Chapter 16
Ursula
For a moment, Sister Ursula has no idea what just happened. All she knows is that there is a bang as sudden and loud as thunder that makes her tear her hand out of Elsebeth’s grip so fast, she has no memory of it later.
Another bang interspersed with the crunch of wood splintering.
At the third bang, the door gives way.
For a moment, there is nothing, just a rectangle of darkness so complete, her mind struggles to make sense of it.
Through it come two men.
No, not men, she thinks. From his goat’s eyes glowing in the darkness like the twin flames of candles, his dark curls, his long fingers tipped with sharp nails, she knows the one on the left instantly for what he is: the devil himself, come to drag her sorry soul straight to Hell for what she did to Sister Hildegard.
The woman on the bed must have recognized him too, for she begins to wail. The devil looks at her with his head cocked. The light of the fire carves strange shadows on his cheeks, so that Sister Ursula for a moment believes it is no face at all, just a skull with two burning coals for eyes.
Beside her, Elsebeth roots frantically through their belongings for her knife, but what use is that, or any weapon, really, against such evil?
To the Aufhocker’s mother, the devil says softly, “You are a sorry sight indeed, Sophie Valentina Bauer. You weigh as little as your soul is heavy.” He turns to the man he has brought with him. Sister Ursula immediately recognizes him as a soldier from his stance and sword.
“Do us all a favor, and take her out of her misery, Otto darling,” the devil says.
The soldier moves toward the woman. She scrambles to get away from him, gibbering, pleading, but she’s too thin, too weak.
“I’m sorry,” the soldier whispers.
The snap of her neck as it breaks makes hot urine run down Sister Ursula’s thigh, plastering her shift to her skin. The stench of ammonia is thick in the air, burning in her nose.
The devil sighs, then turns his flaming eyes on Sister Ursula.
They flick down to the little puddle in which she stands, now rapidly cooling, and again he giggles, a high-pitched sound that sounds so wrong, so unnatural that it would have made her wet herself again if there was any fluid left in her bladder.
As it is, she can only stand and stare, once again frozen by fright.
“Please don’t hurt us,” she whispers.
“I’d rather not, but I will if you force me. So you see, my dear Sister, this is entirely up to you. Now I’d like to make this visit brief, so why don’t you step aside so that Otto here can grab the reliquary behind you?”
The soldier takes a step forward, his sword gleaming in the dying light of the fire in the hearth. The sweet, cloying smell of rot hits Sister Ursula all at once. It’s so potent she can taste it. It makes her stomach twist. She gags. Tears cloud her vision.
Elsebeth grabs Sister Ursula and pulls her behind her. Her other hand is wrapped firmly around her little knife. “Take another step, and you’ll regret it; see if you don’t,” she says, and though her hand holding the knife isn’t steady, her voice is.
The soldier’s eyes widen in surprise. “You,” he breathes.
The devil looks from the soldier to Elsebeth and back again, frowning a little as if teasing out a willful thread.
Then, his face, pale as a fish’s belly, smooths.
He claps his hands together like a child and lets out that horrible giggle again, making Sister Ursula’s flesh crawl.
She has often imagined what Satan might look like—red or black hair, cloven feet, horned—but she somehow never thought of what he would act like.
Though even if she had, she supposes it would not be like this, so gleeful, so utterly delighted.
“Oh, but how fun!” he laughs. “The world is a small place indeed!” He wipes at his eyes with a long white finger.
“Give us the skull,” the soldier pleads.
Elsebeth bares her teeth at him. “No.”
“Please. You don’t want me to come and get it; you really don’t.”
Sister Ursula’s heart is beating so fast, and her breath comes in such speedy bursts, she feels faint and sick.
She feels her throat for her rosary to steady herself, only her rosary is in her dress pockets.
Still she can’t stop searching for it, her icy fingertips raising gooseflesh at her throat and chest.
Elsebeth still stands her ground, her whole body taut and ready. “I’d like to see you try,” she says to the soldier.
“You don’t, if not for your own sake, then at least for your friend’s,” the soldier says.
Up close, Sister Ursula can see there’s something off about him.
His skin has a gray hue to it, and his face is strangely slack in places, like the skin has been draped over his skull and might slide off at any moment.
His hands, too, are clearly human and yet not quite, the fingertips all blackened, the nails gone, exposing the flesh underneath.
It’s not wet and pink, but brown and dried up.
He’s dead, she realizes, he’s dead he’s dead he’s a walking corpse like the Nachzehrer he’s dead he’s dead as Elsebeth and I soon will be too all dead dead dead DEAD…
“Please,” the soldier pleads, “you don’t know what he is capable of.”
“He’s quite right, you know. I love to laugh, but when my patience runs out, I’m afraid it shall be at your expense and that of the nun here,” the devil says.
He’s leaning against the door with such nonchalance, you’d think he was at a party that bored him, rather than in a poor woman’s shack full of death.
Though if you are the devil, such harrowing sights are probably so common as to be boring.
“Touch her, and I’ll gut you, and gladly so. You wouldn’t be the first pig I killed,” Elsebeth snarls, and despite her overwhelming fear, Sister Ursula feels a wave of pride and affection sweep through her.
She is braver in this single moment than I shall be in my entire life, she thinks. She feels the cool, wet patch in her shift and is battered by shame so strong, she’d weep with it if only she wasn’t so scared.
The dead soldier glances at the devil from the corner of his eye, which makes him look like a scared animal. “Elsebeth,” he says softly, “do as he says, and give us that skull, or you’ll rue it in ways you can’t yet imagine. I should know.”
Elsebeth glances at Ursula, then back to the soldier. “No!” she says, her voice cracking.
Satan sighs. “You leave me no choice then, dear girl,” he says, and to Sister Ursula’s surprise, he does look sorry. He turns to the soldier. “Get that skull, and use whatever force you must.”
“Please don’t make me,” the soldier moans.
The devil tuts. “Come now. You’ve never had much trouble with rape, torture, and murder before. Off you go, dear Otto. Go get me my box.”
The soldier keeps pleading even as he advances, his sword swishing through the air as he adjusts his grip on it. For a dead man, his movements are still surprisingly supple.
So this is how it ends, Sister Ursula thinks, at the hands of a revenant, in a shack in the middle of the Bavarian Forest.
All those miles traveled, all those horrors faced and overcome, all this love that has steadily grown between her and Elsebeth, and it will have meant nothing.
The saint won’t be reunited with her body.
Sister Hildegard will continue to languish in purgatory.
Her fellow sisters flung far and wide by the war won’t be blessed and saved.
Elsebeth’s poor sister, Margarethe, and all her other relatives will remain dead.
Elsebeth, her brave, fiery Elsebeth, will die in pain and fear, her heart still full of doubt about God, about love.
And Sister Ursula herself? She will join Sister Hildegard in purgatory, because she will die without having received the last sacraments. That is, if this monster doesn’t drag her straight to Hell, from which there is no escape.
“No!” Sister Ursula cries out. She stumbles back, grabs the rosewood box with the skull inside.
Her hands are so deadened by fear, she has to clutch it tightly to her chest to keep it from tumbling out of her grip.
A sharp corner presses a bruise into her solar plexus.
“There’s no need for violence. You can have it.
You can have everything, but please don’t hurt us! ”
“Ursula!” Elsebeth hisses.
“I’m sorry, I really am, but I don’t want us to die!” she says.
“But your sisters, and my family, and—”
“I know, I know! But if we don’t give up the skull and we die here tonight, they will still be lost and dead, won’t they? At least this way, you survive.”
“Wonderful!” the devil says, folding his hands together. “Otto, if you please?”
The soldier takes the box from Ursula. This close, he reeks so badly that she can taste it, even as she tries not to breathe. He looks at the skull, which is no more than a pale shape in the poor light. A shudder ripples through him.
“My dear ladies, now that this bit of business has been satisfactorily concluded, Otto and I shall take our leave of you,” the devil says and bows.
On the threshold, he whips around, cape flying around him like dark wings, and says, “Oh, and please don’t bother coming after us.
It would be quite useless, I assure you.
As I said, I’d rather not hurt you, but I will if you force my hand. ”
As soon as they are gone, Elsebeth drops her knife. It clatters to the floor, then lies there, the flames of the fire making the blade wink. “Oh, Ursula,” she whispers, “what are we to do now?”
Sister Ursula falls to her knees. She presses the heels of her hands to her eyes and sobs, but only once. “I don’t know.”
You pathetic coward, the little voice inside her head sneers. Purgatory would be too kind for what you have done. You have betrayed everyone.