Chapter 48 #2
Tears leaked out of my eyes, and I rubbed them against my knees, but they were instantly wet again.
I missed Father. I wished I could rest my head on his lap once more and have him pet my hair while he hummed to me.
I wished I could see Samuel healthy again and laughing his infectious laugh.
Mostly I wished for Friedrich. I wanted one more of his rare smiles, bright as sunshine after a rainstorm, but one more would never be enough.
Even a lifetime of his jests, his quiet contemplation, his faithfulness wouldn’t satisfy.
And his kisses, tender and caring . . . I thought on his kisses until my head drooped to my knees, and I fell into a fitful sleep.
Hours or days or minutes could have passed before I awoke with a jolt, forcing my sore body into rigid surveillance.
In the silence between breaths, mice scampered over the floor, but their staccato scurries blended with a new sound.
A slow scraping, like long fingernails running down the underside of a coffin lid.
I’m still dreaming, I told myself, but when the hissing started again, I jumped up and searched for the door handle.
No matter the terror that fueled my frantic wrenching, the handle refused to move.
As the scratching behind me intensified, I beat my sore and lacerated fist against the door, focusing on the pain in my hand—the one thing I knew to be real.
A stream of ice-cold air slipped past me, and I flipped around, looking into the pervading blackness, but there was nothing. I turned and beat the door with renewed vigor, then another gust shot past.
It’s just wind. I swallowed hard despite the drought in my throat, but the fingernails scraping below multiplied.
I couldn’t stop myself from glancing over my shoulder down the dark steps but kept pounding against the door, trying to call for help just as a sudden iciness touched upon my cheek and brushed over my neck. A cold breeze tickled my ear, and a raspy voice whispered, “Margaretha.”
Slamming my back against the wall, I crossed myself, whimpering a prayer that was drowned out as fists started beating inside coffins like drums. The scratching and hissing continued, competing for notice, the sounds lashing over each other in haphazard repetition like a tumult of waves.
Then, from below, the coffin lids ground open, and I knew the dead were coming to claim me.
I threw my hands over my ears, pushing my back into a corner and squeezing my eyes shut as I slowly sank to the floor.
“It’s not real. It’s not real,” I whimpered, shaking my head.
Another gust of air passed over me, and suddenly my wrists were seized in a tight grip, trying to pull me down into the belly of the crypt.
I flailed against it, refusing to open my eyes and see the specter before me, but it had strength enough to rip my hands away from my ears, flooding my mind with the grating screeches of the dead.
“No, no!” I shook my head again, but over the cacophony of voices came a gentle uttering of my name.
A warm hand settled against my cheek, and my eyes fluttered open to find Friedrich’s storm-gray, familiar gaze.
He crouched before me, his fingers caressing my face. He had found me. He had saved me.
Throwing my arms around his neck, I knocked him onto his backside as I burst into tears. “The-the voices, the bodies. They’ve escaped. They seek my death,” I rambled, tears still streaming down my cheeks.
Friedrich lifted a lantern up to the crypt, then studied me with worried eyes. “There’s nothing, Margaretha. You’re safe now.”
“But the hissing. The scratching. It won’t stop!”
“This wound.” Gently pulling back the hair at my temple, he hovered the lantern beside it. “This was a heavy blow. No wonder you’re hearing things. Are you hurt anywhere else?”
I watched him fuss over me, checking the cuts on my fingers, my face, my neck. His eyes and touch were all tenderness, and my heart rate slowed to a tranquil rhythm under his tender care.
Setting down the lantern, he lightly rested his hands on my face as he met my gaze. “What you’re hearing isn’t real. I’m real. I’m here with you now.”
I focused on his warmth, on the concern in his eyes, and the scraping and scratching seemed to dim. Friedrich really was here beside me, and just when I’d believed I had only memories of him left to cherish.
He took hold of my arms, pulling me to my feet and out of the tomb, away from nearly all the clamor, save the quiet hissing that had followed me almost since my escape from the glass coffin.
We walked across the small landing to the base of the church’s steep stone stairs, where Friedrich retrieved his satchel.
As he riffled through it, his hands shook, betraying the strain he, too, had been under.
My heart warmed, and I had to rub a hand across my nose or risk another round of tears.
He gave me a flask filled with water, which I guzzled down, coughing out spurts and trying to swallow more.
“Margaretha, you must sit.” Shrugging out of his jerkin, he spread it over the ground.
Nodding, I let him wrap me snugly in his cloak. He helped me down onto his jerkin, then settled against the wall beside me, studying me as he rested his arms across his upright knees.
He was still worried for me.
I sent him a quick, reassuring smile, then took another swig of water, and as I did, I noticed the door to the crypt hanging ajar, with the handle and lock chopped out. A dull hatchet rested on the ground beside it.
The drumming of fists. The hammering. It was Friedrich I’d heard.
I pushed the stopper back into the flask and returned it to Friedrich, meeting his anxious gaze.
“I keep worrying I’ll wake up, and this will have all been a dream.” He lifted my hand and brushed a gentle thumb against my skin. “You can’t imagine what agonies I’ve felt. When I arrived and saw the crowds in the streets and then the black horses go by, drawing behind it that glass coffin—”
“There was a procession?”
He ground his jaw. “The prince’s idea, no doubt.
All the pomp and display, and you at the center of it, lying still and perfect.
My heart stopped beating, Margaretha. I swear it did.
I’ve never known such”—he took a slow breath—“torture. Hours of waiting for deep night, pacing dark alleys and hiding from soldiers, all while driving myself to distraction wondering if you were alive or dead.”
I squeezed his hand. “I’m so sorry for it all. I never meant to worry you.”
“You’re taking the blame for that now too?” He quirked a smile, making me chuckle.
Nuzzling my head against his neck, I let my fingers caress his hand. “Though it’s not my fault, I’m sorry just the same. But let us think on it no more.” I lifted my chin to rest against his shoulder, waiting for him to look down at me before I reassured him, “I’m here now, with you.”
He leaned over and touched a soft kiss to my forehead. “When I learned about your dangerous plan, I prepared myself for the worst. I was ready to walk into the crypt and find you dead and ruining inside that glass coffin. But I imagined saving you too, reviving you and holding you in my arms.”
The pleasant trilling in my stomach was a stark change from hours of hunger and gut-wrenching panic. I scooted closer, pressing my side against his, and he took my hand, cradling it. The quiet, continual hissing from the tomb faded further until it was almost nothing.
“But how did you know to come find me?” I asked. “Where is Ilsa?”
“Gone. It seems your whole household left as soon as Count Samuel was released.”
Hearing those words aloud was surreal. My brother was truly free. But I would need some time adjusting to the reality of it. “If they were gone, how did you—”
“Ilsa,” he answered, taking the flask from my hand and tucking it back in his satchel.
“She sent an urgent missive to Ulrich, knowing I would return to the castle. She spoke of your stepmother’s treachery and of your plan to take the physician’s toxin.
” His eyes watched me, his expression soft as he muttered, “Margaretha, you’re either brave or mad. ”
“Maybe a bit of both.” I chuckled, shaking off the chilling thoughts of what could have been had Friedrich not come for me.
He smiled and shifted to his feet, lifting the satchel strap over his head and settling it across his chest. “I know you must be tired, but we only have a few hours before sunrise. We should be going.”
“To Wildungen?”
“If you wish it.” He took both my hands and pulled me to stand. While Friedrich collected his jerkin, I picked up the lantern, my thoughts a distraction.
“Friedrich, Father will never allow us to be together.”
He slipped an arm through the hole of his jerkin, his movements slowing. “He won’t. But I shall take you to Wildungen if that is where you want to go.”
“And if I don’t?”
His eyes danced over my face, inviting me closer. “I don’t have much to offer, Margaretha.” He watched me move toward him. “It is selfish of me to even ask, when it means separating you from your family, but . . .”
“But you love me.”
He took hold of my hand, his thumb caressing soft circles over my skin. “But I love you.”
“And you wish to marry me.”
He shook his head with a chuckle. “And I wish to marry you.” Then he rested his forehead against mine, his voice turning serious as he whispered, “I wish it desperately.”
My heart swelled, and I blinked back the prick of tears, bringing my hand to his face to trace every line, every curve, every freckle. Did I really deserve such happiness? “Then, Friedrich, I will be your wife.”
His face lit with a stunning smile before he wrapped his arms around me, squeezing me tight enough to make my cuts and bruises ache. I almost didn’t notice. He dipped his head, and I twisted out of his grasp.
“There shall be no kisses until I’ve had a chance to at least change my clothes and clean my teeth,” I announced.
He looked properly annoyed, prompting me to laugh.
“And then you may kiss me all you like.”
“Is that so?” His lips turned up in a wicked smile. “Then what is keeping us here?”
My legs hardly felt the fatigue of the long climb up the stairway and out of the chapel into the cold, starlit night.
I took a deep breath of the crisp air, cleansing my lungs of decay and clearing my head enough that the hissing faded into oblivion, leaving only the buzz of a sound blow to the skull.
We slipped through streets to retrieve a horse that looked very much like one from Father’s stables in Wildungen. Friedrich helped me up, settling me on his lap and wrapping his arms around my waist as I took the reins. I leaned into his warmth.
“Are you ready?” His breath tickled my ear.
“I’m ready,” I answered. “Let us find our new home.”