“Yet I saw only shadows.”
“There were no shadows. There was no moon or stars, no torches or light. Beyond the fire there was nothing but pitch black. So think harder about what you saw.”
How she hated her teacher. It was painful even talking to her. “I saw the ring of ancients, the fire—”
“And beyond? Beyond the circle?”
“All black. I could not even see the trees or the horses.”
She cast her mind back. There had been more than that, though. Not shadows but shapes far darker than the blackness of night. They had risen en masse and moved closer in a dense, suffocating cloud – one that now surrounded her.
“Try to see. Try harder.”
“The air was full of smoke, everything distorted and hazy. But…” She forced herself to remember in detail, to see the unseeable and think the unthinkable. The blackness had come out of those woods and engulfed everything. Drugged and exhausted, she’d floated in and out of dreams, in an infinite space. There’d been sounds like wooden beams groaning in the wind, barking shouts and screeching metal on metal… deep, distorted words that remained unformed… and, yes, he had been with her since then, emerged out of that!
“Come on, Lenka – images? Thoughts? Speak what is coming to you!”
The words burst out: “I think a man came to me. I think he is here inside my mind… very dark brown eyes, glinting eyes, long legs with one crossed over the other… a glass of liquor, golden liquor… I think some kind of college or school—”
It would be, she thought for the briefest moment, easy to dismiss this as madness, to say she had just made that up, although why or how she could not say. The man, though, oh yes, he had come to her on that blackest of clouds.
“When we get home, I will be discussing with your father an idea I have. I think it is a good idea for you to join your uncle in Ingolstadt as soon as possible. You will like it there, I think.”
As Wolfsheule came into sight, her heart tugged at the golden memory of a lost life. It all seemed so long ago, but that life was now over, and besides – the company of this woman who had betrayed her so badly was unendurable. It did not interest her enough to ask how her mother was so ready with these plans for Ingolstadt in Germany. The ties with her were severed, and it no longer mattered.
“Yes, I think I will. When can I go?”
“I will tell your father you need better education and discipline. There is no one more suited to that task than his brother. He will not object. You must understand, Lenka, that the world will be very different to you from now on. Few people can see other realms, let alone accept their existence, but you now know there is something more. Those who do not know this and cannot see it are called ‘Mundanes’.”
“Mundanes?”
“They accept only their own perceptions of the world. They work, rest, eat, have families, chat and pass the time… never knowing what pawns they are. In fact, they are also spirits and have far greater power than they know, but most, well, they have to survive and thus will never push beyond the barrier of what they are told. Your father is one – mundane to the end of his fingertips. And what a Mundane does when he is threatened or does not understand something is to get angry. Ah, the irony. A good Christian, and yet he thinks nothing of beating his wife and daughter should they make him fearful. So you see what you are up against? Take this from me if nothing else – never speak of who you are or what you know. Never. Or you will be destroyed. Look around you, see all the hundreds of graves for women they called witches but probably were not. That is the level of fear we are talking about.”
“I wish I were a Mundane. It is easier.”
“Yes, it is. But you are not.” Clara took a deep breath and slowed the horses on the downward slope into Wolfsheule. “Lenka, we are almost home, and you must take heed. Your father and I will make arrangements for you to travel. Until that time, we must keep him under the illusion that you are a girl in need of tutoring and refinement. This is how we will get you out and not only save your life but fulfil your purpose. Keep your eyes down, and do not defy him or incite his anger. Soon you will be in the town, and your future path will be laid before you. After this, you will not see me again.”
Lenka blinked back the tears.
“Once in Ingolstadt, you will be introduced to the person who will take you to the next level, and you should accept his invitation. Do not be afraid. Our family has had this gift for centuries, and we must take care of it. Only remember, you must pass it on before you leave this mortal world or it will go with you into the afterlife.”
Each word her mother uttered was the hammering of a nail into her coffin. So it was all decided, it seemed… Yet what was the point in railing against it? When deep in her bones she knew it to be true, that all would transpire precisely as her mother said?
At the sound of horses clattering into the yard, her father appeared, and as clear as the sparkles of dew on grass, she saw how he would walk over and grab the bridle to take them into the stables. Never in her life had she felt so alone or so frightened. What would become of her? How did her mother know about this man who would take her to the next level? What next level?
And what would happen if she refused to do any of this?
As if in answer to the question, a memory surfaced suddenly of her grandmother’s body, of the jaundiced, emaciated concave of her stomach and the skin that rose over her abdomen like an opaque egg covered with a spider’s web of purple veins. She had been lying in a pool of her own soiled blood, her fingers black and gangrenous, her skeletal body oozing with sores.
Get out of my head!
In response the image expanded, becoming ever more gruesomely detailed, accompanied now by the stench of decomposing flesh and human waste, of stale breath and disease, death and infection. Lenka’s inverted reflection stared out of Baba Olga’s deep, black eyes, and she tried not to gag.
“Lenka, are you sick?” her father said, lifting her down from the cart.
She ran for the back door, aware of them both watching.
“She was given strong wine at the funeral,” her mother said. “She will be fine, don’t worry.”
“Strong wine?”
Behind Lenka a small disagreement erupted. She filled a cup with water from the jug on the kitchen table and drank deeply. Aware, when she had finished, of a song trilling in her ear. She swung around to find the source. Was there a child in here?
But the house stood empty, and her parents were still in the yard. So who…?
The high, tinkling voice of a small child was clearly singing an old German folksong:
Muss i’ denn,
Muss i’ denn,
Zum Städtele hinaus,
Städtele hinaus,
Und du, mein Schatz, bleibst hier.
The voice stopped. Replaced now by another – this one a deep male voice, low, echoing and distorted, the same voice that had mocked her in the nightmare about Oskar.
Wenn i’ komm,
Wenn i’ komm,
Wenn i’ wieder, wieder komm,
Wieder, wieder komm…
She stood riveted to the spot. The songster was standing right by her ear, but she was alone. Her eyes bore into thin air. Who was here? Could they see her?
A shudder ran through her to the core, the acknowledgement sharp that this was real and no longer a fun thing to have – all notions of it being a glittering intuition or a romantic notion obliterated.