by Laura Bickle
“Herr Stoltz has been imprisoned.”
He caught my elbow. “What do you mean, imprisoned? By the English?”
“No. By the Elders. There is a man with a gun, an Elder guarding his house. And the Bishop is there. I fear that they may put him under the Bann.”
“The Bann . . . Excommunicate him?”
I nodded fiercely. “Ja. If he does not confess and repent.”
“They’d be fools to do it!” he exclaimed. “The old wizard is their only hope.”
“I know it, and you know it. But they will not allow him to flout the rules like that.”
“But—”
“We will talk of this more. But show me Sunny,” I insisted. I might have no control over what the Bishop did to Herr Stoltz, but I could at the very least make sure that Sunny was safe.
“She’s here.”
I followed him to the back paddock. The dog lay on her blanket, uncovered. Her sides twitched, and her front paws moved, as if she were dreaming. She rolled her brown eyes up at me.
“Shhh, girl. It’s all right.” I knelt beside her, stroked her sides.
“Gah,” Alex said. “Is that what I think it is?”
I rinsed my hands in the bucket, then reached for the tiny gummy bundle that Sunny pushed out onto the straw. Sunny licked at it, worrying at the puppy while I pulled open the protective sack.
“Get me some scissors, would you? And some of the clean towels on the shelf beside the door.”
“Got it.” He sped away as fast as his feet could carry him.
I smiled to myself. The events of the last days may have left me shocked and stupefied. But this . . . this I could handle.
I rubbed the puppy gently in my lap with a corner of the blanket to stimulate its circulation. I lifted it to my ear, felt its heart beat and the flutter of its breathing. His tiny, delicate paws twitched, and I set him back beside Sunny’s belly. She began to serenely lick the top of his head.
Alex returned with the towels and scissors. Copper peered around the corner, whining.
“It’s okay, boys.” I chuckled, setting the scissors to the umbilical cord. “I think that Frau Gerlach might be right about your gender.”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
There was something reassuring about the normal, orderly process of birth. I smiled and cooed at the puppies as they came, one after the other. Copper developed enough nerve to lay down in the stall, and Alex sidled in behind him. I handed him one of the puppies.
He held it in his hands—hands that I remembered decapitating people just yesterday. I could see the terror on his face that he might drop it. He cradled the puppy close to his chest. “So tiny. And his eyes aren’t even open.”
“Her eyes. That one’s a her.”
“Eh. How can you tell?” He picked up a puppy and squinted at its tail region.
“The usual way.” I grinned as I rubbed the latest arrival down with a towel. There was little to see except to the trained eye.
“Bonnet, did anyone ever tell you that you’re a smart-ass?”
“No,” I said innocently. “Plain folk don’t use that kind of language.”
He snorted.
There were four puppies born over the afternoon. Four and the afterbirth, which Alex grimaced at. I took it away before Sunny had a chance to eat it. Though, in retrospect, it might have given me some small satisfaction to allow her to do it and disgust the Outsider.
I sat with my back to the paddock wall beside Alex, watching Sunny nose the puppies into position to nurse. Copper dozed in the straw, his tail slapping occasionally as he dreamed.
Alex casually draped his arm around me. And, for a moment, the world seemed right and good. The puppies were all healthy and perfect. Sunshine streamed in through the slats of the barn. I smelled sweet straw and snuggled up to Alex’s chest.
As I felt the joy growing in me to see the puppies making their way safely into the world, I also felt a pang of sorrow.
Alex must have sensed me frowning against his chest. He tucked a piece of my hair behind my ear. My ear tingled at that light touch. “I’ve been thinking about what you said. About Stoltz. Your Elders. And your Bishop.”
At this moment, in the dazzling sunshine, I was more afraid of the men in black than the Hexenmeister’s terrible Darkness. “You have a plan? A plan to free Herr Stoltz?”
“Not exactly. If they found Stoltz, they’re going to be on a witch-hunt.”
“We are a nonviolent people, but . . .” I sighed. “It seems that their word is law. Now more than ever . . . and for things beyond the Ordnung. Without discussion.”
He kissed the top of my bonnet. “Then, I should go.”
“Go where?” I blinked up at him. “No. The vampires will have you before the moon comes up.”
“Yeah, well. Better me than you. And it’s not like I’m going to last here for long, anyway.”
“You are safe here, under the hex sign. And I will bring you food . . .”
“But what about winter? What about when it’s hip-deep in snow and you guys have exhausted your food? You just can’t.”
“Don’t,” I said. My fingers were wound in his shirt buttons. “Don’t leave.”
His head dipped close to mine, and for a moment I thought he meant to kiss me. But then he drew away, slid his arm from behind my neck.
“Look. I don’t want to make it any harder than it already is.” His tone was flat, and he pulled his knees up to his chest, let his elbows rest on them and his hands dangle into space. “I’m a dead man, Bonnet. It’s just a matter of timing now.”
I reached for his hand. “Don’t go.”
He shook his head, stared up at the light in the barn. “Day’s burnt. I’ll be out of your hair tomorrow, bright and early. Get a head start, that way.”
Tears prickled my eyes, but I nodded sharply. I let his hand go, rose to my feet.
“I will see you tomorrow morning, then,” I said quietly, turning so that he couldn’t see my face. “I’ll bring you some provisions.”
“Thanks.” He looked up at me. “I mean it. You’ve done a great thing for me, Bonnet. Your God would be pleased.”
I nodded. “And your god will be pleased to see you soon.”
Chapter Twenty-One
I had hoped . . .
Ja. I had hoped for many things. A normal life. A taste of freedom. Maybe some Coca-Cola and a movie once in a while.
But those things had dissipated, and I was left with smaller hopes. Like hoping that the stranger would stay. That, somehow, he could.
I had hoped.
After all, I had no one left. Not even to talk to about the Darkness falling over us.
I trudged back to my house, feeling the lowering sun on my back through the fabric of my dress. Maybe Alex was right. Maybe it didn’t matter anymore. Maybe our fates were inevitable, and the rest was just timing.
I scrubbed my sleeve across my face.
A scrap of fate from my old life was waiting for me on the back step when I returned. Elijah. His crutches were nowhere in sight. Inwardly, I cringed when I saw him. I nodded curtly at him, sidestepped him to get to the door.
“Katie.” He reached up and grabbed my hand.
I looked down at him frostily. “Good evening, Elijah.”
“I wanted to talk to you.”
“I have chores to do.”
He shook his head. “They can wait.”
He pulled on my arm, drew me down to the top step. I jerked my arm away and folded my hands in my lap. Maybe if I let him say his piece, he’d go away. I stared out at the field, back in the direction in which I’d come, toward sunshine.
“I’m sorry.”
I flicked a glance at him, said nothing.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for pushing you. I . . . know that things have been hard. Hard on all of us.”
I nodded, swallowed. “You did what you had to do. You miss your brothers.” I felt their loss too, like a void in our
familiar landscape.
“But I knew better than to push that on you. And I knew better than to take up with Ruth.”
I didn’t care to imagine what all “take up” encompassed. The shadow of a red-tailed hawk soared overhead. I envied him his freedom, his power as he hunted. He was beholden to nobody, to no one’s rules. I wondered if he knew that the ravens had left.
“I was wrong.”
“Ruth is gone,” I said as I watched the hawk plunge into the field, his wings cupped to break his descent as he disappeared under the sea of blond grass.
“She’s gone . . . but that’s not why I’m here. I’m here for you.”
I didn’t say anything. I watched the grass rustle, thought I heard a squeak.
“I heard what you did yesterday for Ruth, for her family. You showed . . . such faith and courage. Such obedience to God. You did what no one else would do.”
“Frau Gerlach was there.”
“You know what I mean. You were . . . I am in awe of you.”
“I did what needed to be done.”
Elijah got in front of me, knelt down, obstructing my view of the field. He grabbed my hands in his clammy ones. “Katie, will you marry me?”
I stared at him, hard. My gaze felt like the hawk’s, as if I saw beneath him. Saw the core of him. He wasn’t a bad man. Just human.
I lifted my gaze to watch the hawk take off, soaring above the field with a mouse in his talons. My heart soared with him, singing and free.
“No,” I said.
I disentangled my hands from his, turned around, and disappeared into the house.
***
My mother was making dinner. Sarah was helping, mashing potatoes with great concentration. My father sat at the head of the table. I noticed that there was an extra place set.
I walked past them, toward the stairs to my room.
“Katie,” my father said, his voice stopping me on the second step. He was smiling, a smile that reached the wrinkles around the corners of his eyes.
“Yes, Father?”
“Do you have some news for me?”
I glanced out the back door. Elijah had asked for my father’s blessing before he asked me to marry him. I balled my hand into a fist and hid it in my skirt.
“No,” I said. “No, I don’t.”
I climbed the steps, hearing my mother whispering something below me. I walked into my room and shut the door behind me. My gaze fell immediately on the wooden Rumspringa money box Elijah had made for me. It sat on the floor. I knew it was empty. I kicked it under the bed.
Ginger sat up in bed, hands folded on her lap. She stared vacantly at the wall, her mouth turned down.
“Ginger?”
Her eyes slowly turned to mine. “Hello, Katie.”
I came to sit beside her on the bed. I fingered the crochet work in her basket. “This is pretty.”
“Thank you.” Her hand stroked it softly, as if it were a kitten.
Her sadness was so real, so tangible. And more. I could see in her dead gaze that she’d given up.
I reached for her wrist, shook it. “Ginger.”
She lowered her eyes. There was no spark of hope left in them. No tears, even. Just aloneness.
“The vampires are here, aren’t they?” she whispered.
“Yes, Ginger. They’re here. You know that they’ve been here. They took the cows.”
She nodded to herself, stared at the quilt. “That’s good. It’ll be over soon.”
I grasped her wrist harder. “You can’t just lie down and give up,” I insisted. She’d grown despondent since her cell phone had been destroyed. Without that link to the Outside world, she’d fallen into a deeper and deeper depression—one I could not shake her from.
She gave a small shrug. “There’s nothing left for me. This isn’t my world.” She looked down at her dress. “This isn’t who I am. I’m just”—she sighed—“waiting.”
I put my arms around her, but she didn’t cry. She just sat there, still as the bodies of the women I’d handled yesterday.
Waiting for the end of everything.
***
We may have been dead.
But I was determined to live.
I had gone to bed without Nachtesse, wrapping myself in a bundle of quilts. My mother attempted to speak to me about Elijah, about how he meant well. I just shook my head at her until she retreated back to the kitchen. Ginger sat in the falling darkness, staring at the wall, while I pretended to sleep.
I didn’t move as Sarah climbed into bed beside me.
Through slit eyes, I watched the light below our bedroom door move, then become extinguished as my parents went to bed. I heard the murmur of their voices beyond, but I could not make out what they were saying. I think that they were arguing, but I was not sure. Eventually, their voices faded. I heard the creak of bedsprings as one of them turned around to present their back to the other.
I stared out the window, waiting for the moon to rise and paint silvery light inside the room.
I looked at Ginger. She had not moved, was still sitting upright. I climbed out of bed, padded toward her.
“Ginger?” I whispered.
She didn’t respond. I didn’t know if she could. Tenderly, I pushed her back down on the bed, facing the ceiling. I pulled the quilt up around her neck. I could see the glassiness of her open eyes shining in the dimness, though her pupils didn’t seem to follow me as I snatched my dress from the laundry. I reached inside the pocket to reassure myself that the Himmelsbrief was still there, but I left my apron and bonnet behind.
I slipped down the stairs, through the dark kitchen. I grabbed my shoes, opened the back door . . .
And plunged into darkness.
The day had rendered this place gold, but the night was cool and silvery. I ran past the pumpkin patch, through the tall grass. Overhead, I could see the Milky Way, the trail of the dead, as I swam through the tall fields and heard crickets singing.
I scanned the silvery darkness for the vampires, but I was not afraid. Not like before. I had been terrified of the violence. But now I had already seen what there was to see. I knew that they could not harm me as they harmed the others. I had the Hexenmeister’s power, however long it lasted.
Even so, I sensed that my time was measured. I wanted to wring every last experience out of it like juice from an orange, to feel, to touch, and to taste the juice as it ran down my chin. I did not want to lie down and wait for death like Ginger and the others, with their veil of ignorance drawn around them and surrendering their will to live to others.
I wanted my life to matter.
And I wanted to choose how it mattered.
I shoved the heavy kennel door open. Idly, I wondered if the vampires had discovered this place, if they had circled it in the dark. I knew that Alex was without light, without warmth, without any way to call for help. I wondered if that was part of the reason why he was leaving the settlement.
And I wondered if the other part was me.
“Bonnet? Is that you?”
I spied movement in the back. The moonlight illuminated him walking toward me, barefoot, shirtless, one trouser leg wadded up around his shin. His tattoos seemed to absorb the light, black and squirming against his pale flesh. Relief that he was still here flushed through my skin.
“Ja, it’s me.” I turned to haul the door shut, blotting out the light.
“What the hell are you doing, wandering around at night?” I could hear the spark of anger in his voice.
The door bounced a little against the frame, opening an inch and letting the moonlight stream in. I could hear his breath behind me, felt as it disturbed the loose hair on the back of my neck.
His hand rested on the door beside my head. His voice was softer: “Bonnet.”
I turned to face him, bumping up against his chest.
“What are you doing here?”
I reached up with both my hands, lowered his stubbly face to my mouth, and kissed him. His lips were fr
ozen, still, under mine. At first, I was afraid that he would reject me, tell me to go home—or worse, send me back to sleep with Sunny and Copper.
But then he sighed against my lips, kissed me back. He didn’t kiss me like Elijah did, with that persistent fumbling I was accustomed to. Alex kissed me with his whole body, not just his mouth. His hands on the door, framing my face, inexorably pulled in and tangled in my hair. He leaned against me, the warmth of his lanky frame against mine, his tongue pressing past my lips.
My hands slipped down to his bare chest, timidly, to the ankh burned over his heart, circled behind him to finger the Djed column along his spine. I expected the skin there to feel different. Hotter. But it was as evenly warm as the rest of him.
His kiss slipped from my mouth, trailed along my jaw to my neck. One hand cradled my head while the other circled my waist, pushing my breasts against his chest.
“What did you come for?” he murmured.
“For you.”
He reached up to brush a strand of hair from my eyes. “Are you sure that this is what you want?”
I nodded. I slipped my hands up over his bare shoulder blades.
“I’ve still gotta leave . . . I can’t stay.” He was being honest.
I appreciated that. “I know.”
“But—”
I laid my finger to his mouth. I knew that he wanted me, too. I could hear it in the rough sound of his voice, feel it in the hard press of his body against my thigh.
“Just be gentle,” I said. I was afraid. But this was what I wanted. Him.
He murmured against my finger. “I will.”
Tenderly, he took my hand in his, turned it to kiss my palm.
I let him draw me down to the straw of the floor, down to darkness.
I did not believe much of anything that anyone else told me anymore.
But I believed him.
***
I slept fitfully. I woke often, unaccustomed to having a man’s arms around me. I stared into the darkness, listened to his breathing, plucked bits of straw out of my mouth.