The Brixen Witch (16 page)

“The snows came, firstly.”

Rudi knew she spoke the truth. He remembered how the very day after he’d lost the coin in the avalanche, winter’s first snow had fallen. If not for that, he would have gone up to unbury it himself, in an effort to banish the nightmares.

“Though, truthfully, a mere few feet of snow are not a burden to me.” Now the witch shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “There were other … impediments. I could not go straightaway. But the first chance I got, that’s what I did. I ventured down and dug up the coin, before anyone else could.” She cast a furtive glance behind her, as if expecting something to jump out of the shadows. But nothing moved except the tongues of flame in the grate.

Another question burned in Rudi’s mind. “Did you send the rats?”

“Rats?” She shuddered. “Never. Why would I, anyway, once I found my coin?”

“You wouldn’t,” said Rudi, thinking out loud. “No more torment once the coin was returned to its rightful owner.” And then he remembered again what Herbert Wenzel had said: that the rats could
not be the witch’s doing. That the witch’s hexes were more … poetical.

“I regret I could not intervene in that nasty business,” she continued. “I’ve been … indisposed these past months.” Again she stirred in her chair, and Rudi sensed she was not telling him everything.

But a different question leapt from his tongue—a question he was sure he knew the answer to. “Your servant sent the rats, didn’t he?”

The witch’s eyes blazed, and she drew her hands into fists. “Him! Day after day he sits in some corner, sharpening his teeth. As if he weren’t ugly enough.”

Rudi shivered.

She scowled. “Aye, he’s the one sent the rats. He steals from me too. He tried to steal the coin one day, but he dropped it just outside my door. And then some child stumbled upon it and carried it away.” The witch cast a sharp eye at Rudi.

Rudi gulped as he remembered that day. One simple act had set all the past months’ troubles into motion.

Other thoughts crowded into Rudi’s head. “Your servant has betrayed you, then.”

The witch sighed in anger and frustration. “And now I’m all but prisoner here inside this mountain. I risked my life to collect that coin, mind you. I waited for the snows to melt, and then I
waited till he was off on some vile errand. Gone to curdle the cream in Petz, or some such.” She held up the tarnished spoon. “I took what was at hand, and at dusk I stole out. I was back again before he knew I was gone. If he had found me out, that would’ve been the end of me. He’s grown powerful enough.”

Rudi tried to understand all that he’d heard. “It’s only one small coin. Why does he want it so badly? And why did you risk your life for it?”

She growled under her breath. “He’s been stealing my magic. Little by little, over many years. I hides it, here and there, within unassuming objects: a coil of rope, a cracked teapot. Buried with the potatoes in my garden. In the hollow of that old fiddle that sat in the corner for ages. I thought he could not find the magic, or if he could, it would be only small kernels here and there. But he’s clever, is that one. Piece by piece, he found my magic and stole it away. All but this.” The witch carefully drew something from her apron pocket.

The golden guilder. She held it up, and it shimmered in the firelight. Its ancient markings were visible to Rudi even from a distance.

“This holds nearly all that remains of my magic. If he takes possession of this coin, all will be lost. I will be nothing but an old woman several hundred years old. And he will be all powerful. You’ve seen
what he’s like. Such a thing would be bad. Very bad.”

Rudi sat frozen. No wonder the fiddler had caused so much sorrow and grief. But the witch was wrong about one thing: Things were already very bad.

“He doesn’t know you have the coin,” said Rudi. “He thinks it’s still in Brixen.”

She nodded. “’Tis why he sent the rats. I told you already, I could not intervene. I hasn’t done my duty as your witch, and for that I’m truly anguished. But I seems to be stuck here.”

Rudi cleared his throat. “Yes, mistress, but don’t you know there’s new trouble now? And it’s far worse than the rats.” Rudi took a breath and blurted out his sorrowful message. “He’s stolen all the children from Brixen.”

“He’s
what
?” She jumped out of her chair in alarm. Despite her clear distress, it occurred to Rudi that this was less dramatic than it might have been, since she was no taller standing than she’d been while sitting.

“It’s true,” said Rudi. “He led them away, and up the mountain. Every one of them, except me. I thought you said you knew everything?”

Now she wheeled upon him, and the fire flared in the grate, and Rudi was fervently sorry he had ever doubted her fearsomeness. “I said I know
where
my
things are. Not
every
thing.” She turned and began to pace the floor. “I’ve been such a fool! What is that fiend up to now?”

Rudi fought to swallow his own grief and fear. And though hope was vanishing like a meadow under snow, he knew that he must somehow do what he had come to do.

“Pardon, mistress, but I came to beg your help.”

“Help?” cried the witch. Once more the fire flared, and now the mountain rumbled around them. If this was all the magic she had left, Rudi wondered, how terrible would she be with all her power? “I’m stuck, I tell you! Near powerless. I’m afeared to go to sleep, lest he sneak in here and take the coin from me. And you asks me to help you? Here’s what I’d like to know: Who’s going to help
me
?”

RUDI STARED at her, feeling as if he’d been slapped. How had he ever thought it would be a good idea to visit the witch?

Oma had sent him. She had told Rudi this would be his only chance to find the other children. Because Oma knew much more than she had ever told him. Because Oma herself had met the witch.

But that had been long ago, and many things had changed since then. The witch could not help him now.

What had he expected, anyway? That the witch would flick her wrist, and all his friends would magically appear?

Well … yes. Something like that.

The witch paced the floor of her cave, muttering to herself and pulling at strands of hair. She tossed
a log onto the fire, sending a burst of red embers up the chimney.

“You have been nothing but bad luck,” she said. “And now here you are in mine own house, bringing more trouble with you.”

Rudi stiffened. The witch was right, of course, strictly speaking. Simply by picking up a coin, he had set off a series of disasters, finally bringing his entire village, and now the witch herself, to the limits of despair.

But was it truly bad luck? Or was it only a matter of how you looked at things?

“If you please, mistress,” said Rudi to the witch. “It’s true I had a hand in causing the trouble. But what would have happened had I
not
picked up the golden guilder outside your door? If not for me, your servant might have picked up the coin himself. And then what? You’d be in much bigger trouble than you are now. We all would be.” Rudi eyed her nervously. Was he foolish to argue with a witch?

She pointed a finger at him. “You only managed to lose the coin again. Falling on the loose rock, causing an avalanche. I risked everything going out to find it, digging in piles of nasty sharp rock with nothing but a spoon.”

Rudi stood and shook out the cramps in his legs. He might be foolish to argue with a witch, but
somehow he’d feel like a bigger fool if he did not. “At least your servant could not find it. No one but yourself could find it. You might even say I hid it for you.”
Accidentally
, thought Rudi,
but nevertheless
.

“You hid it, true enough,” said the witch, stepping closer. “You spent three days on this mountain and could not find it.”

“Because it wasn’t there!” said Rudi, and the witch scowled at him.

“Besides,” he continued, growing bolder, “if not for that, I would have been in Brixen when the fiddler came back. I would be with all the other children now, waiting to be rescued, instead of here.”

“Aye, here,” she scoffed. “And what use are you here, might I ask? Bringing me elderberry tarts, and bad news to wash them down with.”

Rudi’s jaw clenched, and his hands balled into fists. He had endured too much in the past months to allow anyone to scoff at him. Even a witch. His heart thumped in his chest and his mouth went dry, but he bent toward her until their noses nearly touched. “If you please, mistress. You want me on your side. I was the one who worked alongside Herbert Wenzel, catching rats, when no one else had the stomach for it. I was the one to stand up in the village hall and make the bargain with the fiddler. I knew what he wanted, even when no one
else would listen.
I
. Me. Rudolf Augustin Bauer.”

Rudi supposed she might use her remaining magic to turn him into a bug. But he didn’t care. He was tired of hearing about bad luck, tired of
being
bad luck. It was time to make his own luck.

The witch did not turn him into a bug. She only sighed and slumped into her chair.

Rudi gulped. Perhaps he had been too bold. “I’m sorry for all that’s happened. Truly I am. But your troubles and my troubles seem to have the same cause. Perhaps there is a way we can help each other.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “And how shall we do that? What do you think I’ve been doing these last months, locked inside this mountain? Knitting socks? I’ve done nothing else but think about such things.” She shook her head, and now she spoke barely above a whisper. “I has no solution. And now I fear it’s too late.”

Sorrow and frustration crept across her face. Rudi wondered if witches ever wept, and worried that he might soon find out. He decided he liked her better when she was irritable.

“Please, mistress,” he tried again. “You are the witch of this mountain. You don’t mean to let your servant defeat you?”

The witch blinked, and then looked up at him, as if seeing him for the first time. “Shame on me.
Gussie sends me her very own grandson, and how does I repay the favor? Here he is, just a snippet of a lad, cheeks as soft as a lamb’s ears, and he speaks more sense than my own self.” She stood, grabbed Rudi’s head, pulled it toward her own, and kissed him on both cheeks. “I’m glad you’ve come, Rudolf Augustin Bauer.”

Rudi’s face grew hot, but his heart leapt. “Thank you, mistress.”

Then her eyes flared, and she began her pacing once more. “I
am
the witch of this mountain. He is nothing but an impostor. A thief and a fraud. As long as I have one scrap of magic remaining, I shall not give over my realm to
him
.”

Again there came a low rumble all around them, as if the mountain were a watchdog growling under its breath.

“Tell me what I can do, mistress, and I’ll do it,” said Rudi.

“Aye,” she said, almost to herself. “We needs a plan. He’s sly, is that one, but he has weaknesses. Boundless greed, for one thing. What else?” Now she turned and faced Rudi, and he wasn’t sure if she was testing him or if she truly wanted to know.

“Well….” Rudi thought of the fiddler, with his wild hair, and icy breath, and shirt of motley patches. He could have set mosquitoes upon Brixen to punish them, or rain, but instead he chose rats.
He could have lured the children away with sweets, or with stories, but instead he flourished a fiddle. How different he was from the witch, who did not brandish her power with arrogance.

“He likes to show off,” said Rudi.

The witch squinted at Rudi, and a hint of a grin flashed across her face. “Clever lad.” She pulled the golden guilder from her pocket and held it up to the firelight. “So. Greed and vanity. For this prize he’ll do nearly anything, and all the better if he can make a show of it.”

She pocketed the coin, satisfied. Then she turned and took a crockery teapot from a shelf. She pulled a handful of dried leaves from a bunch hanging on a peg and dropped them into the pot. “Sit. I’ll brew us some tea.”

Rudi blinked when the witch uttered the word “brew.” But it was only tea, he told himself. No one ever called it “witch’s tea.” This must be perfectly safe, and besides, they were allies now. Weren’t they?

As if to reassure Rudi, the witch muttered “ahh, chamomile” as she poured water from a steaming kettle into the teapot.

Rudi remained standing. “Excuse me, mistress, but shouldn’t we go find my friends? Or do … something?”

She set the kettle onto the hearth with a clank.
“Where shall we find them? And how shall we get them out from under
his
watchful eye? Does you have a plan all formulated in your noggin already?”

Rudi sighed and shook his head. He had no plan. No idea at all.