Page 39 of Night of the Witch
Fury starts to fester in the base of my gut. I anchor my feet on the floor, wrap all my fingers around the handle, andyank, hard, with all my weight.
Nothing.
I scream and throw my shoulder into the door, but it remains as unmoved as the kapitän had been at my feeble blows. I hear rattling again, the telltale shaking of irons—he’s locked the door from the outside.
What kind of torture house is this?
A scream rips out of me again, and I batter the door with everything I have left in me, every last scrap of strength, every dying flicker of hope that I could escape this fate, that I could save myself, save Liesel, and salvage even one small piece of goodness from the wreckage of this horror.
You cannot pull yourself out of this alone,says the voice.
NO, I force myself to respond. I can’t leave it unanswered, can’t give it space to grow.No, no, no.
I spin my back to the door and sink to the floor, every muscle deflating, one by one. I’m too spent even to cry—this game of anguish to hope and back again has tapped the last vestiges of my strength so expertlythat as I sit here, on the floor of this inescapable house, I think only,I should sleep.
Why even sleep? The kapitän will return, and who knows what will happen then? My brain still cannot piece together any semblance of reason from his words—he means tosavethe hexenjägers’ prisoners? I’m delirious. I have to be. I’m giving in to insanity to keep myself from truly realizing the dire consequences of my actions, as if I deserve any kind of softening, any kind of reprieve.
I sniff and scrub my nose with the back of my hand, the manacle clanking against my chin.
Do I just accept it, then? Wait here for him to return and give myself over to whatever fate he’s chosen for me?
That question has one last surge of resilience rushing through me.
Absolutelynot.
Ahexenjägerdoes not decide my fate.
If I will go out by his hand, at whatever grueling torment he devises, then I will go out fighting until my last moments.
Like Mama.
I rock forward, hands to my chest, trying to shove the shards of my heart back together.
Yes. Like my mother. I willfight.
I push to my feet, surveying the contents of the room now, eyes blurry and half-lidded with exhaustion and sweat. This floor is one large room, same as the lower level, but cupboards line the wall to my right, and a little table with a single chair sits at the back. There’s a cot in the far corner as well, looking mussed and recently used. Has the kapitän had other prisoners? The thought earns me a jarring shiver.
I head for the cupboards.
The first one has oddities, spoons, and bowls; the next is empty.
In the last one, I stare at the contents for a full breath, afraid if I blink, they’ll vanish.
Food.
And not just rations, hard cheese and bread and a flask of beer; there are small vials ofherbs. Cooking herbs, no doubt, butherbs, and I cry out with joy, snatching up the three little glass bottles before this hallucination vanishes.
But it doesn’t. It’s real. They’re real.Herbs.
I uncork the three bottles and sniff each of them. Salt, cloves, bay leaves.
Two of these I can use. Two of these could save me.
My heart starts to beat hard. Not with horror or fear.
With hope.
Again.
