And those hands, both of them, had looked like this.
Shuddering, Woermann backed away toward the steps. He did not want to see the dead soldier's other hand. He did not want to see any more down here. Ever again.
He turned and ran for daylight.
Magda returned directly to her room, intending to spend a few hours alone there. So many things to think about; she needed time with herself. But she could not think. The room was too full of Glenn and of memories of last night. The rumpled bed in the corner was a continual distraction.
She wandered to the window, drawn as ever to the sight of the keep. The malaise that had once been confined within its walls now saturated the air she breathed, further frustrating her attempts at coherent thought. The keep sat out there on its stone perch like some slimy sea thing sending out tentacles of evil in all directions.
As she turned away, the bird's nest caught her eye. The chicks were strangely silent. After their insistent cheeping all yesterday and into the night, it was odd they should be so quiet now. Unless they had flown the nest. But that couldn't be. Magda did not know much about birds but she knew those tiny things had been far from ready for flight.
Concerned, she pulled the stool over to the window and stepped up for a view into the nest. The chicks were there: still, limp, fuzzy forms with open, silent mouths and huge, glassy, sightless eyes. Looking at them, Magda felt an unaccountable sense of loss. She jumped down from the stool and leaned against the windowsill, puzzled. No violence had been done to the baby birds. They had simply died. Disease? Or had they starved to death? Had the mother fallen victim to one of the village cats? Or had she deserted them?
Magda didn't want to be alone anymore.
She crossed the hall and knocked on Glenn's door. When there was no reply she pushed it open and stepped inside. Empty. She went to the window and looked out to see if Glenn might be taking the sun at the rear of the building, but there was no one there.
Where could he be?
She went downstairs. The sight of dirty dishes left on the table in the alcove struck her. Magda had always known Lidia to be an immaculate housekeeper. The dishes reminded her that she had missed breakfast. It was almost lunchtime now and she was hungry.
Magda stepped through the front door and found Iuliu standing outside, looking toward the other end of the village.
"Good morning," she said. "Any chance of lunch being served early?"
Iuliu swiveled his bulk to look at her. The expression on his stubbly face was aloof and hostile, as if he could not imagine dignifying such a request with a reply. After a while he turned away again.
Magda followed his gaze down the road to a knot of people outside one of the village huts.
"What happened?" she asked.
"Nothing that would interest an outsider," Iuliu replied in a surly tone. Then he seemed to change his mind. "But perhaps you should know." There was a malicious slant to his smile. "Alexandra's boys have been fighting with each other. One is dead and the other badly hurt."
"How awful!" Magda said. She had met Alexandru and his sons, questioned them about the keep a number of times. They had all seemed so close. She was as shocked by the news of the death as she was by the pleasure Iuliu seemed to have taken in telling her.
"Not awful, Domnisoara Cuza. Alexandru and his family have long thought themselves better than the rest of us. Serves them right!" His eyes narrowed. "And it serves as a lesson to outsiders who come here thinking themselves better than the people who live here."
Magda backed away from the threat in Iuliu's voice. He had always been such a placid fellow. What had gotten into him?
She turned and walked around the inn. Now more than ever she needed to be with Glenn. But he was nowhere in sight. Nor was he at his usual spot in the brush where he watched the keep.
Glenn was gone.
Worried and despondent, Magda walked back to the inn. As she stepped up to the door she saw a hunched figure limping up from the village. It was a woman and she appeared to be hurt.
"Help me!"
Magda started toward her but Iuliu appeared at the doorway and pulled her back.
"You stay here!" he told Magda gruffly, then turned toward the injured woman. "Go away, Ioan!"
"I'm hurt!" she cried. "Matei stabbed me!"
Magda saw that the woman's left arm hung limp at her side and her clothing—it looked like a nightgown—was soaked with blood on the left side from shoulder to knee.
"Don't bring your troubles here," Iuliu told her. "We have our own."
The woman continued forward. "Help me, please!"
Iuliu stepped away from the door and picked up an apple-sized rock.
"No!" Magda cried and reached to stay his arm.
Iuliu elbowed her aside and threw the rock, grunting with the force he put behind it. Fortunately for the woman his aim was poor and the missile whizzed harmlessly past her head. But its message was not lost on her. With a sob, she turned and began hobbling away.
Magda started after her. "Wait! I'll help you!"
But Iuliu grabbed her roughly by the arm and shoved her through the doorway into the inn. Magda stumbled and fell to the floor.
"You'll mind your business!" he shouted. "I don't need anyone bringing trouble to my house! Now get upstairs and stay there!"
"You can't—" Magda began, but then saw Iuliu step forward with bared teeth and a raised arm. Frightened, she leaped to her feet and retreated to the stairs.
What had come over Iuliu? He was a different person! The whole village seemed to have fallen under a vicious spell—stabbings, killings, and no one willing to give the slightest aid to a neighbor in need. What was happening here?
Once upstairs, Magda went directly to Glenn's room. It was unlikely he could have returned without her spotting him, but she had to check.
Still empty.
Where was he?
She wandered about the tiny room. She checked the closet and found everything as it had been yesterday—the clothes, the case with the hiltless sword blade in it, the mirror. The mirror bothered her. She looked over to the space above the bureau. The nail was still in the wall there. She reached behind the mirror and found the wire still intact. Which meant it hadn't fallen from the wall; someone had taken it down. Glenn? Why would he do that?
Uneasy, she closed the closet door and left the room. Papa's cruel words of the morning and Glenn's unexplained disappearance were combining, she decided, to make her suspicious of everything. She had to hold herself together. She had to believe that Papa would be all right, that Glenn would come back to her soon, and that the people in the village would return to their former gentle selves.
Glenn ... where could he have gone? And why? Yesterday had been a time of complete togetherness for the two of them, and today she couldn't even find him. Had he used her? Had he taken his pleasure with her and now abandoned her? No, she couldn't believe that.
He had seemed greatly disturbed by what Papa had told him this morning. Glenn's absence might have something to do with that. Still, she felt he had deserted her.
As the sun sank closer to the mountaintops, Magda became almost frantic. She checked his room again—no change. Disconsolately, she wandered back to her own room and to the window facing the keep. Avoiding the silent nest, her eyes ranged the brush along the edge of the gorge, looking for something, anything that might lead her to Glenn.