by S E England
None of it tasted nice, but she had to admit that afterwards, her throat was soothed and her stomach quieted.
“Now take off your cross,” said the woman as another reached to unclasp it from around her neck.
She held on to it. It was just a small silver cross given to her at school for winning a reading competition. “Why?”
“Take off the cross. The time has come.”
We will meet again when the time comes…
The vision of Oskar came as a shock. Standing there in her third eye as clear as the day before – had it really only been twenty-four hours since they’d been together? – his warm eyes beamed love into hers, feathery eyelashes glinting with tiny beads of water as he waded out of the lake fresh from his morning swim. In a dream state she glided towards him…oh, so woozy and dreamy… On reaching his arms, he spun her around, nuzzling the nape of her neck while unhooking the chain.
Take this off, my beauty, my bride.
Smiling, she helped him remove the cross.
“Oskar?”
Now he turned her around to face him, taking her hands, pulling her down into the water.
“Come, come…”
Deeper and deeper they waded into the cool depths of the lake. A golden breeze rippled across the surface beneath swaying trees, dapples of sunlight warm on her face. In up to their necks, he put his arms around her and kissed her forehead.
“You must renounce God and Christ,” he said.
“I do.”
“You must renounce family—”
“I do.”
“And the sun, the moon and the stars.”
“I do, I do.”
“Thrice you renounce.” He folded her into his nakedness, pressing her against the hardness of him. Nuzzling her neck, he whispered, “You must repeat the words, ‘I renounce God and Christ. I renounce my family, and I renounce the sun, the moon and the stars. I renounce all forms of light and follow the Dark Lord with all my heart and soul.’”
She shouted the words into the air high above them, relishing the echo around the valley.
“Again!”
Three times she renounced everything she had ever known and believed in, laughing, exultant, her arms around his neck.
“And now, my bride, we will be together always, in this world and beyond, just as I promised. You must sever all ties with your family and come with me.”
“Oh, I definitely do. I never want to see my mother again. I hate my mother.”
He threw back his head and laughed, showing the curve of his Adam’s apple, the white of his teeth. “And you will slice the throat of the stolen calf, then drink its blood.”
“Yes.”
“All hail the Master!”
“All hail the Master!”
“All hail the Master!”
When she came out of the water, hand in hand with Oskar, she shook her long, wet hair in the balmy sunshine and triumphantly turned to face her new husband.
The smile died on her face.
The boy she loved was not there. Instead, a dark shadow chased along the deserted shore. And the trees no longer rustled gently but thrashed violently, the rippling water now rising in a froth of white horses.
“We meet again,” a deep and distorted voice said. “As promised.”
It was as if she had been slapped out of a trance. The chill night air bit into her skin. In the dark and the cold, she spun around. What the hell was this?
She looked down to find her hands splattered with blood, a spreading pool of it around her feet. She was standing in the centre of a circle marked out in the dirt, around the edge of which a masquerade of animal-headed heathens dressed in plain white gowns stood murmuring and swaying. The effect was hypnotic, the evening as black as the underworld, with no stars or moon to cast a single shadow. Within the circle a fire glowed, spitting with blood, fat, and bones.
She wiped a hand across her sticky mouth, noticing a discarded chalice on the ground. What trickery was this? How could her conscious mind have been stolen? How had time passed without her presence? It looked as if a rite had been carried out and blood tipped down her throat. All she had done was dream for a few seconds that she had bathed with a beautiful, handsome boy…who was dead…
Those around her began to chant more loudly now, the words gradually becoming distinguishable…Nema Olam a son arebil des menoitatnet ni sacundi son en te…
The words drilled into her head, cited over and over and over, numbing, monotonous, invasive.
Then ceased.
There was a lull. Into the silence a bell rang three times from the dark interior of the forest.
“All hail the Dark Lord!”
“All hail the Dark Lord!”
“All hail the Dark Lord!”
Out of the trees a form seemed to rise. She narrowed her eyes as the ring of worshippers fell to the floor facedown in silent homage, trying to work out who or what it was. The shape grew larger, drawing closer. Man or beast? This was a night terror, it had to be, not real, absolutely not real. But as he neared, her heart banged with a sickening lurch and fear consumed her. Her insides turned to liquid, and her mind repeatedly blanked out. She sank to her knees. Cloaked in furs, he was twice the size of the others, his face concealed by the head of a horned goat. And what he was carrying defied the last vestiges of her belief.
He placed the dead, naked body of her grandmother on the ground outside the circle. Standing over her, he then proceeded to remove the furs and lower himself onto the corpse before violating her. After which he severed her head with an axe.[CK1]
It happened so quickly, her mind had only just comprehended what had happened when he plunged a knife into the old woman’s heart and plucked it out like a plum from a pie.
At the sound of her gasp, his head turned. Then, still naked and masked, he walked over to where she stood, the heart held high on the tip of the blade.
“No! No!”
She fell backwards, shocked to find her ankles were tied, that the earth was rolling underneath in a tidal swell. I’ve been drugged, bound, am drunk…
Those who had fallen to the ground now woke and began to crawl behind him on their bellies, hissing like snakes, long bony fingers reaching out to grab her arms and legs, pinning her down as the goat-headed man stood over her and forcibly stuffed the heart into her mouth. Powerful hands held her jaw fast, making sure there was no choice but to chew and swallow.
A deep bass voice echoed from within the goat’s head mask. “Take and digest the magical power of blood from sorceress to sorceress.”
The man’s nakedness was appalling, the body scaly, the spike between his legs unnatural in shape and size.
He lowered himself onto her.
“No! No!”
She spat out the contents of her mouth, kicking and bucking. But dozens of pairs of wiry hands held her fast as, sitting astride her in a parody of the love she had made with Oskar, he tore off her clothing and slammed her body repeatedly into the dirt, grinding her into the stones. It scraped the skin off her back in sheets, and the pain ripping inside was that of a scorching iron straight from the fire. It was not normal, not normal, not normal at all…that was all she could think…as the light of her being began to eclipse and fade to grey. To nothing.
She surfaced to the sound of clapping. Blood poured out of her, streaming down her legs, the searing pain unbearable.
But the rape was over. One of the crones removed her sheep’s head and shook out long grey hair. “Welcome, Lenka,” she said, crouching beside her. She dipped a long, bony finger into the cup of Olga’s blood and drew a sign on Lenka’s forehead. “You are now a sorceress of the highest order. We will serve you always, until the end of your time.”
The others took off their masks.
One of them her mother.
Clara raised a chalice. “To you!”
“Hail Lord of the Dark Sun!” cried the ancients.
“Hail Lord of the Dark Sun!” said her mother.
She glared at her mother, with tears streaming down her face.
Cries of ‘All hail the Master!’ rang through the woods while the discarded and mutilated body of her grandmother lay a matter of feet away, the skull now staring sightlessly at the woods.
“I hate you with every fibre of my soul for what you have done. I will never forgive you, not now, not in all eternity.”
Clara shrugged. “Your grandmother knew what would happen. And I am sorry about the boy, about your poor heart. But it is what you will come to recognise as an opportunity presenting itself – the boy had died recently, and the element of him was easy to project into your mind. Don’t worry, his image was just a channel, a means to an end.”
“You did that?”
“I am sorry your heart was broken.”
“This is evil – it’s devil worship. And what they made me do and what the man in the goat’s head did to me—”
Clara laughed. “Hate, shame and anger are all good, excellent conduits for the demonic… You must have no ego, nothing left to take pride in, do you not see? Come now, we must call up your new servants. Baba Olga is free of torment, but she has to be buried before the sun is up so the power is properly transferred.”
“I will not use anything from such hellish servants. I want my life as it was.”
“What – that of an ignorant peasant girl? Who prides herself on being the prettiest in the village? What use is that a few years down the line when you have many children and you are poor, living in the dirt? Human life is brief and useless – you are lied to by the church, so you live in fear, and enslaved by landowners, so you live in poverty. Whereas we are the old believers, of magic and other realms. We are free, and we have the kind of power they will never have. Do you not see who you are and what you have been given?”
“No. It is diabolical and sick. I don’t want any of it.”
“You have no choice. You are a demonic sorceress, and your task is to use the demons given to you in the name of the Dark Lord. It is the highest of honours.”
She glanced to where the horses snorted and pawed at the ground under the trees. On the outskirts of the camp, they seemed so far away. Could she run, even now, and take the bareback gallop back to Wolfsheule? But after that where would she go? And what could she tell her father? For sure he would denounce whatever she said as evil lies.
“I do not think that would be wise,” said Clara, noticing the direction in which she was looking. “Not after what you have drunk.”
There was truth in that. Indeed, everything was fuzzy, the tiredness overwhelming. She sank to the floor.
“See, they are feasting now. The celebration begins, and it is all for you!”
Through the smoky haze, the revellers were gnawing on the flesh of sacrificed animals, masticating bleeding tissue with what few teeth they had. Cups of blood were passed around, from which they guzzled thirstily. And a group of black toads had been released for entertainment. These were scampering in all directions, some leaping into the fire. It seemed a game, to be quick enough to catch one and bite off its head.
She crumpled onto her side, drifting in and out of consciousness, vaguely aware of the beat of drums, a steady thump-thump-thump. Through her eyelashes she watched as robes were discarded and they began to writhe and gyrate in a macabre dance of seduction. The stench of burning flesh and fat was sickly, and the fire, the woods and the dancers loomed in and out of focus. The beat pounded into her head as the party began to whirl and spin. They were dancing themselves into a frenzy, whipping their own bodies with sticks until they bled. Faster and faster they spun around and around until, one by one, they fell to the floor, pawing at each other until the whole became a seething, moaning orgy.
She forced her eyes to see, unable to believe the spectacle of such ancient beings with emaciated bodies, their skin hanging in folds from the bones, committing such… With a stab of understanding, something became clear…they were not having sex at all. They were only simulating it, sucking and licking and gyrating but not actually having intercourse. Because they couldn’t.
All the men had been mutilated. In the light of the flames, through the veil of smoke and burning oils, she realised their groins were scarred, deep hollows. Not a single male had genitals.
Except for the one who’d raped her. And he, whoever or whatever he was, had vanished.
***
Chapter Seventeen
Wolfsheule
The journey home was utterly silent.
Lenka had been woken at dawn with only a blanket covering her naked, bloodied body, the previous night a blur of frenzied dancing, wailing and feasting.
Her head ached, cuts and bruises smarting with every fresh jolt of the cart. And whatever darkness had been invoked now travelled with her in a cloud, along with the strangest feeling of being observed. She pulled up her skirt and looked at the brand mark on the inside of her thigh. At what point had that happened? The sight triggered a vague recollection of a claw hand holding her still, of gritting her teeth, of searing pain. A cloth covered the spot, and she peeled it back. The sigil consisted of a circle, within it an inverted pentagram, and in the very centre, a black spot with what looked like pins sticking out of it – a child’s drawing of a sun, but black.
“Don’t touch it,” her mother said. “Or it will become septic. Keep it dry.”
“You are not my mother anymore.”
Their silence continued as the cart rocked from side to side along the narrow forest track. Water dripped from the trees and trickled down the steep slopes on either side. It seemed to Lenka that Mooswald was not as menacing as it had been the night before. Or perhaps her fear had gone? What did she care anymore? Nothing could be worse than last night. Nothing. She sat swaying in the cart, seething with shock, rage and hatred.
Grandma Olga’s funeral had been both swift and brutal. At midnight, after the ceremony, when Lenka had lain by the fire drifting in and out of a drugged and exhausted stupor, her grandmother’s body was taken to the crossroads. It had been hard to see what was happening – the men were working quickly and in total darkness, the flames from the dying fire picking out shadowy, robed figures.
The most disturbing part had been the sound of a saw cutting through bone. Had Olga not been butchered and violated enough? Something was then hammered, followed by the solid, dismal echo of grave-digging – spades slicing through soil and the cold finality of a lid clamping shut.
“They had to do it,” her mother explained as they packed up the cart. “Come on, don’t dwell. We must set back.”
“Saw her into bits?”
“A sorceress cannot find her way back to earth. For that reason, she must be decapitated and her head buried deep in the forest, separate from the body. The limbs must then be severed and the heels cut and stuffed with hog hair. It is the way. And an aspen stake is hammered through the chest. Is that what you wanted to know? That is what we do or her body could be used.”
“Used?”
“By the demons that remain attached. Or anyone who raises her spirit after she has gone, by means of necromancy.”
“And one day that will be my fate, too?”
“Yes, of course.”
After they loaded the cart and began the journey home, a great gulf of silence settled between them, broken only with the exchange about the sigil. And it was not until they were on the final leg of the journey, after many hours, that Lenka could bring herself to ask the questions aching inside. In less than an hour, they would arrive back in Wolfsheule.
“I did not see any demons at the ceremony,” she said. “Was that not the point of the thing – to hand over these unseen creatures? Well, I can tell you – there was nothing.”
“What did you expect to see?”
She shrugged. Her jaw was clenched so hard her teeth were grinding; every sinew in her face was tight and every muscle tense. “I don’t know,” she snapped. “Devils with red e
yes—”
“Ha! All the fearful images fed to you by your Sunday school teacher? Images are so powerful – you should learn this trick quickly, Lenka.”
She turned away to hide the loathing contorting her features. “So what did you see, then, Mutter? The demons were summoned, so what did you see?”
“Nothing. But I am not the sorceress. I have some small gifts but not the brilliance, the vibration you possess. I would say that particular place held a great deal of sadness, pain and anger. The blackness will never lift from there – throats cut, witches hanged, the soil drenched in blood, terrible hatred and fear trapped within its confines – such sickness, a place of death. But that is as far as I go. I stop at the door, at the threshold of being able to see further than earthbound spirits. My limits are thought transfer and simple spells. Simple magic. The demons are not interested in my kind of energy. They are far more interested in yours.”
“Yet I saw only shadows.”
“There were no shadows. There was no moon or stars, no torches or light. Beyond the fire there was nothing but pitch black. So think harder about what you saw.”
How she hated her teacher. It was painful even talking to her. “I saw the ring of ancients, the fire—”
“And beyond? Beyond the circle?”
“All black. I could not even see the trees or the horses.”
She cast her mind back. There had been more than that, though. Not shadows but shapes far darker than the blackness of night. They had risen en masse and moved closer in a dense, suffocating cloud – one that now surrounded her.
“Try to see. Try harder.”
“The air was full of smoke, everything distorted and hazy. But…” She forced herself to remember in detail, to see the unseeable and think the unthinkable. The blackness had come out of those woods and engulfed everything. Drugged and exhausted, she’d floated in and out of dreams, in an infinite space. There’d been sounds like wooden beams groaning in the wind, barking shouts and screeching metal on metal…deep, distorted words that remained unformed…and, yes, he had been with her since then, emerged out of that!