Fire
. I’ve felt it before in dreams, only I was never too sure if they were dreams at all. They were more like memories.
Her
memories.
My mother’s.
“What did you mean when you said,
‘that by which her birth mother met her end
?’”
Matilde is quiet.
“And you said something else too, about ‘
fighting fire with fire
?’” I ask. “And what do you mean, ‘witches?’” I cast a glance into the dark trees around us, sensing eyes upon us, still hearing the old stories and feeling them come to life beneath my skin.
Matilde clucks her tongue against the roof of her mouth and wrings the hem of her dress. “Your mother’s name has been included in several stories that have been told…along with the terrible things she was accused of.”
“But you never told me what those terrible things were, Mutti. Won’t you tell me now?” I pause quietly. “Especially since I’m just as terrible?”
“You are
not
terrible,” she replies fiercely, and turns me around so that I am looking right at her. “You are
nothing
like her. There is no death tonight.”
I’m speechless. Surely I am. Surely there is.
Suddenly, I’m filled with an absolute need to tell Matilde what has happened, what
will
happen, because of me. On top of it all, I’m filled with the overwhelming need to learn about the woman who was my mother—her life, her death, and, most of all, why she left me behind as her world fell apart. What terrible things could she have possibly done?
“Come, let the stones explain, child. But know that you are nothing like the woman who gave birth to you. You are far greater than she, in more ways than you will ever learn, and that is why you must be safe.”
“Safe from what, Mutti?”
With a heavy sigh, she tells me, “Safe from
her
.”
There is lamp glow shining from within the window as we approach home. Matilde opens the door. I am trembling and wide awake. I am closer than ever to finding the answers. I must know. If I don’t, I will be in pieces. The stones call to me from the doorway, as if I am holding my open hand over them at this very moment. The stones know the truth. They know why I must be protected from a mother who is dead.
They will tell Matilde, and she will tell me.
Only now, I’m fearful to find out
what
I am.
Chapter 10
Rune
“I
f you aren’t prepared for this, you must tell me. Once we begin, there is no way of stopping her.”
I nod my head. I understand what Matilde is telling me, but there is no way I can say no. Not now. No matter how it scares me.
“Rune, understand what I am saying.” Her voice is urgent as she leans across the table to me. There are thirteen stones on the table between us, all upturned. I’ve been doing all I can not to lower my eyes and look at them. I don’t know what they mean. I have no idea what they will say to her, or if she will be truthful in passing along their secrets. I hope she will. She’s never lied to me before, but I guess there’s always a first time for things. Like now, like piecing together who my mother was so I can understand who I am.
“I understand,” I whisper, trying to sound strong. I
am
strong.
I am
.
And that’s just it. Do I really understand? Do I understand the magnitude of what she is about to tell me?
I lift my chin. I’m ready.
Matilde takes a deep breath and steadies her hands against the wood. “We must begin at the beginning, then.” She starts as she does with all her readings, by taking a deep breath and gazing upon the stones, then closing her eyes. I know the stones are speaking to her. I wish she would skip ahead to the important part, like telling me what they say, telling me who I really am, because, quite frankly, I really don’t know. I know bits and pieces and fragments of what she’s chosen to tell me all these years, never the whole story.
“Your blood chose the stones,” she finally shares out loud, making me quite aware this is very important, not a fortune teller’s trick. I’ve never witnessed her using someone’s blood before, and it’s disconcerting to see my own smeared across the top of each stone, marking a red streak over the black symbols.
“Blood is the strongest medium for revealing the future. Even more so for revealing the past. It calls to the soul and reveals only what is deep within.”
The windows are wide open to invite the soul of my mother, yet despite the crisp breeze, I am sweating. My finger hovers above the rune stone that depicts a woman. “Is this my mother?” I ask.
She shushes me by placing a finger to her lips. “Rune, please, it must go in order.”
I’m too anxious, though, and sitting still is a feat I cannot seem to master. I bite against the inside of my cheek in order to stop myself from speaking out again. No wonder I’ve never been included in secret readings, I have not the patience nor the ability to stay quiet or still. I’m not only a burden, but an annoyance.
“There will be a war,” Matilde says at last, as she points to the first stone. “A war with many people, but it is a war with words and angry accusations.” She points to the stone just above it, and says, “There is no war greater than the one you will find within your heart, and I fear it will be a long and treacherous journey you will make to finally be at peace with your decisions.”
She takes her time touching the stones, reading them to herself first, much like I knew she would. I begin to think she’s reluctant to tell me what they say. Her face changes through a multitude of expressions over the course of seconds, and I suspect there is something she is keeping to herself. I want to know what the Man stone means. I stare at it and cannot help thinking of the man at the hedge today—of Laurentz. A warm blush creeps beneath my cheeks, and I let my hair fall over my face to cover it, hoping she doesn’t notice.
“You must watch your heart, Rune. Guard it closely,” she warns, and I smile to myself that my dear Matilde has not lost her touch. “Decisions you make with your heart have the power to destroy not only you, but others as well.”
I listen to her sigh. It is impossible to tell if she is tired or if the stone reveals something that is troubling. She picks up the smooth pebble that represents Disordered Thoughts, rolls it between her fingers, and then sets it down. It’s a while before she speaks again, long enough that I pour water from the basin into the heavy kettle and set it over the flame. After I’ve busied myself long enough to not cause trouble, Matilde’s voice breaks the silence.
“You must be wary of lies, Rune, lies strong enough to cause death. You will be the spark that sets these falsehoods ablaze.” She gives me a knowing look, and in it, I know she is referring to the element of Fire. I notice how she grips the table until her knuckles turn white, and soon after, a strong wind blows into the room, upsetting the herbs above our heads, causing them to sway wildly until dried bits fall and float to the table. It is Rosemary that falls, nothing else, and the tiny leaves scatter between the stones, sticking to the blood that is not quite dry.
My very being bristles.
Rosemary is for remembrance…
comes the whisper.
Matilde turns to me, her old eyes sharp and decisive. “She is here.”
The wind whips throughout the room. Baskets overturn, linens rumple. Even the stones slide out of order across the table with the force that barges through the open windows. I try and help Matilde reach for the stones before they fall over the edge and onto the floor, but I’m too late. The fortune is ruined.
Matilde stops suddenly and thrusts her hand upon her heart. “There is something she doesn’t wish you to know!”
But the wind has become a symphony of whispers, and is so loud that I cannot hear anything else she says. It fills my ears with a murmur reminiscent of my dreams. I try to listen, but it becomes too painful for me to bear. I cover my ears with my hands and sit on the floor, waiting for it to stop, only there seems no end to it.
I reach for Matilde’s hand, and for one glimmer of a second we are face to face, and she presses her worn hands to my cheeks.
“You are stronger than she is, and she knows it. Don’t let her know you are scared.”
But how can I
not
be scared? What mother returns from the dead for her child? How can this not frighten me?
“She wants something, Rune. Whatever she tells you, always be aware it can mean something else entirely,” says Matilde, as she covers her own ears with her hands against the noise that whirls around us.
I lean closer to her, “What does she want?”
Matilde shakes her head. Either she is saying she doesn’t know or she won’t tell me; I can’t be sure.
The kettle’s lid rattles and the hook falls over against the inside of the fireplace. The cupboard from the far end of the room swings open and the door flies off, splintering as it crashes to the floor.
Matilde’s face is a horrified mask when I peek through the laced fingers that cover my eyes. She crawls along the floor, making her way toward the few stones left on the table.
“What are you doing?” I cry out to her, afraid she will get hurt, and I begin to crawl after her on my knees. She reaches for the tattered cloth, her gnarled fingers shaking and stretching.
“Mutti! Leave it!”
The little cottage begins to shake. My mother is angry.
“I’m sorry!” I cry out to the wind. “She’s all you’ve given me!”
Matilde stands, white as a sheet, her mouth open as her hair whips about her face. Before either of us can speak, the wind stops and everything flying through the air falls to the floor with a clatter. It is followed by a deafening silence that steals our breath.
Somehow, the upturned stone that is Poison lies between us on the debris-scattered floor.
“That is your mother, Schätzchen.” Matilde points to our feet. “She is the poison that threatens to destroy us all.”
I open my hand, for there is something I have been holding, yet I do not remember what it is or how it has come to be in my grasp. I uncurl my fingers and suck in a deep breath seeing the single rune stone in my palm, its black-stabbed triangle smeared with my own blood. It is the symbol of Woman and I have no recollection of how it’s come to be in my hand.
“Will you tell me now? Will you tell me who I am?” I ask, helping Matilde sink into the chair I’ve turned upright at the table’s edge.
“You remember the stories, don’t you, Schätzchen? Not just the ones I’ve told you, but the others?”
“Everyone knows those stories, Mutti, but they aren’t true. They’re make-believe.”
“No, Rune, they are very real, especially one in particular—a story no one knows.”
“And which one is that, Mutti?” I whisper against my will. The stone in my hand begins to wiggle and I hold it tight, confining it to a small space against my skin. My stomach clenches, as if knowing deep inside what she is about to say.
“The one about the witch from the forest,” she gauges my reaction, “and the daughter she had.”
At first I think the silence left behind by the wind is warping her words. I am not sure if I can trust my ears, because all along I’ve thought my mother to be a lost soul, someone worthy of pity. I’ve been saddened by the fact that she had to give me away as her life was cut short.
Matilde takes my hand and holds it steady.
“No she isn’t, she wasn’t.”
I’m not
.
“Yes. It’s all true,” she nods slowly. “You, my dear, are the daughter of a great and powerful witch.”
Chapter 11
Laurentz
I
am relieved to find my horse still tethered outside the old woman’s house. Dusk has fallen upon the village and the bleak square is a dark and dreary gray. The forest, as I see it, is blacker and more sinister still, and I am anxious to be on my way. I step over the crumbling stone threshold of the ailing house I’ve been inside for the last hour, glad I chose to do the unthinkable and intervene, for tonight could have ended very badly for the two women inside. Only now I am left feeling twisted and confused—about Rune, about what she did for my arm, and about what lies beyond the hedge, deep beneath the veil of the Black Forest.
“Hedge Witch,” I say to myself. I’d never heard the term before. Aren’t witches old, scraggly hags who spent their time concocting potions and spells? That’s what I’d grown up to believe. Yet the girl I’d met today was young and beautiful, and yes, I was most pleasantly bewitched by her. Still, there is no explanation to what she did with my arm. A mossy bandage seems innocent enough, but healing the cut completely? It certainly seemed magickal.
I have no proof she is indeed the girl who lives with the old crone called Matilde; I am simply venturing a guess based on the word of an old woman from the village. I lead my horse to the far edge of the market square, near the wild growth that rises alongside the forest. The mushroom is in my pocket where it can do no harm, and I intend to throw the miserable thing into the trees, but something prevents me from going through with that plan. Instead, I leave it there and find myself staring off into the dark foliage, wondering about Rune and wanting to know more about who she is.
It will be dark soon and I know I should set out for Eltz now. Even on the brightest of days, the forest is like night and I’ve no doubt that the sounds and shadows I will encounter will play tricks on my mind, only I can’t seem to mount the saddle and leave the village just yet. There are still a few traders along the street hoping to make some money before the end of the day, and walking slowly through the square toward them is the hooded woman I saw earlier in the forest. I crane my neck, wondering if she could be the famed Matilde I’d just learned about. I yank the bridle of my horse and follow her, making sure I stay at a distance, knowing that I’m still a stranger here, and it’s best not to stand out.
There is just enough room between the hedge and the outer buildings to walk along without being directly within the market, and I follow the narrow path there, feeling anxious when I lose her from my view. At last, I round a corner, finding she has stopped by a craftsman’s shop. She removes her hood and a crown of blonde hair falls around her face. She is neither old nor scraggly, and my heart sinks as I am convinced she cannot be the crone the old woman spoke of.