Before Fritzi, I never felt that hollow space inside my body that could be filled with magic.
Hermagic.
Abnoba’s lips twitch, but I don’t let her speak. Instead, I continue, “But I don’t want it at the cost of Fritzi’s magic.”
Fritzi’s eyes round in question. “My magic—”
I cut her off. “If there were no restraints, if magic was truly accessible to all like Holda wanted, I never would have drained Fritzi, she would never have been open to Dieter’s influences, none of this would have happened.”
Emotion flickers over Fritzi’s face, her expression unreadable.
“I am only meant to use her magic to protect her, and I failed at that.” I say the words as if they are a confession, but my eyes are on Fritzi, the only one who can absolve me.
“You lived. I lived. That’s enough,” she mutters. She means the words to be just for me, but the silence in this place makes her voice echo.
I shake my head. “It’s not enough.” I turn to Abnoba. “Survival is not enough. Why can’t all humans have access to magic? Not just in spells,but the wild magic Fritzi has?” I ask. I hate the whine in my voice, but there’s something about Abnoba—her deep wrinkles, her grandmotherly eyes—that makes me feel safe to question her like a child.
The goddess turns to Fritzi. “That is what Holda asked of you, to show witches that wild magic is not evil, and that they have access to more power than we led them to believe.”
“Not just witches.” Fritzi’s eyes flash. “Allhumans should have the choice to access magic.” Her voice is firm.
“We originally tried to keep our magic small,” Abnoba says. She looks as if she is carefully considering what Fritzi said. “Only a few chosen had access. Gifts can become burdens. And then when those without access started to persecute those with…”
The ancient tribes, the Romans, the battles.
“You tried to create a safe haven,” Fritzi says. “The Well.”
She nods. “But we also believe inchoice,” Abnoba says, using the word Fritzi had. “We told witches of magic, taught them what the Tree could offer. And then we…” Abnoba takes several steps back, her cane thunking hollowly.
“The people in the Well developed their own governance,” she says.
The council.
“Their own rules.”
The spells.
“Their own traditions.”
The secrets.
She watches me, and I sense that I’m supposed to take more from her speech than just her words. She is old; she is used to waiting, and all of time has stopped anyway, so I consider what she’s said.
There is tradition in the Church too. I think of the parishioners who recite prayers in Latin, a language they do not know, the words nothingmore than rote memory. The Protestants have translated the Bible from Latin to German, but that text was translated from Greek and Hebrew into Latin already, perhaps other languages beyond that—what meaning was lost in each word’s increasingly distant substitution? We kneel when we are told to kneel, we eat when we are told to eat, we move about a calendar with holy days that were originally Roman, originally Greek, originally Pagan.
All in the name of tradition.
But there is comfort in tradition too. I wove advent wreaths with my sister and stepmother. In my village before I left for Trier, I gathered in the town square for dances and feasts—some of my most joyous memories. The Christkindlmarkt was when I started to fall in love with Fritzi. Fresh Lebkuchen sparks warmth and peace at just a whiff of the spices. My sister brews beer with my stepmother’s recipe, and in a way, that keeps her alive even when she is gone.
“Some traditions lose their original meaning,” I say, “but they’re not all wrong.”
“And Perchta thought I should let you die,” Abnoba says, grinning at me.
My blood runs cold. I cannot forget that, despite her grandmotherly appearance, Abnoba is a goddess. She has stopped time for us in this moment, but I cannot trust her mercy to continue.
“Traditions can be helpful,” Abnoba says, nodding as if speaking to herself. “But when they lose all their original meaning…” She looks up, her roving eyes settling on Fritzi. “You, champion, convinced Perchta of that.”
Fritzi squeaks in surprise, and that makes Abnoba’s face nearly disappear in wrinkles, her grin is so big.
