Page 59

Thirty-Four

The tunnels under the castle grew colder as Henry and Rebecca ran, as if they were descending deeper and deeper into the earth.

The air was damp, and in the pitch black Henry saw nothing except the occasional glimpse of the gray woman drifting through the tunnel ahead of them, slipping in and out of view.

When they finally emerged, the light felt so bright it burned Henry’s eyes, even though the sky was overcast, the sun hanging low.

The air smelled crisp and green, like Christmas trees, and the freezing cold bite of it was dizzying after so long spent underground.

He squinted and caught a glimpse of gray silhouette, lingering just at the edge of a thick forest.

“This way.” His legs felt heavy from hunger and lack of use, but he forced himself forward.

“What about Lydia?”

Henry looked back at the looming castle, stark white against the dusky sky.

He knew Lydia was inside. He wanted to go to her, a need as strong as hunger, deep in his belly.

Then he turned and locked eyes with the gray woman.

She was reaching out to him, beckoning to him with an urgency so palpable, he could almost hear her voice inside his head.

You can’t save her if you’re dead.

“They’ll be looking for us. We’ll go back for her, but right now we need to hide. Come on.”

They ran for the tree line, letting the forest swallow them up until they could no longer see the castle through the spruce trees.

“Where is she? Your ghost?” Rebecca was doubled over, holding a stitch in her side.

“I don’t know.”

The gray woman had been ahead of them the whole time, guiding them out of the tunnels, beckoning them into the forest, but now, as Henry strained his eyes, she was nowhere to be seen.

Rebecca settled against the trunk of a tree. Her skin and clothes were dirty, her lips pale, and there were hollows in her cheeks where there hadn’t been any before.

“Do you believe what she said?” Rebecca asked. “The witch?”

“About Lydia joining them, you mean?”

Rebecca nodded.

Henry didn’t even have to wonder. He’d been inside Lydia’s head. He’d felt her passion, her unbreakable will. He knew she would sooner die. “No.”

Rebecca exhaled slowly. She hung her head. “What if they decide to—”

“ They won’t .” Henry shook his head, banishing the thought. “They need her. They can’t hurt her.”

Rebecca covered her face with her hands, her chest rising and falling as she caught her breath. Her shoulders began to shake, and for a moment, Henry thought she must be crying. But then a hysterical sort of wheezing began to emanate from her chest.

“Rebecca?”

She laughed and laughed, but even from where he stood, Henry could see there was no mirth in it. Tears gathered in her eyes and streamed down her cheeks, and still she laughed.

“ I’m always running ,” she said, gasping. She looked at him and wiped the tears away with her palm. The laughter stopped in her throat like it had been shot dead. “I’m a fucking coward.”

Henry nearly reached out and touched her shoulder, but the look in her eyes stopped him. “Are you kidding? You’re fearless. You gunned down half a dozen Gestapo like it was nothing. You killed a witch . Rebecca, you’re still here because—”

“I’m here because I ran.”

Birds sang to each other overhead. A gentle breeze glided through the spruce trees, making the needles fall around them like rain.

“What are you talking about?”

Rebecca’s eyes fixed themselves on something far away.

“When the police came for my father, I was there. I tried to fight them, to make them stop, but one of the policemen, he punched me, and I blacked out.” She touched the side of her face, remembering.

“That day, they were only taking men. They left the rest of us behind.” She took a rattling breath, and a tear fell onto her cheek.

“The next time, I wasn’t at home. I was across the street, skulking around after spending all night in a car with some stupid boy I didn’t even like.

” She laughed, quick and angry. “I was walking home when I saw the police outside my house. They were taking my mother and sister away.”

She stared up at Henry. She looked as if at any moment she would crack into pieces, shattering into dust and mixing with the spruce needles scattered across the forest floor.

“My mother saw me. They were dragging them away, Noémie was crying, and I was frozen, I didn’t know what to do. But my mother looked up, she looked right at me, and she mouthed something to me. Run. She said, ‘Run.’ And so, I did.”

“You were right to do it,” Henry said. “They would have taken you away too.”

Rebecca hung her head. “We would have been together.”

Henry looked around again, hoping for one last appearance from the gray woman, but she was nowhere to be seen.

“That morning after we got back from Auvergne,” Rebecca said, “I was going to run then too. Even after I touched the book, even though I knew—” she stopped, her eyes gone glassy.

“Even though I knew what it was. I was going to run as far and as fast as I possibly could. I didn’t care what happened after that. ”

“But you didn’t,” Henry said. “You stayed.”

Rebecca shook her head. She took a labored breath.

“I don’t want to go back in there. I don’t want to go back, but Lydia is in there with them , and with that thing , whatever is inside that evil fucking book, and I can’t just…I can’t…” Something snapped into place behind her eyes. “We can’t leave her.”

Henry looked into Rebecca’s face and saw a liquid intensity there that might easily have been mistaken for madness.

“I know.”

Rebecca looked as if she were about to say something else, but then her expression changed. “Do you smell that?”

Henry sniffed. One second the air was perfumed with the scent of spruce trees, and dirt, and snow. The next, he was struck with the familiar, metallic smell of ozone.

“ Run ,” he said.

···

Lydia’s footsteps echoed off the marble floor and cavernous ceilings as she entered the ceremonial chamber.

Tall, arched glass windows faced west, glowing with dying sunlight.

An enormous fireplace burned at one end of the chamber, the mantel intricately carved with wolves and eagles.

Lydia looked up and saw that the domed ceiling had been painted a deep royal blue, smattered with constellations in gold leaf.

All around her, black-clad witches stood in the half-light, waiting.

The Grimorium Bellum gave off a heat like a feverish child in her arms.

Lydia felt faint. Her initiation had always been part of the plan, an unavoidable evil, but now that it was here, she wanted nothing more than to run from this place as fast as she could.

A witch’s commitment to her coven was sacred, a lifelong vow of sisterhood, unbreakable.

The thought of vowing herself to the Reich, even if only for show, made her want to scrub her skin with lye.

She looked up and saw Sybil watching her. She took a steadying breath, and on that breath formed a silent prayer.

Great Mother, forgive me for what I am about to do.

···

They crashed through the undergrowth, golden light strobing through the trees as they ran.

Rebecca could feel Henry beside her, hear his labored breathing as they sprinted blindly through the trees hand in hand.

Her heart felt like a balloon in her chest, ready to burst. Off to her left Rebecca saw a flash of silver-blond hair.

She could hear stony laughter, first behind her, then to her left, then her right.

Henry pulled up short, dragging her down with him behind a rotten log.

Rebecca could see the whites of his eyes in the dim light, the drops of sweat standing on his brow.

He held a shaking finger to his lips. Rebecca pressed both hands over her mouth.

Her heart thumped wildly in her chest, so loud she was certain the witch would hear.

From out of the darkness, Rebecca heard Ursula sigh.

“Hiding won’t save you, Liebchen . ” Her voice seemed to move through the darkness, circling them, her shape appearing and disappearing through the trees. “You must know this already.”

Rebecca stared at Henry. She wanted to run, but he held her tight.

“You have taken something precious from me, girl.” The witch’s voice seemed to be moving ever closer to their hiding place. “You murdered my Margot. My sister . I will make you suffer for that.”

Henry tugged on Rebecca’s sleeve and pointed over his shoulder toward a steep, rocky drop-off where a wide mountain stream gurgled below. They stayed low as they scrambled down the hill, hanging on to roots and stones as they went.

“You will die last,” Ursula called, and Rebecca knew the words were meant for her. “The Negro I’ll kill first. Then the witch. I will flay them alive, and you can listen to their screams as they beg for the release of death. And then I will save the very worst for you.”

···

Lydia stared out at the faces of the Witches of the Third Reich. She could feel their suspicion, their resentment. She saw Ingrid and Eva, heads bent together. She saw Gerda, standing in shadow, lips pursed.

Sybil placed a hand on Lydia’s arm. “Are you ready, my darling?”

“Yes, Grand Mistress.”

Sybil made a subtle gesture, and the witches stepped into the light, encircling Lydia and Sybil in the center of the chamber.

Yellow candlelight flickered around them, making their faces shape-shift, expressions morphing from benign to sinister and back again in an instant.

Sybil turned away from Lydia and addressed the coven.

“Hail, sisters.”

“Hail, Grand Mistress,” came the reply.

“We gather today, on this, the winter solstice, to welcome our sister Lydia into our coven. Our sisterhood is a sacred thing, an unbreakable, lifelong bond. Support must be unanimous. If anyone here objects to this initiate, speak now.”

Lydia scanned the gathered faces, trying to guess who would object first, but no one spoke. These witches did not trust her, but they would not defy their mistress. Sybil allowed the silence to linger a moment longer, then smiled, satisfied.

“Eva.”

Eva stepped forward, a cup of wine in one hand, a blade in the other.

Sybil took them both and turned to Lydia.

The cup was silver and bore a five-pointed star.

The knife was identical to the one Ursula carried, with a polished bone handle, inscribed with a rune— Othala.

Homeland. Sybil rested the tip of the blade on Lydia’s breast, just above her heart.

“Lydia Polk, daughter of Evelyn. Why do you come here today?”

Lydia had studied the words and knew her part from memory.

“I come to join with my sisters in devotion to the Great Mother, and in service of the fatherland.” As she spoke, Lydia imagined a wall around her heart made of thorns and twisted metal.

She imagined an impregnable barrier, one that her words could not penetrate.

She lifted up a silent prayer for the Great Mother to look inside her heart and see the truth.

“How do you come before this coven?”

“With a true and willing heart.”

There were curses for witches who betrayed their covens. May her body burn to ashes. May she go unmourned. May the Great Mother forget her name.

“Whom do you serve?”

“I serve the Great Mother, and the Führer, may he live forever.” She tasted bile in the back of her throat.

For a moment, there was silence. She felt the blade, its tip resting above her heart, and for one second, she was certain that Sybil would realize her betrayal and plunge the knife deep into her chest. Instead, Sybil held out her hand, and Lydia offered her palm.

Sybil lifted the blade and pressed it to the skin of Lydia’s hand.

It was sharp, and the flesh parted easily.

Bright red blood sprang to the surface, but Lydia did not flinch.

She held her hand over the silver chalice, letting her blood spill into the cup.

Sybil then held the knife against her own palm, and let her blood fall into the wine, mixing with Lydia’s.

“A vow made in blood cannot be broken. Do you make this vow of your own free will?”

“I do.” The room seemed to darken, although the candle flames remained steady.

“Lydia Polk”—Sybil’s voice rose, echoing throughout the chamber—“do you dedicate your life to the service of the Great Mother?”

“I do.”

“Do you bind yourself with a willing heart to this coven, as a true sister for the rest of your days?”

“I do.”

“Do you dedicate your life to the fatherland, and the glory of the Führer?”

“I do.”

Sybil’s face glowed in the firelight. She pressed the handle of the knife into Lydia’s palm so that Lydia stood with the chalice in one hand and the dagger in the other. “Drink, child.” Lydia drank. Blood dripped from her palm and collected on the marble floor.

Sybil addressed her coven, now standing shoulder to shoulder around them. “Hail to the Great Mother!” Sybil shouted.

“Heil, Great Mother!”

“Hail to the Führer!”

“Heil Hitler!”

“Hail to Lydia, daughter of Evelyn, our beloved sister!”

“ Heil Lydia! ” they cried back. “Heil Lydia! Heil Lydia!”

The Witches of the Third Reich shouted her name again and again, welcoming their newest sister with voices high, as Sybil beamed, radiant with pride.

And there in their midst, Lydia threw open her arms, and embraced them, and smiled, as the dread and shame churned inside her like a serpent, threatening to eat her alive.