“Good riddance to him, then,” thundered Marco, tightening his grip on Rudi’s arm. “Either they’ve paid him enough or they haven’t, and there’s nothing we can do about it now. Besides, what more can he do to us? Send rats again? We’ll be ready for him this time. Whatever scourge he wants to bring upon us, let him try. He can’t harm us any more than he already has.”
Rudi wished he could be so sure. He was sure of only one thing. “I must go!” he protested, and he yanked his arm, but the blacksmith’s grip was tight. They continued at pace down the mountain.
Rudi could not understand his own longing to seek out the fiddler. The thought of seeing the witch’s servant terrified Rudi, and it repulsed him.
It was the music. Some deep, stubborn part of Rudi could not resist it. He yearned to hear this music as he’d never yearned for anything before. It made him want to dance and shout and weep, all at the same time. “A trick,” he told himself, and yet if Marco had loosened his grasp even the slightest bit, Rudi would have run off and never looked back.
But Marco did not loosen his grasp.
Before long they were trooping across the near meadow, within sight of the village. With each step downslope, the tune grew fainter, as did Rudi’s urge to follow it. So quickly did the melody fade from his memory that within a few moments Rudi wondered why he’d ever had such a desire to hear it in the first place.
Dusk was falling, but Rudi did not see the expected glow of lamplight from the houses below. With every step homeward the sky grew darker, yet no new light sprang from any window. By the time they crossed the footbridge that marked the edge of Brixen, it was near full dark, and still the village had not gone about its usual routine.
Then a light sprang up from somewhere between the houses.
“They’ve gathered in the square,” said Marco. Still pulling Rudi, and with Otto following, he made for the village center. As they approached, the glow became brighter, and now they could hear voices. They made their way through the lanes and alleyways, until the cobbles and buildings glowed orange from reflected firelight.
Was there a bonfire in the square? Rudi could not imagine why. And the voices now were louder, and more strident. He thought he heard sobbing.
They turned the last corner and into the square.
It was a madhouse of frantic activity. A mob of men had gathered near the fountain, and the torches they carried cast frightening red shadows across their faces. Women stood in clusters, falling against each other, sobbing, wailing as if their very souls had been torn from their bodies. And the children …
“Where are all the other children?” said Rudi.
RUDI’S EYES scoured the square for his friends—for a glimpse of Konrad or Nicolas, or Roger, or Susannah Louisa. But there was no one close to his own age. He prayed the other children were hiding, or had been told to stay at home, but he knew neither could be true. The children of Brixen had never been banished from the village square, for any reason. The square belonged to Rudi and all his friends. It was their playground and their sanctuary, and by rights they were allowed to participate in anything that happened here. They had witnessed Herbert Wenzel tallying his rats; they had watched the fiddler as he led the remaining rats out of town. The square was the children’s domain as surely as Marco had his forge or Otto his bakery or Rudi’s father his dairy. Seeing none of his friends now, anywhere, left Rudi’s mouth dry and his heart fluttering wildly in his chest.
Marco had found the mayor in the milling crowd and was interrogating him. Rudi could make out only a few words above the din of voices, but the mayor’s frantic gestures told the tale: “Would not take the payment (shaking head)…. Spilled it to the floor (spreading arms wide)…. He went that way (pointing)…. The fiddle (one arm sawing across the other) … the children … Gone!”
There could be no mistaking the mayor’s last word. Gone. All the children of Brixen, except Rudi. And the fiddler had led them away.
Rudi needed to hear every word for himself. He stepped closer, but for the second time that day, someone pulled at his arm.
It was Oma. “Come with me.” She led him to a quiet lane around a corner.
Rudi grasped her thin shoulders as if they were a lifeline. “Where are they? What has he done with them?”
But he already knew the answer. They had followed the music. That was why it had enticed him so when he’d heard it on the mountain: It had been meant to entice him.
Oma gazed at him with a steady sorrow, but she said nothing.
Rudi made an effort to calm himself. To think clearly. “He took them up the mountain. I heard him, Oma. We must go find them!”
Oma shook her head. “Not until first light. You’ll only thrash around and get lost up there in the dark. The men know that here”—she tapped her own forehead—“but still they light their torches. It makes them feel like they’re doing something, when at the moment there’s nothing to be done.”
“Oma,” said Rudi in a voice barely above a whisper. “All this for one coin?”
She sighed. “I don’t suppose you found it up there today?”
“No.” Then he asked her. “All of them, Oma? All … but me?”
Oma patted his cheek, and her face was stoic as always, but her eyes were brimming. “As easily as if they were rats. The music—” She caught her breath. “Never in my life have I heard such music. I admit I stood transfixed. We all did. All except the children. The older ones plucked the babies from their mothers’ arms, and off they went, every last one, as happily as if they’d been waiting for this day their entire lives.”
Rudi knew what she was speaking of. The music had been achingly beautiful. Mesmerizing. He suddenly realized that he’d been lucky. Lucky that Marco and Otto had been only briefly transfixed by the music. Lucky that they’d pulled him back instead of letting him run off after the fiddler.
But Rudi wasn’t sure he wanted to be lucky if it meant also being heartbroken.
From around the corner came a continuing flurry of arguments, sobs, and lamentations. Oma sighed, and for the first time in his life, Rudi thought she looked truly old.
She continued. “For three days they piled up everything they owned: wedding rings, bits of heirloom silver, every last penny they could find.” Then Oma wrinkled her nose as if she had tasted something sour. “But he scoffed at it all, and then he railed when the coin was nowhere in the hoard. It sent chills through me such as I’ve never felt in all my life. That servant of the witch’s—he’d be emissary to the Devil himself, if only the Devil would have him.”
“The witch is punishing us, and it’s all my fault,” said Rudi.
He thought about his friends, envisioning each face in turn: Konrad and Roger and all the scruffy boys. Nicolas, who liked to brag and boast. Greta and Johanna and every silly little girl. Marta, with the lovely eyes. The collection of chubby babies, whose names he could not keep straight. Susanna Louisa. He imagined them following the fiddler happily, willingly, joyfully even. What were they doing now, on the dark, cold mountain, with no bewitching music playing in their ears to distract them? Who would give them their supper and put the little ones to bed?
All for a coin. All because he had found a coin, and lost the coin, and failed to find the coin again. Rudi shivered, and he drew his coat tighter around himself. That’s when he felt the lump in his pocket.
He pulled out the spoon and turned it over in the flickering firelight. Absently he said, “I found this….”
Oma drew in a sharp breath and snatched the spoon. “Where?”
“On the mountain. In the place I thought the coin would be.” He studied Oma’s face. “What does it mean?”
“I need to think about that.” She held the spoon close to her face and inspected it in the dim light. “But things are beginning to make sense.”
“They are?” For, truly, Rudi was so wracked with guilt and grief that he could make sense of nothing.
“Perhaps …,” she said, and then she looked
at him. “Perhaps you did not find the coin on the mountain because the coin was not there after all.”
Rudi’s heart sank. “How will we get everyone back without the coin? I must find that coin!” Then he stopped, and forced himself to think. “But I need to go with the search party. I heard the music too, Oma. Perhaps I can remember which way the fiddler went.”
For a moment Oma frowned in thought. “No,” she said decisively, and gave him back the spoon. “Otto and Marco can go with the search party. You will deliver this to the witch. And you will tell her what happened, and she will tell you what you must do to get our children back.”
EARLY THE next morning, Rudi found himself climbing the mountain once more.
He accompanied the search party as far as the forest, to the spot where the music had faded the day before. Here they stopped, and Marco and Otto prepared to lead a dozen men through the underbrush, in the direction the music had gone. They carried knives and slingshots and pitchforks. They carried knapsacks filled with buttered bread, and skins filled with water. They carried coats for their children, who had run off without them, and who would be shivering by the time they were found.
For the children had to be found.
Otto placed a hand on Rudi’s shoulder. “Are you sure you don’t want company? We could spare a man or two, I’m sure.”
“No,” said Rudi, though he did not look forward to making his journey alone. But he alone had caused the trouble in the first place. He alone must make things right. “I know the way. Besides, you might need every man you’ve got.”
Otto nodded and shook Rudi’s hand. “May we meet again soon. We’ll mark our trail.” He made good his word by pulling a scrap of cloth from a small sack and tying it onto the nearest low-hanging branch.
“Let’s get moving, then,” came Marco’s voice from the front of the group. “Good luck to you, lad. I hope you know what you’re doing.”
Rudi waved to Marco. He hoped so too.
He continued on up the path alone, with the morning sun already hot on his back and the mountain wind brisk on his cheeks. It had been months since he’d first stumbled upon the mouth of the cave, and on that day the sleet and snow had nearly blinded him. But he felt sure that today he would choose the right path.
He’d had a strange conversation with Oma last night, after everyone had gone home to fitful, mournful sleep. For how can parents sleep in a house that’s suddenly empty of their children’s breathing? But the children could not be saved by parents who were too exhausted to think clearly, or to pack a few days’ worth of food, or to climb the Berg in search of their dear ones. And so Brixen had slept, but restlessly, and for only a few hours.
Satisfied that Rudi’s own parents were finally asleep, Oma had rocked in her chair and told Rudi this: The spoon belonged to the witch and needed to be returned to her.
Rudi sat up with a start. “How do you know it’s hers?”
She shook her head. “It’s bad luck to talk of such things. But you will take it to her. And you will ask her about the coin. There must be a reason you found that spoon in the same place the coin was lost.”
Rudi inspected the spoon again in the light of the hearth. It looked ordinary enough. Silver, yes, and with a twisted handle, but it would not have been out of place on any supper table in Brixen. And it was pitted and dented and badly tarnished.
“Did she find the coin? Is that why I couldn’t find it?”
Oma rocked harder. “I cannot say for certain. But still I feel that something is not right. First rats. And now this horrible business, stealing innocent children. Our witch is powerful, and she can be angered, but she’s not cruel.”
“Her servant is much more powerful than we thought,” Rudi said. “How can such a thing happen?”
Oma stared into the fire. “It seems the witch has cause to mistrust her servant as much as we do. Go up and tell her what’s happened. Ask her what you can do about it. There is no hope for getting your friends back unless you beg the help of the witch.”
Now, as Rudi climbed, questions swirled in his mind. How did Oma know the spoon belonged to the witch? And why would the witch allow her servant to wield such power? Once again, he was left to think that Oma knew much more than she was willing to tell.
Rudi climbed higher, always keeping to the path, no matter how much it meandered and twisted. This time he would take no shortcuts. Recalling his three days of futile searching, he could not even cast a glance at the field of scree as he passed it.
He wondered if he was doing the right thing. What kind of fool seeks out the witch in her own country? Why would the witch even want to help him, when he’d already caused her so much trouble? She’d take one look at him and strike him with a bolt of lightning. Or turn him into a rat, or worse. But he couldn’t think of anything worse. Still he kept on, for the sake of all his friends. If Oma said this was the only way, then it must be so.
Rudi climbed, and the sun climbed higher in the sky. Summer was fleeting on the Berg. Even now, on a mid-July day, the air on the slope of the mountain was cool. In a few weeks’ time the frosts and snows would return, and already Rudi could feel winter’s promise in the chilly air.
Before long, he found himself at an outcropping of rock that looked to all the world like a huge stone bench.
“The Witch’s Chair!” Rudi knew that’s what it must be, though he hadn’t seen it last October, when he’d first stumbled upon the coin. Perhaps the sleet had obscured it from his view then, for today some inner compass told him this was the right way.
Rudi thought how much fun he’d have telling Susanna Louisa that the Witch’s Chair was real after all, and that he had seen it with his own eyes, and sat upon it himself. Then his throat grew tight and his eyes burned. What if he never had the chance to tell Susanna Louisa?
Where were the other children now? Had they survived the cold night on the mountain while Rudi himself had enjoyed the refuge of his hearth? He’d slept not a wink; still, he’d been warm and safe. But his friends—Rudi could hardly bear to think of what his friends were going through.
He had to find the way to the witch’s cave. He had to endure whatever horrible things the witch might do, and plead for her help in returning all the children of Brixen to their homes and families. It was the only way.
Now he came upon a huge crack in the mountain; one of its many jagged peaks was broken in half from top to bottom by some violent force long past. The crack was just wide enough for a man to step through. Or a boy. Or a witch.
Rudi advanced toward the crevice and stepped inside, where he was engulfed in chilly shadow. Sheer rock loomed on either side of him, so high that he could not see the top of either rock face. He was sure this crevice had been here for immeasurable eons, and would most likely remain here for immeasurable eons more. But he could not push from his mind the image of something—or someone—swooping down to slam the two halves together and obliterate him forever like two hands crushing a bug.
Rudi shuddered. He was about to bolt out the other side of the crevice and into the blinding sunlight, when he stopped. He stood in the shadow and blinked until his eyes became accustomed to the dim light. And that is when he saw the opening in the rock, barely as high as his waist. He knelt down and peered inside.
“I’ve found it,” he said to himself. “I’ve found the entrance to the witch’s lair.”
Then, before he could think another thought, an arm reached out from the darkness, grabbed him by the collar, and yanked him inside.
A DARK FIGURE loomed over him. A blast of cold air swirled at him, and Rudi gasped at its sharpness. The figure stood between him and the entrance, so that Rudi could see only a black and faceless silhouette against the daylight. It reached down toward him.
Rudi fumbled at his belt, trying to find his knife, but then he stopped.
It was only a hand extended toward him, waiting. The frail-looking hand of someone very old and very small.
Instinctively, Rudi gr
asped it, and it pulled him to his feet with surprising strength. Then the figure brushed past him and disappeared into the darkness of the cave.
For a moment Rudi stood frozen in fear, but then he forced himself to follow. After all, this was why he had come.
There came another gust of wind, and behind him the door slammed shut, sealing them inside the mountain. Instantly the cold wind ceased, and they were left in a blackness that softened to dim candlelight.
“You again!” said a voice. “You’ve already caused me all manner of trouble.”
Rudi opened his mouth, ready to protest or to beg for mercy. But the figure turned its back without waiting for a reply.
It busied itself with something in a dark corner. Presently, the dark corner sprang to light as a pile of embers glowed and then licked at a small log. The firelight revealed a furnished room: a braided rug, a cushioned armchair, a sturdy wooden table, a low footstool.
The figure straightened and brushed its hands together. It took off its cloak, hung it on a peg, and turned to face Rudi.
She was nothing but an old woman. Much older than Oma. Perhaps no taller than Susanna Louisa. Her white hair was tucked under a ragged kerchief, and her apron was threadbare. A thousand lines creased her face, but her back was straight and her step was quick.
Rudi gulped down his fear. “You—you can’t be the Brixen Witch.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” said Rudi, “the Brixen Witch is fearsome. She’s terrible to look at, with teeth like spikes and foul, icy breath.”
“Ha!” she said. “I has no need for such display. I believe you has something of mine?” She held out her hand.
For a moment Rudi frowned in puzzlement. Then, “Oh!” He reached into his pocket and produced the silver spoon.
She polished it with her apron. “What else have you brought? Most people who comes to see the witch brings gifts. Offerings. Supplication.”
The Brixen Witch Page 9
