A Witch's Burden

by D. W. Goates

  In the morning, the young teacher felt rather ill-rested when, for the final time, Bogdana opened her chamber door.

  “Good morning, fräulein. Are you awake? It is a clear, if cold, day for your journey.”

  “Ahh, Bogdana. Come. I was sleeping.”

  “I have here your breakfast, and I brought you something else for the road.”

  “I cannot thank you enough, good nurse, for all that you have done for me.”

  “It has been my pleasure, dear,” replied the old woman, smiling.

  “I met with him last night . . . the Margrave.”

  “I know.”

  Had the Gypsy winked at her?

  Bogdana continued, “You have a free spirit, girl. Mind that you keep it so—down there in the devil’s flatland.”

  “You are all so nice up here. Even the Count who was supposed to be some monster . . .” Elke said this as she hurriedly dressed herself.

  “The good keep good company.”

  Distracted from a check of her watch, Bogdana’s words echoed in the teacher’s mind. “Yes. Yes, I suppose they do.” She spoke airily, as if she was already gone—far away.

  “And you’ve fit right in, my dear.”

  The Margrave’s landau, despite its delicate appearance, held the snowy road quite well. Of the convertible type, it was comfortable enough so converted to protect Elke and her companion from the wind, though this enclosure was no proof against the bitter mountain cold. For that, a coach blanket was put to good purpose; they shared it—Elke and her fellow passenger—huddled beneath and smiling across at one another.

  When the coach had been loaded and was ready for departure, Elke had begged Drahomir for the company of his co-pilot. At this, young Sascha, who usually rode alongside in the driver’s seat, had jumped at the chance. The coachman, however, had required more convincing.

  Elke, ever serious, became a caricature of the melodramatic. “Please, you’ve said it will be hours to the pass. If you care not for my loneliness, then think of my compassion for the poor boy—out there, freezing needlessly in the cold, and I within in luxuriant repose. It’s positively grotesque!”

  “Grotesque, Drahomir! Did you hear that? I could freeze!” Sascha had joined league with the teacher in making jolly sport of the coachman.

  Outnumbered, the beleaguered driver eventually allowed it, but only on the condition that their way remain free of impediment and other perils, such as the wolves that had beset Elke’s first attempt at the pass.

  Conditions were indeed most improved. A week had passed since the last snow, and the sky shone clear and blue in stark contrast to the mountain peaks and valley below, still enrobed in their winter splendor.

  “Bogdana packed for me some treats for the road. Would you like some?”

  “Oh, yes,” replied the boy, his striking eyes aglimmer.

  Opening the bundle the old woman had given her, Elke spied, among other things, what appeared to be soft, straw-colored bread; she divided it evenly between them.

  “It’s delicious!” exclaimed Elke, smiling at the boy indecorously. Her mouth was filled with what had to be some kind of cake. “What is this?”

  “Honey cake. Paul made it. I love it!” said Sascha.

  “You’ve had it before?”

  “Yes, it’s my favorite!”

  “And now mine too,” she agreed, before happily gobbling up the remainder of her portion.

  A sated silence then passed between them. Elke stared out the window at the glistening landscape. She began to wonder how truly glad she was to be leaving this beauty, the castle, and its surprisingly amiable company. They had been on the road for an hour already and seemed to be making good time in the fair weather.

  “So, you’re a teacher?”

  Elke sighed, but not so that the friendly boy would notice. It was a simple question—a conversation starter—which at a time like this served only to needle her contented mood. It was with a certain shame that she answered him, her gaze still fixed beyond the window. “A teacher without any students . . . so nothing, really.” The last part she allowed to fall away as if speaking to herself.

  “I’ve known people with students who had nothin’ to teach ’em, so there must be more to it than that.”

  At this, Elke turned to the boy in wide-eyed astonishment to find that his piercing eyes were casually fixed upon her. His permanent grin began to widen as a blush developed on her cheek. She was forced to look away.

  How old was this boy who vexed her so?

  She took a moment to recover herself, and when she finally spoke, she did so indirectly, accompanying her words with a wry smile and sidelong glance. She had decided to keep to the window until she could come to the bottom of the queer attraction that had somehow come over her.

  “You’re quite precocious, aren’t you?”

  “It just seems to me that you sell yourself short, fräulein.”

  “Yes. Yes, I suppose I do sometimes. But how would you know? I could be a rotten teacher justly suffering for my sins.”

  “Nah.”

  Sascha was giving her no quarter.

  Again, she looked at him in astonishment, this time determined to meet the boy’s penetrating gaze—an eyeing which now seemed to her to border upon ogling impertinence.

  “Nah? How can you say this?”

  “Because I’m an excellent judge of character.” His words were smug, but his expression remained that of conversant, if flirty, friendship.

  “Are you, now? Well, enough about me, my little ‘excellent judge’. What’s your story?”

  “My story?”

  “Yes. Let’s talk about you, and how you came to be such a smart, world-wise, and put-together young man.”

  Elke was sincere. She was genuinely curious how an orphan had come to the house of the Margrave, and equally interested in the influences that had molded him so well. She had known many students his age, but none with his wit or maturity.

  “Just lucky, I guess.”

  “Ho, ho! You’ll not get off that easily! Tell me, how did you come to serve the Margrave? One does not by accident come to windswept castles on lonely mountains.”

  Sascha seemed perplexed all of a sudden, but if he was, it lasted but a moment. “With Drahomir. He hired me on as footman.”

  “Your accent . . . You’re from Bohemia, aren’t you?”

  “I am. I grew up near Prague, but there is nothing for me there.”

  “Did you have no other family, then?”

  “No. I’ve made my own way since my mother died; though I was stuck tending stables for room and board before the Margrave’s carriage arrived.”

  “Do you miss her . . . your mother?”

  “Would it sound callous if I admitted to you that I do not?”

  “Oh, my . . . Was she abusive to you?”

  “No. In fact, I owe her a great deal. But, by the end, she was a shadow of herself—looking to me to restore that which had gone missing from her; she didn’t seem to understand the impossibility of what she asked of me, had I even the desire to attempt it.”

  Ever the problem solver, Elke nosily pressed the boy further. “Were your father and mother close? Perhaps it was his passing that sapped her so?”

  “Oh, he died years before, though she gave it little notice. He was an ironsmith who mostly made and repaired ploughshares. He was never enough for her, in spite of the fact that she was herself a meagre wool-spinner.”

  Elke thought the boy’s word choice particularly uncharitable and began wondering at her original judgment of his character. “Life can be hard on a widow with a young child . . .”

  “She wasn’t widowed long, fräulein. Finding me a poor substitute for a husband, she soon hit upon a more fitting companion—one who shared in her weaknesses of jealousy and avarice.”

/>   “She remarried, then?”

  Sascha nodded.

  “So, do you still have a stepfather?”

  “Begging your pardon, fräulein, but I have no father—no family of any kind, beyond Drahomir and those of the castle. That man you speak of is nothing to me.”

  Sascha’s countenance darkened. It was obvious that Elke had hit upon a sore spot; gone was his ever-present smile. What replaced it was fast approaching a scowl. “I’m sorry.” She hesitated. “I did not mean to intrude.”

  “It’s all right. It’s just that it still bothers me. She was never perfect, but she was my mother, that is until she became something as unrecognizable to me as would have been to her own former self.”

  A long pause ensued, with each peering out the window at the landscape rolling by. Minutes passed before the boy again broke the silence.

  “Teacher, what causes people to lose themselves?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps they were never really there in the first place.”

  Elke and Sascha spent the remaining four hours of their journey in happier conversation; that they enjoyed one another’s company was unmistakable. Thus, it was with considerable regret that they came to note their all-too-soon arrival in the tiny hamlet of Bergdorf.

  Aside from chummy confabulation, their trip through the pass had proved almost entirely uneventful. So engrossed were they in discussions and word games that they had scarcely taken the time to admire the frosty scene outside. At the pass itself, however, with its ruins—millennial sentinels standing now as if they had always belonged to the mountain—the pair had made an exception: they took it all in. And how could they have not?

  Once a Raeti settlement, Waldheim’s protected valley became in Roman times an army encampment of some note—the Ancra Castellum—where Caesar’s legions had wintered safe from the barbarians that beset them in these lands. From here, great campaigns had been launched to the Rhine and beyond in an effort to pacify and civilize the northern tribes, and since the pass was the only safe entry to their narrow valley, the Romans had constructed a great wall and gate. Elke and Sascha had seen these fortifications before, but in again passing found themselves gazing in awe and wondering at the marvel of ancient engineering before them.

  The Dorf was a hamlet in name only. In truth, it consisted of but a few odd house-barns and chalets scattered upon a high meadow beyond the pass. It had been settled slowly over time, mostly by dairymen herders who had come from the larger villages in the plain below. On her arrival months before, Elke had observed the cows of Bergdorf grazing languidly in the green—a bucolic summer scene she might rather have paused to witness further if not for the haste of her coach. Now her destination, the Dorf was desolate—its ruminants snug in its barns, its green meadows white with snow.

  The coach came to a stop in front of a chalet festooned with color in sharp contrast to its monochromatic setting. Through the window, Elke witnessed as Drahomir jumped from his seat and went to the door of the cottage. Administering a series of firm raps on the door, he was soon greeted by a heavyset man with a great bushy moustache.

  “Drahomir, my old friend, I knew this fair weather would bring you to me! You’ll need help with your horses.”

  “Oskar, it is good to see you. I have a passenger with me who is going on to Munich. Do you and Ute have a room for her until the next coach?”

  “Her? Well, well, what sort of frau is this? Is she a pretty one? If so, we’ll make room. Ute can sleep with the cows!”

  Looking askance toward Elke, Drahomir evaded the man’s uncouth remarks; he instead changed the subject to the unloading of the “lady’s trunk.”

  As the men continued their banter, Sascha reached over and opened the door to the carriage. Hopping out into the snow, he stood by the door, offering Elke his hand.

  Oskar had just donned his coat when the schoolteacher stepped from the fine black landau. Upon laying eyes on the pretty guest, the bewhiskered fellow could not—or would not—contain himself. “Well, well! Look at this!” he said with a chuckle, oblivious to her embarrassment at the unseemly introduction.

  Elke was speechless, until Drahomir and Sascha began passing by her with the trunk.

  “Don’t worry about him, fräulein. He is completely harmless,” uttered the waggish coachman.

  “Completely,” added the footman, flatly, in further poke at the chortling dairyman.

  Oskar appeared as if he were getting up another of his embarrassing comments when, from behind him, came the annoyed yell of a woman.

  “Oskar, if you don’t close that door I will smother you in your sleep and feed you to the pigs!”

  Paying this no mind, the stout man chose instead to address the newcomer, still chuckling under his breath. “Please, come inside out of the cold, fräulein.”

  Elke stood before him in obvious irritation, not quite knowing what to say, but certain against giving this manner of address short shrift.

  Oskar finally surrendered. “I couldn’t catch a tender vealer such as you if I tried. Just look at me!” he said, gesturing at his girth.

  His behavior was flattering, if offensively so. She fought hard against the impression, but in vain; Elke could not help but find this jovial man amusing. She made her way to the door. Entering alongside, Oskar caught her in a close-lipped smile; this started him in upon her anew.

  As the warmth of the abode closed in around her, her chest began to heave with suppressed laughter.

  Inside, Elke was greeted by Oskar’s wife Ute, a kind-looking, well-built woman with an immense braid of sandy-brown hair. While the two women stayed inside, the men—Oskar, Drahomir, and young Sascha—went back out to tend to the horses and presumably to load supplies for the castle; the coachman and the boy would be returning that afternoon.

  Elke was relieved to hear from Ute that, in spite of Oskar’s jests, there was a room for her after all, though it was quite humble and regularly served only passing coachmen stranded by weather or other delay. Elke’s offer to pay for this was emphatically refused; her friendly host insisted that they had no use for currency and were instead glad to be paid in company. Winter visitors to this high alp were few and far between.

  Refreshment was served—a late lunch of cider, bread, and cheese—and while Elke partook of this, Ute went upstairs to make ready the guest room. By the time Elke was finished with her meal, Drahomir returned to bid his new friend farewell.

  “We must get back now to avoid nightfall. I wanted to say goodbye to you, and to wish you well in your journey. It was a pleasure having you with us, fräulein. I’m very pleased to have made your acquaintance.”

  “That’s most kind of you to say, Drahomir. You and Sascha are now dear friends. I quite literally owe you my life. I will miss you. All of you.” Elke already missed Bogdana and regretted not having had the time to become better acquainted with the rest at the castle. “Could . . . . write to you? When I get back home.”

  “Please. Sascha and I would be overjoyed!”

  “Where is he?” asked Elke, peering earnestly out the window. “I should like to see him before you leave.”

  “He should be just finishing up. Ute here makes wonderful cheese,” said Drahomir, smiling and looking around in vain for the woman who had yet to return, “and is always so generous in sharing it with us lonely castle dwellers. There. There he is now.”

  Sascha came into view, approaching the coach with a prodigious wheel of cheese. Grappling with this as an ant might an acorn, he just managed to get it loaded before Elke was outside and upon him. She embraced him like a lonely grandmother might her only grandson, and he was all too happy to reciprocate.

  “I have told Drahomir that I will write when I get back home to Bremen. Will you write to me?”

  “Of course!” said the boy, still hugging her tightly.

  Whispering in his ear, she said, “Look
out for everyone,” before stealing a kiss at his cheek.

  “I will, fräulein.”

  She turned to go. Passing Drahomir she thought to hug him too, but instead it became an awkward thing where they held each other’s hands.

  “Thank you,” said Elke, the embodiment of sincerity as she peered into the coachman’s eyes.

  At first he said nothing, though his glistening eyes spoke volumes, then finally, “Bis später!”

  “Bis später,” she replied with a sad smile as he climbed into the driver’s seat of the carriage.

  And with a wave they were gone.

  Despite her friendly hosts and the promise of a rich and hearty meal, Elke Schreiber was forced to beg off early that evening. Having slept little the previous night, she was exhausted, and so turned in to sleep before suppertime. The next morning she awoke late, but well-rested, and was famished.

  Expecting as much from her guest, Ute prepared an expansive brunch that was just coming due when the schoolteacher wandered into the kitchen.

  “Good morning. I’m sorry I slept so late.”

  “Morning, fräulein. I was beginning to wonder if we had a werebear in our midst gone to den for the winter.”

  Elke smiled, taking in the aroma of the ham sizzling atop Ute’s modern iron cooking stove. It was warm in the house; a fire roared in the great room behind them.

  “It should be ready soon,” said Ute. “Won’t you help me set the table?”

  “Oh, yes!” answered Elke, shaking off her cozy daze. It was the least that she could do.

  The guest helped her host make things ready for their feast. It would just be the two of them; Oskar had eaten earlier and was busy with his farm chores.