have begun to heal the bitter past.

  “Look around you. Everything here is my past. Everything that makes me who I am began with this.” I sweep my arm wide, hoping he takes in what I see, but I fear he is not fully convinced, for his eyes once again hold concern, and I, too, cannot help feel that while there is much hope here, there is also something very dark.

  Faint rustling scrapes beyond the open door. Laurentz moves to pull me closer, but as I peer past his arm, something remotely visible hovers, watching us. The darkness quivers. It momentarily takes shape into something I do not recognize, something certainly not human, then dissipates and floats away.

  Chapter 18

  “Are you cold?” He asks me, his eyes fixing upon the gooseflesh raised along my arm. I cannot find my voice so I shake my head. No. It seems to satisfy him but it does not stop me from staring after the odd anomaly. The doorway is empty, nothing more than a rectangle of stale air and old cobwebs and I tremble at the idea that soon Laurentz and I will have to leave this chamber and make our way back to the children above. Laurentz gently releases himself from me, making his way to the shelves lined with various herbs and concoctions. He puts his arms behind his back, clasping his fingers together and adopts what appears to be a studious interest in what lies before him.

  But it is I who can’t find the excitement I had just moments ago. My joy has left me and I am suddenly anxious. I turn my back to the door and try to ignore the lingering feeling.

  “Very peculiar,” he mutters to himself, hesitantly lifting a small jar from a shelf. Tilting it back and forth, he watches the contents shift so they press against the glass for his inspection. “Talons? Rather large, too.”

  I cross the room, feeling my chest un-tighten the further I pull away from the dark doorway. “Yes, I’ve noticed that too. Raven, I suppose? Or hawk, or falcon.” Laurentz returns the specimen to the shelf and chooses another. Though careful, he does seem more at ease than when we first arrived, and I watch him, pleased that he humors me. His gaze settles upon the odd inventory—a lidded jar of goat’s eyes, raven feathers bundled neatly as if they are herbs ready for drying. Countless apothecary jars of dried herbs and spices, mere pantry staples, are stacked in neat, precise order beneath a fine layer of dust.

  But the more sinister ingredients are the ones that catch his eye, and he spends several moments trying to figure out what they are, as well as the possible uses for them. There is a vial of blood—almost black with age. A stunning selection of corked, green amphora bottles, candles and crystals, baskets of Hawthorn berries and crutch-shaped thorns. Rows of macabre ingredients my mother must have held smile back at us, and my soul feels heavy and light all at once.

  This is a witch’s storeroom. A wonderland of spells and scrolls at the ready. Did she Cast for love or gain? Or did she use what is here as protection, as I used the Angelica and the Bind Runes? Was my mother happy here?

  My throat tightens as my mind turns toward the wavering dark I cannot seem to ignore. Or was she threatened? Trapped? Pyrmont is a labyrinth—its halls echoing a toxic combination of good and evil, of the living and the dead, of the past and present. Would it drive one mad to stay here? I briefly consider Laurentz’s proposition and wonder if I should take myself and the children from these cold walls.

  The room echoes as Laurentz grinds herbal remnants with a mortar and pestle, pulling my thoughts back to the world of the living, and I am drawn toward a dim corner of the room. While the chamber is impeccably tidy, despite layers of old grime, this one corner seems to be particularly unorganized. Piled high are baskets and discarded items, as if what is heaped here does not have a place, or has been forgotten.

  I begin to rummage, my curiosity piqued. Toppled baskets of White Apple Bark have spilled onto the floor. Four metal lanterns of thin pewter and glass rest atop crumbled leaves and twigs, as if the outside has wormed its way into the room for fear of winter. I stumble my way into the mound, my feet disappearing as the pile rises up to my knees and I am in the center of it. A wooden device protrudes an arm’s length away, and I reach for it. “Laurentz!” I call to him. “Help me, please.”

  He makes his way closer to me and begins to laugh. “Aren’t you a sight?” His smile chases away the fears my heart hides, and once again the room is but a playground of treasure and delight. “Hold me still while I yank this out, will you?”

  His firm hands circle my waist, sending tremors up and down my arms and legs. If he only knew of the magick his touch produced, of how it affected me so, he would be the most powerful man in all of Bavaria.

  I shove aside the distraction and reach for the conical shape jutting from the fray. In my grip at last, I pull it free, and turn to hand it to Laurentz. “It’s a whorl spindle,” I tell him, although he doesn’t appear to be as impressed as I am. “Matilde had one once. She would spin yarn for hours by the hearth.”

  “Do you plan on taking up spinning, then?”

  The chuckle beneath my breath escapes me, “Perhaps.” Although, I was never very good at it. I never had the knack for it and the yarn would end up tangled and ruined, left for Matilde to unravel.

  When my footing is stable, he ventures back to his own exploring, leaving me with the remainder of the pile. Just beyond my grasp is a cluster of twigs. I stretch to touch them and a profound reverberation surfaces from them. They are only a collection of thin, birch branches, but I have learned to listen to my instincts. Matilde once told me the Sacred Mother speaks in “loud silence.” I never understood until I was on my own and allowed her in. Now, as I rummage through what others would surely look past, I know something of importance lies with those delicate branches.

  I pull at one, my finger and thumb pinching the end of the spiny shoot. Inches from the ends is a thin sprig of willow wood, clenching the twigs together. My hand reaches downward and feels for the handle. There! I pull it, careful not to snap the brittle ends, and then, free at last, I hold it carefully.

  The old broom handle has been whittled from an ash tree and remarkably similar to the Witch’s Besom Matilde once owned. Like a hurtling storm, my memory retrieves the day she cast me from the cottage, not in anger, but to save my life for a lie I told in the market. I hadn’t meant any harm when I traded the mushrooms. I hadn’t thought at all what my actions would mean once the day was over. She bade me to leave as the men from the village pounded upon the door, only I couldn’t leave her behind. I’d waited, listening as the bishop’s judges stormed our small cottage, how the one sound
that came to me, over their loud, booming voices, was the sound of the broom sweeping across the floor, mocking our way of life. A broom, just like this one.

  And then, Matilde was taken.

  I raise my arm and pitch the broom across the pile where it shatters into brittle shards against the wall.

  “What was that?” Laurentz sets a thick book to rest upon the center table and makes long strides toward me.

  “It was nothing.” But he sees through me, his eyebrows arching at the commotion I’ve caused. Sighing deeply, I point toward the wall. “I threw a broom.”

  “No, that wasn’t it.” Laurentz pushes past me, lifting his legs to climb over the first of the baskets and rubble, then, sinking, so he is standing within it as I do. “Didn’t you hear it? That loud thump?”

  “It was a thin broom, hardly anything to cause a thump.”

  But he makes his way through the discarded items until he is at the back of the corner against the stone wall. Laurentz picks at the ground, tossing remnants of old candle stubs and crates aside, even the broken Besom I tossed.

  “Something is here.” His arm sinks from view as he reaches far behind the rubble and then, to my surprise, he reaches into the stone wall itself. A grating, crumbling sound fills the room, stones falling, mortar loosening as if he is ripping the foundation of the castle into pieces with his bare hands, and then, pulling hard, he retrieves a large wooden box from a space behind the stones. He climbs across the debris until he reaches me and helps me lift myself out of the heap. Together, we bring the box to the table.

  “What do you suppose it is?” I trace my finger along the corner. The box is rather gloomy. A shade of grimy brown, it has apparently seen better days. Its top is marred with deep lashes, as if it has been scraped by an animal with long claws, or beaten and sent to a lonely death. One corner is smashed in, with crude splinters poking this way and that. A gold hinge at the back is bent, the other missing entirely.

  Laurentz pushes the box toward me. “Go ahead, open it. By law it’s yours.”

  I stare at the thing, wondering what it could possibly hold. Treasure? Jewels? A legacy hidden away to keep safe? Rationality whispers that it was found beneath old twigs and debris, making it far more likely to be full of musty artifacts I have no use for. My hand rests upon its worn face and I press my thumb beneath the latch. One swipe is all it will take for the box to open but I pause, a chill washing over me. My eyes dart to the black void that separates us from the rest of the castle—the door. It stands empty.

  There is nothing there, I tell myself, and then, I hear the faintest of sounds, like a rushing breath, a waterfall of emotion pressing against me. I swallow hard, for in this room, abandoned for so long, it is hard to imagine it has been truly empty—that somewhere, deep in the darkest corners magick still lives… waiting…for me.

  Chapter 19

  My thumb snaps the latch and the box opens with a moan, its lid lifting up and over. Within, the contents are nothing more than a mangled mystery. Laurentz’s nose twists at the stale stench rising from it while I gently poke at the items. It is a quiet guessing game, deciphering what they are, or had been at one time.

  “There is nothing here,” Laurentz sighs, grimly. “Let’s close the lid and be done with it. It’s no wonder this was tossed aside.”

  But the witch in me is hesitant. “It wasn’t tossed aside, it was hidden.” I go back to my careful rummaging. “Don’t be so quick to make such assumptions.”

  There was a day, long ago, that Matilde spoke very similar words. A woman had come to the cottage wishing for her fortune to be told and Matilde called upon the rune stones to reveal the future. Too eager, the woman reached for a stone, but Matilde, knowing the fortune would only work if told in order, stopped the woman. My heart sinks to my feet. Many a day I have longed for Matilde to be with me since that horrid night in the square. But in this moment I see with new eyes, feeling the veil between the world of a witch and the world of an ordinary girl slip away, I am able to imagine Matilde is with me still.

  “It is rubbish, Rune.” But his tone betrays the fact that, indeed, if it had been hidden, it surely must contain something worthwhile.

  I ignore him and move aside what fills the box, digging deeper. There is old, dusty fluff of some sort, like the lining of a nest, perhaps intentionally placed to protect what lies within. I shuffle the grayed filling away and find the cause of the foul odor.

  The back of Laurentz’s hand springs to cover his nose as I shift the severed foot of a bird, claws intact, to the back of the box. I dig further, uncovering a coil of snakeskin, parchment thin and rippled, and a handful of shrunken Rowan berries. There is a used candle, wick blackened, its wax bent from the heat of its own flame. My heart pounds steadily as I discover more has been stashed in the box, knowing what lies at the very bottom is of upmost importance. “Is that…?”

  I pull a square of yellowed leather free and hold it up. It is hard like stone but feels like hide, its edges curled and dotted with the most miniscule of pin pricks across its surface. Looking closely, I see there are fine hairs sprouting from a good number of the holes and I drop the square back into the box, fighting the urge to be sick. “Yes, I think so.” I do not have to say it out loud. Laurentz and I both know the square is human skin. Instead, it is much easier to push onward and hope we uncover a less gruesome trinket.

  Pushing aside the smaller items, my fingertips finally kiss the treasure at the very bottom of the box. It is too heavy to lift with one hand and I dip both palms in, curling my fingers around the edges to find a better grip. “Can you weigh the box down so I don’t spill it?” I ask Laurentz. For if the box should spill, who knows what other little horrors will come tumbling out?

  At last, it pulls free and I draw it out into the light. “It’s beautiful,” I gasp. In my hands I hold a large tome of red leather. “Something so exquisite beneath such atrocities, don’t you agree?” I touch the cover with care, almost caressing it. In the very center is a pentacle, engraved and flanked by three flying ravens and three full moons. I trace the hand-stitched edges toward the brass corner covers, my fingers itching to leaf through its delicate pages.

  On paper that is thin enough to see my hand through to the other side, I find sketches of symbols and endless pages of spells and ingredients.

  “It’s a book.” Laurentz leans and peers over my shoulder. “A book of what?”

  “Secrets…” I whisper, not quite knowing where the thought came from. I resume thumbing back to the beginning of the tome, careful not to rip the aged sheets. “It appears to be filled with the strangest entries—devotions, recipes, as if someone filled it with thoughts. There seems to be no order to it, at all.” But as I page through, the later entries appear less like a simple collection of meanderings, and instead, something darker and more sinister.

  Most of the herbs marked throughout are of a poisonous nature. The sketches, lacking the detail depicted in the opening pages, now are nothing more than hasty. Entire pages have been devoted to crude images of horned animals with human eyes, of winged creatures feeding upon human flesh. It is horrifying, yet intriguing. And my fingers ache to comb through it, as if pulled by an invisible force.

  I let the book’s weight plunge it to the table, where it settles with a tremendous thud. If I thought Laurentz appeared distressed when we first entered the room, it does not compare to how ashen his skin has become at the sight of the strange book. A breath of disbelief and disgust exhales past his lips and he springs back a good foot from where he stood just a moment before. I watch him carefully as he paces, stopping now and then to stare at the thing I’ve just uncovered with an expression I cannot read. “Do you know what this is?” he asks finally, only he does not wait for my answer. “I’ve only ever heard of such a book passed down through tales from my childhood. But to lay my own eyes upon one…”

  “Is it so horrible?”

  “Yes, Rune. It is. It is a grimoire. The servants at Eltz would wh
isper about them, about what they contained and why they were used. This book is a collection of dark entries—of concocting potions and recording spells, but namely, to keep her most precious of secrets.” He raises his eyes and looks at me. “I don’t think any good can come of a book such as this.”

  But my fingers can no longer stay away from the delicate pages. I can almost feel Laurentz cringe as I lift the dusty cover. “But perhaps it contains my mother’s secrets.” If so, then keeping it safe, along with everything else in the chamber, surely falls upon my shoulders. “It appears my reading lessons will come in handy,” I say with a cautious smile.

  “Rune, leave it.” Laurentz leans over my shoulder and slides the book away from me, but as soon as he does, his fingers connect with a corner sticking out farther than the rest. With a simple tug the page is set free and slides out. Upon it is the crest of Burg Eltz.

  His hand recoils but his eyes stay fixed upon the crest. And then, as if he hadn’t warned me to be cautious of our find, he flips the book open. Page after page flies past, useless, until he reaches the very back of the tome.

  I lean forward. “Did you notice the handwriting changed as you worked your way to the back of the book?”

  He shakes his head. “I was too busy looking for an explanation.”

  “Here,” I open the grimoire until it splits in precise proportion. One half falls to the left, the other to the right. “See how the lines of the scribe change?” I show him the comparison on the previous pages. “It appears as if someone else took over recording the entries.”

  Between us the book lies open like a waiting challenge. The air is electric, buzzing as if alive.