“But as I jumped, the belt wrapped itself around me and I became a man again. As you can see. The others—the others who are wolves—all ran off in different directions,” he concluded. “But I came here. And I brought the belt with me.” He pulled the coiled leather from his traveling pouch and set it on the table.
“But this is no ordinary belt,” he continued. “I’ve had a chance to examine it here and—”
“Not an ordinary belt?” Beatrycze exclaimed. “I could have told you that much!”
“No, I mean more than that,” Alexei resumed. “In fact, it is not a belt at all. It is, as you can see if you look at it yourself, simply a strip of skin that has been tanned or pickled. Not a belt at all. But it is like no leather that I have ever seen before. It has a much finer, softer grain than even the best leather. I suspect that it is not pig’s skin or calf’s skin at all. I think that it must be a strip of some other kind of skin, and that it can transform whoever steps over it into a wolf. But if it is wrapped around such a person, they can become human again.”
Beatrycze reached towards the coiled leather but then stopped, her nose wrinkled in disgust. “Some other kind of skin?” she repeated his words. “How disgusting. Keep it away from me, Alexei.” She shuddered and half-turned away so she could not see it. Alexei slipped it back into his pouch.
“But you see what this means, don’t you, Beatrycze?” he insisted. “It means we have the means to change Ferdynand and Gosia and Sybilla and Zygmunt and the others back into people again.” He paused. “But it also means that Frau Berhta will come looking for it, and we may not have long to find everyone again and change them back into humans before she discovers who has it and comes to take it back. We need to call Ferdynand, Zygmunt, and the others as soon as possible and change them back into human form before Frau Berhta comes knocking on your door.”
“How can we do that?” Beatrycze wanted to know. “Can you call out to them… with your thoughts, as you spoke to Ferdynand and Gosia before?”
“It is the only way I know how to try,” Alexei admitted. He stood. “I will do the best I can.”
Beatrycze stood and followed him.
Alexei stood in the middle of the yard, looking up into the moonlight. His eyes were closed. His arms hung at his side, his traveling pouch slung over one shoulder with that hideous coil of accursed leather inside. Although his eyes were closed, his eyebrows were pinched together in concentration. After a moment he looked back at her.
“I did what I could,” he told her. “I called out to them all, but especially Ferdynand and Gosia. They know to keep listening for me, that I promised to call when we had found a way to help them. But the others would not necessarily recognize my voice. When Ferdynand and Gosia get here, we can send them out to find the others if they have not arrived by then.”
“Thank you, thank you, Alexei!” Beatrycze’s hope seemed strengthened. “But we cannot simply wait here for them,” she offered. “There must be something we can do, something that we should be doing to help….”
“Yes,” Alexei agreed. “We cannot simply wait to see who arrives first: the wolves or Frau Berhta. We must protect the house and yard somehow. Do you recall any old stories about how to protect a household against witchcraft?”
Beatrycze seemed to be struggling to remember. “My mother and aunts told us stories when we were little,” she said. “In many of those stories, strips of birch bark would be hung around the doors and windows of a house to protect the people within from the witches outside. Or strips of birch bark that would keep witches from entering the farmyard or barn to harm the animals or crops inside.”
“Then we must get some,” declared Alexei. He turned as if about to walk into the woods. “Where are there birch trees?” he asked.
Beatrycze laughed in spite of herself. “Not far from here, Alexei. But try as I might to explain how to find them, it would be easier and quicker for me to go.” She patted the small bag at her waist. “I have my kitchen knife already. Besides, if you stay here and wait while I go to find the birch bark, you can speak—if that’s the correct term for it—with the wolves when they arrive. And send Ferdynand and Gosia to find the others, if need be.”
Alexei stared at her before capitulating to her reasoning. “Very well,” he said. “I will wait here. But hurry—be careful in the woods and bring back as much birch bark as you can as quickly as you can.”
“Of course. I have no intention to remain alone in the dark in the woods for any longer than I absolutely must,” Beatrycze told him as she walked out of the yard towards the first row of trees.
Alexei sat on the doorstep, his pouch drawn onto his lap, and he wrapped his arms around himself as he prepared to watch for either the wolves or Frau Berhta to come out of the night.
Frau Berhta was furious. And baffled. She had made her way back to the tavern, thinking to find the square between the tavern and the church to be full of bewildered wolves. She had brought the sailor’s thumb with her in case any of the wolves tried to attack her.
But the square was empty. She heard a few voices drifting through the air from several streets away, complaining about the missing newlyweds. She examined the threshold of the tavern.
Her precious strip of sailor’s skin was missing.
A string of German epithets slipped quietly out her lips and into the night.
“So the newlyweds are missing? They, at least, must have been transformed and run away. But who else? Surely, not only the newlyweds. The bridal party, perhaps? But then something happened. Someone saw and took the sailor’s skin,” she hissed. “But who would have seen or known how to stop it?”
Had anyone seen her the last time she had used the skin? She had not thought so.
“But maybe,” she was forced to conclude. “Maybe someone had seen something. Who might have been inside the house when that miner and his fiancée stepped over the skin? Someone who was helping prepare for the wedding, maybe? Someone from one of their families?”
That was the only answer she could think of. She hurried back toward her own house, her club foot dragging along in the street as her cane tapped out a quick staccato. She would use the sailor’s thumb to track the sailor’s skin and then set out to retrieve it before the sun was up.
“Whoever took it will be sorry they crossed me,” she promised. “They will wish they’d never thought to take it away!”
Back in her parlor, she sat in her chair in front of the hearth. She pulled the pickled thumb from its hiding place and gripped it tightly. Raising her fist to her lips, she kissed the thumbnail and whispered to the familiar spirit inside it.
“The skin,” she murmured. “The skin, tanned with wolf’s piss and wolf’s scheiße, the skin that came from the same body as you—where is it, my pet? It has been taken from me and I must have it back. Before someone does something very bad with it. Where is it, my pet? Where is my belt of skin?”
The thumb quivered in her grasp. She gripped it more tightly so as not to drop it.
“Tell me, my pet,” she urged. “Tell me where to find it and—after I have gotten it back—I shall reward you, my pet.”
The thumb twisted around, leaned back, and paused, almost as if standing at attention.
“What sort of reward, you ask me, my pet?” Frau Berhta smiled. “The greatest, the best reward that I have given you yet, my pet.”
The thumb quivered as if with excitement and anticipation.
“Oh, yes,” she promised. “Better than any reward I have given you before.”
The thumb was still, as if considering her offer.
“Where is it, my pet? Surely, you can find it and tell me where it is. Surely.” She licked her lips. “Where is it?”
The thumb jumped over her shoulder and fell to the floor behind her. She heard it thumping and skittering around.
“Yes, yes, my pet,” she encouraged it. “You can find it. Seek it out. Track it down. It cannot be too far. Where might it be hiding?”
Occasionally it would rear up, reminding the old woman of a hunting dog pausing to catch the scent of the game. Then it fell back to the floor. It knocked into furniture and changed course, but still making circles on the floor with its nail pointed outward.
Finally it came to a rest. Frau Berhta pushed herself up from her chair and made her way across the room. Bending over, she picked it up and held it to her ear.
“Tell me, my pet,” she whispered gently, closing her eyes. “You have found it. I know you have. Where is it?”
There was a whisper of words in her thoughts. “Tell me, my pet, and when I fetch it you shall have your reward,” she reminded it.
The voice in her thoughts spoke clearly. “The house at the edge of the town. Where the bride dwelt, with her sister and brother.”
Yes! She knew that house, where that troublemaking maid had lived with her brother and sister.
“Thank you, my pet!” she congratulated the spirit trapped within the thumb. “You have done what I asked and you shall have your reward,” she whispered. “As soon as I have my skin strip back!” She kissed it again and slipped it back into the small pouch at her waist.
It would take her some while to walk that far, but she could still get there, retrieve the skin strip, and return home by dawn. She could not risk waking her driver to harness a horse and take her. No one could know about the thumb or the skin or what she did with them.
It would take some time, but she would walk. She would be tired but she would have all day to rest, tomorrow. Wrapping a shawl around her shoulders, she stepped out into the spring night.
Beatrycze found the grove of birch trees, glimmering in the night, and began peeling the white bark back from one truck.
“Not that far from our house, but I would never have been able to tell Alexei how or where to find it,” she muttered to herself as she worked. She slid the slips of bark into the purse hanging at her waist and kept cutting more. “And I couldn’t bear to sit there in the house with that foul strip of skin to wrap around the wolves if they arrived before Alexei got back—if he didn’t get lost, both going and coming!”
Her knife, though sharp, had not been intended to strip bark from trees, and the work was slow. She tried to wedge it just under the first layer of bark and cut as thin a strip as she could, avoiding the wood beneath the bark itself.
“What is it that makes birch bark a protection against witchcraft, in any case?” she asked herself as she cut away another strip. “Because it reflects light in the dark? Because it blooms first in the spring? Because we make maypoles of birch trees back home in the countryside? Is that it?”
She began to sweat as she struggled to peel away more of the precious bark. “But it had better work—for whatever reason! The main thing is that it protect us until Ferdynand, Sybilla, Zygmunt… until everyone is transformed back!”
Satisfied that she could fit no more into the purse she had brought, she hurried back home.
Alexei heard something. Footsteps on the dirt road alongside the yard. Pebbles crunched under a pair of feet. Under two pairs of feet. A shadow slunk into the yard, and after a moment, there were more pebbles and dirt that crunched under more than one pair of feet, and another shadow crept into the yard.
Alexei sat up straighter. He drew a deep breath and recognized the scent stealing through the air.
“Ferdynand?” he spoke the name quietly. “Gosia? Is that you?”
The two wolves crept up to him and nuzzled his shoulder as if he were an old friend. He rubbed each of them behind the ears. Their tongues dropped out of their jaws and lapped his neck gently. After a few moments of greeting, Alexei pulled himself away from the wolves but kept his hands alongside each of their heads.
“Did you come alone? Do you know where Zygmunt, Sybilla, and the others are?” he asked aloud.
The wolves cocked their heads and looked at him.
“Zygmunt, Sybilla, and four others have been transformed into wolves as well,” Alexei explained. “Earlier tonight. A few hours ago. Have you seen them?”
The wolves continued to look at him as if they realized that he was trying to tell them something that they did not understand.
Alexei nodded. He replayed the memories from earlier that night, how he had seen Sybilla and Benedikt step through the tavern door and become wolves, followed by Zygmunt and Renia together with Ctirad and Otylia.
As Alexei recalled the sight of Sybilla and Benedikt’s transformations, the wolves jerked their heads back. The smaller wolf whined quietly. A deep growl rumbled in the chest of the other.
Alexei replayed in his mind the sight of the six wolves running off in different directions and then imagined the sight of the two wolves before him leading the others into the yard. He replayed the memory and his imaginative reunion with all the wolves again.
The larger wolf continued to growl, but after a moment seemed to nod his head in understanding. The smaller wolf ceased to whine and looked at the larger one before turning back to Alexei and nodding once as well.
“Bring them back,” Alexei urged them aloud, rubbing them behind the ears again. “Bring them back home and we can transform you all back into humans.”
The two wolves turned and loped off into the night.
Alexei wasn’t sure they had understood the words he had spoken about transforming them all back into humans, but he was sure they had understood the need to find the others and bring them all back.
Now all he had to do was wait again and hope Beatrycze arrived with the birch bark before Frau Berhta did.
“I hope the stories about birch bark are true,” he worried. If the bark could not protect them the way Beatrycze thought it could, it might make no difference which woman arrived in the yard first.
Beatrycze walked back through the woods as quickly as she could in the dark. She was beginning to worry that perhaps Alexei had not been able to contact the wolves after all. Or that the skin had not been able to restore them the way it had restored him. Or that Frau Berhta had already arrived and done something even more terrible to all of them.
She tripped over roots in the dark, nearly falling, but catching herself on the trunks of the trees around her.
“Do not panic,” she kept telling herself. “If you panic, you’ll get lost, and then the birch bark will be of no use to anyone. Calm down. Pay attention. You know the way home. You’ve walked this way many, many times before. Just pay attention and get home safely.”
She retraced a few steps, realizing that she had missed a turn back to the edge of the woods.
Alexei jerked upright. He realized he had dozed off. He heard footsteps again, out on the road. One pair of footsteps this time. Someone trying to walk quickly but quietly.
A tall, upright shadow stepped into the yard.
“Beatrycze?” Alexei spoke quietly, urgently.
“Yes, I’m back, Alexei,” the shadow answered as she walked up to him. “Did you contact Ferdynand and Gosia? What about the others? Where are they? Have you transformed them all back already?”
“No, no,” he answered her, shaking his head. “Ferdynand and Gosia answered my call, but I have not seen the others yet. Ferdynand and Gosia went back into the woods to look for the others and bring them all back here.”
Beatrycze nodded, biting her lower lip.
“Did you get the birch bark?” he asked her.
She held up the homespun sack full of strips of the white bark.
“What do we do with it, now that we have it?” they both asked each other, and then burst into quiet laughter.
“Place it along the thresholds of the house,” Alexei suggested. “Along the w
indow sills. Across the gate into the yard.”
“Maybe keep some in our pockets as well,” Beatrycze added.
Alexei agreed. “Frau Berhta may not even come herself,” he said as he realized this. “She may simply send some evil magic to harm whoever took her strip of tanned skin and then come later to fetch the skin. The sooner we do this, the better.”
Beatrycze took a handful of the bark peelings and gave them to Alexei. “Put one in your pocket and use the rest to block the gate into the yard and along the fence. I will place the rest along the thresholds of the doors into the house and along the window sills and hearth.”
“Get some clothes ready for them as well,” Alexei suggested. “When they change back into people, they will need something to wear.”
Beatrycze looked at him with puzzlement in her eyes, but then nodded.
Alexei stood up and they each began to place the small chips and curling strips of bark where they hoped to block Frau Berhta’s access to the yard and house.
Frau Berhta paused in the middle of the lane and leaned on her cane. She was tired. Her club foot was dragging behind her and seemed heavier than it had in a long time. She was panting from the exertion. Looking around, she guessed that she was halfway to Sybilla’s family home on the edge of town.
The howl of a single wolf suddenly pierced the night sky. It went on and on, finally fading in the dark.
“Looking for someone, my friends?” the old woman chuckled quietly. “Do you think to find each other and then to save yourselves somehow?” She trudged forward again. “You will be very disappointed, I think, if that is your plan.”
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