Work Text:
The trees down here don’t rustle these days. The ones atop the hill do; the trees up the mountain, where Holle and Elise once lived, and where — presumably, for all anyone sees her of late — Rozenmarine still does. But that might as well be another world away.
The night the winds picked up and left the alleyways in tatters was the start of it all; and the winds left with Miss Elise Liedl and her carriage a week later. Saint Walpurga took them, Hans had reasoned; like a professor checking your answers off as correct, for the town. The winds came one Saturday for the witch, and left the next for her absence.
Father Hans isn’t around to offer that solution anymore – but it’s still the one his successor puts her faith in. She sits in a weathered rocking chair – nobody will push her on the swings anymore, naturally – and watches the outside world from the patio facing west of the house that belongs to her. Granny Gretel isn’t around anymore either. For all of her energy, age came calling soon after that mutable week. She withered away, just as her granddaughter’s smile had in the months following… And it’s as easy as pie to make the connection there.
Old Jochen’s still kicking, though. That contrast must have been another answer-check from Saint Walpurga, the lady on the rocking chair supposes. Punishment for the giver of daily breads to a sorceress; prosperity to the prophet who was first to curse Her name.
…A bitter, resigned smile marks the face of Lebkuchen.
Those kinds of thoughts are all there is, on this cool summer’s night. The silence is eerie. She misses that wind which blew through the hills and down towards the lake, which drifted north towards Primeldorf. That wind, she is certain, has reached its destination, and shall never return here again.
“...ah!”
But there is something coming back from that way. Her attention is caught. Rocking forward, leaning forward further still, Lebkuchen catches a glimpse of ruby red in between the trees - a figure, walking toward the village in the twilight, the faintest lantern by their side.
Her fingers grip either armrest, tense enough to snap splinters from their form, as she watches that figure…
…watches it shuffle towards Kieferberg, legs hidden beneath a grand dress and its ruffles, the lantern illuminating high, golden hair…
…before it turns for the mountain.
Before She turns for her home. Lebkuchen is certain. Certain, certain, certain. Those wild locks, the colour of the straw She shovelled out for Eugen’s horses and for measly coin day in and day out, are unmistakable to the woman who ran her holy hands through them so many times — however much their style has been shifted by pins and products.
As soon as Elise is out of her sight, Lebkuchen stands from the chair, leaving wood creaking as it carries her momentum for another few rocks. She slinks from the patio, back inside of her home, to take up the implements she’s had prepared for this day — resting in a box beneath her bed, tied shut by a green ribbon…
=====
“I loved you… I truly did, and I still do… I still do, Freya. ”
…
Elise cries a lot these days. She’s never had to learn to stop, because it never seems to catch anyone’s attention; she can openly weep as that man twirls her in their first waltz, and the faceless onlookers clap and sip at their champagne as though it’s the most romantic thing in the world — as though it could stand up to fleeting glances taking two churchgoers to a garden within the other’s eyes, or a grape pie steaming with freshly sealed sentiment.
So she begs Freya to forgive her, when it’s mere minutes over their empty grave before she’s run out of tears to cry; she’s simply spent so many of the ones saved for her beloved already, on ballroom floors and bed pillows. Swallowing the sick in her throat, Elise slides down to her hands and knees. With her head bowed, she places her lips against the post propping up the etchings of Mr. Gustav, with greater care and reverence than she ever gave the statue of the Saint.
“I can’t…ever return, my… Freya. If your soul… could really have settled here…where Mr. Gustav wanted… Then this is the last time I can come, and beg your forgiveness. Not for my foolishness, for I wasn’t simply a fool – for my blindness. For failing to weigh you against my vanity – for never seeing the obvious choice. …Goodbye…! If there is… Any punishment you would require… In a heartbeat, I would…!”
The last drops her ruby reddened eyes can push out fall upon the daisies growing beneath, and she forces herself to her feet, wobbling. She lets her eyes burn the sight into her retinas, then forces them to as a blink builds in twitching nerves, while she brushes dirt and leaves off of her skirts.
When her eyes can stomach no further, and her throat burns just the same, Elise shuts her eyes - and turns from the viewpoint in that moment, back toward the mountain path.
She could go home… Light the fireplace again, say a goodbye to Granny Holle too, maybe even finally get to digging up those gardens she’d promised Rozenmarine she would before those accursed shoes had stolen her attention…
…But she can’t, and it would hurt too much, because it’s not home.
Elise von Hielige lives in a monumental castle that has always stood and will stand forever ephemeral and out of reach.
A castle where she speaks only with men and their company who see nothing of her face behind a rosy-cheeked mask of luscious makeup, or with demons in dark corners who whisper for naught but the twisted expressions their words earn from her. Soon, they say through serpent’s tongues twisting between shark’s teeth; soon He will come for her.
So she turns for the crossroads instead, to take the journey that way one last time; the walk to Sunday mass. The walk which stopped, last time, at those crossroads and the pumpkin carriage which awaited the vaunted arrival of Aschenputtel — a tale Elise supposes she must have put entirely too much stock into, once upon a time.
…and freezes deadly still at the river, a Stygian figure in black standing waiting — all the makings of a reaper, were it not for the supposed absence of a scythe.
Their eyes meet across the skipping stones - Elise having been planning on simply trudging through the shallow waters, the terrible price of this gorgeous dress be-damned, the terrible price of this flagrant fantasy frock the reason - and against the whispering moonlight, Lebkuchen is the first and final angel that this condemned sinner could ever hope to witness.
(The gold and silver weights concealed behind her back only make her shine brighter to Elise.)
“L…Leb…kuchen…?”
She dares to speak that name – the first forbidden incantation the supposed witch has ever uttered.
Silence and staring amber eyes are all she summons with it.
“Leb… You can just… Forget I was here, alright? I’m not going into Kieferberg. I never intended to. I just had to come back as close as this, so…”
…
“So I could…”
“So you could pay respects to Freya?” Lebkuchen offers, with all the cold neutrality she can.
She, as though compelled by Leb’s voice, begins to walk through the river towards her – through the waters which baptised Her , accepted Her as one of the Church’s own…
Lebkuchen slinks towards the left, toward the shadows, offering the freedom of the path to the witch as She steps out from the near bank, closer, closer.
“Leb…”
Lebkuchen’s hands tense again. The golden mirror will shield her from the words of the witch, even if she allows her to speak her honey-laden lies… But surely, the least risk remains if she strikes now, immediately…
…with the axe of silver steel readied behind her.
With Her back turned and vulnerable, the witch says –
“I won’t ask for your forgiveness. I don’t want you to forgive me. I’m glad I saw you one last time, before I go. Back to my castle… Then, to the hell you probably tried to teach me about, if I’d been a better listener for you.”
…Curse it all. There’s a weakness in her arms, and she can’t do it. Not here. But… Surely, all she needs is…a reminder of what must be protected. What She took.
“...No, you will come to Kieferberg. At least as far as the old bakery. I must remind you what you’re missing out in your castle. So you’ve one more chance to listen to me, hmm? Come along… Elise. ”
Her voice is cold, till that final word – till she hisses her bosom friend’s name like a hex of her own. It’s a trap, Lebkuchen assures herself. It’s a lure into the wolves’ den – the same technique She used herself those years ago, during the festival.
There is no fight in the witch yet. She nods silently, and leads the way, lifting a red hood over Her head, setting towards what She surely assumes is still Granny’s house. The wolves’ den indeed; that is the only role which remains. Lebkuchen prowls after the witch’s every step, contemplating if it’s the moment of truth… And building towards a better idea.
=====
The front room is dimly lit with candles. Lebkuchen sets down a teapot, leaving Elise to pour for herself. The last favour she offers is the bowl of sugar cubes, before sitting down – at the opposite extreme of the room to her bosom friend. Elise can’t help but feel more like it’s an interrogation room than a reunion over tea. But given her intuition, it’s perhaps perfect that Lebkuchen be the one capable of combining the two.
The silence is a challenge; Leb wants to see what she wonders about first. Any option feels like a landmine, in truth. But Elise forces herself to take that proverbial step.
“...do you know how Rosmarine is doing?”
“You know that’s not her name.”
… Truly, force of habit. But that sounds false even to her own mind; so Elise apologises instead, and gets it right the next time.
“I can tell you how she was doing, after you left. Hollow, and aimless. She stayed in…” Lebkuchen swallows the urge to call it ‘yours.’ “...the house upon the hill, ever since. She slept in the hay she’d laid out in the attic for months, until I stopped by to see her… I convinced her to sleep in your bed. I thought it would be better for her back.”
“...Thank you for that. I never thought until weeks afterwards —”
“You never do, do you?”
What Elise would always have taken as one of Leb’s endless fond teases is delivered with a growling bitterness that stops the sentence dead; she can do nothing but let her head slump towards her tea.
“...Ugh. I’m sure it was better for her back. But it was a dreadful mistake of mine in every other regard. First, it was sleeping in your bed. Then it was wearing your dresses. Styling her hair like yours, finding a green brooch like yours, trying to talk like you. Trying to become you, just as Gustav was trying to move on…! Well, no one could stand for it, Elise. When one day, she went too far, and Mr. Jochen began to proclaim that she’d been possessed by the witch – possessed by you – it was all I could do to broker a deal for her to stay in that house, and sustain herself there, never to approach any further than my home without preemptive permission. We granted Rozenmarine a few goats, and – may the Lord bless his patience – Gustav helped her to prepare the soil in your backyard for crops. That is as far as the tale of Rozenmarine and Kieferberg goes.”
…Elise’s face tightens, her eyes drift off to the window, out to the rocking chair on the patio – to what she presumes must be Lebkuchen’s lookout. “That’s… For goodness’ sake, Ros – Rozenmarine…! What kind of nonsense… ? …I’m so grateful to you and Mr. Gustav for doing all you could for her. Is she…eating well, then?”
“... Elise, I haven’t talked to her in over a year. Do you think I…”
Do you think I want to go visiting your house anymore?! Do you think I want to go play with the other girl you left aimless?!
…But she gulps all that down; so focused on not letting that emotion slip, that another follows immediately.
.
“...have the time for treks that would only permit people to see me as entranced by a witch? If Rozie—”
Lebkuchen’s face twists, briefly. Force of habit, somehow. It’s true; she hasn’t seen Rozie in over a year. But not because she’s busy. Because she couldn’t stomach it, any longer – the nightmarish butterflies swirling in her stomach, talking to an imitation of Her! She couldn’t bear that this sick coping mechanism of Rozenmarine’s would prove her feelings undying each and every visit – that the illusion of a witch could still bring her as close as lingering, longing glances at lips and habitual teases. Just as Rozie approached actualisation as a false Elise, Lebkuchen approached her true self in those evenings together – a pain she couldn’t bear to feel so falsely.
But her reaction lasts a moment so fleeting, She must wonder if She imagined it.
“—if Rozenmarine is still doing well, it’s by herself on that mountain. That’s all I can tell you. That’s what you left in your wake.”
Elise glares into her own faint reflection in the teacup, sickened. Once everything with Leb is over… That’ll be her last port of call, then. Checking in on Rozenmarine – and if she’s alright, convincing her to stop this rubbish and find her own way to live.
(…but she also knows that won’t happen, all the same.)
“I suppose… She didn’t know what else to do with herself, huh? All she ever talked about was our fate together… That’s why she came here, you know. She was never my cousin – oh, what am I saying? You were never taken in by that to start with, Leb… So when I… When I went through with it, with someone else, and left her behind…”
Lebkuchen doesn’t bother with the mercy of finishing the thought for her; she has to face it herself. A life focused on the Elise she knew is all Rozenmarine ever knew how to live here; Elise has left the wanderer like a ghost, and not even like her own.
“...And that’s not even the worst of what I’ve left in my wake… I saw the memorial at the viewpoint. Why…did Mr. Gustav carve my name next to hers…? Everyone… saw me go…!”
Elise’s voice begins to break.
Lebkuchen’s remains as stoic as it has all evening, almost without fail.
“...Gustav is convinced… That you were misled, or tricked, or fooled, or any number of things. Possession, imitation, illusion. He refuses to blame the witch we know for the death of his daughter - insisting instead on another we don’t. And so, he considers Elise Liedl dead just the same. Did you ever notice? How much he’d been nudging the two of you together? It seems he can’t accept the idea that his daughter’s feelings…had been betrayed so by one who understood them.”
“...Mr. Gustav…! I… I, I never…!”
Elise almost manages a smile as she sobs – how very like him, to have thought so well of her even then; to have denied that she was the witch even as he conceded to that demon’s victory over his own family…
“Gustav is the only resident in Kieferberg who believes this. To everyone else, Elise Liedl is the witch who took our evergreen sweetheart and chopped her down like firewood on the path to unholy prosperity.”
Elise nods solemnly. “That’s… That’s fair. I can’t blame them. Then, you too…?”
She looks at Lebkuchen with captivating eyes of gold, sparkling even from across the room, and the nun clutches the pocket mirror tighter still. Don’t be taken in, don’t be taken in.
“...Father Hans passed two years after that fateful festival. I was put in charge of the Church soon afterward. …And, in truth, in charge of Kieferberg, given we all believe Gustav the most likely to be entranced of anyone. His authority has…become rather negligible. When the townspeople seek advice, they come to Sister Lebkuchen these days. I sometimes wonder if the search for the witch is all that was keeping him going… His health faded soon afterwards, and the notes and journals I found in his study…”
…Lebkuchen eyes Her carefully, pondering her next words to test the waters.
“...suggest he dedicated considerable effort to rid us of her. Your suspicions were correct, Elise. He was onto you.”
Elise grimaces, running a fingertip against her forehead, then sipping a glum sup from the cold tea. “Leb… I can’t blame you, but that’s not…”
“I’m responsible for the flock of Kieferberg now. The consensus becomes my opinion. If you’d like to change my mind, we can call a vigil of the witching hour – you can argue your case as my townspeople mount you on whatever’s left of the maypole Freya made. We kept it as best we could, of course – it’s the last thing we have of her.”
“Lebkuchen… I, I truly…”
Lebkuchen almost smirks. How obviously the frustration builds – how She must wonder why I do not conform to her will, be swayed by her words. Such confidence builds in her, as she watches the witch stumble over what next to say, that she decides to play her at her own game.
“...Hehe. That confused look of yours…still hasn’t changed, though,” Lebkuchen sighs, faux-fondly. “...If you’d like to try convincing your old friend Leb, then… I just ask one favour of you.”
“A-anything, Leb… I don’t deserve to be forgiven, and I don’t deserve your compassion, but… I need you to know I didn’t plan it all out the way it…!”
“Come to the church with me. Prostrate yourself before Saint Walpurga, touch the Lord Almighty’s Holy Bible without bursting into flames, and read what I ask of you. Then I will know you were not a witch – merely a fool.”
…Elise wriggles uncomfortably. Everyone ought to be in bed, and it’s not as though most folk could even recognise her with the hood up, but… It’s still so much more of a risk than she’d like to be taking…
…But…
If Leb’s really… Been following in Father Hans’ footsteps… Researching demons and witches, and all those things I once thought were nonsense… Then maybe if I can make her trust me, she can do something – give me something – anything – for Henri and Goldia… Before it’s too late…!
“...I’ll do it, Leb. Take me there. I want us to say goodbye…on the best terms we can, after everything…”
“You lead the way, Elise. Forgive me, but I don’t want you behind me.”
She nods with a distant frown; understanding that the trick in Her words has been seen through. She makes for the door and leaves, the old bell jingling to announce it. Once again, Lebkuchen reaches into the alcove behind her, and lifts the heft of the axe in silence, concealing it behind her person.
=====
“Rise, Elise. That’s enough.”
Before the altar, before the looming stained-glass depiction of the patron saint of Kieferberg and her all-knowing gaze, lit like a blazing sun by the full moon behind it, Elise kneels and begs forgiveness — in truth, seeking it from Lebkuchen, more than the heavens which have surely marked her rightly irredeemable. And so, as soon as her old friend says it is enough, she accepts that it is enough. Elise climbs to her feet, holding the ends of her skirt down as she does – one of many ways she has absorbed a certain decorum from her dream-life.
“Bow before the altar and repeat after me. Cleanse my heart and my lips, almighty God, that I may worthily proclaim your Holy Gospel.”
Elise swallows the odd feeling in her throat at such an instruction, and follows it. “C-cleanse my heart and my lips, almighty God, that I may worthily proclaim your Holy Gospel.”
“Come here now. Face the procession, stand where I would.”
“U-understood…”
As jarring as it is to see things from the other perspective, Elise makes her way nervously up the short steps – her dress’s damp ruffles doing their utmost to catch upon each corner – and leans over the ambo, the book opened conveniently already for her. Lebkuchen moves past her, towards the back of the room, and halfway through the door to Father Hans—no, Sister Lebkuchen’s study. From there, she gives her instructions.
“Turn to the next page, and begin from the top. You know how to open a Gospel reading, Elise – you must have absorbed that much. Your audience are the souls lost to the heartache of what you caused – look before you and see them in the pews. See Granny Gretel, withered and burned out to the bone as she worried over me. See Father Hans, mourning that he could not have laid the demonspawn low a few days sooner. See Freya – as she was when last you saw her, for only you know what became of her, yes?”
…Elise briefly turns back to Lebkuchen, her face twitching in horror – she’s never known Lebkuchen to be so… Appallingly relentless. She’s no stranger to chastisement, to being taught harsh lessons by her bosom friend – but this is…
Well.
It’s nothing more than she deserves, of course…
So before Lebkuchen’s cold eyes can freeze her in place, Elise turns back – and believes in what Lebkuchen says she will see.
“,,,Mm. The Lord be with you.”
“... … …and with your Spirit,” Lebkuchen replies, after waiting just long enough that Elise must have been imagining it in those three voices’ tones instead.
“A reading f-from the Holy Gospel, according to…”
Elise turns the page awkwardly - her fingers are sweaty, and she imagines Lebkuchen’s eyes boring into her back – to check where in the book she’s even reading from.
In truth, Lebkuchen isn’t watching. Lebkuchen is in the study – re-emerging soon after.
“...Is-ay… Isaiah.”
It’s not that she forgets the motion of the cross which follows – she’d never really noticed it to begin with, even after hundreds of Sunday masses and dozens of night vigils here.
Elise dares to look up to the audience she’s envisioned, and splutters a gasping breath at the sight… In the front seat, the pieces which once made up Freya lie butchered — and she blinks, clears her throat, and forces herself to accept that she should make herself look, instead of just wiping it from her cognition, as though it were nothing more than a stain for a servant boy to clean off her high balcony window.
But she must flick her eyes down to the opened page to begin – and it strikes her as… An odd sort of choice for a Gospel reading.
“Listen to this, you pleasure-loving kingdom… Um… living at ease, and feeling secure. You say…’I am the only one, and there is no other… I will never be a widow… Or lose my… Ch-children.’”
Does Lebkuchen…know about…? N-no, that’s impossible, even for her… So, what is she trying to…?
“Well, both of these things will come upon you in a moment: widowhood and the… The loss of your children. Yes, these calamities will come upon you…”
The souls in the audience bellow in revelry as Lebkuchen, her black shoes doffed at the door, approaches the ambo from behind…
“...despite all your witchcraft and magic.”
The formed souls in the audience scowl at Elise von Hielige as she grips the wooden sides of the ambo for dear life, something awful gnawing at the tattered remains of her heart. Freya lies in shreds evermore.
“You felt secu— mmph?! MMPH! MMM-MM-MMMM?!”
The witch panics and writhes and exclaims as best She can as Lebkuchen lunges, planting a cloth positively doused in soporifics tight against Her treacherous lips and nostrils, using her other hand to clutch tightly at her body, forcing her to stay in place. ‘Elise von Heilige’ puts up nothing like the fight her Elise Liedl would have; years in that impossible castle, in a life of sinful luxury and vainglorious indulgence must have brought her muscles to practical atrophy.
The last kicks and turns give out, and Lebkuchen gently lowers the sleeping witch to the floor…
…Before pushing a great cross to crash upon the ground before the altar, and taking in hand the loops of rope she’d left in the doorframe.
“Hehe. You’re still… So cute like that.”
Lebkuchen stoops, kneels, and takes a moment of indulgence herself – undoing the fancy tresses and touches to Elise’s hair, and laying her sleeping head onto her lap, like old times…
“...But it’s not…you, is it? It’s just… Whatever’s left. Whatever stopped letting you pretend to be one of us… The day of the festival. …No. Sooner even than that, surely…”
Lebkuchen strokes her hair one last time – then pulls Her hair for good measure, yanking that face back into the floor. Then, she sets about dragging the witch to the felled cross…
…for mounting Her upon an upright stake is beyond the sister’s capabilities.
=====
“Guh… Wh… Where…?”
Elise blinks back to reality, fixing her bleary vision on the roof, where shapes like pastry moulds form inverted domes in the dim, dancing candlelight. It’s still the church – she recognises that quickly enough. Groaning at the blur to her vision putting everything out of focus, she moves to wipe the sleep from her eyes –
“Eh? Wh-what?!”
But she cannot. Her right hand won’t move. She gasps; neither will her left. She tilts her head – against hard, unforgiving wooden planks – to find they’ve been tied to the ends of whatever she’s laid upon, looping ropes around the back compressed into the floor by the weight of the…
…A glance down at her legs, bound together the same way, establishes what it is. A cross.
“Lebkuchen…?! Leb, what – what is this? What, are you going to crucify me?!”
“No. That’s not how you slay a witch, is it? The woods taught you better than that. As, I’m sure, did Old Holle.”
“This again…! Say whatever you want about me, Leb, but not—!” Elise stops short, coughing and hacking as a veritable cloud of dust rises up from an impact near her head – her neck arches to look at the pile of straw and stubble dropped beside her, as Lebkuchen’s dainty black shoes kick it into a sufficiently spread shape to serve as kindling.
“Burning isn’t the only way, of course - any amateur hunter ought to know that. It’s merely the option most easily available to the common man. But there’s other techniques too, if you’re wise – if you’ve had time to prepare the way I have.”
Lebkuchen stands over the witch with a burning delirium in her eyes, glaring down at Her – waiting for something. She could get out of this, Lebkuchen is certain. Those ropes shouldn’t hold a witch. She stares, waiting to be shown magic and devilry, waiting for – ah, here we go—!
“Leb, listen to me, what’s the point of this?! I’m not a witch, I never was – I just fell for empty words, like the fool I was back then–”
Grinning bitterly at how well she knew this tactic was coming, Lebkuchen plants a foot onto the witch’s stomach, stooping over Her. With a click, she flicks open the golden pocket mirror and dangles it in front of Her face, watching Her flinch in natural repulsion at the reflection of evil.
“That’s enough! It won’t work, demon-spawn! This mirror will protect me from the falsehoods and temptations you slather your lips with!”
The witch’s face drops – Her eyes, the colour of the golden ingots they’ve always fixated on, contract in horror. Realisation is setting in, Lebkuchen knows; realisation of how well her honoured predecessor’s learnings have readied her for this day. How well the sins of the Father have prepared the sister.
“One such alternative method is a weapon bearing enchantment.” She finally steps off of the witch’s chest, letting Her breathe, as ragged and hoarse as Her predecessor as she confessed that greatest sin on her deathbed. Lebkuchen lofts an axe that she had laid upon the altar, and blesses it with holy water – droplets fall from its silver blade.
Elise is whirling. Fastened in place, yet falling faster into an ocean, the likes of which she’s never travelled far enough to see outside of paintings – for even her pumpkin carriage travels only along one road where the horizon meets castle spires – falling into a pool, then slamming against the cold tiles of the floor as a single drop of liquid from Freya’s axe splatters next to her neck.
…That’s right. Lebkuchen probably plans on explaining it to her, drawing it out and making it sting; the present prepared for Freya’s next birthday, an ornate axe with engravings of grapes and birds crafted by Gustav himself over the blacksmith’s bellows months in advance.
Leb knows that - that’s the enchantment, she supposes. The feelings of the girl she’d led to her death – surely, they reside still in that cold steel and oak composition before her. But what Lebkuchen can’t be aware of…
“...I know. And the design…was mine, Leb. Mr. Gustav said he wouldn’t trust anyone else to know what she’d like. We both agreed it was the perfect present – she found some cheer from chopping wood for Miss Linda that I could never comprehend, and she loved whatever kept her fit and tough… And that we were never able to give it to her is just another on that horrid list of my deepest regrets…!”
Tears roll from Elise’s eyes. Anger is beyond her, so far beyond her at this point in life – the fight left her, along with so many other things, in a supposed tree of creation – a secret tree of destruction at the heart of the woods. But she doesn’t understand this . What’s wrong with Lebkuchen?! Why is she so convinced of this nonsense?!
…
Lebkuchen scowls in deepest scorn, and does her best to ignore these words, just as the mirror permits. “And another method is to destroy the source of a witch’s power. For that too, I have Old Holle to thank for passing it so obviously, yes? And I owe Father Hans for this knowledge too – I might never have come to understand why gazing at that brooch beguiled me so, if not for his notes, the journals that made sense of all of this—!”
“LEBKUCHEN! Just listen to me already! For goodness’ sake, aren’t you embarrassed?! You were the one reining him in all those years! When did you stop using your head? You used to see the truth hidden behind everyone, no matter how they tried – what happened to that intuition?”
…On the opened Bible abandoned by the slumping Elise minutes before, the passage she began continues;
“You felt secure in your wickedness.
‘No one sees me,’ you said.
But your ‘wisdom’ and ‘knowledge’ have led you astray,
and you said, ‘I am the only one, and there is no other.’
So disaster will overtake you,
and you won’t be able to charm it away.
Calamity will fall upon you,
and you won’t be able to buy your way out.
A catastrophe will strike you suddenly,
one for which you are not prepared.
“Now use your magical charms!
Use the spells you have worked at all these years!
Maybe they will do you some good.
Maybe they can make someone afraid of you.”
And across from these readied words… The witch hunter runs her hands through her own hair, struggling with sentiments she swore she’d put paid to years ago, and her fingers twitch into curling at the apex of her veil, muscle memory compelling her to cast it off… An urge she denies, as she has all others since Walpurgisnacht.
“... … …I do see the truth. I always did, and it shouldn’t have taken that study to make me act on it! Even the elements he never understood, I did, even back then! Like why it had to be Freya! Ever-generous, sincere and content! Trustworthy and reliable, and bearing that so-very-rare trait of making home and happiness wherever she was! Everything you WEREN’T, ELISE! So you were jealous, weren’t you?!”
“...I was jealous of Freya, Leb.”
Of course she was; she had admitted as much to that mutable abomination in the mirror image of this very church. In those days, Elise believed that staying near Freya could have freed her from the shackled self she’d let Kieferberg set upon her – the spiteful upstart whose dreams of grandeur were nothing more than striking out at a lack of recognition.
“But if you think I’m a witch whose every word is a lie, then why would… Why would that motive matter? You said it yourself – you said my name again, just now. Everything ‘Elise’ wasn’t. Aren’t you saying you understood that I was human? That I made a human mistake – though one I shall spend an eternity punished for?!”
The full moon shimmers through the glass behind Lebkuchen, as she tightly clutches the crucifix weighing on her neck with the fingers spare of the pocket mirror.
“If I was a witch, back then – why couldn’t you stop me?”
“I–I didn’t have the pocket mirror, then; I was fooled by your–”
“Leb, I’ve never fooled you all our lives – and not for want of trying. You didn’t stop me… Because… Y-You cared.”
Their eyes meet for a moment – for Elise is right. They both know she is. Lebkuchen could never have stopped that tragedy, because she knew Elise too well; couldn’t stomach imagining that a girl she loved could bring about such calamity with such childish intentions.
…
And to Lebkuchen, that’s the worst of it all.
Their eyes will stay met; two full golden moons of fury blaze down upon the fool.
"Yes, Elise! Yes, I turned a blind eye because I wanted to have faith in you! The last thing I could gamble on, as the labours of Saint Walpurga hollowed me out into a veil-donning doll! And look how you let me down!”
Lebkuchen pointedly tugs at her veil – how weighty it’s gotten with further adornments and layers, fit for the Sister guiding the town – and lets it go without movement, as though it’s stuck there.
“In one night, one night after the festival had brought such joy and everyone but that crusty oinker Jochen had finally put the damned witch to bed, you took all of my dreams and threw them into Hell! I wanted to leave, Elise! The right moment was coming – I had helped these townspeople through the darkest days to the rainbow at the end, and any day, I’m sure I was going to find that courage to take off this veil with pride and say – ‘Elise, with or without you… It’s time to make my own decisions!’ Or…if you’d gone by then… As I knew you might, ever since you found those shoes, and those treks to the woods at night began… There was still Freya. Freya, who I’ve known just as long as I’ve known you – loved, just as… Just as long as…!”
Oh. That’s what fresh heartache feels like.
Elise had forgotten its edge; so many years spent with the same single wound.
So much sentiment and so many years click into place as a second dagger is driven through that dead heart which already belongs to Him.
Through such pain, she can do nothing but wither beneath Lebkuchen’s lament.
“We could have left, us two – she had dreams of a clothes store in Primeldorf, dreams she told me about first, back when you two still argued all the time…! Or even if she’d stayed! If either of you had, I could have gone on living the way I was – it was tiring and I mistreated myself but I loved! I had my escapes in the two of you! Or even Rozie – I barely knew her, but she was charming and…”
Elise understands that too. Rozenmarine had bundled into her life like a tumbleweed on a dusty road, insistent that it was something meaningful instead of such a coincidence…and Elise had felt something for her, even knowing her only one terrible week. That faith in fate and its plans… It must have been something Lebkuchen could believe in, for however long they spoke in the years afterwards.
“But… Why, then… Why don’t you…?”
Lebkuchen shakes at the gall of the question – like she’s stunned Elise can’t see.
“Why don’t I try to find escape in her? Because I have a duty, Elise, to the townspeople – to Granny, to Freya, to the people they cared about – and what the townspeople want is a Kieferberg that is never again plagued by the magicks and witches that you proved were real! I don’t go trekking up that mountain path to chase love, Elise, I sit watching the crossroads at night to guard it shut! And believe me, Jochen checks! That fossil comes rolling by in the witching hours every few days, making sure I’m upholding the duty I offered myself for – my price for that deal keeping Rozie safe at all! Did you think the witch would die when you left, Elise? It revives, over and over – in every lost necklace, in every sick calf, in every illness in every child! They come to me, then, ensuring the one with purple hair and a red dress hasn’t been down any of these nights – and I tell them no, as I have always! And these days, even that does not satisfy them – they speak of my name in whispered tones, when they think I don’t hear – that I am the one cursing them with human misfortunes, that I was in cahoots with you all along, that Freya was my fault too ! I give up my everything for these people, and that’s how they repay me!”
Lebkuchen giggles bitterly – then screams.
“How does that feel, do you think? Wouldn’t you like to know, Elise?”
And in one impetuous movement, entirely lacking the poise of a witch hunter, Lebkuchen lifts the axe Freya’s stronger hands never had a chance to wield, and brings it crashing down upon Old Holle’s emerald brooch – shattering it into thousands of pieces, pieces that will still be found in corners of the church years from now, along with a few ribs which happened to lie beneath the power source of the witch. A red opening is carved in Elise’s red gown, for the decolletage the noblemen love so.
The noblewoman without a trace of nobility in the heart that might as well be exposed to the air heaves for breath, sweating so, as though making up for her stolen years of luxury. She digs her nails into the wood beneath her, trying to ground herself, to find words from her gasping throat.
“Doesn’t it hurt? You sacrificed so much for your wealth and your castle, didn’t you? If the future you sacrificed so much for never comes, it was all for nothing, wasn’t it?! But at least you’ve had years of it! Maybe not a whole life – but time! Had you world enough and time of your dream, Elise? Were they worth mine? ”
Elise, ever a fool, musters the worst truth possible.
“No… Never, Leb… Those dreams of yours… Were true, not like these… Hazy days of gold…”
The truth indeed. But an answer that equates to admitting that they have all been a tragedy – the four girls, the town, the ephemeral castle. Nothing was ever more than waking dreams.
“Then what was the point?! ” Lebkuchen begs, pleads, demands of the world to answer as she brings the axe down again. Droplets of holy water continue to fall; washed ruby red.
“I could have been happy with Freya! And we could have been happy together – in Primeldorf, in the castle, on the open seas! It was you, you, Elise – you were always… The one who I hoped would… Help me give up! Help me free myself from this duty! But you can’t, you won’t – even now, you won’t stop me! I gave you every chance, didn’t I?”
...It’s true, of course.
That’s been their miserable game all evening, hasn’t it?
If Lebkuchen, in her heart of hearts, had really been out to slay a witch – she’d never have hesitated at the first sight of her open back.
If Lebkuchen had really been worried about entrancement by words – she’d never have taken the time to sit down and tell Elise what she’s wrought here in her absence.
If Lebkuchen were really out to consign a demon to Hell – she’d never have placed her upon a cross, a diabolical blasphemy.
And if Elise hadn’t been prepared for all of this…
Why wouldn’t she have run when she first saw the axe, gleaming like a crescent moon across the skipping stones?
In the end, it’s been little more than a final game of ghost and victim in the haunted house in the trees – a final performance of both roles for both girls. Nothing more than staying the night there, as they’d intended to, once upon a time.
No more Gretel or Holle or Hans to tell them it’s not safe – that they’d end up hurt.
In that, it seems they were right. Elise wonders why she still bleeds the same human red as Freya, instead of black like a demon.
“I never even… Tied your ropes up properly. You could get out of them, if you just… If you just writhed a little more, if you really, truly tried… So why…?!”
Elise keeps staring at Lebkuchen. It’s torture for her to do so – that’s the intent.
“...b-because it’s…my punishment, Leb. Guh…! For what I did to Freya… And what I did to you… And even Rosmarine…!”
Lebkuchen heaves the axe up again, and her arms shake under its force of gravity that longs to rest in Elise’s chest – the one longing she’s never been able to kill, these bygone years.
“I… I really hoped… I hoped you were a witch, when I saw you this evening… I never believed it, not deep down… Not until tonight, when you came back. I hoped… That you’d come and whisper blasphemous temptations to me… Entrance me under your spell… Test my long-dead faith. The witch who loathes Kieferberg comes back to take one last victory over it… Dragging a holy woman back in her carriage. …That way, I could have given up…!”
Some kind of bitter smile crosses their two faces at that. That would be a simpler story – a more intentional one than the catastrophic mess they’ve made; of their lives, and of the church.
Elise sobs, then – Lebkuchen’s sincerity breaking through her own veil of acceptance.
“I–I’m sorry, Leb… For being an idiot, and a selfish, witless lass … Instead of a witch, who could have taken you all to… A grand feast in the castle…!”
Groaning, aching cries fill the empty space. Saint Walpurga’s likeness looks over them in cold judgement of the sinners who only bemoan that they could not have been so knowingly.
“Leb, just… One more thing, okay? And… ghhhh… Don’t feel guilty, because you’ve just… Done what I wanted today. But there’s… augh, one thing I owe it to…do…”
The Sister’s arms are sore. Soon, she’ll finish this tragedy out of exhaustion if not intent. But she waits, making out the sincerity in Elise’s face that she knows so well, even after years apart – even when she lied so often when last they spoke – even through the blur of tears.
“That mirror… You said it repels evil… Please, send it to the castle. I have children – children I cannot claim to have wanted – but… Even if I cannot go on, cannot live with this anymore… I owe it to her…”
Elise coughs blood, winces… But still opens her eyes once more.
“Goldia…von Heilige. Send… The mirror to her. Attendants in the castle can make sure she receives it…! I could never have protected her from Him anyway… But you, Leb… Maybe you, maybe that… Hu, hurggh…”
The nun, the executioner, the messenger nods. She understands.
“...Freya… Is this…proof enough? … … …You wouldn’t have wanted it… But that’s just… How sweet, too sweet you were…”
Elise’s hands go slack against the cross, fingers sliding out of effort like flower stems. Lebkuchen assumes she’s losing grasp on where she is, too, and speaks softly…
“I loved you, Freya. I loved you, Elise. If…”
Elise grunts disapprovingly.
“For goodness’ sake, Leb… You know me so well… So you know there aren’t ifs. I was always… always going to do something stupid like I did… All that can change now… Get out of here, Leb… Take Rozie tonight and go , and once you’ve delivered the mirror… Find a way to live for yourselves…! Instead of…b-banking on that unreliable Elise…”
Her voice is a ragged whisper, now; audible only to tree-spirits and damned sinners.
“Goodnight, Elise.”
The blade falls; Elise Liedl’s prideful chest she puffed out in indignation so often caves in, and her ravenous heart is finally satisfied with no more.
…
Lebkuchen collapses, dropping the axe (but holding onto the mirror, as she must, as she always will till the girl named Goldia sees it) and draping herself over the dead lass on the cross. She weeps, and screams, and batters the wooden planks below with bleeding fists. She is untethered and unreserved, for the first time in her life.
What feels like an eternity passes in that moment. Leb lies there, mourning uncountable dreams and wistful wishes, possibilities and missed opportunities. She places a kiss to Elise’s forehead; then another. Didn’t she convey her love in pairs come nightfall, that fateful week?
Then, she finally lifts herself along with Freya’s axe – habit stained red all over – and accepts it, pulling the veil off and tossing it to the side.
This hall is her Hell. But no more. Now, it shall fill that role for Elise.
Taking one of the matches she had prepared for the kindling spread around the cross, Lebkuchen strikes it with clinical coldness, and drops it to the floor, feeling the cold winds of freedom from the opening door behind her as she does.
A flame ignites around the covetous lass’s corpse, which will burn her body…this accursed place, where frightened men spread rumours of a lonely girl’s witchery in sadistic solidarity…and the study behind, where the most pathetic man of all set into motion a conspiracy to have damned them all…to ashes. Dust to dust.
…
…Cold winds from the opened door behind her? She turns.
“THE WITCH! LEBKUCHEN! I TOLD YOU ALL – I’VE SAID IT FOR YEARS, HAVEN’T I?!”
The frontmost of the crowd bear torches, watching in horror as Sister Lebkuchen, covered in fresh and sickly blood, sets the church of their patron saint alight. But at the very front, is the man who gathered them together, roaring his bile in victory.
Of course.
Even her moment of freedom – of letting her polite, angelic voice run free…
…should have a cost like this.
The crowd shifts and bulges like a tide against the door, split between rushing in to grab the witch so she can be put to the stake once and for all, and the folk with as much common sense as witch-hunters can possess, issuing orders to instead cover all exits and wait the witch out…
But they are all wrong, as always. Neither of these results will earn them the prize they have desired all these years.
The faithful nun and generous devotee whom the townspeople will tell of as a witch till her very bones have been weathered away from this day on… She eludes their grasp – diving down into the building flame, and holding herself tight to the witch the townspeople have told of till today.
In the flames, she’s still warm – they will always be.
Freya’s axe falls to the side – its hilt will burn away, already begins to… But that grape-engraved blade will lie together with them for eternity.
Till the end, Leb holds tight to the pocket mirror.
Tears burn her cheeks faster than the licking tongues of Hell do.
How could she ever have found Rozie and fled – ever have brought this last wish to Goldia?
Hasn’t this always been a tragedy, Elise?
(Outside, men are screaming – not to let her have the easy way out, to send someone in to drag her by the ankles before it’s too late, after all these years, the witch has to suffer—)
How could it ever have been anything else?
=====
Across the way, the Bible remains open, sat above the reach of the flames for a few more moments.
The final Gospel reading of Kieferberg’s old church concludes;
All the advice you receive has made you tired.
Where are all your astrologers,
those stargazers who make predictions each month?
Let them stand up and save you from what the future holds.
But they are like straw burning in a fire;
they cannot save themselves from the flame.
You will get no help from them at all;
their hearth is no place to sit for warmth.