“We’re probably close to a town,” I say. I’m about to suggest that we stop and shelter from the cold in the mill house, but as I think the thought, the door opens. It isn’t abandoned after all.
“Aye!” an old woman calls, stepping out. “What are you doing here?”
I hold my hands up, palms open, to show that we mean no harm. “Just passing through.”
Her eyes slide from me to Fritzi, then Liesel. Despite our ages, it’s clear that she guesses that Fritzi and I are wed, and Liesel is our daughter.Still, we are strangers, and the one prevailing rule of the land is to not trust someone you don’t know. It doesn’t matter that we are all German; we don’t belong.
Liesel pushes her way in front of me. “Please, Oma,” she says in a pathetically small voice. “I’m so hungry.”
“Liesel!” Fritzi hisses. We’re far enough away that the old woman can’t hear her.
“What?” Liesel whispers back. “Wearehungry. And I’m tired.”
I can see the old woman’s resolve melt under Liesel’s pleading gaze. That child has more venom than an asp in her veins, but God gave her shining blond hair and big blue eyes and the perfect pout on her lip to make the Holy Roman Emperor himself give her a castle just for asking.
“Come in, come in,” the old woman says, gesturing for us to enter her cottage. She has porridge bubbling in the cauldron over her hearth and bottles of beer set on the table—wares she likely intends to sell in a nearby town. She scoops out a bowl of thin porridge for Fritzi and Liesel, but waits until I press a coin in her hand before she gives one to me. Apparently my silver is enough for beer as well, and the old woman pushes a bottle at each of us. I give her another coin, and she wraps up some bread and cheese in a cloth for us to take with us, pushing more bottles of beer toward me. I stow the goods in my satchel, grateful for the weight.
The day’s work is not done, and my heart aches at seeing the work surrounding her, mostly mending and spinning. She’s taking in extra work from town, not sewing for her own family. If I had to guess, this is a widow who is trying to find the means to survive alone. She took a larger risk than most would by offering us food. I offer to bring the woman another load of wood from outside so that she doesn’t have to venture into the cold and lug it in herself.
By the time I come back, the old woman is sitting at the table and chatting merrily with Liesel as Fritzi looks fondly on.
“Tell me a story,” Liesel demands sweetly.
I meet Fritzi’s eyes, shooting her a look that says,We need to go.
Fritzi gives me a helpless half-shrug. Who can deny Liesel anything?
“I saw a White Lady once,” the old woman says, as if she had been waiting for Liesel to ask for just such a tale. “It was a summer day, and she had hair so long that it reached all the way into the river. When the sun shone brightest, it made her hair look like gold.”
“Was she a nixie, Oma?” Liesel asks.
The old woman laughs, clearly pleased at the way Liesel calls her “grandmother.” “A water sprite? No, no. Have you not heard the tale of a White Lady before?”
“She means Holda,” Fritzi says gently.
“Holda?” the old lady scoffs. Her fingers slide over the rough wood of her table, idly drawing in the dust and grime. “You worship the old gods, then?”
Something flickers in Liesel’s face, disappointment, I think. The legend of the White Ladies is a story known throughout the Holy Roman Empire, but from the way Fritzi spoke, I think perhaps the story is more than just a fairy tale. It has roots in magic and goddesses that Fritzi and Liesel know. What is a folktale to me is history to Fritzi and Liesel. How many legends have been told about spirits and miracles, all to have their root in some real event?
“We should go,” I say loudly, bending down and picking up the satchels. Fritzi and Liesel stand immediately, but the old woman stays sitting, her finger still making an outline in some pattern on the table. “Thank you for the hospitality,” I start, my hand on the door.
And then I pause.
The old woman watches us, but her finger glides over the rough table with purpose. Fritzi, Liesel, and I all stare at the word she etches through the grime, the letters visible:
FRITZICHEN.
“Oma,” Liesel says in a tiny voice, “do you know how to read and write?”
The peasant woman laughs. “Of course not, child,” she says, an easy smile on her face. But her finger traces over the letters, again and again. It’s as if her hand is possessed, separate from the rest of her body. She’s looking right at us, not at the letters, and she seems unaware of what she’s doing.
Fritzi sucks in a gasp of horror when the woman’s pale white skin snags on a rough spot in the wood. With an audible snap, the splinter breaks off in the woman’s fingertip, blood smearing over the letters. Despite the obvious pain that such a rough splinter must cause, the old woman doesn’t even flinch, her face showing nothing but a pleasant smile cutting through the wrinkles on her face.
“Please stop,” Liesel says, barely audible.
“Stop what, child?” the old woman says.
A cold, empty feeling washes over me. Isthiswhat Dieter wanted to do to Fritzi? Drain her of her magic, herself, and leave her as a shell, an empty doll he can command like an automaton?
