*
The village seemed deserted when I arrived. While the unseasonal cold was keeping most people indoors, the town seemed diminished. Chastened. There was hardly anyone out and about their business, and what few folk I did meet kept their heads down and their gaze averted. There was a touch of tension in all their faces, an anxiety that seemed to permeate the air and make it difficult to breathe. I told myself this wasn’t strange; after all, we had just buried several members of the town, lost to that mysterious plague.
Elf-struck, the voices of the elders whispered in my mind.
I shook off my unease and wrapped my red cloak tighter about me.
The village church stood on the eastern edge of town, its western fa?ade opening directly onto the market square. It was easily recognizable by its crooked belfry, built and rebuilt over the years. Our little town had never been big or grand enough to warrant a more beautiful place of worship; its whitewashed walls were plain and dirty, the nave and altar unadorned. It was, as the stories went, the oldest structure around for miles, built when Charlemagne was still a pagan king.
The church doors were closed between services, but unlocked, open to any pilgrim in search of solace. I had never been much for grace or God, for if I had any holy place, it was the Goblin Grove. I gripped the ring at my throat, feeling a bit as though I were about to do something illicit or naughty. I stared at the wooden doors before me, noticing for the first time that the panels on its face were covered with carvings. They were odd, the figures misshapen and bent, but the details lovingly and intricately carved. My eye fell on the bottom right panel, which depicted a tall, thin figure with curling ram’s horns growing from his head standing in a field of flowers. Roses? Poppies? The . . . devil? I squinted. Something seemed to be scratched along the edges, less purposeful than the rest. Writing? A message?
I knelt for a closer look. There, in Gothic script, were the words: Ich bin der umgedrehte Mann.
I am the inside-out man.
Foreboding ran its icy finger down my spine. I shivered, the hairs standing up along my arms.
“The stranger comes, the flowers leave.”
I jumped, tripping on the edge of my skirt with a startled yelp. The old rector stood beside me, popped up out of nowhere like a toadstool after spring rain. I recognized him by the tufts of wispy cotton that patched his crown and his large, oversized black robes. He was a familiar sight in these parts, usually perched on the steps of the church like a strange little gargoyle, peering at passersby from beneath bushy white brows.
“I’m s-sorry?”
“The inscription. That’s what it says. The stranger comes, the flowers leave.” The rector pointed to panel before me, where the phrase HOSTIS VENIT FLORES DISCEDUNT was carved in Roman letters.
Gone was the horned figure, and in its place was a young man with hands outstretched. A corona haloed his head, while around him lambs frolicked and played. An image of our Lord and Savior, not the devil. Not Der Erlk?nig.
I wasn’t going mad. I wasn’t.
I wasn’t. “I—I see,” I stammered.
The rector’s dark eyes glittered. Up close, I could see that cottony hair sprouted from his ears, along his jaw, and the tip of his chin, giving him the appearance of a new-hatched chick. “Do you? You see what is before you, but can you see past the nose on your own face?”
“Beg pardon?” Bewildered and self-conscious, my hand flew up to cover my nose.
But he seemed to take no notice. “You learn much by reading the old histories,” he continued. The old rector maintained the church register, recording the births, marriages, and deaths of the town. “You begin to see patterns. Cycles. You understand that what has come before will come again.”
I had no response to such a cryptic statement, so I held my tongue. I was beginning to regret my visit to town.
“But I don’t imagine you are here to study the old histories, Fr?ulein,” the rector said with a wry smile.
“I, er, no.” My fingers twisted in the folds of my apron and I steeled myself to ask. To beg. “I have come . . . I have come to ask you for a favor.”
“A favor?” Those tufty cotton-white brows lifted with interest. “What can the house of God do for you, my child?”
I kept my eyes on my feet. “Our—our stores of salt are . . . depleted, Herr Rektor, and I—I would be most grateful for your assistance . . . and your charity.” My angry flush of shame heated the air around my cheeks.
“Ah.” The old man’s voice was neutral and expressionless, but I dared not meet his gaze. “Is it Constanze?”
The question startled me into looking at him. His dark eyes were unreadable, but I sensed a hint of pity in his features. Pity . . . and sympathy.
“Not precisely,” I said carefully. “But she is, in a manner of speaking, involved.”
“Let me guess. She was trying to protect herself from the Wild Hunt.”
I stared at the line of white crystals at my feet. “Yes,” I whispered.
The old rector sighed and shook his head. “Come with me, Fr?ulein.” He turned and led me to the north side of the church. Unlocking a small door, he held it open and bade me enter. I took care not to disturb the unbroken line of salt on the threshold, stepping into the dimly lit transept.
“Follow me.”
I flinched at the feel of his dry, spindly fingers on my right elbow, but the rector carefully guided me down a small flight of steps as my eyes adjusted to the gloom. At the foot of the stairs, he unlocked yet another door and gestured inside. I frowned, wondering where we were headed. The church cellars?
The door slammed shut behind me, sealing me in complete darkness. I thought of stories of maidens and lovers buried alive in crypts and catacombs, and the creeping sensation of having been locked in a tomb crept up and around my throat.
“Herr Rektor—” I began.
A snap, and then a flame blazed to life, hovering in midair before me like a fairy light. I squinted against the brightness and saw the old rector with a lantern in hand, although I could not guess how he had lit it so quickly with no taper or candle to kindle it.
“We are in the old vestry,” he said in answer to my unasked question. “Priests used to get robed in here before coming up to the chancel through there.” He gestured toward a door on the far side with a tilt of his head. “But Father Abelard prefers to dress in the choir. Says he finds it unsettling down here.”
I found myself rather sympathetic to our priest. “What are we doing here?” I asked.