Shadowsong (Wintersong #2)(51)

“Fine,” I said, my voice hard. “I’m selfish and self-absorbed. But I don’t take my life—my very existence—for granted.” Josef started, and my eyes slipped to his wrists, where he was hastily pulling down his sleeves. Guilt seized me. “Oh, Sepp, I didn’t mean—”

“Enough,” he said softly. And like that, the mask of indifference he had worn before this moment slipped back into place, perfectly still and perfectly blank. “Enough, Liesl. I cry uncle. Let’s go to bed.”

“Sepp, I—”

“I’ll take the other room.” My brother bent to pick up his violin and walked through the open door connecting our quarters. “You should get some rest. It’s been a long journey. I’ll see you in the morning.”

I did not know what to say. I knew that the wound I had dealt him was far greater than the one he had given me and I did not know the extent or depth of the damage. I did not know how to fix it. I did not know how to fix us. So I said the only thing I could.

“Good night,” I said, my throat tight. “Sleep well, mein Brüderchen.”

Josef nodded. “Good night,” he said, slowly shutting the door between us. “Sweet dreams . . . Goblin Queen.”





the villagers called it a demon, der Teufel in wolf form as it prowled the woods at night. An enormous, monstrous beast, it harried the edges of the town and its surrounding environs for months, slaughtering the sheep and carrying off the cattle.

Two eyes like mismatched gems, the villagers said. One as green as sin, the other blue as temptation. The Devil, the Devil! they cried. Come to plague us all!

So they brought in the Wolfssegner, the wolf-charmers, they brought in the hunters, they brought in the priests. They brought in anyone and everyone they thought could rid them of their fear.

Four hundred Gulden for the pelt of der Teufel! the villagers shouted as they papered the town square with rewards. Four hundred Gulden for bringing us his head!

The giant wolf had been terrorizing their sheep and goats for months, but as the winter set in, as the livestock died of hunger and of cold, they felt its ravenous teeth upon the napes of their necks. They were next, the villagers knew. They were next.

A little girl was the first to disappear. She was the youngest daughter of a shepherd, disappeared from the hills one afternoon when the clouds hung low with frost. The crags and crevices rang with her name as the villagers went searching, but it was only after they found bloodied ribbons in the snow that they gave her up for lost.

Next was a youth of fifteen, sweet on the dairy maid.

Then was an old man, of years long uncounted.

Slowly but surely, the Devil circled in on them, picking them off one by one. The priests sprinkled holy water, the Wolfssegner hung charms, and the hunters went searching, but as the winter deepened, so, too, did the Devil’s bite.

A sacrifice, the wolf-charmers said. Let a sacrifice be made to the Devil to appease his black heart.

The priest protested, but the villagers persisted. They scoured their homes for the appropriate victim, a willing lamb to be led unwitting to the slaughter.

First, the idiot with his tongue thick in his mouth. No, said the priest. That would be callousness beyond measure.

Then, the harlot with all her wares on display. No, said the hunters. That would be cruelty beyond bearing.

At last they found a little infant boy, scarce a year out of his mother’s womb. Yes, said the wolf-charmers. This is a sacrifice worth giving.

The little infant boy was an orphan, his mother and father lost, gone, or forgotten. No name, no baptism, no record. This was a child to whom Heaven and earth had turned a blind eye, a child meant for damnation. A ward of the church, the boy had been a foundling placed in a basket before the altar. Unclaimed and unloved, it would be no great crime to give this child up to the Devil, for he was surely shunned by God.

The proof was in the eyes.

The little boy’s eyes were of two different hues; one as green as spring grass and the other as blue as a summer’s lake. Witch eyes. Cats’ eyes. Like Der Teufel’s, the villagers said. Like the Devil’s. Cast the little demon back into the fires of hell from whence it came!

The village priest refused to give up the child. He was a pious, God-fearing man, but it was his goodness that would be his damnation.

They came with pitchforks, they came with knives. They came with torches and flame and purpose. They brought their rage and fear to the doorsteps of the church and built a pyre to the unknown. As the walls of God’s house crumbled into smoke and ruin, the bones of the village priest melted into char and ash. They found his remains three days later, when the haze had cleared and the embers had grown cold at last.

But of the little boy, they found nothing. No swaddling cloths, no hair, no precious baby fingers. No earthly remains, almost as though he had vanished into thin air, blown away like mist with the bitter wind.

As the spring rains melted away the winter ice, the wolf attacks on the village ceased.

Praise be! the villagers cried. Der Teufel has accepted our sacrifice.

Over the course of the next few weeks, the villagers saw no trace of the blue-and-green-eyed demon, or indeed, any traces of wolf at all. Only footprints remained in the frozen mud, great padded paws and the haunting imprint of one tiny, perfect human foot.





THE KINSHIP BETWEEN US