Chapter 7
Katharina
Ihung the small bundles of rosemary and elderflower above my doorway to welcome good luck tonight and protect against anything emboldened by the thinning of the veil. I’d grown too old to believe such stories, but it felt wrong not to keep up the tradition my mother had taught me.
In Bamberg, the last night of April was Walpurgisnacht, though Mother had told me it came from something even older—a celebration of the shifting of the seasons and God’s gift of fertility to our land.
A time when all sorts of spirits roamed the earth, both benevolent and demonic.
I looked up at my small bundle of herbs and sighed.
The demons didn’t need the door in Bamberg; they were already here.
I made my way to the main square just outside the cathedral.
Bonfires blazed against the purple dusk, sparks rising into the darkening sky.
But tonight these fires were not a punishment, but a celebration.
All of Bamberg had gathered for Walpurgisnacht—even the Witch Bishop could not forbid a tradition this old, though he’d tried to sanctify it with prayers and crucifixes.
Still, the old ways crept through. Young couples leapt over the flames hand in hand for fertility, children wove flower crowns, and the may wine flowed perhaps a bit too freely.
I filled a small cup for myself and skirted the edge of the celebration, just outside the bonfire’s light. Always in the shadows. The night felt alive in a way I hadn’t felt in ages, but perhaps that was just the wine. I wandered quietly, observing, until I heard a flurry of laughter.
Heinrich sat surrounded by children, his cassock forgotten in the rectory, wearing simple clothes that made him look younger, less burdened.
He was telling them the story of Saint George and the dragon, of the epic battle between the saint and the beast. Firelight caught his face as he gestured dramatically, and little Wilhelm squealed with delight at his impression of a fleeing dragon.
All the children joined in, pushing one another until they collapsed into a joyful heap.
My chest ached as I watched him. Across the square, the baker’s daughter sat practically in her sweetheart’s lap, his arms wrapped around her as they swayed to the fiddler’s tune.
No one looked twice. But if I so much as sat too close to Heinrich, the whispers would start—the witch’s daughter and the priest. Even here, even tonight when the normal rules bent, we could not be what…
well, what I wanted. The lightness I’d briefly felt disappeared, and I downed the last of my wine.
Someone pressed another cup into my hand. It was Sister Margareta, her usually stoic face softened by the firelight.
“Careful now,” she said. “Don’t let the sweetness fool you.”
I took another sip, the woodruff and strawberries not quite masking the wine’s strength.
I drank deeply anyway, trying to drown the crawling longing that threatened to pull me under.
Heinrich looked up, caught my eye across the fire, and smiled—the smile that was mine and mine alone.
Then Wilhelm tugged his sleeve, demanding another story, and the moment broke.
“Why don’t you dance with the others?” I jumped at Margareta’s voice.
I watched as people of all ages swayed around the bonfires. There was something primordial in their movements, not dictated by specific steps—just bodies tuned to music and joy and the triumph of light over dark. I was meant for the shadows, not this. But I couldn’t say that.
“I don’t have a dance partner,” I said simply.
Margareta surprised me with a chuckle. “And why is that exactly?”
My brow furrowed. “There aren’t many who would want to dance with a witch’s daughter.”
At that, Margareta let out a very rude sound. “Child, I highly doubt the young men of Bamberg give two shits about who your mother was, especially with a face like yours.”
“Sister Margareta!” My mouth hung open in shock at the profanity.
Margareta only shrugged her bony shoulders and downed the rest of her wine.
“I’m a nun, dear, not a saint.” She gestured vaguely with her cup, and I followed the movement to find Stefan, the vintner, watching me.
His blonde curls had tumbled over his face, and he gave me a meek grin. I quickly looked away.
He was a sweet man, if a bit shy. I thought of the shared smiles and the color that always rose on his cheeks when I came to collect wine for the convent.
In the flickering bonfire light, I glimpsed a soft future: my fingers stained purple as we worked the fruit press, a blonde child clinging to the hem of my skirt.
I blinked, and the vision was gone, replaced by the laughter of flesh-and-blood children as they ran screaming around the fire.
I watched them overwhelm Heinrich. It was clear he was now the dragon and they the knights.
He grinned and wrestled with them, even as his jaw clenched tight, his knee wobbling under the strain.
My fingers tightened around my cup. Softness wasn’t something I knew how to accept.
Margareta followed my gaze, then fixed me with a gentler look. “Or perhaps you do have a dance partner, but something else holds you back?”
I drained my wine and stood, the world tilting slightly. The dancing and laughter around me felt suddenly overwhelming, a kind of vision into a life I knew in my heart I would never have.
“I need air,” I mumbled to Sister Margareta, who nodded knowingly.
“Don’t wander far, child. Lest the witches take you.”
I drifted back toward the shadows. The forest loomed dark beyond the last houses, and I remembered my mother’s warnings about Walpurgisnacht.
It was a night when spirits walked freely as witches flew to Brocken Mountain in the north to welcome spring.
How they liked to snatch small children who strayed too far from the fires.
A flash of white caught my eye—a child in a nightshirt, no more than six, darting between the houses toward the tree line.
“Wait!” I called, but the music was too loud. The child disappeared into the shadows between buildings.
I glanced back at the celebration. I should fetch one of the guards. But the child was so small, and the forest so dark, and by the time I found help…
I followed, my feet unsteady from the wine. The music faded as I moved between houses, replaced by an eerie quiet. The child’s white shift flickered ahead like a moth, leading deeper into the narrow alleys that bordered the woods.
“Little one, stop!” My voice echoed strangely off the walls.
The child paused at the forest’s edge and turned—but where its face should have been, I saw only shadows. Then it vanished into the trees.
My skin prickled. An unnatural chill swept over me, raising gooseflesh. But loneliness and wine made me bold—or foolish. I couldn’t leave a child alone in the woods on Walpurgisnacht. I plunged into the forest without looking back. Besides, there was nothing to be frightened of…
Moonlight barely penetrated the canopy. Branches caught in my hair and snagged my dress. The white figure slipped between trees, always ahead, always just out of reach. My breath came hard, and I realized I’d been running, though I couldn’t remember when I started.
“Katharina.”
I froze. Heinrich’s voice, somewhere to my left. Why was he here?
“Heinrich?” I called back. “There’s a child—”
“Katharina, come here.” His voice was closer now, laced with invitation. “I’ve been looking for you.”
But Heinrich had been with the children. How could he have known I’d come this way?
“Where are you?” I asked, turning in a slow circle. The white figure had vanished, and I suddenly couldn’t remember which direction led back to town.
“Here, my dove.” His voice seemed farther away now. “Just a little farther.”
The voice came from deeper in the woods, and despite every instinct screaming danger, my feet moved toward it—toward him—as they always did. The may wine made everything feel distant, dreamlike.
“That’s it,” his voice encouraged, so perfectly Heinrich’s that my heart clenched. “Come to me, Katharina. I’ve waited so long.”
Branches cracked behind me. First, to the left and then to the right, as if multiple things moved through the underbrush, converging on me.
“Heinrich?” My voice came out small. This was foolish. I wasn’t frightened. I wasn’t—
“Yes,” the voice answered, but now it came from above, from below, from inside my own head. “Come to me.” It was no longer just a voice; it mingled with a low throbbing, like the wings of a thousand insects.
Fear gripped my insides, cutting through the wine’s haze. This wasn’t right.
I turned to run, but the forest had changed. Every direction looked the same—dark trees stretching endlessly, no sign of the town’s lights, no sound of the celebration. Only his voice and the buzzing.
“Don’t run from me, Katharina.” He sounded hurt now. “Haven’t I always protected you? Haven’t I always cared for you?”
Tears streamed down my face as I stumbled through the underbrush.
Something pale stepped out from behind a tree ahead—the child in white. But when it turned, I saw it had no face at all, only smooth skin where features should have been.
I screamed as phantom fingers tugged at my waist.
“Heinrich?” I spun around and swore the shadows tore at my clothes, my skin. I flinched from fingers so hot they felt like ice. I swiped at my face, trying to push it all away, that infernal buzzing drowning out all thought.
“Katharina, it’s me.” The buzzing ceased as warm, solid fingers gripped my shoulder.
I opened my eyes to find warm, deep brown eyes crinkled with concern.
“Heinrich, is it really you?” I cupped his face in my hands, the rough stubble of late evening a comfort beneath my trembling fingers.