Page 109 of Night of the Witch
Why didn’t my mother tell me that Dieter had fallen to wild magic, that he was as dangerous as he became, that he’d been banished not for some familial disagreement, but because he was athreat?
When I look up at Perchta, the tears in my eyes blur the sight of her, that shifting blue gown, her pearlescent eyes.
Her lips purse, fury ripe and boiling. “Champions obey. They do not ask questions of the goddesses.”
“What of the forest folk?” I sound so pathetic now, voice weak and wavering. “They can’t be your champions?”
“They are the protectors of the Origin Tree and magic itself. They are not our tools in the mortal world. As Holda’s champion, you will present yourself at the Well, and you will obey what the forest folk need of you to enact the will of myself and my sisters.”
I hold, waiting, hoping she’ll answer more, hoping she’ll give me something that settles the roiling storm of confusion and doubt that she’s unleashed inside of me.
The goddesses knew we suffered, and they didn’t act to stop the hexenjägers until we were the only coven left—and even then, they chose one champion who is achild.
My mother knew Dieter was dangerous. Yet she hid the truth of what he was from me.
And Holda. Holda talked to me foryears, and never told me who she truly was. She let me believe she was wild magic. Why?
Why?
Perchta rolls her eyes. “Dieter marches on the Well. We have not the time to hash out all your shortcomings. You are lucky, child; were it up to me, you would be cast out, severed from us, and banished like your brother.”
“Even though you see what that turned him into?”
Perchta’s nostrils flare. “Do you agree to be Holda’s champion?”
“Will I be able to talk to her?” I scrub the back of my hand across my nose, regaining myself, finding strength I didn’t know I’d possess here, scraped of everything. “Like this?”
Again, Perchta rolls her eyes. It’s so like my mother’s annoyance with me that the ghost of a smile lights on my lips. But there is no love hidden in her annoyance. Control only.
“Don’t you already speak to her? Or she at least speaks to you. Simplyrespondnow, and yes, you will be able to speak to her. If”—and here Perchta leans forward, pinning me with those sky blue eyes—“you agree to be hers.”
I shrug. “Yes. I agree.”
I don’t know what it will mean, how it will change things. I will still fight my brother. I will still stop the hexenjägers.
But what about wild magic? Does accepting this accept wild magic too?
I need to talk to Holda. I need to hear from her what all this means, why she has been masquerading as wild magic in my mind.
Perchta leans back, hands folding over her bent knee. “Fine. But know, Friederike Kirch, that the moment you fail my sister, I will be the first to utterly eviscerate you. I have watched you, and I have seen how you toy with our rules and traditions. Do not step out of line.”
I’m hit by the sudden memory of the weeks after Dieter was banished from Birresborn. How Mama cried and cried, and I did too.
She banished him because of Perchta’s prodding. Because the Mother goddess had chosen my mother, and so she obeyed in all things.
So much remains uncertain, but I refuse to interact anymore with this goddess.
Perchta lifts her hand and snaps her fingers.
The moment she does, I’m thrown backward, tripping and stumbling to my feet. The force of her presence shoves me harder than I can manage, and I go flailing toward the river, back into the iciness, consumed by the flutter of prismatic light from her gown, from her eyes, from the threat buried deep in her watchful glare.
34
OTTO
“Fritzi needs a warrior?” I ask. But before I can even say the last word, the mist rushes at me, coming in from all sides. I flinch, remembering the way it felt like knives, like fire, but then—
It’s gone. And so is the goddess.
