by Ines Thorn
There was a knock at the door. Etta opened it and gave the boys what little wood she could spare.
“Are you going to the Biikebrennen tonight?” Jordis asked her grandmother after the boys left.
Etta shook her head. “The Biikebrennen is a pagan custom. It comes from the north and celebrates the Norse gods. The fire is to drive away the winter and burn away the quarrels and strife of the dark months. If I go, they’ll say I’m paying homage to my gods. If I don’t, they’ll say the same because I won’t be there when the pastor reads his psalms and the villagers say the Lord’s Prayer. Whatever I do, it will be wrong. Others will avoid me. No one will want to speak to me where Mommsen can see.” She shook her head. “No, my dear, I will stay here.”
Evening came. The bonfire glowed brightly on the crest of the highest dune, and the noise of the revelers reached all the way to Etta’s house. Jordis dressed warmly and wrapped a scarf around her neck. Then she took her dog and a small lantern and went down to the beach. The fire was so bright that Jordis could easily see the outline of the stranded ship. The wood groaned with every swell, the planks creaked, and the sails rattled loudly. Otherwise, the beach was deserted and still. In the distance, Jordis saw two dark shapes at the tide line, probably bodies washed up by the waves. She called Blitz. He was no longer a puppy but a full-grown dog. Jordis ordered him to wait, and he sat obediently and wagged his tail. The sky was partly cloudy, and the air smelled of snow. A pale sickle moon showed every now and then between the clouds, and Jordis could see that the ship had struck the rocks with its bow. If she dared to climb the bluff and over the slippery stones, it would be easy to reach the wreck. The beach overseer hadn’t approved salvaging yet, hoping that the next few high tides would wash the wreck off the rocks and up to the beach, and the cargo would be recovered without risk. Even the beachcombers who usually went out in any weather hadn’t approached the wreck; everyone had been preparing for the Biikebrennen, the most important holiday on Sylt, instead. There was no reason for them not to. The cargo wasn’t going anywhere, and no one else would get there first because everyone was gathered around the fire.
Jordis glanced at Blitz, who sat next to her and whined occasionally. Then she folded her hands and said the prayer that all the beachcombers knew by heart and even the beach overseer murmured when a ship approached the island:
“We beg thee, oh Lord, not that ships run aground in the raging storm on the rocks of the sea, but if you see fit to let them founder, then, oh Lord, please guide them to our shores, so the poor people of the coast may be sustained.”
Jordis climbed the bluff at the edge of the beach, where she drove a wooden stake into a crack and tested it with her weight. Then she wrapped one end of a rope around her waist and tied the other tightly to the stake, and carefully made her way down the slippery rocks and out to the wreck. She had to be careful; one misstep would send her plunging into the waves, and the rope might not hold.
She finally reached the deck of the ship. Directly in front of her, caught against the rail of the tilted, half-flooded deck, lay the corpse of a boy wearing a kitchen apron. His dead eyes stared at the sky. Jordis knelt down and closed his eyelids, and said a brief prayer before entering the galley. There were still a few barrels, and Jordis was sure they contained staples, maybe butter, pickled cabbage, and hardtack. She rolled the barrels to the rail, pushed them overboard, and hoped the waves would wash her spoils to the shore. The hatch was open, and Jordis climbed down into the dark belly of the ship. Her small lantern barely penetrated the inky blackness of the hold. She wasn’t afraid of the darkness, but her heart beat faster than it usually did. Was it because she suspected that there were more corpses below, or because her heart was so heavy with sorrow? She didn’t know.
When she finally reached the bottom of the ladder, she had to jump to the side because the tilted ship had partially filled with water as it rested on the rocks. She walked as far as she could along the boards and examined the cargo on the dry side, which seemed to be largely undamaged. There were countless boxes of tools which probably came from Scandinavia. Two long rows of baskets were next, packed with sawdust to protect delicate items from the glassmakers in the northern lands. In one corner was a stack of ceramic tiles, and in another was tin washtubs, buckets, and other household items. Jordis took nothing but climbed back up the hatch and onto the deck. She peered over the railing and sought the barrels, which had washed up onto the beach as she’d suspected they would. Her dog, Blitz, was sitting next to the barrels, and he wagged his tail when he saw Jordis on the deck. He barked once, loudly.
“Quiet!” Jordis called to him, even though she knew her voice would be drowned out by the rushing waves and the noise of the revelers. “I’ll be right back.”
She climbed to the highest point of the bow and carefully made her way back up the rocks, where she untied her rope and wound it into a coil. She was a little proud of herself; she had managed to get a few barrels from the ship without even getting wet. When she was back on the beach, she fished the barrels out of the water and began to roll the first across the beach when she suddenly heard a voice.
“Good evening, Jordis.”
She gasped, but then recognized the silhouette of Crooked Tamme. “What are you doing here?” she asked him. “Why aren’t you dancing on the dunes and celebrating with the others?”
Tamme sat down in the sand, pulled up his knees, and patted the ground next to him. “Come, sit awhile with me, and I’ll help you with the barrels.”
Jordis, still out of breath from the difficult climb, did as he suggested.
“You want to know why I’m not at the Biikebrennen?” Tamme asked. “Probably the same reason that you aren’t there.”
Jordis stiffened. She understood what Tamme meant, but she couldn’t admit it. “Oh, I don’t care about Arjen. He can dance around the fire with Inga if he wants. I stayed away because I don’t like celebrations.”
There was a crooked smile on Tamme’s face. “You see? It’s the same for me. I don’t like celebrations either. I also can’t stand to see the person I love in the arms of another.” He broke off abruptly and sighed before he continued. “That is, if she actually were in his arms. She isn’t. He seems to be looking right through her, as though she weren’t there.”
Jordis raised her eyebrows in astonishment. “Inga?” she asked softly.
Tamme gave a narrow, bitter smile and nodded.
“I didn’t know that you were in love with her,” Jordis said quietly, putting a comforting hand on his arm.
“I’ve loved Inga for as long as I can remember,” Tamme admitted. “But she’s never noticed me. And why should she? I’m a cripple.” He sifted sand through his fingers. “I was born this way, with a hunchback. Some people say that my mother worked too hard during her pregnancy. Others say it’s because my father always bowed down to authority. Whatever happened, Father and Mother have passed away, and I am good for nothing but beachcombing. I don’t blame Inga for not wanting me, because if I were her, I wouldn’t want me either.”
“Don’t talk that way about yourself!” Jordis said, taken aback. “Your back is hunched, but your heart is as true as a heart could be. If Inga had eyes in her head, she would have seen that.” She broke off and stared up at the moon, blinking back a few tears. “If she had, maybe she would be your wife, and I would be Arjen’s, and we would all be dancing around the fire together up there.” A dark cloud settled over her mood, and she struggled to keep control of herself, so she got up and pointed to the barrels. “Will you help me roll these over the dunes?” she asked. “We can share whatever we find inside.”
The next morning, Jordis awoke to loud knocking on the door. Etta opened it to two bailiffs.
“We bring a summons from the council,” one of them said. “We’ve come to accompany you.”
Etta gave a terse laugh. “They didn’t have to send you. We would’ve come if we’d received an invitation.”
The elder bail
iff reddened with embarrassment. Everyone knew that the only people who were forced to come to the council without an invitation were those at risk of fleeing or who posed a serious threat to the other islanders. “That’s just how it is,” he said with a shrug. “Ready yourselves and come with us.”
Jordis and Etta barely had time to untangle their hair and wrap shawls around their shoulders. Etta climbed onto the older man’s horse, and Jordis sat with the younger man. She looked fearfully at her grandmother. They had surely been accused of witchcraft. If someone had managed to come up with evidence of their supposed wrongdoing, they would face death. Jordis sat stiffly on the horse, unable to speak or react.
Finally, they arrived at the council meeting. Jordis was so frozen with fear she could barely dismount. She looked at Etta with panic, and her grandmother nodded to her. “We will survive this,” she seemed to say with her eyes.
Before Jordis knew what was happening, she was before the judge’s stand. Witnesses were called, and Inga stepped forward and accused her of witchcraft. As proof, she took a rune stone out of her pocket. Etta denied having seen the stone before and accused Inga of having made it herself. Inga proceeded to entangle herself in contradictions, and the judge sent her back to her place in annoyance. Then the council convened briefly, and the judge announced the verdict.
“Etta and Jordis of Rantum have been found guilty of witchcraft. They are sentenced to having their house burned to the ground, with all the accoutrements of witchcraft inside of it.” Then he struck his wooden mallet on the stand and turned his attention to the next case.
Jordis stood frozen. She didn’t understand the judge’s words. It had gone so fast! Their home was to be burned? They would lose everything they had?
She turned to her grandmother and saw she had gone deathly pale. Etta moaned and pressed a hand to her heart, as though in great pain.
“Are you ill?” Jordis asked.
But Etta shook her head and managed a small smile. “It’s nothing, child. Everything is all right.”
“Nothing is right!” Jordis cried, and the crowd turned to stare at her. “We aren’t witches and never have been! Now you want to take away everything we have. If I were a witch, I would curse you all right now!”
“Be quiet, child!” Etta begged. “You’re only making things worse.”
But Jordis stuck out her chin in defiance. “Things can’t get any worse.”
CHAPTER 16
The church bells had heralded the evening, and the villagers were safe in their homes. Some women whose husbands had left that day on Dutch smaks bound for the large harbors of Amsterdam or Hamburg still had puffy eyes from their tears of farewell. Others wore smiles for the first time in months. The women’s time had begun. Now the women had their say on the island, caring for their families without having to bend to their men’s wills. Some Sylt women preferred the relaxed, man-free seasons of spring and summer to the autumn and winter, when their husbands were home.
The bailiffs came on horseback just before it was completely dark. They stood in front of the church and rang their brass bells loudly until people came out of their houses. Crooked Tamme, who lived across from the church, was the first to arrive. Then the young women came, some of them carrying babies on their hips, and then the older women. The elderly women came last, leaning on their canes. Everyone asked what was happening. They knew that the bailiffs had come to carry out the verdict of the council, but no one knew which cases had been heard. There were rumors, but those who had been there had been sworn to keep silent. And those who had received the judgment didn’t want their sins to be public.
When all the villagers were gathered, one of the bailiffs rang his bell again, and the other unrolled a scroll and read aloud: “Today, the twenty-second of February of the year 1712, the council of Sylt reached the following verdict: Jordis Lewerenz and Etta Annadottir of Rantum are accused of practicing witchcraft. As proof, an oracular device of the old religion which they used to prophesize the future and perform other sorcery was presented to the council. The council has sentenced them to leave their home and seek other accommodation, whereupon their house will be burned to the ground with all their magical accoutrements inside.”
Crooked Tamme’s eyes went wide with shock. “Is that true?” he asked. His sister, Antje, covered her mouth in horror, as though to repress a scream. The grocer’s wife nodded with approval, and the others quietly murmured the Lord’s Prayer to themselves. A man leapt out of the crowd and snatched the scroll from the bailiff’s hand.
“That’s monstrous! You can’t do that!” Arjen cried, as though it were his own house that was about to be burned. “You know very well that the old religion has nothing to do with witchcraft. A witch must be in league with the Devil, and not with Odin and Rán!”
One of the bailiffs grabbed the scroll back from Arjen. Arjen fell on him, punching him in the nose so hard that he collapsed, blood streaming down his face. The other threw the brass bell aside and leapt on Arjen, but the smith was strong—stronger than most men in Rantum.
“Stop!” Crooked Tamme cried, pulling at Arjen’s shirt. But Arjen twisted out of his grasp. “Leave them be!” Tamme shouted.
Afterward, no one could really say what had happened, but all at once Antje was pulling Inga’s hair and screaming, “This is your fault! You’re the real witch here!”
Inga shrieked, grabbed Antje by the wrist, and twisted it so hard she cried in pain. Then the grocer’s wife was pounding Antje’s back with a lantern, while old Leevke, the herb woman who supposedly brewed magic potions, grabbed Inga’s arms. There was an unholy turmoil. Blows and slaps, cursing and shrieking could be heard, and even the cats that prowled the village streets ran for cover.
The uproar lasted until the pastor extracted himself and pulled the bell tower ropes. The people below started at the noise, came to their senses, and let go of each other. They straightened their clothes and stared at the ground in shame.
The bailiffs took the opportunity and leapt on Arjen, twisting his arms behind his back and tying his wrists with a rope. Then one continued to read aloud from the scroll.
“The verdict is to be enacted immediately,” he announced, and the villagers understood that the white Frisian house at the edge of the village would be burned without delay. They saw the heavy oilcans the bailiffs had brought. One took a tinderbox out of his pocket and held it up. Everyone gasped as though it were their own home that was about to be burned. They fell silent and lowered their eyes. People quickly began to leave the church square.
“Wait! Come back!” Crooked Tamme cried. But no one listened to him. They went home, closing their doors and windows so they wouldn’t have to watch what they didn’t want to see. They got their Bibles out and murmured prayers. Eventually, Tamme, too, gave up and went home.
Finally, Rantum lay in silence. A lonely dog barked, and even the moon hid behind a cloud. The bailiffs took Arjen between them, pulled him into the church, and locked him in. Then they rode to the white Frisian house at the edge of the dunes.
They didn’t knock; they just opened the kitchen door and walked in. Jordis was sitting at her spinning wheel, and her grandmother was knitting. Both women were acting as though the verdict didn’t exist. Maybe, Jordis thought, nothing will happen if we pretend we don’t hear them. She knew what they were doing made no sense, but she still had her pride. Etta and Jordis wanted to show they were innocent, so they acted as though the verdict had nothing to do with them. They were doing what they had always done when twilight wrapped the island in its gray shroud.
One of the bailiffs pulled on Jordis’s arm, and the other pulled at Etta.
“Get your hands off me! Don’t touch me!” Jordis shrieked, but soon she was standing outside the house. She looked around, but there was no one there to help. Only her dog, Blitz, leapt at the bailiffs’ legs, barking angrily.
The man let her go. He knew she wouldn’t run, and even if she did, what difference would it make? He unrol
led the scroll and again read the verdict of the council.
“It’s not true!” Jordis cried as the bailiffs rolled up the scroll. “We can’t hex people or do magic.”
Etta had been silent the entire time. Her face was pale, her cheeks were sunken, and her silver hair had lost its shine in the weak light of dusk. Her shoulders were hunched; her head drooped almost to her chest. Again and again she pressed her hand to her heart and grimaced with pain and sorrow.
A few villagers had gathered on top of the dunes. They stood there like pillars of salt and looked down at the house.
“Help us!” Jordis’s cry echoed through the evening air and startled some geese that rushed away, chattering and rustling their wings indignantly, but the people on the dunes didn’t move.
Then the bailiff took out the tinderbox and opened the oilcan. Jordis grabbed his arm and clung to it.
“No, please! I beg you! Don’t do it! We are honorable women, we have done nothing wrong!”
The bailiff sighed with pity. “I didn’t make the verdict. I’m sorry,” he said. He took Jordis by the arm, but gently. She, too, was as pale as snow.
“Please,” she whispered. “Please!” Then she sank to her knees, and the bailiff let go of her and went to his colleague.
“Can’t we let them take some things so they have enough for the next few days?”
Up on the dunes, three women held hands. “Burn the witches! Burn the witches!” they chanted.
The other bailiff shook his head grimly and looked up at the chanting women. “I lost a sheep in the autumn storm they conjured. Now we have no wool or dung or meat for the winter.”
He picked up the oilcan and entered the house, and Jordis could hear him pouring the oil and lighting it with his torch. As he left the house, the flames on the box bed glowed through the window, and the smell of burnt horsehair plaster filled the air. Jordis screamed as flames licked at the window and the glass shattered loudly, and the crackling and hissing of the fire covered up all other sounds. She fell to her knees, face in her hands, and sobbed silently. She thought the fire sounded like the sea during a storm, and it devoured everything just as surely. She felt the heat of the fire against her skin. The smoke made her cough, but she didn’t care. She could only listen as her home burst into flame.
