Page 40 of Night of the Witch
How many times can one soul be yanked out of hope and back again before it breaks?
One more time,I think.Always one more time.
I grab the knob of hard cheese and bite off a huge chunk, eyes rolling back in my head at the aged salty tang—it honestly isn’t evengood, it’s justfood, but it’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted. I grab the bread too—there’s some mold on the corner, but the rest is fine—and I balance my haul as I hobble across to the table.
The rest of the room gives me one more treasure: a blanket from the bed. I should keep it to ward off the chill—it’s freezing here too—but I’m manic now, driven by muscle memory, sheer will, and my slowly filling belly.
Between bites of bread and cheese and sips of hoppy beer, I first use the blanket as a makeshift broom. This is a hexenjäger’s house, so cleansing the energy here is a laughable feat, but I start in the center of the room and sweep counterclockwise in ever-widening circles.
“Holda, Abnoba, Perchta strong,” I repeat on each new circle, “Goddesses cleanse from energy wrong.”
Will this even work? I’m still connected to the Well. I haven’t said the wild magic spell. It has to work—I’m following the rules, cleansing the space before I work. I wasn’t able to prepare the herbs the proper way, and I don’t have a ritual space or altar, but there’s only so much I can do.
It has to be enough. The goddesseshaveto hear me; I’m following the guides they gave to witches.
I finish with the cleansing and rip off sections of the blanket to create little satchels. Into each go some of the cloves and bay leaves. The wood carved into two little spoons in the first cupboard is something I’d recognize it anywhere: aspen. The spoons snap easily, and I drop chunks into the satchels too. I only have enough to make four, but four protection satchels is far, far better than I had a moment ago.
I pop the last of the bread and cheese into my mouth and sit cross-legged on the floor, positioned so I can see both the shuttered window and the hatch that leads to the lower levels.
There, I whisper protection spells over the satchels, and I wait.
12
OTTO
I’m almost to the door when I hear the kommandant’s voice calling for me. I pause, turning.
Inside me, panic boils like acid through my veins.I am harboring a witch, a real one, and I am plotting to break your empire of fear, I think. But nothing shows behind my eyes.
I hope.
“Otto, friend, walk with me,” Kommandant Kirch says.
I want to rush down the stairs and take the aqueducts to the house where I’ve hidden Fritzi. She’s no doubt confused and afraid. She deserves an explanation. And I deserve to know where she sent Hilde.
But it is not wise to go against any suggestion from the kommandant.
We head down to the ground floor of the Porta Nigra, a church used to praise Saint Simeon. It is empty now, save for some pilgrims and a priest praying. I can just hear the mutters of one of the pilgrims, begging God for blessings for his ill wife. I am glad that the hexenjägers share a building with a church; the pilgrims remind me that not all who claim to be Christian are evil.
We step out the front door onto the stone courtyard. The sun is high in the sky, but it casts neither warmth nor shadows.
This may be the ground floor of the Porta Nigra, but only because this is a repurposed ancient Roman building. With age, the city has sunk deeper and deeper into the ground. The courtyard can only be reached by a wide staircase that opens up before the street that leads to the main market.
Dieter moves around the building to face the river. It’s quiet here, colder, more private even than inside his office, where Bertram no doubt beats upon the door of the closet, pleading to be released.
“Tell me about the witch,” Dieter says, leaning against the wall and looking at the Moselle River. “The powerful one.”
He doesn’t know, I think, forcing myself to believe it.He doesn’t know Fritzi is safe in my hidden house; he doesn’t know what I plan to do. He doesnot.
“She is unlike any other we have arrested,” I say truthfully. “She chanted—something—and smoke filled the cottage. My sister…disappeared.”
Saying it out loud makes bile rise in my throat. Hilde is still missing. I have only the word of a witch that she’s safe now, but—
“What did the witch chant?” Dieter presses. “Can you remember the words?”
“Er…” I frown, struggling to recall the moment. I was fully engaged in the duplicity of arresting Hilde, of appearing to the men to be the hero hexenjäger who would sacrifice his own family. I was so focused on whatIsaid that I had not really taken note of what Fritzi had said. “A spell of some sort.”
“Obviously,” Dieter replies dryly.
