Forest of Whispers (30 page)

“Ahh, you are a clever thing,” he whispers against her ear—his eyes full of wonder at the magick her slender fingers produce
.

Her hand grazes his and places a cold dagger into his open palm, then she whispers something delicate, something dangerous, into his ear. He repeats her words, though they are unlike anything he’s ever allowed his lips to say out loud—they are foreign upon his tongue and twist uncomfortably in his mouth, yet he tries to imitate exactly as she’d spoken. The dagger swipes through the purple mist and then, to his wonder, coins of gold clatter to the table before him
.

In a breathless tangle they embrace, intertwine… He kisses her shoulder…and the sky opens with a crack of thunder. But the storm does not come from the window, it comes from the chamber door, and soon she is yanked from the happy arms of her beloved and back into the angry grip of her betrothed. She must never allow the other man to touch her again—and he is angered, convinced this game was hers all along
.

In the thin morning light of the forest, he watches, hidden by branches, as four young women prepare gifts for their unseen queen, the one they call Mother. Offerings are made—wildflowers from the earth, a tin of water from the nearby stream, a kiss blown into the air from the mistress of Pyrmont… He emerges from his hiding place and strikes, his rage too much to bear. One is thrown across the water and her head splits against a large stone with the help of his fist. To a tree he binds another. When he sees that the others have fled, he cuts out her heart so that she may never love, not even in death. Had he paid more attention to his lessons, he would not have needed to use brute force, but he does not possess the magick of his love, and now she has run away, fearing for her own life. He does not see her hiding among the trees, unable to look away
.

The weeks that follow find her lonely and sick, and while the man she thought owned her heart has been removed from the castle, he is a constant stain within its walls. Her husband curses her, then points his sword to her swelling stomach, for he has his suspicions
.

Through the forest she runs, her feet stumbling upon the uneven ground until at last the small cottage with the sagging roof peeks through the thick trees. She knocks upon the door and is greeted by an old woman, bent and frail. Thrusting a handful of coins into the woman’s bony hands, she begs for the herbs that will rid her of the child growing in her womb… for the man she loved has told her husband she has been unfaithful, and the lie is far more convincing than her pleas for forgiveness
.

But the old woman tells her the herbs will not expel the infant—it has grown too large for such medicine to work. “The magick inside you is strong,” the old fortuneteller Matilde tells Liese. “For it wants to live! You must not ruin what the Sacred Mother has planned. You must bring the child forth into the world.” Beneath the light of the full moon, in a clearing just past the cottage and the stream, the baby draws its first breath and the Sacred Mother vows she will possess a power greater than the witch who has birthed her. Matilde will raise it as her own, and none will be the wiser
.

At sunrise the baby is handed over, nameless save for the swaddling wrapped around its tiny limbs. With the infant’s cries at her back, Liese walks toward the village and steps silently into the square. The hamlet’s guards seize her almost immediately. Her body is strapped to the stake and the straw beneath her feet is lit. She screams with pain as the fire gnaws at her skin, but it is her child’s cries she hears, not her own. Her eyes search the sky for the Mother, and she tries to smile, for the offering of fire has finally been given—only the Mother will not end her pain
.

Chapter 48
Rune

C
areful, my daughter…
My mother’s words shake me.

“I didn’t believe it until I looked into your eyes in Bamberg. They are
her
eyes. The witch’s eyes!” Hate flies from his lips. “I demand you take her immediately!” he orders his guards. “Burn her!”

“Do you still see her when you look at me?” I ask as I struggle to inch closer to the stream’s edge. “She’s everywhere.” I tell him. “You see her, just as I hear her.”

Growing hysteria laces his too-high laugh, “Voices! She hears the voice of a witch, and you won’t take her away! Tell me, girl, did she tell you I am a murderous liar?” He leans toward me with a threatening grimace.

My eyes drop to the muddy edge of the stream. There is only a foot between us—a foot of water and moss and hatred.

“You loved her once.”

“I
loved
what she could do for me. Do you think I wanted
this
?” he hisses, pulling at his heavy brocaded robe. “Pyrmont was to be
ours
. My brother’s love for the military and territory balanced my obsession for science, physics…alchemy. He would rule the villages of Germany while I ruled the air it breathed.” He stares up at the sky and inhales deeply, as if remembering a time when all was simple. “And then
she
came into our lives. My brother knew nothing of what she was capable of, but I did. He had no idea that it was I she shared her secrets with…that together, Pyrmont would be a force to be reckoned with. But she chose
him
. And he rid himself of me, ordering my vows, choosing her,
a witch
, over his own flesh and blood.”

His foot balances on the unstable edge of the bank, the hem of his robe deepening to a shade of blood as the water tastes it. “
This
was my brother’s way of ‘curing’ me after I told him his new bride was unfaithful, after I
accused
his wife of witchcraft.
This
was my brother’s way of sentencing me to a cruel death while he surrounded himself with finery and a village that adored him. He took all that I had, all that I was, and destroyed me, ordering me to pledge myself to God so my soul might one day be forgiven. Only I don’t blame my brother. I blame the witch who shared his bed.”

His breath reeks with blame, and I am struck with the realization that
he
was the reason my mother gave me away. How evil he must have been that day, ending the lives of those girls. How evil he still is.

“Had I known my brother’s witch birthed an heir I would have killed it and taken what was rightfully mine. So you see, the witch was clever to keep you hidden from me. From her own husband as well, I imagine.” He takes a step closer. “Her execution was my vengeance. But it seems my work is not yet finished.”

He does not know my mother is alive today—in this forest that surrounds us, in me—and a horrifying vapor manifests between us.

The bishop’s back stiffens and his eyes go wide. He loses his footing and slips along the loose rocks at the edge of the stream, tumbling into the cold water beside me. Catching himself, he grabs onto my arms, nearly knocking me over as he struggles against his robe, which is drenched and heavy with water, and then he looks into my face. He looks long and hard.

You may have destroyed me, but my daughter will be the end of you…

If ever there had been horror laced among the words my mother whispers, it is now.

The hatred in the bishop’s eyes turns to fear as my mother’s vengeance settles in my bones.

Laurentz looks at me. He’s worried. He cannot hear or feel what I do. My hands burn as my mother’s spectre prepares to use me as her vessel. The forest that surrounds me feels horrifying and dark. Across the gurgling stream, Laurentz’s eyes beg me to tell him what is wrong, but I cannot.

Where would I even begin? I am witch-born and possibly more powerful than my mother, but how do I tell him that my veins are filled with such vengeful blood?

Even worse, how do I face Laurentz, knowing the bishop is my father’s kin—and that it is my family’s blood that destroyed his mother all those years ago?

Chapter 49
Rune

Y
ou cannot escape the past…
my mother warns. I stare back at a man who has become more evil than any witch. He is far more cunning than any of us could have ever imagined.

“Trickery!” he yells. “Even in death the witch has cast a spell that I would believe you are of my blood!”

Gasps grow behind me as the others take in his words… but more audible than their rising voices is the silence that comes from Laurentz as he stares at me.

“Fools! All of you!” The bishop’s fists shake as if they still hold the little magick my mother taught him so long ago.

One of the older villagers has stepped closer and stares at us both. “It was y—” His voice cuts off as the bishop’s hand punches the empty space between them. He utters strange, terrifying words and swipes his hand from left to right. It is like the dagger from the vision my mother allowed me to witness, and suddenly there is a ghastly gurgling. I spin around in time to see a thick line of blood form where an invisible blade has separated the loose flesh of the man’s neck. He falls to his knees. Without hesitation I climb out of the stream and drop to the man’s side, pressing my skirt to his throat.

In this moment, the bishop is an evil more real than the tales of the forest witch, and the villagers scatter, some tossing their torches to the ground, running from what will surely be their end.

The dry leaves quickly ignite and the forest is awash with a blood-orange glow.

“Rune!” Laurentz cries for me, for I am stuck now on the side that burns.

“What a vile enchantress your mother was,” the bishop seethes. “Pushing me aside so she could rule what should have been mine.”

His words are hollow and muffled as the crackling fire inches its way closer to me and the moaning man I hold onto. A woman wails nearby, and I am certain it is his wife. She did not leave with the others. I wonder if she cries for him, or for what she fears I will do.

I stretch my fingers across the ground and am relieved to feel a patch of Sphagnum Moss curling against the rocks. Pulling at it, I yank a cluster free and press it against the dying man’s throat. His eyes darken with confusion until I slowly take my hand away. His wife’s tears are silenced at what I have done, yet her eyes are still filled with fear, for the fire looms.

A harsh hand clutches at my hair, yanking me to my feet. My scalp screams with a searing pain as I am dragged along the forest floor toward a patch of dry brush not yet consumed by the flames.

“I didn’t have the pleasure of watching her die,” he tells me. “I thought it would break me. But now I think I will like very much for you to meet your end as she did.” His face twists with a dark smile.

My back scrapes the tree as the bishop pushes me against it, his weight leaning into me so that I cannot move freely. “
You
are the embodiment of all who have wronged me, and for that, your suffering will be magnified a thousand times more.”

In his eyes I see how dark his soul has blackened, and his thoughts—vile images of how he’d like to see me die—slip between us.

Beyond him a dark shadow forms, stretching, undulating, a ghostly forest tale come true. He pivots at the cold presence at his back. A loud crunch echoes, and the blackness fades to reveal the man I have just healed, standing shakily, a large rock tumbling from his hands.

The bishop stumbles against me, the forest now aglow in heat and orange and fear.

“You,” he spits, but he does not have the chance to finish, for a stillness washes over us and then comes a whisper…

Forgive me, my Sacred Mother, for I never thanked you for your most glorious gift…my child…my daughter…who will prove to be all that I never was, never could be…

He hears her as clearly as I do, and his face is a stricken mask as a tiny breeze spirals at the water’s edge before us, growing, spinning, pulling the flames inside it as it cyclones closer… closer… It grabs onto the bishop’s robe and consumes it, the water from the stream hissing out of it, leaving him to flail and scream in a wall of flame…and I know, as all falls to a deafening silence, that this is my mother’s final offering to the Sacred Mother.

Chapter 50
Rune

L
ike a gentle breath extinguishing a candle, the fire in the forest fades. The bishop is gone. It is as if nothing had ever happened. But I know that is not true, for his empty carriage still sits, his impatient horses waiting to ride from this haunted place. My birthright has never been more than a dream to me—and it will remain as such, one I’ve conjured in my head to hide the ugly truth.

“Rune.” Laurentz stands across the bank, upon the leaves that once knew such violence, and my heart breaks for him. “Do you see what they are doing?” he asks me and I turn, looking back toward the village. It seems as if the hedge has been replaced by skin, arms…people. A human fence separates the village from the Black Forest and it moves, not away from the witch, but toward, and not with torches or flames or angry accusations, but with smiles and hands reaching forth to touch me.

Leading them into the forest is the old man, his wife dabbing at old blood now staining the skin at his healed neck. He is frail, yet moves along at a steady pace as he assures the wary group there is nothing to fear.

For I am just a girl…

Behind him a young girl limps, an old woman with white-blind eyes steps softly upon the mulch ground, and a woman, heavy with the child that grows inside her, follows. They come to me as those before them sought Matilde in this wild place, and a thickness grows in my throat.

Beyond the trees, a tower beckons and in my bones I feel the silent cries of the children there. They wait for me, as does the boy across the stream. He follows my eyes and wonders if I will choose the forest over him, his face creasing with worry the longer I stand here contemplating the borderless, limitless future waiting for me.

And when the morning light finds the stones from the bishop’s ring scattered among the pine needles, my eyes drift to them. They tell me that Laurentz and I are bound to each other with a power much stronger than we know.

I step into the water, feeling it swirl around my legs, moving with me as I make my way to the other side. My mother’s whispers are at my back, softening, fading with each step I take, for while I am a witch, my power shall know no boundaries as long as it serves the Mother, as I was taught long ago. My foot lifts onto the bank. It slips in the mud, making an ugly scar in the earth. The water will wash it clean. It will heal. Laurentz stretches his hand out to me, waiting, and I take it, lifting myself out of the stream, and onto the soft moss that greets me.