I followed the track that twisted around the spur of rock the castle sat on down into the valley. At one bend, I caught sight of the tower and its window, and saw a face. The Witch was watching me.
At first I thought I had taken the wrong path. There was no sign of life, only the trees weaving together overhead in a barren winter canopy, and then a few steps on the forest broke apart and I found myself in the village. Sunlight prickled through the mist, the horizon lost in the dense mesh of forest. I knew the maps of Schwartzstein in more detail than most, and the Witch’s castle was marked on none of them; no surprise then that neither was this lost village. Wolf had told me that unwanted visitors could not find their way to it, and I had no struggle to believe it.
I threaded along the packed dirt street, passing tightly nestled houses with gabled roofs and fronts painted in blues and pinks and yellows, metal hanging signs marking the baker and butcher, the ironmonger and seamstress. The road opened out into a square with a horse trough in the centre, the squat church on one side, and on the other, I recognised the inn that the Witch and I had stayed in the night before our arrival. On the far side, the road we had come from disappeared into a blur, slipping in and out of focus. I thought of the stories of grieving mothers and abandoned fiancées trying to follow their men taken by the Witch, how every road would bend away from her castle, and they found themselves back where they started.
Today the village was not quite so completely as empty as the inn had been, but I seemed to be the only person walking the street. Instead, life seemed to be behind rapidly closing shutters, children snatched back from doorways. I went to the church, thinking of the candles lit at the saints’ altars, and my mother’s stone casket. The doors were locked, so I walked around the graveyard looking for the names of the past companions: Hässler fifty years before me, Hülkenburg before that, Frentzen, Danner, Lotterer, Rosberg, Sauber. But there were no graves bearing their names. Brow furrowed in confusion, I walked the stones anyway, reading the names and dates. Beloved mothers, devoted daughters.
My predecessors had not simply disappeared. I had found seven trunks in that room, stretching four hundred years into the past. I left the churchyard for the bakery. Seven men at least had reached the castle.
I had a purse of coins with me so I opened the door of bäckerei Walther and joined the women buying their morning bread; it was the only place that seemed occupied. A narrow space with racks of dense pumpernickel, rounds of farm bread, small pebbles of milk rolls, and slabs of rye; at the back, a discard basket of burned loaves.
‘Good morning.’
Several nervous glances were exchanged before the woman behind the counter said, ‘Good morning. Can I help you?’
‘Please, finish serving.’ I gestured to the women who had arrived before me.
Another flurry of glances.
‘That’s not a problem. Let me get you what you want and you can be on your way.’
I ordered a piece of poppy seed cake, not knowing what else to do. ‘Do you supply bread to the castle?’ I asked.
‘No.’ The woman took my money and handed me the cake.
‘I arrived only last week; there are many things I’m not yet familiar with.’
‘We know who you are, Fräulein.’
‘You know I am – the companion?’ I changed my mind at the last moment from mentioning the Witch.
‘Is there anything else I can help you with?’ she said firmly, ignoring my question.
‘Not from the bakery, thank you, but I would be grateful if you could help me with a few questions I have. If you know who I am, perhaps you knew those who came before me?’
Another customer interrupted at this point, putting herself between me and the baker.
‘We don’t have anything to do with the castle if we can help it. Young people go up there to work, and you think you’ve been there a day but you come back and a whole month of your life has been gobbled up. You’ve made your purchases, so you’ll be glad to be on your way,’ she said, an instruction not a suggestion.
‘Quite right you are.’ A hand touched my arm and it was Wolf steering me out. ‘We’ll be off now, thank you, Frau Walther.’
She didn’t let go until we’d cleared the village and were climbing the road to the castle. Wolf looked distracted, eyes darting behind us. I felt the sense of more scurried movement somewhere out of sight, and a fleck of irritation marred my mood.
‘Should you be so far from the castle, my lady?’ said Wolf.
‘Am I not allowed to walk where I please?’
‘Indeed you are. But the path can be treacherous, the weather changes quickly.’
‘I haven’t seen the village since I first passed through it. If this is to be my new home, I thought I should get to know it a little better.’
‘Of course, my lady.’
I didn’t know how to ask what I wanted to. The moment in the bakery made three times I had asked about the previous companions and three times I had been rebuffed. ‘How long have you served at the schloss?’ I asked as we curved the final bend in the road and the castle came into view.
‘Many years, now.’
‘Did you know the Witch as a girl?’
