Page 103 of Night of the Witch
And, as one, they are tossed back onto the road, collapsing in unceremonious heaps of yelps and curses.
I whirl back around and race harder, each step putting more space between my brother and me. But his voice carries, rises with fury, a terrifying break from his normal collected control:
“You cannot hide, Friederike!They will not protect you!”
Otto starts to look back at me.
“Keep going!” I scream. Panic is welling higher and higher.
Otto redoubles, and he and Liesel pull ahead, speeding over fallen logs, around a hulking, thick tree—
I curve after them, and for a moment, I lose them, a dark blur in a world of dim shadows and massive rising trees.
“Fritzi! Here—there’s a river!”
Otto lumbers ahead, and Liesel peeks over his shoulder. I catch a stain of tears on her cheeks.
“The mist, Fritzi!” she calls to me. “Go into the mist!”
Otto looks at her in his arms. “What? What mist?”
But I see it. Can’t he? The river he mentioned appears, a narrow, gurgling snake of a thing compared to the Rhine. Wherever it comes from must be warm; mist rises off it in billowing clouds.
The steam blooms more and more, filling the air like an early morning fog.
I shake my head, trying to dislodge the blurry effect.
“Wait—Otto—” I trip on a root, catch myself, but when I look up, I can’t find them.
I stumble forward, the thickness of the mist growing, growing, whiteness seeping through the trees in billowing waves.
“Liesel! Otto!”
The mist rises. The trees vanish. All is white and fogged, smelling of rainwater and mildew and dampness.
“Fritzi!” Otto cries, muddled, distant.
“It’s all right!” Liesel shouts. “It’s all right, Fritzi!”
I’m coming, I try. I scream it, my fingers tearing at empty air, but the words are nothing, the same emptiness as the fog.
Movement at the edge of my vision makes me spin. I try to call for Otto, but any sound warbles into a stifled scream as a weathered face forms out of the mist and launches straight at me.
I dive, shoulder cracking into a tree, and the wail that bursts out of my lips gets swallowed in the permeating whiteness.
I will judge her, says the voice.
It’s been days since I heard it. And though I know I shouldn’t be glad for it, there’s a part of me that sighs in relief, in having something familiar in this sudden onslaught of uncertainty.
But as I stumble forward another step, the mist congeals into another face. Twisted and grotesque, hollow sockets for its eyes, missing teeth and gnarled hair, it writhes out of the steam and swipes at me, and I duck again, cowering, only to hit the cold, frozen ground with a jarring thud.
I will judge her!the voice declares again, shouting through me.
I push up, scrambling back to my feet, body drenched in a cold sweat. Shivers wrack me, teeth chattering.
Otto—Liesel—
You’ve had your chance with her, sister, says someone new. A dry, airy voice that ripples with agelessness.
