At Witches' End

by Annette Oppenlander

  Somehow I had to find the strength to continue. If I gave up now, become Werner’s squire for good, I’d never return home. If he even lived.

  Hans had ordered us to keep Werner’s condition quiet. Had others noticed the quiver, the hesitation when Hans spoke of his brother? Even Luanda hadn’t wanted me to visit Werner. Like there was nothing I could do to help. Like it was too late.

  A sob escaped me. It sounded loud and unnatural in the calmness of the gurgling water. Where I’d just felt relaxed and ready to regroup, I now grew tense again.

  I punched the surface of the water, imagining Dr. Stuler’s face, splashing like a madman.

  You’ve got to stop him. He’ll kill millions.

  Shivering with cold and nervous energy, I wandered along the shore until the hazelnut bushes announced Luanda’s domain. Just like in the first game, her garden had been cleaned and prepped for winter.

  “Anybody home?” I yelled as I approached the cabin. A thin rivulet of smoke came from the chimney but the door did not open. I knocked. Nothing. “Luanda?”

  The door creaked in its hinges when I pushed against it, reminding me of Hänsel entering the hut of the witch. My eyes adjusted to the gloom, I moved farther in.

  Should I wait or leave? My mind was a mess and I couldn’t decide what to do. I’d turned into an indecisive lump. Thinking about Adela and Werner put me in a bad mood all over again.

  The ceiling was covered in bunches of dried herbs, some I didn’t even recognize. If anything the number of earthen pots on the back shelf had increased. I picked up a couple of lids to sniff and stopped. Who knew what she’d hidden inside? My nose was liable to fall off.

  Still chilled I slumped onto a straw sack next to the fireplace, Luanda’s second bed. Whether my exhaustion, the soothing herb smells or the warmth of the fire did it, I dozed off.

  When I awoke it was dark, the fire’s glow red beside me. I added more logs and blew on it, igniting a piece of pine keen to find a lamp. Still no Luanda.

  My stomach growled as I lit a tallow light on the rickety table. Luanda had always been generous sharing her food so I figured she wouldn’t mind if I helped myself. Along the wall above the cot sat a large clay jar, Luanda used to store bread. Sure enough inside sat a roundish hazelnut loaf.

  Next to the pot I noticed a couple of small containers, one made of pottery, the other carved of wood. I opened the earthen jar, the yellowish substance reminding me of butter. I sniffed and dipped a finger to taste. Definitely butter.

  Now all I needed was some good French brie and Italian salami my mother sometimes bought at the deli. I grimaced. Very funny, Max.

  You’re lucky to eat at all.

  Absentmindedly I picked up the wooden box, wondering what was inside. Something rattled, but the box had some kind of hidden hinge. I slumped down at the table, spread some butter with a wooden spoon and devoured three slices of hazelnut bread all the while studying the strange wooden box.

  It wasn’t crude like most everything around, but rather delicate with an inlaid lighter wood pattern. Whoever had made this thing knew what he was doing.

  Sufficiently full, I set the wooden box on its side. In the flicker of the tallow candle a fine line was visible along the underside. This was getting interesting. I’d always loved a good puzzle and what else did I have to do. I ran my finger along the edge, pushing this way and that until one of the sides moved. Something swiveled and the box opened sideways.

  Giving it a good shove, something flew on the table. Half bored that I’d solved the box puzzle, I all of a sudden zoomed into what was lying in front of me. Something bluish and pink, something plastic with…a photo.

  What?

  I picked up the piece, instantly recognizing it as a German driver’s license, the kind I was hoping to get next summer as soon as I turned eighteen. The woman on the photo had brown hair and appeared to be in her early twenties.

  Born in 1991. Louisa Hausermann it said. Good old German name. How in the heck had Luanda gotten hold of a driver’s license? Then I looked again, the tallow light flickering softly next to my fingers. The plastic seemed old and yellowed as if it had spent years in the sun. The eyes…this girl reminded me of somebody. Had she been a gamer who got stuck here and Luanda had found it?

  Stuler used other test subjects for his game. I leaned back and then my throat closed up with shock, the bread in my stomach threatening to reappear.

  The eyes were gray and the color of rain clouds. Luanda…was Louisa.

  I hardly noticed when the front door opened.

  “Max?”

  Too angry to speak I just stared at the old woman in her layers of ragged skirts. Luanda’s eyes remained on mine as she drew closer. Then she saw what was in my hand. Without a word she sagged on the chair across from me, her bundle plopping to the ground unchecked.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I said, my voice sharp and like a stranger.

  For a moment Luanda didn’t answer, her gaze lingering on the plastic card. To my surprise her eyes glittered with tears, her face suddenly old as a mummy. But I was angry and frustrated and not done yet. “You lied to me. You could’ve shared some of your knowledge, made it easier for me. I…trusted you.” My voice had risen and sounded dangerously close to tears as well.

  Luanda closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she resolutely wiped away the wetness and attempted to pat my arm. I yanked it away.

  “I’m sorry. I…it’d been such a long time. It was easier not to think about my former life. Pretend it didn’t exist.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  Luanda squinted, seemingly lost in thought. But then she met my gaze. “Forty-two years, seventy-three days and six hours. More or less.”

  I gasped and stared at the old woman in front of me. She’d been here a lifetime. “Why didn’t you return? Surely you knew what to do…how to get back.”

  Luanda got up and rummaged near the fire, heating water in a pot. “I need tea, Max or should I say Max Nerds?”

  I threw her a watery grin.

  “I knew you were from the future as soon as I saw you at the river. Come on, who has a name like Nerds? And the T-shirt…”

  “You could’ve said something then.”

  “I meant to but somehow I couldn’t… My life is here…it’s all I know.”

  “I just don’t get why you never returned.”

  “I wanted to…in the beginning I was sick and nearly died of longing. I didn’t know how… Dr. Stuler never informed us what it took… to return. Not until you came and left. That’s when I figured it out.”

  “That you needed your driver’s license on your body to travel back?”

  Luanda nodded.

  “So all this time you’ve been playing the witch?”

  “I was a medical student at the University of Kassel. I needed extra cash, so I answered this ad for a test game.” Luanda plunked a steaming cup in front of me and sat back down. “I landed in 1431.”

  I swallowed, remembering the shock I’d felt when I realized that I was living in the Middle Ages.

  “I had a lot of therapeutic knowledge already and always liked plants. The first winter I nearly died of hunger. I didn’t know much about the area and there were frequent battles. I made myself ugly, smeared my face with mud and wore rags.” Luanda coughed. “I snuck around barns and churches, begged and worked for food. Until I found this old place and met the woman who lived in this cabin. She was the real thing, a midwife and healer. She took me in and taught me lots of things.”

  “But I don’t get it. Why couldn’t you travel home? Had you lost your license? Did you have other stuff in your pockets you lost?”

  “I’d buried my license in the woods, afraid somebody would call me a witch if they arrested me. It was the only thing I had in my pocket when I played. My purse must still hang on the chair in Stuler’s lab.” She laughed, her voice bitter. I’d never seen her like this before. The Luanda I knew couldn’t be phased, sh
e was in charge and fearless.

  “After you disappeared and I heard the story from Bero and Enders I put two and two together.”

  “So you could go back, right?” I jumped up and waved the driver’s license in front of her face. To my surprise she shrank back.

  “Put it away.”

  “But don’t you want to go home?”

  “Home?” There was the bitter laugh again. “You tell me where home is? I’m an old woman, having lived in medieval times for over forty years. I was 23 when I left.” Her eyes met mine. “Or do I magically come back as a young woman?”

  “You age wherever you go and no matter how long you are away. But…while you’re away…no time passes in the present. You return the same instant you left.”

  “You mean all my friends, my family are the same age as when I left them?” Her voice had risen and sounded a bit hysterical.

  “Yep, your friends aren’t a second older.”

  “That seals it then,” she said. “Put the darn thing away.”

  I stuffed the license back into the wooden box and placed it on the shelf.

  “Ever since you disappeared the first time, I’d thought that if I ever wanted to, if things got really bad, I’d go home. The box was waiting in case I needed it.” Luanda took a sip of tea, her eyes glittering with new tears. “But my home is here. My modern day life is lost forever.”

  I wanted to shake some sense into her, but what would I want if I stayed for forty years. Survival was a miracle in itself and I’d be old like Luanda. Every person I knew was going to be a stranger. They wouldn’t have aged while I’d grown old as methuselah. How could I blame Luanda for wishing to remain here? This was all she knew. Even if people often feared her, she helped many peasants live easier. She had a job, a purpose.

  “I just wish you’d help put him away?” I finally said.

  “Stuler?”

  I nodded. “He wants to launch the game in North America, send millions of gamers into the past. Can you imagine what would happen? People landing on battlefields in World War II or Vietnam or the Thirty-Year War, people getting sick and dying. It’s utter madness.”

  “Then you must get him,” she said simply.

  “But how? I’m still stuck in this place. I’ve got to find my winter cape I brought with me into the game. And I must help Adela get away from Ott.”

  Luanda smiled, the first real smile I’d seen since arriving in the game. “Well, with that I can help you.”

  Chapter 26

  I left the next morning, carrying a packet with Luanda’s nut bread and assorted herbs. Despite the tough evening, finding out about Luanda, I felt better than I had in days. Awe and pity had replaced my initial anger about her deception.

  Awe that she’d survived this long, especially as a woman. Not that I was sexist, but the Middle Ages were even harder on women than on men. Men harbored all the power while women either worked themselves to death like Bero’s mom or like Lady Clara were considered adornments at the Lord’s castle.

  Pity because having endured more than forty years away from anything familiar must’ve been hell at times. Somehow I couldn’t blame Luanda for clinging to her new identity. She’d played the part for so long, it was her life.

  Even better I had a plan and if all went well I’d be home and I mean really home by nightfall. But that meant everything that happened today had to go smoothly. And if the game had taught me one thing, it was that little to nothing went according to plan.

  As soon as I entered Hanstein, thankfully the guard had finally memorized my name and face, I knew something was up. The courtyard was abuzz with the chatter of maids and servants and squires whispered in the barns.

  When I saw neither Juliana nor Bero I headed for the great hall.

  The first thing I noticed was Lame Hans’s seething voice. He usually sounded irritated and impatient, but now he shouted and paced like a trapped animal. Doubt crept up in me whether I should even go in, but my curiosity, which seemed to get me into trouble more times than not, won out.

  I quietly sneaked behind a guard near the door and peeked over his shoulder. Lame Hans stopped in front of Konrad whose face was a mask of fury matching Hans’s.

  “As if being a common cut purse is not bad enough?” Spittle flew from Hans’s mouth. “You had to hold up Marburg merchants? Do you have any idea what you have done?”

  “Dörnberg is a thief and a traitor and oh, did I mention murderer,” Konrad said. “He deserves to be robbed and worse after what he has done to you. Lord Werner sanctioned it before he…”

  Shaking his head, Lame Hans struggled for control. “I am well aware of what Dörnberg has done,” he said quietly. “That does not mean we attack the next best wagon train to fill our coffers.”

  “Lord Werner said we will be able to cover our debts. For now. Please, My Lord, my men are starving.”

  Hans abruptly turned and stomped off. I could’ve sworn there were tears in his eyes as he limped past.

  Until now I hadn’t even noticed that the tables were lined with men. Werner’s knights had been quiet, but now that Hans was gone, Konrad lifted his beaker.

  “Partake my friends, you worked hard.” His men shouted “hear, hear” and “huzzah,” clinking mugs and reaching for platters piled high with roasts, bread and fruit. Though Konrad smiled he was putting up a show. He barely drank and only nibbled on an apple. He was worried about getting kicked out by Hans. Oh, how I missed Werner.

  “Max, over here.” Bero waved from one of the tables in the back.

  I rushed to his side, plunking on a seat. I’d already eaten breakfast at Luanda’s and wasn’t exactly hungry, but I burned to know what had just happened.

  Bero grinned as if he’d forgotten our fight yesterday. Nor did he mention that I’d been gone overnight.

  “Why is Hans so livid?” I asked, nodding toward Konrad. “I’ve never seen them argue like this.”

  “Konrad, on Werner’s orders, raided a travelling party yesterday. He—”

  “You mean they robbed people?”

  Bero nodded, releasing a hearty belch. “He does that when we need coin. It so happened they were merchants connected to Dörnberg.”

  I couldn’t believe it. Werner, the guy I’d admired all this time was a street robber. Nothing ever was as it seemed: not with Luanda nor Werner.

  “Isn’t Dörnberg Ott’s father?” Long ago when I’d visited before, Werner had mentioned this guy. All I remembered was the way Werner had looked at the time, full of loathing.

  “That is what they say.”

  “Why is Hans so mad about it?”

  Bero scanned the table as if he wanted to make sure that nobody listened. “Dörnberg attacked Lord Hans when he was eighteen and cut his knee with a knife. That is why he is lame,” Bero whispered. “Then two years ago, shortly after you disappeared”—Bero threw me a weighty glance—“Lord Werner lost his best friend, Landgrave Ludwig the II. Werner had been his Marshal and when the Landgrave died, Hans von Dörnberg, who already controlled Marburg and half of the State of Hesse, grabbed power of all of Hesse. Lord Werner not only lost his friend, he lost his position at court.” He paused to take another sip. “It is rumored that Dörnberg is a murderer…”

  “So now that Werner had Konrad attack one of Dörnberg’s valuable deliveries, Dörnberg’s going to have it in for Hanstein?”

  “He is quite powerful and from what I hear utterly ruthless. In fact, Dörnberg is worse than Schwarzburg.”

  I shuddered. No wonder Ott was such a creep.

  When Bero hurried off to assist his master, Konrad, I remained seated deep in thought. So, Werner wasn’t quite as gallant as I’d thought and Luanda was really Louisa. But then Werner had been outmaneuvered by Schwarzburg and Dörnberg. Who could blame the man?

  In the end it didn’t really matter what they did because I had to figure out how to get Adela away from Ott. And head to the inn to investigate the whereabouts of my cape.

  Remembe
ring Schwarzburg’s arrest when I’d taken Bero with me, I decided to go alone. I nodded at the guard, making my way through the gate. I had to laugh every time when I looked at the Neidkopf, a stone sculpture of a face with his tongue sticking out, high on the castle wall.

  Bero had told me that fifty years earlier the Hessian Landgrave had built another castle to protect his region from Hanstein attacks. Ludwigstein, the other castle, sat across the Werra River in plain view. I’d visited Ludwigstein in modern day because the castle was still being used by hikers and for special functions.

  On one hand, Werner, Lame Hans, Schwarzburg and Dörnberg reminded me of a bunch of kindergarteners, sticking their tongues out at each other, pursuing feuds and sending intimidating letters. On the other, they didn’t mind stealing, threatening and killing each other.

  Around the curve the Klausenhof came into view. I slowed and on a whim strolled into the barn to check if Alexander was around. Sure enough the boy was scraping dirt from a horse’s flanks.

  “Hey, you got a moment?”

  Alexander remained bent low as if he hadn’t heard me.

  “I need to find my robe.”

  “Last time I got a whipping. Every time you visit I get in trouble,” Alexander mumbled, without looking up.

  “I’m sorry. It’s just I really need my things.”

  “Go away, I cannot help you.”

  I swallowed a nasty comment. Who could blame the guy? He was being pushed around by the likes of the innkeeper, Schwarzburg’s thugs and now me. Besides, I didn’t have a dime to my name, nothing to give him as a reward.

  Head low I crept closer to the inn’s main entrance. It was lunchtime and a few knights, soldiers and merchants sat outside to enjoy a first round of booze. Servant girls flittered back and forth, filling mugs and delivering platters. I’d pretty much decided that questioning the innkeeper would be suicide.

  “I’ve got a question,” I said to one of the maids, a little thing Adela’s age with dark brown hair spilling from her frayed cap.