Chapter Four

“Do you think he’ll come for us?” The girl, Anna, was ten years old, as was her identical twin sister, Sarah. Both girls cowered in the corner of the family’s one-room wattle-and-daub house, the cold and their nerves jiggling their blonde pigtails.

“He knows when Mother and Father go to the village—he counts on it,” Sarah said. They scrunched themselves into little balls, covering themselves with a big woolen blanket, their knees tucked under their chins. Waning daylight filtered through two small, shuttered windows, which both girls focused on, hoping his shadow wouldn’t cut the sunlight.

“It’s been a while since he last visited. Maybe he no longer fancies us,” Anna whispered. “We’ve been good girls, not told anyone about him.”

“Nobody would believe us anyway. Said he’d kill us. I believe him.”

“It’s punishment—that’s what it feels like to me,” Anna said.

“That’s not the way he sees it. He enjoys it, laughs at our pain.”

“But why us? Of all the children who live in and around the village, why does he pick us?”

Sunlight flickered through the latched shutters, fast enough so that the girls couldn’t tell if a bird or their imaginations caused it.

“How do you know we’re the only ones?” Sarah pulled the wool up to the ridge of her nose so that only her blue eyes peeked above the blanket.

The knock on the door caused them to bounce on their bottoms.

“He never knocks,” Anna said.

Sarah knew it wasn’t him either—he always opened the door, unannounced, and snatched them up one by one, leaving the other too terrified to help. Neither moved to answer the knock.

“Anna? Sarah? Are you in there?” came a grandmotherly voice.

“Who do we know who sounds like that?” Anna whispered to Sarah.

“You don’t know me at all, but I know you,” the reply came cheerfully.

The girls stared at each other, each thinking, How can she hear us?

“Or were you expecting someone else, my dearies? I think you’ll prefer my company over anybody else’s. I understand you’re both good seamstresses, like your mother. I’d love to see your work.”

Anna swept the blanket aside and stood.

“No,” her sister pleaded.

“Maybe if he sees someone in here with us, he’ll skip our house.”

Sarah thought about it and enthusiastically nodded yes.

Anna walked to the wooden door, which rested on hinges and had no lock. It took some effort for her to push it open and see standing outside an old woman holding a bucket and sack.

“Which one are you, little one?”

“I’m Anna.”

“May I please come in, Anna?”

He could be making his way through the woods now, the girl thought.

“Please do.”

The old woman hobbled inside, nudging Anna aside. One lighted candle, centered on a small wooden table, lit the home. Straw had been strewn all over the floor. At night the girls’ parents would bring in the family’s milking cow so that it wouldn’t get stolen, and because its body heat would help warm everyone where they huddled on the floor to sleep. Father slept with a dagger close by because he had built the thatched-roofed house—with the baron’s permission—in the woods, away from the village’s relative safety.

“That’s a wonderful blanket, Sarah.” The old woman placed aside her belongings “Bring it here. May I please see it?”

Sarah rose and bunched up the scratchy blanket in her arms and brought it to the woman, who snapped it open to admire it.

“Did you both sew this?” She ran her hands over the blanket, admiring how tightly it’d been stitched.

“We took turns, yes,” Sarah said. “It’s our first one without Mother’s help.”

“And what a fine job your mother did teaching you.” She handed it back to Sarah and turned to Anna. “It’s nearly dinnertime. Where are your parents?”

“Bringing fish back from the village. It won’t take long to cook.”

“A fine choice to eat on Twelfth Night, would you agree?” the old woman extended her gnarled knuckles to Anna and gently stroked her cheek. “I have something for you.”

The old woman reached behind her back to retrieve a silver coin for Anna, who stepped back, not knowing what to expect. “I’ll put this on the table for you.” She slapped it facedown, a loud clack reverberating off the wood. “And I’ve not forgotten about you, Sarah.” The old woman repeated the process, leaving two silver coins side by side for the girls.

“I’m very pleased with you both, how hard you worked this year on your first blanket. And I’m sure you’ll be making more in the year ahead.”

“We’ve already started,” Anna said. “Each of us is working on our own.”

“That’s what I like to hear.” The old woman’s pleasant demeanor vanished. She looked around the room and shushed the girls when one appeared about to speak.

“Go sit in the corner, the way you were when I first got here. Take the blanket. Now.”

Anna and Sarah scampered to the corner and resumed their positions, now terrified because they too felt someone else’s presence.

The old woman stooped and blew out the candle, and the girls lost sight of her.

The door was still open, but neither girl had seen her slip out. Sarah gasped when a large figure stood in the doorway.

“Didn’t think I was going to arrive, did you?” came a male voice. “How could I pass up such an opportunity? I’ve been gone so long. I’ve arranged for your parents to be delayed in the village. They’ll be none the wiser. Who would like to be first?”

Neither girl knew which of the baron’s sons did unwanted things to them. He never gave his name, only orders to refer to him as “my lord”.

“I can never tell you apart, especially in this dark. How your parents do it mystifies me. I suppose parents know their children best. But it’s still light enough out so that I can see what I’m doing.” He popped open the closed shutters to allow for a little more light. “So, who would like to take off her clothes first?”

The girls knew this was coming. Each wore a dirty cut-down tunic over a simple skirt. Anna began to cry.

The lord slipped off his leather gloves and laid them on the table. “I just want to hold one of you to start. Cuddle a bit. Make you feel nice and warm.”

He walked toward the girls, who turned toward each other and hugged, soon sobbing onto each other.

Just as the lord prepared to pounce, the shutters seemed to slam shut at once, followed by the door creaking back toward the house, sealing them into darkness.

The lord and the girls heard a soft cackle coming from the closed door, followed by “I think it goes without saying that you will not be getting a silver coin.”

He puffed out his chest. “I’m one of the lords of the castle. Leave this instant and speak nothing of this or I shall have you killed.”

“Is that so? Well, I’m not setting foot from this house for the foreseeable future, and when I do leave, I have every intention of informing the villagers of what a vile pervert you are. They’ll never quite look at the baron the same way.”

The lord reached for his knife but realized he’d left it in his horse’s saddlebag outside so as not to frighten the girls.

“What? A helpless old woman makes a statement of fact and your reaction is to grab a blade?”

Without thinking, the lord barreled his way forward, flipping over the table and breaking through the weak door. Wood splintered outward, spooking his horse tied to a tree. He freed his ride and charged through the woods to the main road, looking for his brother.

“Make sure you find your coins, dearies,” the old woman called to the quivering girls inside the home. “Now the hunt begins.”

The creature, crouching within a bramble patch—the last place the hunters, especially this prim and proper bunch, would dare tread—unfurled its parchment and glanced at a name that hadn’t been stricken from the list. One of the men straddled a horse in the middle of the road, waiting for the rest of the hunting party to return. The beast reached behind its back and slowly drew from its barrel a chain, gingerly pulling it so the links would slink over the barrel’s lip.

The lord clearly heard it.

That was part of the plan. Let the cretin hear a noise out of place within the woods. While technically not on the list—the creature knew not why—the marked man appeared long overdue for punishment.

Typically the brothers were never far from a knight for protection, but both considered themselves skilled fighters and keen bowmen. The lord circled his horse around the road, scanning the trees and bushes.

“Otto? Mathias? Are you there?”

“Yes, my lord.” Otto, followed by Victor and Mathias, galloped to meet him. “Your brother’s not far behind us. He was looking for you.”

“As I was him. We all seem to get separated so easily. And I see we’ve not had any luck.” The lord saw no kills tied to the knights’ horses.

The brothers reunited, and the five men trotted the trail up toward the castle, resigned they’d find nothing that day. Victor held up his hand to halt the procession.

“My lords, up ahead, two bears, eating a—Good God, that’s Hans’s horse.”

They lost all interest in hunting and charged the bears, chasing them into the forest. “Damn things should be hibernating.” Victor climbed off his horse and caught sight of Hans, gruesomely lashed to a tree by his own entrails.

Without being ordered, Otto dismounted and cut the last gut link tethering Hans to the tree. The intestine trail sickeningly unraveled. Otto roped the dead knight to his horse for the ride home.

“My lords, we must leave here, now,” said Otto, who, like Victor, remounted his steed. Mathias had drawn his crossbow and stayed close to the baron’s sons, looking for any movement.

“I checked his horse. The saddlebags weren’t touched. He still had his weapons,” Victor said. “Outright murder. This wasn’t a robbery.”

Mathias swiveled on his horse and spotted something in the brambles.

“We’re being watched, my lords. Move.” A thick iron chain exploded from the brambles, smashing Mathias’s face, crushing his nose into his skull, penetrating brain, killing him. The chain snapped back into the woods just as Mathias hit the ground.

The brothers drew their longbows and fired a succession of arrows from whence came the chain. Otto, fearless, jumped off his horse and unsheathed his broadsword, waited for the lords to stop firing and immediately hacked into the brambles.

A man screamed from behind them. Otto and the lords turned and gasped when they saw Victor’s stomach gushing blood onto his panicked horse’s saddle. An old woman in black straddled the horse from behind Victor, holding one wrinkly hand over the knight’s forehead while removing a dagger from the man’s belly with the other. She lithely pushed herself off the horse and scurried into the forest. Victor fell and hit the ground while trying to push his innards back inside his body.

A furious roar nearly knocked the lords off their horses and forced Otto to step back from the brambles. He spotted an animal’s furry face, unlike any he’d ever seen: black, beady eyes that looked strangely human but couldn’t be; and a mashed, crooked nose and mouth, out of which sprang curved yellow teeth. And the putrid smell!

“Ride!” Fear cracked Otto’s voice as he remounted his horse, waiting for his masters to bolt ahead of him.

One lord galloped away while the second prepared to follow, but before he could, the old woman jumped from the woods, landing in front of the horse and letting forth an ear-splitting screech, causing the animal to rear high on its hind legs. As it did, the woman drew two curved blades from behind her back and swiftly slit a bloody X on the horse’s belly. The animal’s scream prickled the lord’s hair. The lord thought quickly, and instead of tumbling, pushed himself off the horse and landed on his feet as the beast collapsed forward and onto the ground, writhing in pain along with Victor. The lord ran to Otto, placed both hands on Hans’s back and propelled himself upward to sit behind Otto and on the dead knight. Otto’s horse ran for its life.

The old woman stowed her weapons and scrambled into the woods to chase the lords and knight.

The thing that had roared at Otto rose from the brambles and strode into the road near the dying horse and Victor, who had stopped squirming and rested on his side as offal oozed through his fingers. He looked up to see a horned monster holding a chain in one hand and a strange bundle of sticks, wielded like a club, in the other.

“You’ve been good, Herr Knight, but nothing can save your life now—only end your misery.” It lifted a cloven hoof, balancing itself on the other, and crushed Victor’s head, offering him a surprisingly quick death.

It took two stomps to kill the horse.