“So what do they want from me?”
“To destroy God’s creation, Lenka. That is your fate. To dull the spirit of mankind or, better still, destroy it. This is hatred of God Himself, do you not understand? Evil beyond anything most people could ever comprehend or wish to. Which does not mean it doesn’t exist, of course.”
Lenka’s eyes widened as they sat there in what had felt, until moments ago, like an ordinary day – the farmhouse kitchen scented with wood smoke and the door open to the fragrance of falling fruit.
“So now you see, don’t you?” Clara said. “How important it is that you visit your grandma on her deathbed. Why you must know what to do. Or do you choose illness, madness and a lifetime of torment that will surely follow you into the hereafter?”
It was as if the sun had been eclipsed.
“You should not have had children, Mutter.”
“And you will see there is no choice in the matter of children. You will see.”
“I do not believe this. I tell demons what to do, I tell them to come to me and do my bidding, and then I banish them back to their place in hell. You will see. You will see on this one, Mutter.”
“This is about far more than demons. Who do you think is their master?”
Tears pricked the back of her eyes as the horrible task loomed ahead. Thoughts of Oskar with his lithe, tanned and muscular body flitted across her mind… an image of him wading out of the lake, shaking diamond droplets of water from sleek black hair, long lashes sparkling, deep brown eyes bright with desire… So many nights spent fitful and sleepless, dreaming of their limbs entwined beneath a canopy of shimmering leaves…
“Well, I will not go. I will not. It is too far—”
“Pack your things. We will leave tomorrow.”
Chapter Twelve
Lenka shoved back her chair. Eyes ablaze, she leaned over the table and snarled at the woman before her, the woman whose every word she had obeyed until now. “I will not go to Romania. Ever. I’m staying here.”
And then she was running from the house towards the lake exactly as planned. Her boots pounded through the misty woodland as she tore along the path. They could not make her go; the thought was unbearable – to be without him now! He filled her mind, her heart, every waking moment. The journey to Romania would take days if not weeks – it would be winter before she returned. This was terrible, the worst thing that had ever happened. None of what her mother had said was true, it just couldn’t be.
She and Oskar were destined to be together – the whole thing had been like magic from the very first moment. Out looking for herbs that day, she’d been caught by surprise at the sight of him, and she’d dipped behind a tree to watch. After a while, with the dying light of the afternoon behind her, she plucked up courage to peer around the trunk. Which was when he glanced up. Her hair was like fire, he said later, as if she’d been set alight, the cool regard of her slanted eyes and sculpted cheekbones startlingly glacial by comparison.
“What are you doing?” she’d asked, emerging from her hiding place.
“I don’t know,” he said.
She indicated the carving he’d just dropped on the floor.
He was flushing to the roots of his hair. “Oh, this! It is just, erm, a thing… I was making…”
“I have not seen you before, not in school.”
“I d-d-don’t go to the village school – I was s-s-sent to one in Haidmühle. My parents are German. They don’t like the school here; my father says it is full of pagans and Czechs.”
“Oh!” She sashayed towards him, aware of his slackened jaw and nervous stutter. “Well, my father is German, too.”
“What is your name?”
Up close, she gazed directly into his eyes. “Lenka.”
“Your hair, it… it… it’s enchanting. Like a witch’s hair.”
She laughed. “You swim, of course?”
“Yes, I—”
“Then I will come back later.”
It had been the best three weeks of her life. Tears smarted. Why did it have to end so soon? At all? Why?
On approaching Teufelssee, she slowed her steps. The wooden houses appeared, as always, to float on the black glass surface, the mist hovering in skeins. She calmed her breathing, letting the warmth of the earth pulse into the soles of her feet. Coppery leaves gleamed as the sun burned through the haze and brushed the day with hues of gold, the gentle lap of the water rippling in the reeds.
She narrowed her eyes. Please be here… please be here, Oskar…
If he was not here today, they might never meet again. She was as sure of this as anything, yet there was no basis or reason: if she was forced to go away, would he not wait for her return? What if she was unable to get home again?
Oh please, Oskar.
She scanned the expanse of water. A small fishing boat bobbed at the far end…
And then he appeared from the mist, wading out of the water with a wooden dinghy in tow. Raising a hand in greeting, he swiftly moored the vessel, hurrying to get to her, his white shirt open to the waist. She found she could not look away from the sight of his smooth stomach and the single line of hair travelling down from the navel. Her legs trembled slightly, and all other senses faded away. She would have him. He would marry her, they would be betrothed, and then her mother would have no power. Damn her mother and damn her grandmother and damn them all! She would have him. Rushing towards him, her dress dragged in the lake, and tears streamed down her face.
“Lenka?”
Without words or hesitation, she grabbed his hand, and together they hurried into the forest, heading for their special place that could not be seen by prying eyes and, on reaching it, fell immediately to the ground. Gone all shy, tender kisses and soft banter, now their lips banged urgently against each other’s, and fingers beyond caressing ripped at clothes. He pulled her hair back with one hand, forcing her neck to arch forwards, biting and moaning, his breath fast and low. There was nothing but his mouth on hers, his hands on the flesh beneath her dress, his touch where she had never even touched herself. She held his hips and pulled him inside her, deeper and deeper. She needed more and more and more, and even when he climaxed, he did not stop. She dug her nails into his back as he loved her until they both cried out, and the tears came in torrents.
“You are the one, my bride. Mine forever,” he whispered.
“Always.”
But even as the word tumbled from her lips, she knew it to be a false hope. She would never be his wife. They would not live in bliss on this lake, with children that would be wild and free and beautiful and loved. It would not be like that for them. She rolled onto her side so he could hold her. Perhaps the poignancy of this, the cruelty after such euphoria, made the last few hours of lovemaking all the more painfully exquisite. Hot tears rolled into her hair.
He kissed them away. “You are my bride, you know that. There is only you.”
Yet the sadness ached inside at what was not to be. It did not matter what he asked; she saw that now. Her path would be the dark, crooked one her mother had described, and this sweet joy could never be hers. He would have that with some other. She sobbed into her sleeve as he kissed her neck and stroked the curve of her waist. How could she tell him? There were no words. Why could her mother not carry this burden for a few decades as her grandmother had done? At least let her have some life before it was over, before the torment came?
After a while her tears dried, and she rolled over and let him cradle her in the crook of his arm, both of them drifting into sleep until the light dimmed and the first of the owls hooted. She looked up at the treetops spiking into the sky. How long had they lain here with the sweat cooling on their skin? Hours probably… hours and hours…