Your House Is on Fire, Your Children All Gone: A Novel by Stefan Kiesbye

Author:Stefan Kiesbye [Kiesbye, Stefan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781101603635
Publisher: Penguin Group
Published: 2012-09-25T06:00:00+00:00

After Christmas that year, I walked through the fresh snow toward the Black Mill. School was out, Holger was seen every day with a different girl and claimed that Christian was making out with the baker’s daughter. They didn’t have the time to accompany me.

The forest was quiet, and even though the skies were overcast, it seemed bright like our town hall when decorated for a dance. The snow had robbed the woods of all its dark corners. My steps and breath filled my ears.

Where the mill had to be, thin smoke rose over the tops of the trees, and I quickened my pace, gripping my walking stick tightly. Yet before I reached the river, a cat jumped out onto the path in front of me. It was a house cat, but so large was she that I took two steps backward. Her fur was black, her tail as lively as a serpent, and her round face reached up to my belly. She cocked her head as if to say, “You’re here again, Martin. I’ve seen you before.”

I remembered the tales of witches and wizards taking on the shapes of animals and haunting villagers, but I had never seen one before. “Who are you?” I stammered.

The cat kept silent but stepped ahead, her big paws sinking deep into the snow. I had trouble keeping up with her. On reaching the mill, the large wheel lay quiet, bound by ice. Only in the middle of the Droste remained a tiny sliver of open water, like a cut that wouldn’t heal. If I should vanish from this spot, who would come and look for me?

When I took my eyes off the thin column of smoke coming from the chimney, the cat was gone. Her steps ended at the front door. Christian, Holger, and I had tried many times to force it open and had found it solidly locked every time. Now it stood ajar, tempting me. I pushed it fully open with my stick and entered.

The first room was the kitchen, with an oaken table and eight wooden chairs set around it. The pots hanging above the fireplace were old and dented and impeccably clean. A fire groaned and hissed, and after staring at this strange scene for a few long seconds, I felt the need to take off my coat. Then I shut the door to the outside.

Plates stood stacked on the table, as though someone had taken them from a cupboard but had been interrupted before being able to lay them out. Someone had written a message in the dust covering the dark oak table. “Come to me,” it read, and I gripped my stick, which was wet from the snow, with both hands.

“Bernhard?” I asked in a voice barely above a whisper. “Bernhard?”

I followed a narrow hallway. Through an open door I could look into a small bed chamber. Two beds stood there freshly made, it seemed to me. Slowly I walked toward some wooden stairs, turning my head

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