The Brixen Witch (13 page)

The second day on the mountain came and went much the same as the first, but this time the sun was hotter, throats were drier, and tempers were shorter. Otto’s shovel broke on a stubborn chunk of granite. Marco suffered a welt on his forehead when the shovel’s splintered handle flew at him. By the end of the day, Rudi’s fingers were scraped bloody, and he felt sick to his stomach. Otto was sure it was heat exhaustion. But Rudi knew otherwise.

Oma stood waiting for them at the village gates. Rudi could only shake his head.

Two days gone, and only one day left. One day to find the coin, or not. One day until Rudi’s folly would doom the entire village to a fate he could hardly dare to imagine.

Meanwhile, the villagers had been busy collecting
their treasures and their loose change, and piling it into a chest at the mayor’s house. He’d kept an accounting of every item deposited there, and by the end of the second day the town had collected coins and currency worth two thousand florins. There was also a pile of rings, chains, and medallions of various precious metals and undetermined value. As promised, there was the antique coin minted during the reign of King Balthazar the Elder (before he went mad). There was even one tiny gilt goblet, which was familiar to everyone, yet no one took credit for bringing it from its usual resting place. The mayor ordered it promptly returned to the church, with apologies to the good father, to be held in reserve for only the most desperate of needs.

And so by the end of that second day, the mayor estimated that the people of Brixen had collected perhaps four thousand florins’ worth of coins, currency, and treasures.

Six thousand florins short of a golden guilder. And, Rudi knew, even six thousand florins more would not be enough.

THE THIRD DAY. The final day.

Rudi dreaded going up the mountain, because he dreaded the thought of coming home without the golden guilder. But he had no choice.

Otto tried to recruit helpers from the village, but it was no use. Most of his neighbors were so intent on scraping together the fiddler’s ransom, they would barely listen.

“No time for such foolishness,” they said.

A few were willing to believe there might be a coin up the slope, but they would not place all their hope on the chance of finding one tiny trinket hidden somewhere on the mountain. They stayed at home to hunt for their own tiny trinkets: six thousand florins worth of copper and silver that
might still be hiding in the back of cupboards and at the bottom of trunks.

As for Rudi, he was tempted to fill a knapsack with warm clothes and a hunk of cheese, so that if he should fail in his effort, he might turn his back on Brixen and never return. For what would there be to return home to, if the fiddler was not paid?

But all this was his own fault, Rudi reminded himself. Whether he found the coin or not, he must bear witness to whatever might come next.

What
would
come next? Rudi wondered as he trudged up the mountain. The rats might come back, perhaps in even greater numbers than before. Or it might be frogs, or milk blight, or who knows what kind of spiteful, devastating curse? Perhaps the witch’s servant would simply take all their gathered gold and precious objects after all, rendering the entire village destitute for years to come. Rudi could not drive the worst possibilities out of his head.

If Marco and Otto shared his fears, they did not show it. Today they carried rakes and pitchforks, declaring that such implements were better suited to sifting through the piles of loose rock. Rudi’s hands were swollen and sore, and he swore he knew the size and shape and color of every stone on the mountain.

Now, as he scooped up a handful of rocks, another possibility returned to Rudi’s mind. Had someone else made off with the coin after all? Perhaps a foreign traveler had stumbled upon it and taken it home, only to subject his own village to locusts or hay rot or some such lamentable scourge. Perhaps a magpie had spied it from the air, snatched it up, and swallowed it.

But then, why would the witch send her servant to torment Brixen? Wouldn’t she know better than anyone the whereabouts of her own coin?

A glimmer of an idea came to Rudi then, but it was lost just as quickly. For out of the corner of his eye, across the field of stones, Rudi saw a glint of sunlight on metal.

He scrambled toward it, and his heart fluttered in his chest. He tried not to hope that he had found the golden guilder at last. But hope came welling up his throat and out from his mouth: “I see something!”

Rudi heard Marco and Otto clambering toward him, but he dared not take his gaze off the glimmery spot, lest he lose it forever. A few more steps and he was upon it. He knelt down and reached for the object, which shone with the dark luster of tarnished
metal—round and flat, and decidedly not a piece of the mountain.

Rudi grabbed the thing between finger and thumb, but it held fast. Then another gentle but persistent tug, and the object came free in Rudi’s hand, flinging a shower of pebbles into the air as the mountain finally relinquished its grasp.

“What have you found?” said Marco, breathless from his running, or from his excitement, or both.

“Bless us!” gasped Otto, scrambling toward Rudi from the other direction. “Is it the coin at last? Shouldn’t it be singing?”

A groan escaped Rudi’s lips, and he sat down in a heap. Then, with great effort, as if the small object in his hand were made of lead, he held it up for the others to see.

For a moment there was nothing but black silence.

Otto took a step closer, bent over Rudi, and frowned.

“A spoon?” he said.

Marco’s face became red as a foreboding sunset. “We’ve spent three days scraping in the dust and the dirt for a
spoon
?” He threw his rake across the field of stone, where it bounced with a clatter. “We’re all idiots. Idiots!”

Rudi blinked in sour disappointment at the object in his hand. It was indeed a silver spoon. It was dented and flattened and tarnished nearly
black from exposure to the weather, but still it glimmered softly in the waning light.

“This has been nothing but folly,” spat Marco. “I’m going home.” He marched to the spot where his rake had landed, snatched it up, and made for the clearing and the path into the forest.

Rudi did not try to stop him. Instead, he fervently wished he’d packed his hunk of cheese after all.

Otto pulled Rudi to his feet. “I’m sorry, lad. The light is fading, and the day is almost done.” He took the spoon and pushed it deep into Rudi’s coat pocket. Then he gathered his tools and tugged Rudi by the arm. Soon they were following Marco downslope and toward home.

“We should not despair,” said Otto as they trounced downhill. “How does a sterling spoon come to be on the mountainside? I take it as a sign. It’s not a golden guilder, but it must have some value. Perhaps considerable value. This may be our deliverance after all.”

Neither Rudi nor Marco answered, but (if such a thing were possible) their silence became more thoughtful. At any rate, the urge Rudi felt to turn on his heels and run away faded ever so slightly. Otto might be right about the spoon. Rudi prayed he would be right.

But then came a sound, and Rudi stopped. “Do you hear that?”

Otto and Marco stopped too, and lifted their heads.

“I do,” said Otto. “Is that a bird?”

It was so faint that the slightest wisp of air carried the sound away from their ears.

“I hear it too,” said Marco. “It’s not a bird. It sounds like someone whistling.” He looked around for the source of the sound. But it was only the three of them.

Then Otto’s eyes grew wide, and a grin spread across his face. “It’s just as you said, Rudi. It must be the coin at last, wanting to be found.”

THEY STOOD still as rabbits, listening. Soon enough they heard it again, distant and wavering on the breeze.

“It’s your singing coin!” said Otto. “Our deliverance has come at the eleventh hour!” He grasped Rudi by the shoulders and nearly kissed him. But then his brow furrowed. “My ears are playing tricks on me. The sound isn’t coming from the field of rocks. Have we spent three days searching the wrong place?”

“My ears are playing the same tricks, then,” said Marco. “I hear music coming from that way.” He pointed downslope, and he was right. The music was growing louder now, and it was coming from below them on the path.

Now the sound filled Rudi’s ears, and his knees
became weak under him as the truth dashed his last hopes. “That’s not the coin.” He closed his eyes and strained to hear, to be sure his ears were not deceived. “It sounds like a fiddle.”

In a moment’s time there could be no doubt. It was the fiddle, though its tune was nothing like before. The music it had played for the rats had been curious, and grating, and slightly off-key, as if a skilled musician was deliberately fingering the wrong strings. But now—now the music was perfectly in tune. It was joyful and mournful all at the same time, and despite himself, Rudi longed to hear it more clearly. He thought it might be the most beautiful music he’d ever heard.

Otto’s smile faded, and he tilted his head. “The lad is right. That’s fiddle music.” He dropped his hands from Rudi’s shoulders and stood, listening.

“Is that so?” said Marco, scowling. But then his brow smoothed, and his mouth fell open, and he listened too. Rudi was glad to have a moment longer to hear the music. A small part of him wished he could go on listening forever.

Then Marco blinked as if awakening from a dream. “The fiddler! What’s that scoundrel up to now?” And he stomped off down the path.

Otto shook himself. “Perhaps he’s making his
way back to Brixen,” he said. “That means the time for reckoning is at hand! Hurry! We must add the spoon to the ransom. What if it makes all the difference?” And he hastened down the path after Marco.

Rudi’s reverie was chased away by a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. The spoon would not make any difference. Not a single treasure could make any difference, except the one that had not been found. Steeling himself for what awaited them in the village, he followed the others down the slope and toward the reckoning that had come at last.

“Wait!” All at once, Marco stopped and lifted a hand. Otto nearly collided with him, and Rudi nearly collided with Otto. “Listen. The music is getting louder. I think it’s coming closer.”