Devil's Dance

by Amber Lee

It was at this time of year, when the leaves were thin upon the trees and a smoky trace from a distant fire seemed to drift between the humble, thatch-roofed cottages of Alte Quelle, that she missed him the most. How his leonine face haunted her still, even after so many seasons! She could almost see the faintest golden glint within his brown eyes and hear the cheer in his laugh from when he held her beneath the glow of the great wan moon overhead.

But harvest-tide loomed ever closer, and Johanna found she couldn’t afford to linger too long on even brief, beloved remembrances. There was mending to be done, stockings to be darned afresh as she watched her daughter pottering along and tending to the modest patch of earth beside their home. Nona was growing into a striking young woman now, with broad, sturdy features and dark brown hair kept close-cropped just below her ears, lest it become too wind-wild to manage on the blustery days. By rights she should be down in the village square with the rest of the girls her age, preparing the straw effigies meant to keep the vengeful forest sprites at bay during the month’s evening festivities and chattering excitedly about the latest of the miller’s sons to join the courting throngs. Johanna would have welcomed even a trace of rebelliousness, of youthful disquiet and poutiness from her daughter at the prospect of yet more subsistence chores to accomplish as the days passed. Yet Nona never complained, setting her teeth firmly and buckling down to whatever work her mother gave her. As convenient as a willing set of young hands about the homestead could be, there was something unnatural about this arrangement.

It was strange—unsettling, even—for a child to be so obedient, so understanding of their humble lifestyle here and the expectations it laid upon their shoulders. But then, Johanna knew that she shouldn’t question it so much. God knew the old washerwomen at the laundry pool had done enough of that over these last fifteen years, as if they hadn’t even their own woven basketfuls of old linens and faded finery to worry about. Whispering about the local widow’s daughter had been quite the pastime for them, even as of late, at least until Hanz Drescher’s eldest daughter eloped with the rumored hedge-druid dwelling in the old wheelhouse a few hamlets over. That bit of gossip had captured their attentions for the moment, though who knew if it would last. The busiest village tongues seemed to while their way around to wagging about the Brunsvik home again sooner or later, whether it was due to someone’s cow giving birth to a two-headed youngling or a goat turning up blind all of a sudden. And such things seemed to happen most frequently whenever a villager spoke ill of the Brunsviks.

Johanna drew her shawl about herself, fending off an errant breeze as she surveyed Nona’s work. Yes, her daughter was becoming quite the ploughwoman. If only such domestic skills would dull the suspicions of the village folk, but she knew right well that they wouldn’t. These inquisitive peasants, like so many greedy hens, wouldn’t stop pecking away at even the slightest trace of rumor that caught their interest. Her best theory was that it simply was hereditary, bestowed upon Nona by her father—the Good Lord knew that her mother’s adolescent years had been far more discontented and rebellious than this. Not that the villagers needed to know the finer details of her life and who she’d consorted with. It was truly none of their business, after all.

Ah, but here she was, thinking of them as if she were not a pauper herself! She had to smile to herself as she returned to the work of her hands. True, she hadn’t always been a peasant widow. Hard as it was to believe in the present, there was a time before the garden plot grew much of the food she ate, months before Nona was even a babe swaddled in her arms. Yes, those were the days of her matrimony to Brohm, the dark-haired and bright-eyed son of the well-regarded Baron Streich.

They’d lived in the cottage even then, though they’d had to manage without servants—and even without a steady horse. Baron Streich hadn’t cared much to acknowledge the youngest of his sons, save to see him securely married off to the sole Brunsvik daughter that hadn’t before caught the eye of a man. Wild tales of Brom’s spendthrift ways and rakish conduct in high society had been threatening to reach even the ears of the Grand Kaiser himself, and the venerable Streich reputation had never been in such a precarious state. So much the better, then, that the Baron had at last negotiated his wayward son’s match with a minor aristocratic wallflower, shuffling the newlyweds out of the way into a “country home” in an outskirt village where they couldn’t disturb his ongoing ambitions at court.

The recollections brought a heaviness upon her heart, and she closed her eyes for a moment to ground herself amidst the autumn birdsong. If there was one thing she didn’t miss about her bygone days in the capital, it was aristocratic society. The constant rumors, the social backstabbing, the worries over such-and-such’s title and who would get the weighty inheritance—all of it was too much for her heart. Though there was precious little excitement or ambition for her daughter to exercise out here in the isolation of the country, at least it was better than throwing her to the pretty, painted wolves in the filigreed dens with mansard roofs. That was one good thing about Nona having been born out here in the barrens.

But a child hadn’t been planned for in the early days of her marriage—not by Brohm, at least. He’d certainly made his promises though, hadn’t he? She’d come to love him so deeply during their brief courtship, sheltered as she’d been from the hands and cunning words of men for so long. Resting her heart upon his every vow to leave his hellion ways behind him, she’d waited up patiently in their humble bed, hoping that honest work in the fields or on the hunt had kept him late, and not the bejeweled, traveling lovelies in the nearest township’s tavern. Such naivete was an unbelievable fantasy, the way she saw it now through a more jaded lens. Yet back then she’d tried her best to search for the best in him, even when she was forced to squint at his face through blow-blackened eyes.

When Brohm finally made his excuses to travel abroad—“for business,” he’d claimed—she’d begun to spend her solitary days taking long walks in the forest alone. The squirrels and the deer, silent as they were, made for far better company than the village folk with their pitying stares and hushed, disapproving voices. Even an errant wolf was a welcome sight to her tear-stained eyes on her sojourns, and more than once she’d wished one of the lone ones would devour her whole like they did damsels in fairy tales. But at the end of every desolate stroll, even as despair threatened to consume her heart completely, she always found herself standing before the same eldritch monument.

The desiccated tree was overgrown with ivy and stray sprigs of berries, and it would have looked like any other unfortunate snag in the middle of the woods if it weren’t for the strange, faded symbols adorning its aged bark and the curious idol that stood before it, horned and prideful beneath the old branches. Yet the idol’s carved expression bespoke a certain kindness, an understanding that had become so rare and precious to her in her time of sorrow. And so, irrational as it had been, she’d felt compelled to return there, day after day, to relieve her troubled heart of its woes. Speaking freely to the wooden figure, lifeless as he was, felt like sharing sweet counsel with an old, tender companion from childhood.

But then the full moon rose one night, and Johanna had felt herself called to return to that clearing. Even the rumored monsters and vicious elvenfolk of the forest seemed to have been told to keep well away from her—not that she’d ever sighted or heard such creatures herself. The forest was a natural, soothing place, a blessed bastion inhabited only by the simple beasts one could find anywhere else. Or so she had thought, until she ran headlong into the arms of a stranger.

He was all too human, standing next to the idol he bore only a passing resemblance to. Her entreaties as to his identity were met only with a mysterious, rueful smile, but there was something strangely familiar about the sturdy tan stranger. The sweep of his unkempt hair, darker even than Brohm’s, was so at odds with the proper, fastidious tailoring of his suit. And the gleam of his brown eyes, highlighted by the faintest flash of gold in the darkness, seemed to tell her that their eyes had met once before. But where, and when? She would have remembered such a man from the village, and since marrying she had not been given to traveling beyond the immediate countryside.

“I beg you, dear sir . . . who might you be?” she asked once again. “You must have been waiting for me here, but why?”

“I am a friend of yours, dear Johanna!” he said, with a sad shaking of his head. “Only a friend, and nothing more. I have watched your tearful trials for far too long, and they weigh upon my heart like chains of iron. If you will grant it, I should dearly wish to offer you the only comfort I can, and to bless you with a memory that will last beyond the next dawn . . . one that will help, and never hurt. It will be a memory that I promise will stand by you in spite of everything and, if you so wish it, will remind you of this evening we shared together. So shall it be, forever and always.”

The stranger held out his hand to her then, great and weathered with more than a few scars. Yet when she cast her misgivings aside and grasped it in her own, it held all the warmth and gentleness that she’d long searched for in Brohm’s cold, careless grip. Her further memories of that night grew hazy, but she could remember faint snatches of breathless conversation, joyful laughter, a whisper of delight in her ear . . . and the whirling dance they’d shared beneath the stars.

But even the brightest night had to end at some point. She’d awoken the very next morning, alone in her own bed, as if she’d never been to the forest at all. And she might have gone on believing that, if not for the subtle nauseous feeling that crept upon her a few weeks afterward. By the time Brohm returned, haggard and fuming from his long span of revels, the swell of her stomach was unmistakable.

“Unfaithful harlot!” he’d screamed out, in a voice so loud that she was certain that all the neighboring households roundabout had heard it. But no aid came for her then, for it was none of the good folks’ business. Or so they had surely told themselves, huddled away in their own affairs as they were.

“You never cared before!” she’d spat out at him in reply. “So why do you now?”

“Because you will make a bloody fool out of me in front of Father, should he ever find out about your . . . your indiscretion!” He looked upon her with the purest rage as he rushed across the floor then, and she turned away in fear, shutting her eyes tightly. That fire in his eyes had spoken full and clear in the moment her gaze had met his: he meant to snuff out the flickering life inside her, and cared not if hers was blown away in the process.

Then came the haze over her bygone visions again, and she remembered little more than a sudden darkness, snarling, wails of despair . . . and when the candlelight returned, a crimson slick of blood and desperate handprints upon the doorframe were all that she could find remaining of the wrathful Brohm Streich.

Thus dawned the months of peace, and there soon arrived a quiet payment from the Streichs to keep all word of the strange affair of their son’s disappearance out of reach of curious ears . . . as much as was possible for her to do, anyway. And despite all the sharp-tongued gossips of Alte Quelle doing their finest work trying to find a way to incriminate her, no conclusion could be drawn save for that some madman had attacked the young couple in the night. Nothing more, and nothing less. Nona was soon born, and she fast became the pride of her mother’s heart.

Yes, despite the bitter loneliness of these past fifteen harvests, Johanna felt no regret. She’d been granted a daughter to raise, and the simple happiness of humdrum village life. Those blessings alone were worth tolerating the absurd stories of spellcraft and witchery that were so often hurled at her back.

As she gazed upon her daughter, meeting her gaze with a smile, she couldn’t help but marvel. Nona did indeed have her father’s eyes. Perhaps one day, Johanna mused, she would get around to the clearing again to tell him so.