Her heart banged hard against her ribs. Oskar had died three weeks ago? She flailed around in the dark, backing away, her mind reeling… This did not make sense, not in any way. So… who had she spent the last few weeks with? And who had she just made love with and… and… and… oh God… pledged allegiance to?
You are the one, my bride. Mine forever.
Chapter Thirteen
Shortly before first light, an elderly man arrived at the farm gates.
Lenka woke from a violent dream, disturbed by the sound of voices, and peeped between the gap in the curtains. Weathered and bony, the man was dressed in a black suit of knee-length trousers, waistcoat and jacket. His white shirt was collarless, and he wore long boots and a black hat, which he held on to in the gusty wind. Her father, who had been up all night rescuing animals and securing barn doors, took a note from the man’s hand, nodded curtly, and headed back inside. It was customary to invite visitors in, especially if they had travelled far, but there had been nothing more than a brief nod. And when she glanced again at the gates, the old man had vanished.
The disturbing dream from which she’d awoken had left her troubled. In it, she and Oskar had been making love, the rhythmic motion of him inside her building and building into blinding euphoria… I love you… I love you… I love you… She was lifting her hips to pull him in deeper, wrapping her arms around his neck in total surrender… when all of a sudden, his face had shapeshifted into something hideous.
“Lenka?”
She sat up in bed with a hand over her mouth, trying desperately to push away the graphic details as they replayed with mortifying clarity. The creature, not human, had laughed at her during the most trusting, loving moment imaginable. At the point where she had been about to climax, it nastily mocked her: ‘I love you, oh, oh, oh, I love you…’ Gleefully its mouth stretched open to reveal spiky little teeth, its skin scaly and reptilian, the eyes yellow with vertical slits for pupils – the whole a hologram of a man but ultimately reptilian and utterly without a soul.
Badly shaken, she tried to blank out the memory. It was only a dream, brought on without doubt because of the shock of last night. She must say nothing about Oskar to anyone. He had died three weeks ago; that was the truth of it. So who, then, had she been laughing and swimming with all this time – talking to and caressing? And then yesterday afternoon…? She put her head in her hands.
Mad people were taken and locked inside the Stonehouse in Haidmühle. The windows were narrow cracks between heavy stones, and on walking past, the sound of people screaming could be heard from within. It was said they were tied up with rope and left on cold stone floors, their filth swilled away each day like cattle’s. No, whatever was happening to her must be kept secret. All of it. Fortunately, she had never confided in her mother.
“Lenka? You must come downstairs at once!”
She found her mother sitting at the kitchen table. The logs in the grate had only just taken hold, and the kitchen was still cold, the morning gloomy. On the stove a pot of oats simmered, and a batch of bread sat in a bowl covered with a cloth, the smell of yeast comfortingly familiar. Clara’s face was creased in a frown, her lips thin and chapped. She pushed back her now greying hair and motioned for Lenka to sit.
This is about Baba Olga…
“A note about your grandmother has just arrived.” She waved a hand in the direction of Lenka’s father, who had gone back into the yard. “You and I will go to see her alone and at once. Baba Olga is close by – at the Mooswald crossroads.”
“She is here? I thought you said she was in Romania?” The vision – the circle of wagons in the woods – flashed before her.
“I heard two weeks ago that her condition was deteriorating, but it says here the family have been travelling for over a week already. I did not know her end was so close, but it seems the situation is now very urgent. I am ashamed. I thought we could go there, that there was time…” She pressed a handkerchief to her face and dabbed her eyes. “That she has had to come to us, when in such pain, it is shameful.”
Lenka saw her then – the old woman lying in bed with both hands stretched high in the air, calling out, pleading, for the pain to be over: Make it stop! I end this… I end this!
“No, I have the strongest feeling I must not go.”
Clara looked up sharply. “How dare you! This is your grandmother, and you will come with me, you selfish girl. Lenka, you have to grow up and take responsibility now – you are sixteen, not a petulant child. Your father is exhausted, and I cannot and will not go alone. Now pack and be ready in one hour.”
Profound dread took hold of her – a feeling of dirt flushing down a drain and taking her with it, down and down and down into a swirling abyss. “How long will it take to get there, to Mooswald?”
“If we take both horses and the trap, we should arrive before nightfall.”
The journey ahead appeared to her immediately – a dirt track cutting through a hilly ravine dense with spruce trees that creaked and groaned in the wind. Streams trickled down from the mountains, tinkling over the stones, but apart from that and the thudding of hooves on the earth, it was eerily quiet, devoid of life. Those woods, they were a place of death… The horses were nervous, and she saw herself gripping the sides of the cart.
“Why did they stop there, in that particular place?”
Clara had stood up and begun to knead the bread for baking. “The note says her time has come and they can go no further; she is in terrible pain. Hurry now – go and tell your father we need the horses and trap. We have much to prepare and a long way to go.”
Her mother refused to meet her questioning stare and clearly brooked no opposition.
There was something here that felt ominous, but further clarity did not come. Occasionally, the old lady’s face appeared in her third eye, but there was something elusive, too, as shifting as the mountain mists – information well-guarded and far beyond the threshold of her mind.
And so she went outside to speak to her father about the horses, then upstairs to pack. It would be best to get this over with. What choice was there? Perhaps it would not be so bad? But the weak morning sun seemed to hide and darken, and the alpine wind blew icily off the mountains. Steadily she folded her clothes.
She could not have known that once the true nature of the legacy was revealed, her life would be shattered beyond all comprehension and nothing would ever be the same again.
Or that Baba Olga’s death was nothing she could have mentally prepared for, not in a million nightmares.
Chapter Fourteen
The journey through the forest ravine was exactly as foreseen, but far colder. The storm had brought with it a freezing wind that permeated clothing and slipped under the skin. It ran in ice-cold rivers through their veins despite the blankets and furs, rendering their hands and feet numb, teeth chattering and faces frozen. It was with relief when they entered the shelter of the woods.
Clara took the reins and kept the horses at a brisk trot for as long as possible until the narrow track became too wet, rocky and steep. The horses picked and stumbled their way uphill. On either side the slopes were densely packed with spruce, the interior gloomy and grey. Overhead the wind soughed in the canopy, and angry clouds scudded across a charcoal sky. The trees shivered, and a high whistle blew down from the mountains, with the occasional crack of splintering wood resounding through the valley.