At Witches' End by Annette Oppenlander

Author:Annette Oppenlander [Oppenlander, Annette]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-78535-427-4
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
Published: 2016-11-25T05:00:00+00:00

I awoke from a stirring below. In the smolder of the last coals I made out Adela leaning over her mother’s body. She was crying by the way her shoulders trembled.

“What happened?”

“She is gone,” Adela said, her face muffled against her mother’s chest.

I climbed off the ladder and kneeled next to the girl. It was gross but I made myself touch the wrinkly neck of Adela’s mother. There was no pulse, nothing except cold skin, the woman’s eyes open and blank. I closed her lids like I’d seen in the movies.

My throat tightened as I put an arm around the girl. I hadn’t exactly liked the mother. She’d been tough with absolutely no sense of humor. But then, why should Adela’s mother have laughed or been happy? Her life had been a cruel joke.

Adela moved her wet face against my chest. We kneeled like this, me holding her until she turned still.

“You should sleep,” I mumbled into her hair. Instead Adela pulled away and crossed herself. Then she tied a rag around her mother’s slack jaw, closing her mouth.

She hurried to push open the window and door. A cool breeze rustled the straw. I shivered yet savored the fresh air. “What are you doing?”

“Her soul must be able to leave.”

I watched in awe. Why hadn’t I studied medieval death rituals back home? I’d been so concerned with riding horses, researching herbs, squires and lords, I’d never considered how peasants did things. “What about the burial?”

Wordlessly Adela handed me a bucket. “I need to wash her.”

The well chain creaked in protest, an eerie sound in the stillness of early dawn. I imagined Schwarzburg’s troops rushing me, but all remained quiet. Maybe they were afraid to do things so close to Hanstein, now that Knight Werner was home with an army.

I turned away as Adela washed her mother’s lifeless body. To distract myself, I heated water and stuffed two mugs with dried pine needles.

“Father Tybalt will expect payment,” Adela said when I handed her a mug. “I must go.”

“Wait.”

“I will return soon,” she said, hurrying outside.

I rummaged for candles, but all I found was a single clay pot with tallow. Grayish light crept through the smudged glass so I sat for a moment watching the dead woman. That was worse.

I jumped back up and went to the outhouse and in search of more grass. The chickens clucked sleepily as I threw greens into their pen and refilled the water trough.

As a weak sun crept across the horizon and the last bit of heat had left the shack, Adela returned. Behind her walked the priest of Rimbach’s Catholic Church, carrying a flagon and white cloth. Compared to the richly dressed vicarious in Heiligenstadt, this priest looked miserable in a black frock and some sort of velvet hat that had seen better days. The villages of Bornhagen and Rimbach were poor.

Ignoring me, Tybalt crossed himself while mumbling something in Latin. He took off his hat to reveal a bald head. Bending over the dead woman he continued his mumbling.

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