“Ah, just the lost little lamb I was thinking of.”
I clutched the wine closer to my chest and kept my eyes down. “Good evening, Vicar Förner. I am on an errand for Mother Agnes.”
“At this hour? How dutiful.” He stepped closer, blocking the narrowstreet. His frame was thin, but he might as well have been a brick wall. “I have been meaning to speak with you, Katharina.”
My stomach churned, but I kept my face still. “What about, Vicar?”
“I’ve heard that you’ve become quite talented in Latin. Such a…gifted tongue you must have.”
His eyes pierced me as they always did, the eyes of a hunter just waiting for his prey to slip up, to make its fatal mistake. As such, I said nothing.
“I wonder, what use would a poor girl such as yourself have for such training?”
The wine bottle trembled in my hands. I tightened my grip until it stopped. There were so many things I wanted to say, that to anyone else I might have said. But not to him.
“Perhaps no use at all.”
“No use at all,” he repeated, tasting the words. “Your mother said something very similar, as I recall.”
Gnarled fingers held my face as she screamed. His fingers.This is what you prayed for; this is what you deserve.
“I was a child when my mother died, Vicar. I would not know what she said.”
“No, you would not.” He smiled then, thin lips flattening into nothing. “But children grow up, don’t they? And the apple, as they say...” He let the silence finish for him. His hand flexed, and I prepared to run.
But then he stepped aside, gesturing for me to pass with a sweep of his hand, as if granting me some great kindness. I walked past him without a word, keeping my pace steady.
“Give my regards to Mother Agnes,” he called after me. “And do be careful, Katharina. The streets are not safe for young women, not yet anyway.”
I did not turn around. I walked, my feet keeping the same steady pace the entire way, until I reached the convent door and slipped inside. Only then did I let myself lean against the wall,pressing the cool glass of the wine bottle against my forehead, my entire body shaking. The bottle nearly fell from my grip as memories of fingers and flames clawed behind my eyes.
Keep to the shadows.
I’d grown too bold, been careless flirting with the vintner, thinking of my lessons with Heinrich. That life was not for me; I had to remember that.
I forced my hands to stop shaking, grounding myself in the darkness of the convent’s halls. I had work to do. When my heart finally settled, I dropped the wine in the kitchen, then made my way out to the field behind the building. The sun was nearly set, and Leibchen would certainly give me a nasty look for being late.
But as I stepped back into the evening air, where I expected to hear her impatient lowing, I heard nothing. Not even the bees.
Then, like a crack across the sky, the caw of a single raven swooped over the dairy house.
“No…no, no, no.” I gripped the front of my dress, hoisting it as I sprinted across the yard. I slammed into the wooden gate, my fingers fumbling with the latch that suddenly seemed foreign, uncooperative.
The field stretched empty before me. Where Leibchen should have stood by the fence, waiting for evening milking, there was only trampled grass. Dark stains marked the earth near the gate—fresh soil overturned.
Numb legs carried me forward, my mind refusing to process what my eyes saw. There—the rope they’d used to lead her, discarded in the mud. Here—deep hoofprints where she’d resisted, tried to plant her feet. She’d fought them. My gentle, patient Leibchen had fought.
A glint of metal caught my eye. The bell from her collar, half-buried in the churned earth. I fell to my knees and dug it out with shaking fingers, the brass still warm from the day’s sun. Or perhaps from her neck. How long ago had they taken her? While I was smiling back at the vintner? While I was walking home,thinking myself so clever for saving the convent a few coins? While I cowered from an old man?
“She was old.” Mother Agnes’ voice came from behind me, carefully neutral. “Past her usefulness. The butcher paid well, enough to buy grain for a month.”
I didn’t turn. Couldn’t. If I looked at her practical face, her folded hands, I might scream. Or worse, I might strike her—and then I’d burn not for witchcraft but for assaulting a bride of Christ.
“When?” My voice came out raw.
“This afternoon. It was quick.”
Quick. As if that mattered. As if ten years of faithful service could be erased with the single swing of a blade.
