A sharp gust of wind rustled through the trees, and goose bumps shivered across her back. At the gilded edge of the forest, the sun was sinking rapidly, and leaves spiralled in crepuscular swirls. Something had changed! She sat up, unaccountably alarmed. It was coming on the wind… and far sooner than expected, too. In fact, it was nearly here. A snapshot vision flashed into her mind… of hooves pounding turf, horses galloping along the plains, swaying wagons along wooded paths, rocking caravans…
They, the horses and caravan of wagons, were travelling in this direction on the easterly wind, and the feeling of impending doom was overwhelming, sickly and claustrophobic. A sense of panic and chaos gripped her.
Oskar was lying flat on his back. She bent to kiss each fringe of sooty lashes, then his gently smiling lips. “I love you,” she said.
Taking hold of her hands, he kissed each in turn. “Don’t worry, we will meet again.”
She did not question his words, instinctively accepting instead that this moment in her life would never be repeated. In order not to spoil it by asking what he meant, she nodded.
“Yes, yes, we will.”
His eyes were closing again. “When it is time, we will meet again.”
She thought she would die of a broken spirit, a devastated heart, of the pain. What was he saying? What did he know? Was he leaving? Wasn’t it she who was leaving?
“I don’t understand,” she said.
He reached up to stroke her hair. “You are leaving; that is what you came to tell me.”
“But I will come back. I promise.”
They lay side by side again, chilly now as a breeze began to whip up but still holding hands and not wanting to let go. Evening was closing in rapidly, and the breeze picked up, bringing with it a veil of rain from across the lake. Static crackled in the air, and blue flashes lit up the mountains. She snuggled into his side, trying to push away the feeling of foreboding – it was just a storm coming – and closed her eyes.
It had been for just one second… one moment was all… but when she woke, it was to splashes of rain on her face. Startled, she leapt to her feet. The rain was coming down hard, dripping from the canopy, and Oskar had gone. Had he just upped and left her here, in the dark and the cold with a storm coming? There were wolves in this forest!
Confused, she ran to the shore and, on reaching the water’s edge, was about to call out when she changed her mind. Perhaps this was his way of making it easier to part?
You are leaving; that is what you came to tell me…
Turning away, she nodded to herself. Yes, that would be it. He had left while she slept in order to avoid more upset for them both. Somehow he knew she was leaving, had guessed, no doubt, by her urgency and desire. He was thinking of her… Besides, night had fallen, and it looked as though the storm would be a wild one. Wind whistled off the mountains, and rain was sheeting across the fields. It was time to go home.
That night, the storm raged, slamming the shutters, banging doors, rattling windows and dislodging roof tiles. Branches snapped off trees and sailed past the window. Dozens of apples thundered to the ground. And still the wind screamed around the eaves. It shrieked down the chimney and blew ash across the floors. At times the very fabric of the house shuddered.
Lenka lay wide awake on her bed. These were the winds of change, weren’t they? No ordinary storm, this signalled Baba Olga and her demons were on their way. There was no rational thought to this, only a deep knowing. And every time she closed her eyes, the images appeared, so much clearer now as if the veil was lifting. Closer, then? Yes, much closer. A line of carts and wagons had hunkered in a ring, so near that the smell of the campfire and steaming bone broth filled the air. Tarpaulin billowed in the high winds, pegged down at the corners. And a swarthy-skinned old woman with her hair bound in a scarf wiped beads of sweat from the one facing death. Waxy candlelight flickered as she worked, her forearms marked with snaking veins, hands calloused and worn.
Outside the wolves were howling and a lantern bobbed in the yard. Her father’s voice was lost somewhere between the noise of the storm and her own reverie, shouting that animals had broken loose.
A fresh wave of grief rolled over her. This was the end. Would she ever see Oskar again? Why was there such a conviction it was all over?
There is no Oskar.
The voice was barely a whisper, but it came as clearly as if the speaker stood directly beside her.
Had she drifted to sleep?
There is no Oskar.
Now Lenka’s eyes were wide, and her heart lurched. She clutched the sheets. The voice was stronger and more forceful.
“No!” she said aloud. She had felt him, had known him, had seen, heard, touched, loved… Had something happened to him, then? Was that it? No Oskar! Had he left her sleeping and then drowned in the lake? Was the voice telling her he had died? She had predicted this, had known…
Throwing back the sheets, she rushed to the window. The vortex of the storm had hit Wolfsheule head-on. Her father was stumbling around the yard with a lantern, the dogs running around barking. She pulled on boots and threw on an overcoat on the pretext of going out to help recover the horses, silently acknowledging the truth of the whispers. She should listen to the inner voice – it was always, always right. Oh God, it was unthinkable. Had he foreseen his own death, too? Is that why he’d said they would meet again? In the afterlife?
With her head down against the prevailing wind, baulking at the force of it, she hurried outside, calling for the horses before running across the fields and shooting straight down the forest path to Teufelssee. Desperation spurred her on as she tripped over tree roots in the dark and rain lashed her face. Once at the shore, she held her hands up in a shield against the onslaught of rain. A lamp was on in one of the hut windows.
“Hey!” she shouted, no longer caring if his family knew she had been seeing their son. “Hey! I am looking for Oskar. I am worried about Oskar! Did he come home?”
The huts out on the water were cracking under the strain of the storm, the lake’s level rising alarmingly. A man appeared on the decking, throwing belongings into a boat, scrambling his things together. An almighty bang showed he had made the right decision. With minutes to spare, one of the main beams had broken away, cutting his house in two.
Lenka waded into the water to waist height.
“Get back, you’ll be swept away!” he shouted.
She grabbed the rope to help him. “Where is Oskar? I am afraid he became lost in the storm.”
He shook his head, hauling the boat through mud. “No Oskar.”
“What do you mean, ‘no Oskar’?”
He snatched the rope from her, shouting over the howling winds. “There is no Oskar. My son went to Haidmühle and died there of fever. He was buried at the church here just three weeks ago. Did you not know?”
She stared at him aghast and shook her head.
“Of course, people like you are the reason I sent him away from here.”
Lenka stepped back. “I don’t understand.”
He levelled with her. “Pagans,” he spat.
“You blame us?”
“That is why I sent him to a church school – a proper school in town, and now look what happens. I had to bury my only son on the last day of summer. I am going far from here – I will leave you to your pagan ways, your anti-church ways, to the devil you worship! At least you did not come around here and get your heathen claws into him. He died pure. At least I saved him from that.”