“For heaven’s sake!” Groaning, Margaret came to a halt at the base of the obstreperous mound of boulders, still six feet from the water. Until now, the enthusiasm of her search had kept her moving; now, she abruptlyfeltall the aches and pains of her unaccustomed exertions across the past two hours. “What in the world are you doing here?” she demanded.
“As if you didn’t already know!”As she scrambled to her feet, nearly tripping on her long black robe, the girl aimed a venomous glare in Margaret’s direction. “I always stop here to cleanse myself on my way back fromfeeding. Isn’t that exactly why you’ve come? To shame me for what I’ve had to do?”
Despite all the awards that Margaret’s scholarly work had won at university, she had never been offered a lecturer’s position. Generally, she felt only irritation when she remembered that fact. Now, though, she felt a sudden wave of unexpected compassion for her own past lecturers, who must have had far too much of this sort of drama to manage when it came to teaching undergraduates.
“As it happens,” she said wearily, “I came here for my own purposes, entirely unrelated to you or yours.”
“So you’renottrying to steal everything from me now?”
“I’m certainly not giving up my study table in the inn, if that’s what you mean.” However, Leonie’s earlier comment might well shed some light on where she’d landed on the map. Margaret turned to peer into the shadows of the thickly clustered trees beyond. “Which direction was the cemetery where you fed?”
“Iknewit!” The girl’s long black robes shifted as she stamped a foot on the mossy bank with what would have been laughable theatricality—if the crack in her voice hadn’t been so raw with pain. “I knew you wouldn’t simply let me be. Now, you’ve taken away my final refuge.”
Margaret heaved a defeated sigh. Unlike her husband, she did not enjoy making conversation with strangers, much less those who had already taken against her. Still, she was not entirely heartless. “Fräulein Leonie,” she said, “I am aware that your rebirth received an...unfortunate reaction from the unenlightened residents of your first home. However, ever since you moved into the inn, has a single one of your fellow guests or staff everoncecalled you any of the insulting terms that you’ve apparently imagined me thinking?”
“None of the others there are human—and I knowexactly what you’ve been thinking.” Leonie’s pale, clawed hands tightened into painful-looking fists by her sides. “I look in my mirror every day, and it tells me all I need to know.”
Ugh!Margaret grimaced at the discovery of even more mirror-linked issues.Those devices caused nothing but trouble for everyone!
Unfortunately, she had no idea of how to extend comfort to the girl before her. No one had offered Margaret any of that from the time of her parents’ death until she had finally met her husband...and she couldn’t imagine a soothing embrace from her, no matter how platonic, being welcomed by the girl before her.
All shecouldthink to offer in assistance was distraction...and, perhaps, an intellectual challenge. “Have you ever wondered whynachzehrer are only ever reborn from certain cemeteries?”
Leonie stared in silence at her for a long, baffled moment. “Ah...what?”
“They first began to appear in the soil of the Black Forest.” Margaret relaxed as she settled into the comfort of the familiar topic. “Since then, of course, they’ve spread to Bavaria and Silesia. I’ve even heard rumors that some may have been reborn in areas of northern Poland—but the phenomenon firstbegannear here, along with so many other fascinating supernatural developments, from night ravens”—she thought again of that single, gleaming black feather—“to tatzelwurms”—vanishingly rare giant, serpentine beasts, rumored to have both scales and fur—“wolpertingers”—hares or squirrels with additional antlers, wings, or fangs—“and at least one significant type of werewolf.”
Of course, the mysterious tatzelwurms were the ones that Margaret wouldmostlike to study in detail—whichever scholar finally managed that long-delayed feat would earn a place in academic history!—but truly, every one of them sparked wonder.
“‘Fascinating,’” Leonie repeated flatly. “You think what’s become of me—the monster I’ve become—isfascinating?”
“Of course,” Margaret said, blinking. “How could any scholarnotbe fascinated by such a marvel?”
Leonie stared at her in open disbelief. “Are you completely heartless?”
Thataccusation hit uncomfortably close to home, after all the claims made by her aunt and uncle acrossthe years. Margaret felt her cheeks heat as she replied stiffly, “Iamvery sorry for what you’ve been forced to endure, particularly from your family. But...”
She tightened her lips, trying to hold back her next words...only to lose the battle a moment later. “Aren’t you even slightly glad to have so much more time than you’d expected to spend here in the world—with the opportunity to learn from it? To me, that sounds like an astonishing gift!”
“Agift?” The girl’s laugh was ragged. “I am anabomination.”
“You are still very young,” Margaret said, as gently as she could manage. “But now, you’ll have a chance to grow old after all, despite the terrible cholera that ended your first life—and that could never have happened if you had been buried elsewhere. Isn’t there some small sliver of hope to be found in that knowledge?”
Leonie backed away, her head shaking along with her voice. “Not all knowledge is good.”
“What rubbish.” Margaret’s brows lowered. “It is the greatest privilege and principle of life to learn everything we can about the world around us.”
“No! No, that’s for God to know, not us.” Leonie lifted one hand to draw the sign of the cross—but dropped it before she could finish, wincing as if she’d been caught attempting a crime.
Had her local priest been involved in her night of trauma and expulsion?
Margaret had her own private questionsand opinions when it came to the fraught subject of religion. For now, though, she only said carefully, “Don’t you think He would wish us to admire and appreciate all His creations? Including you?”
Emotions flashed across Leonie’s pale face too quickly to fully catalogue. There was certainly pain and anger—but had there also been just an instant of unshielded, piercing hope?
Regardless, the progression finished with unmistakable fury. “Scholar or not, you knownothingabout me,” the nachzehrer snarled, and yanked the hood of her black robe over her pale and hairless head. “From now on, leave me alone!”
With a swirl of the long robe, she whirled around and darted into the trees with inhuman speed, leaving Margaret alone.
