The Brixen Witch (9 page)

And if you still have not a care,

You’ll be sent to the secret lair.

BOO!

Upon shouting “BOO!” Marta hopped out of the turning rope, laughing. She tugged at Rudi’s sleeve. “Your turn!”

Should he? Rudi wasn’t eager to embarrass himself by failing at something a slip of a girl could do without a second thought.

Marta fluttered her eyelids at him. He decided it would be worth a try. Besides, how hard could it be? With a quick glance around to satisfy himself that none of the boys were watching, Rudi began to nod his head and tap his foot in time with the turning rope.

The girls applauded to encourage him, and soon they were clapping in unison.

They began to chant. “Rudi, Ru-di, Ru-di!”

He jumped.

But his timing was off, and immediately the rope became tangled at his feet. The girls dissolved into fits of giggles, but then they started clapping again, and the rope was turned once more.

“Ru-di, Ru-di, Ru-di!”

He inhaled deeply, and this time he watched the rope carefully, and timed his leap perfectly. He skipped the rope while the girls clapped out the rhythm and chanted his name, and then they sang out once more:

The secret lair is cold and damp.

Has not a blanket nor a lamp.

Sing these words and count to three,

Sing these words and you’ll be free:

‘Home is where I want to be.

At my hearth with a cup of tea.’

One … two … THREE!

Just as the girls yelled “THREE!” Rudi laughed, and he lost his rhythm. The rope slapped his ankles and stopped.

The girls erupted into applause once more, and behind them Rudi made out one or two mothers standing in their doorways, doing the same. His face burned, but then he gave them all a sweeping bow. He was having too much fun, and he decided he didn’t care who saw him.

“Who’s next?” he called. He took Clara’s end of the rope and dutifully turned it until every girl had had her turn. Then they all tumbled around the corner and into the square, where they dipped their cupped hands into the fountain for a cool drink.

“Rudi?” said Susanna Louisa, wiping her chin with her sleeve. “Is the witch’s chair real? You know—the one in the song?”

Rudi considered her question. The song was an old one, and he had known it by heart since he was very small. Just like the legends of the Brixen Witch and her treasure, he had always assumed it was nothing more than a story. But now …

“I’m not sure,” he said, because he remembered being eight years old, and knew that when an eight-year-old asks a question, she wants to be told the truth. “It could be real, I suppose. I’ve never seen it, though.”

This seemed to satisfy Susanna Louisa, who ran off to join her friends. But Rudi was not satisfied. He decided he would ask Oma, because something told him she would know the answer, and she would tell him the truth. That was one trait old people and children held in common, Rudi observed: Neither was afraid of the truth. He wondered why people changed in the middle years of life, and why they changed back again later. Then he wondered why people bothered changing at all, if they just came back to the way they’d been in the first place.

His musings were interrupted by a shrill noise.

Rudi blinked and looked about. The little girls were scattering and screaming. The noise pierced Rudi’s ears, and he could not make out any real words. He reached for a blur of a pinafore and grabbed hold of an arm. The arm belonged to Marta.

“What’s wrong?” he asked her.

Marta looked at him, her lovely eyes filled with fear. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. So she pointed, and Rudi’s gaze followed her outstretched finger.

And then he saw them. Spilling down the drainpipes of the village hall. Skittering over the stone walls of the churchyard. Swimming through the fountain, fouling its pure water.

“It can’t be,” Rudi exclaimed.

But no one heard him. And finally the screams gathered themselves into one terrible, ruinous word.

“Rats!”

THAT NIGHT, a summer storm raged.

The wind screamed down the mountain and into the village. It blasted its way down chimneys, blowing ashes onto hearths, so that dogs awoke with a yelp and their masters jumped out of their chairs to stomp on the glowing embers before their rugs caught fire.

The thunder shook grandfathers out of their beds and caused babies to wail in their cradles. Slashes of lightning split the night, illuminating every stone and every blade of grass.

Yet those who dared peek through their shutters beheld a black and cloudless sky.

Some villagers thought they saw shadows crossing the moon, and were convinced they saw not passing storm clouds but the witch taking
flight. Others swore that the flashes of light seen upon the Berg were not wildfires ignited by the lightning but the witch’s bonfires. Tonight, they whispered, she was celebrating her dominion over all of Brixen.

Even the rats seemed fearful of the witch, or whatever force of nature worked its wicked magic upon the land. They had been unnaturally bold upon their reappearance, hardly bothering to hide or skulk. But now, while the storm prevailed, there was not a rat to be seen.

In the Bauer cottage, Oma rocked so hard that her chair inched its way across the room.

Mama and Papa fretted and paced as the wind carried upon it the clang of cowbells and a chorus of restless lowing. Finally unable to contain their worry, they threw on their cloaks, lit a lantern, and ventured into the darkness and toward the barn.

“They’ll be all right,” said Rudi as he peered out the window. “Won’t they?”

Oma snorted. “They’ll be fine, the poor dumb creatures.”

“I don’t mean the cows,” Rudi said.

“Neither do I,” she snapped. Then she sighed. “They’re only going twenty steps, child. I should think they won’t be hit by lightning in twenty steps.”

Rudi didn’t say it out loud, but he wasn’t only worried about the lightning.

“It’s just as well they’re gone,” said Oma, and she stopped rocking and fixed her gaze upon Rudi. “What do you suppose is happening here? No stories, now, or vague excuses. Tell me.”

Rudi had been afraid to even think about the new plague of rats, or the storm, or what they might mean, much less to say a word out loud to anyone. But now he felt an odd sort of relief at Oma’s request, and the words spilled from his mouth.

“I don’t know what’s happening. I wish I did! The rats are
not
just rats…. There must be a curse after all. Is it my fault? Because of the coin? But I’ve heard no strange singing. I’ve had no nightmares for months. Doesn’t that mean the witch got her coin back? I thought that meant she got her coin back.”

“You’re babbling,” said Oma. “But it’s a truthful babble, I know. You never could spin a lie. Tell me, then: If the witch has her coin, why is the village being tormented so?”

Lightning crackled and flashed outside, as if to underscore her question.

Rudi bit his lip. “I thought perhaps you would know why.”

“Me?” sniffed Oma. “How would I know? I’ve never seen such a curse as rats. And for what? What have we done now to rile the witch so badly?”

Then an idea came to Rudi, as easily as if it had been there all along. “Do you suppose someone else has found the coin after all this time, and has brought it back to Brixen?” Why hadn’t he thought of that before? It made perfect sense. And it gave him a glimmer of hope. Perhaps this was not his fault after all.

But Oma shook her head. “I would have heard about it. No one in Brixen could keep such a secret for long. Besides, why would the witch torment the entire village for the foolish mistake of one person? Why not simple, straightforward nightmares, such as you had? Perhaps the witch has not recovered her coin after all. Since the nightmares didn’t have the desired result, perhaps she is trying something new.”

Rudi gulped. “This is all my fault, then?”

“It seems so,” said Oma, but her voice was kind.

The glimmer of hope sputtered and died in the pit of Rudi’s stomach.

“And yet … it doesn’t fit,” continued Oma, rocking harder, as if it helped her to think. “Rats. That doesn’t sound like our witch.” She drummed her fingers on the arms of her chair, muttering to herself, but her words were lost in a rumble of thunder.

Finally, she looked up at Rudi, and her eyes shone. “Do you remember what Herbert Wenzel
said?” She pointed a finger at Rudi. “He said that rats were not the witch’s sort of hex.”

Rudi thought for a moment, and then he nodded. “Yes. I remember.”

Oma nodded too, which started her chair to rocking again. “The rat catcher is right. Our witch is not so crude as that.” She scowled again in thought. “And yet … only the witch has enough power to bring on such a curse.”

Rudi frowned in puzzlement. “Only the witch has enough power for such a curse … and yet it’s not her curse? What does it mean? Who else could be at work?” And then the answer came to him. “Her servant?”

Oma shuddered and shook her head. “Impossible. The only power he possesses is that which
she
grants him, and believe me: the Brixen Witch would never grant so much power to her servant.”

Rudi was beginning to understand why so many people learned to avoid the truth. The truth could be maddening and unpleasant. Still, he would not turn away from it. “What do we do now?” he asked.

Oma sighed. “There’s nothing to do but wait. Whatever is at work here, it likes giving signs. Rats. Thunder and lightning. Something tells me there will be another sign before too long.”

They sat in silence for a moment as the wind howled over their heads.

Then Oma stood, hobbled across the room, and opened the door to the fury of the storm. “There’s something more than the witch at work here.” She slammed the door against the night and turned to face Rudi. “You think the witch is trouble? She’s nothing compared with a menace we don’t know.”

“WE’VE BEEN robbed!” growled Marco the blacksmith. “I’ll go to Klausen myself if I must, and I’ll drag that swindler back to Brixen and shake every last penny from his pockets.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” said Otto the baker. “Herbert Wenzel performed the task we paid him to perform. You watched him with your own eyes.”

An emergency meeting had been assembled. Rudi guessed that half the populace of Brixen had packed itself into the village hall, while the other half (Mama and Papa among them) remained home to swat at rats. Now that the storm had passed, the vile creatures had returned to their nasty work, chewing whatever cheese, ham hock, or mattress they could find. And they seemed to be finding them all.

“Then where have these rats come from?” said Marco. “Can’t get rid of every last rat, he said. I say he left some behind on purpose, so we would call him back and pay him twice. I warned you this would happen.”

Arguments and discussions rippled through the crowd like wind through the trees.

“Nonsense,” said Otto. “Even if he left a few pairs of rats behind, how could they have overrun the town again in a matter of days? Not even rats are
that
busy.”

“So you’re an expert on rats now, are you?” said Marco, growing red in the face.