Page 107 of Night of the Witch
I don’t look at her. My chin drops to my chest, eyes staying shut. “It’s not her I’m worried about. She’ll pass. She’s probably already in the Well, isn’t she?”
The goddess shifts. I hear her gown rustle. Is she standing?
I’m not looking at her, but out of fear, not defiance.
“You should be more concerned about your own fate. The goddesses do not often take these tests upon themselves personally—we allow our magic to determine worthiness. But you, Friederike, and Liesel, and even your jäger—you have caused quite a stir among my sisters and I. We want to see for ourselves if you are worthy of the trouble you have caused.”
That, finally, makes me look at her.
She is standing now. Her gown ripples around her, the long bell sleeves gathered around her wrists where she holds her hands to her stomach.
There’s a look of proud disdain on her face when my eyes meet hers.
I’m looking at one of my goddesses.
And all I can feel is terror.
Did she hear the wild magic talking to me before I fell into this test? Does she know the voice has been talking to me all this time?
A detail surges past my worry, past my fear.
How did the wild magic talk to me after we’d passed into the Forest? Dieter had been kept out by the tree line—but even after I’d crossed the first boundary, wild magic was still able to speak to me. Shouldn’t it have been kept out too?
The goddess sniffs. “Your jäger is being tested by Holda. She will likely let him through. She has long been the…softest of us.”
Holda is testing Otto. The Maid.
Abnoba, the Crone, would have chosen Liesel. Abnoba has watched over her since birth.
“Perchta,” I guess. The Mother.
The goddess smiles. It doesn’t reach her eyes, blue iciness. “You do not grovel? You should.”
She waves her hand and all the muscles in my body seize up, racked with tightness that surges a cry from my lips. She tugs, and I crash to my knees, a jarring thud clacking my teeth.
“You know who I am. The Mother. The goddess of upholding, of rightness, ofrules.” She steps around me, circling my frozen body, the wetness of the river seeping into my clothing, chilling me to the bone as I kneel there, utterly at her mercy. “I am the one who knows the truebehaviors of all my children. I am the hand that rewards—and punishes. Now tell me truly, Friederike Kirch: Why have you resisted Holda?”
My brain fumbles over her question. I’m shaking and shivering, cold with terror, but when I look up into Perchta’s face, her body backlit by the distant, blinding white light, all I have is confusion.
It shows on my face, and her lip curls.
“Do not pretend ignorance. Not withme. Need I drag the truth from you?” She lowers to my level and lifts a finger, twisting it in front of my face. The nail is sharpened to a point, curved like her nose, and in a flash, she slices it across my belly.
I cry out and grab for the wound, but there is nothing, no pain, even.
Perchta puts a tender hand on the back of my neck, and I go immobile again.
“Lie to me, and I will slit your stomach and stuff you full of straw,” she tells me, voice like honey. “My sister has wasted far too much time on you and your brother.Answer me: Why do you resist being her champion? She has been talking to you foryears. What more do you want than the favor of a goddess?”
Talking to me? Champion? My brother—
My eyes flit across the ground, searching for answers, pieces connecting, holes gaping like mouths.
She has been talking to you for years.
You and your brother.
“Do you hear the voice too, Fritzichen? You do, don’t you?”
