Grimoire X
Andre the Librarian hosting "Story Time" at the Cleveland Public Library ~ 1948
"Come on In! . . .Take a Seat! . . . and Settle Down! . . ."
As the Ghost of Andre shares with you a tale by one of the leading story tellers of the past century.
Once a Month (on the 1st) We are going to post an original story by Andre Norton
During the showcase period you will be able to read it here free of charge.
Many were only published once.
So, it's a sure thing that there's going to be a few you have never heard of.
The order will be rather random in hopes you return often.
Happy Reading!
The Silent One
Andre Norton
There was a chill wind, the first thrust of fall. Here in the city street there were no leaves to blow, only the urban discards of sticky bits of food wrappers.
The woman who had walked so slowly along was seeking house numbers, and many of those were no longer displayed. Coming at last to the steps of a half basement she saw below a window with a sign which glittered, a sign made of the very product it advertised -- large, many-colored beads.
Marta Hartmann looked at the card in her hand and then to the sign. In her worry-beset mind the two had no possible connection. Yet at that moment she was willing to take any chance.
In fact she was down the two steps into the area way, her hand on the latch of the door with a spurt of determination. There was a second sign there -- OPEN.
Somehow she was not surprised to hear the jangle of a bell when she did just that, a sound which pushed her back some forty years to when she had gone with her grandmother to Miss Worley's yarn shop.
The day outside was gloomy enough but inside here there was the brilliance and light of a treasure house. Beads, indeed! Hung in strands on the walls, they were heaped in divided trays on the counters. While inside glass-fronted display cases were beads put to use, formed into jewelry, necklaces, bracelets, earrings, a show of what was barbaric wealth of every possible color and shape.
For a moment this display, which was far too extensive to be really seen in detail, even pulled her thoughts away from her errand here. She was drawn without being conscious of it to peer into the nearest case, pulling impatiently -- really trifocals were the limit while shopping -- at her glasses.
"African trade beads – “
She was startled, her reaction too quick, in fact for a moment she felt a touch of the vertigo which came with stress and which she fought so fiercely.
A woman had come out of the inner room. She was quite unlike what Marta had expected. Not the gypsy-like figure her mind had built from what hung and lay about.
For a long moment Marta simply stared at that tall, dark-suited person who might better be met behind the desk of a vice president of a bank, a most conservative bank. Then her total astonishment found voice:
"Ilse, Ilse Bergen, it is you!"
The woman dropped a string of beads on the counter as she looked at Marta as piercingly as she would at one of those globes she had just put down.
"Yes, I am Ilse Bergen but I don't-- "Then her voice changed from politeness into warmth. "But it is Marta! Marta Ferris!" Her two hands came out to Marta in the welcome they had always been quick to offer.
Marta's thin lips twisted in a grimace even as she met that grasp. "You didn't really know me, did you, Ilse? Well, I don't wonder. And it isn't Marta Ferris any more -- it's Marta Hartmann. Which is why –- “
Now that the time had come somehow she had lost the words. Again she closed her eyes as those rows of beads hanging on the wall seemed to swing.
"You -- you are -- this?" She broke loose from Ilse's hold. The card which had guided her had been crumpled between their palms, now she shoved it at the other. Then she took fast grip on the edge of the nearest counter to steady herself.
"Marta!" The hands were gone; there was an arm around her shoulders.
"I'll be all right," she managed to mouth, drawing on all her resources as she had so many times during the last weeks of sickness and sometimes sheer panic.
Then she found herself safely away from those dangling strings of beads, seated in a chair, Ilse standing over her with a mug held out and the old imperious look on her face as if she would accept no denials.
"Drink this."
Marta had to hold the mug in both hands she was shaking so, but she obediently sipped something which was neither coffee nor brandy as she had expected but was warm and spicy and somehow soothing.
"Now." Ilse seated herself on another chair so closely that their knees were almost touching. "Drink that up." She had the crumpled card in her fingers and glanced at it. "Where did you get this?"
Marta swallowed another mouthful of the brew. The shaking was almost gone. She had glanced over the rim of the mug cautiously, she no longer saw spinning walls.
"Esther Walters, she belongs to the quilting circle. She said --" Marta swallowed again. "Only I never thought that Dr. I. Haverling was you!"
"Mrs. Walters -- oh." Ilse leaned back a fraction. "Yes, I remember Mrs. Walters. As for the Haverling, Marta, I was married, my husband died some years ago."
"I'm sorry," Marta made what she knew was the weakest of replies to that. "If Mrs. Walters gave you this," Ilse now flicked the edge of the card with one fingernail, "you must know what she called upon me for."
Marta put the mug on the edge of a table where there were small tools and trays of unstrung beads.
"There was trouble," she said slowly, "about some lost papers -- her husband's mother died very suddenly and they could find no record of investments which were very important. She said you were able to -- to somehow sense where those were."
"And you did not dismiss what she said as nonsense, as well you might?" Ilse was watching her now very intently.
"No. -- I have read of such things, I do believe that some people are able to -- to help when there is no -- no reasonable way for the ordinary person to accomplish something."
"I see," Ilse nodded. "And now you have a need for help in such a way?"
She was not going to cry, no, she could not let herself cry! But the tears came in spite of all her efforts and after those her words spilled out so fast she was sure she was not making sense but she could not control them.
"It's Alexia -- There's something wrong. The doctor says she is perfectly well -- but mostly I think she believes that I'm the one who should be -- be given treatment! But I've seen it happen to her, Ilse, little by little, day by day. She's changed-- horribly. And it isn't drugs -- that's what I thought at first, you always fear that these days. She just isn't Alexia any more. Most of the time she isn't. But other times -- other times she is just as she used to be. I can't let it go on like this anymore!"
"Alexia is?”
"My granddaughter -- she's only six-teen, Ilse. And she is all I have left. She was a darling, such a darling!"
Marta groped blindly in her purse for a wad of tissues and dabbed at her eyes. She did not want to face Ilse -- how could she really explain after all? Perhaps it was she who was imagining things.
"Marta, my dear, in what way has Alexia changed? Can you remember when it began?”
Marta drew a deep breath. "I'll try to make some sense." She was giving that promise not only to Ilse but to herself. "Alexia's parents, my son Robert and her mother, were killed in a plane crash when Alexia was three. Jonas was alive then, Jonas Hartmann, my husband. We took Alexia, she was the daughter we had never had and a delight to both of us. I think, I am sure, we made her happy.
"When Jonas died it -- it was difficult for both of us. That was three years ago. But we had each other and that was a comfort. Then, about six months ago, Jonas' great grandmother died. She was Lilly Hartmann, the wife of Herwarth Hartmann.
“I don't suppose many people remember about him now. He came over from Germany and made a fortune. They used to call him lucky, almost everything he tried in the way of business turned out well. He was also a very proud man, one who always insisted that his family in Germany had been of consequence at one time and it was his constant ambition to return the family to what he considered its rightful place. Back in about 1910, after he had made several millions, he took Lilly and his son Albert to Germany. He insisted that they visit an old castle there in which he believed the family had once lived. In fact he bought a kind of summer house, which was still partly intact, had it torn down, and all the numbered so it could be brought back here and rebuilt.
"His pride almost ruined the family -- he spent at least a million dollars building a huge mansion and then filled it with art works. He never knew it, but he was cheated on a lot of those purchases. Anyway he tried to make Albert into his idea of a proper heir and it didn't work.
"Albert ran away from home in his teens. He went out and went into mining, married the daughter of a farmer and refused to have anything to do with his family. There was something behind it all which he never told anyone.”
“Herwarth Hartmann died and Lilly lived on and on -- she was a hundred and one when she died. And for about fifty years, her last ones, she had lived as a recluse in that big house, most of it was closed up. The money, what was left of it, was a trust which passed to Jonas and so to Alexia and me. That, and that big useless house.”
"When the lawyers got in touch with us we came here to see about settling the estate. Mainly we came -- well, because we wanted to get away from our home for awhile -- I thought it might be good for both of us -- I did."
Marta wiped her eyes again. Why couldn't she stop this stupid crying?
"It seemed to be good for Alexia. She was interested in the old house and we spent a lot of time with appraisers. It was almost like a treasure hunt -- we even found a wall safe with some very charming Victorian jewelry in it which I promised to Alexia. And after that she went hunting on her own for things. I never saw her so excited.
"Then -- then she changed. She had decided to explore the garden. It had been a show place once. And she went out longer and longer each day. But she no longer talked about what she was doing. She in fact talked less and less. I wanted her to come into town with me, and she kept saying she had things to do. Then -- then she went out at night!
"I found her bed empty, I'd hunt her, I'd wait up. I tried to reason with her that it might be dangerous when I confronted her.
"She -- she was so angry. It was not like Alexia at all. We had always been on such good terms. I thought maybe she might be meeting someone. But we were strangers there, we never went to town except together and we had been so busy with the house that we had not tried to meet anyone but the lawyer and the appraisers when they came. I tried to follow her twice -- it was as if she just disappeared!”
"Then I even asked Mrs. McCarthy, we had gotten her in to help us clear things out. Her mother had been cook for the Hartmanns in the old days and she knew something of the storerooms and the like. She -- she said -- Alexia -- Alexia had been -- caught!"
"Caught?" queried Ilse.
"That's what she called it. There -- it seemed there were old stories about some children -- young people in the past -- who acted as strangely as Alexia -- some were from the town and had gone exploring on the estate -- there were stories, as there always are, about it being haunted. I think there was one little boy who just disappeared, though they searched for weeks. And a girl a little older than Alexia who had been gone for several days and when she was found -- she had had some sort of a shock and had to be put in a hospital. There was even a relative of the Hartmanns who had come over from Germany back in the '30s, a young refugee who was going to stay with Lilly as a companion. She hung herself! Though they say it was because she had bad news about her people back home. Oh," Marta squeezed the wad of tissue tighter into a ball. “People talked and there were all kinds of stories. It is silly to listen!"
"Not always," Ilse returned. "Some such rumors have more than just a grain of truth in them. Did Mrs. McCarthy also suggest that these various victims had the same attitude as Alexia?"
"Yes. She said that those from the town, the boy and the girl, took to going off on their own, running away once or twice when their families refused to let them. I believe that the Restons actually locked their son up and he got out by climbing out of a window on the night he disappeared. Ilse -- I don't live with my Alexia any more, and I am frightened, so frightened -- " Her voice trailed off. And then she fumbled in her purse and brought out a small plastic bag.
"Yesterday Alexia was writing something and I came into the room and spoke to her. She actually screamed and leaned forward over the paper she had been working on as if I were not to see it. Then she crumpled it up and swung around. She was wearing something, a string of beads, around her neck. I'd never seen them before, they had been hanging under her shirt and came out when she moved.
“The string caught on the corner of the desk lid and broke. She -- Ilse, she was like a mad thing, scrabbling around on the floor picking up those beads! And she yelled at me -- words I did not even believe she knew -- horrible words. She grabbed up all the beads -- or she thought she had them all--and ran out of the room and up the stairs to lock herself in her bedroom and she refused to answer me. She was a totally different person. After she had gone I found these caught under the fringe of the rug."
She held out the tiny bag and Ilse took it, swinging around a little so that she could lay it still unopened on the work table.
"You alone handled these, Marta, after Alexia's necklace broke -- no one else?"
Marta nodded. The other woman worked loose the knotting of the bag top and then drew to her a square of dark cloth, allowing the contents of the bag to roll into view on that surface.
There were two oval beads about a quarter inch in size. At first glance they were dull, certainly not attractive as those in the trays about. Ilse picked up a small tool and with that turned each of the beads around. At a closer inspection they showed very faint signs of having once been carved, time having worn away most of the design.
"These were not found in the house when you were present, Marta?"
"No. Alexia must have found them. She had such fun as she said, treasure hunting, and she did discover all sorts of unusual and pretty things. There were trunks full of old dresses -- and, Ilse, even cards of beautiful laces which had never been used -- there was one fan of carved ivory she just loved! She was so excited and happy!" Marta closed her eyes -- it hurt to remember, oh, how it hurt!
Ilse made a quick move with her index finger, pinning one of the beads to the cloth. A second later she jerked back as if she had touched a live coal. Then very carefully she shook both beads from the cloth onto the palm of her hand, closing her fingers tightly about them, the look on her face was one who determined on a duty which was against great odds.
"Alrauna," she almost spat the word as if clearing her mouth of something foul.
"Alrauna?' Marta said. "What -- ?”
“There is another name for it -- mandrake. It is very old, connected strongly to old evils. There are many tales and legends about it. These were carved of mandrake, and for' no good purpose!"
"But where could Alexia get them? She always showed me everything –-“ Marta's voice trailed off.
"Apparently she did not this time." Ilse's own eyes closed. She still held her hand gripped tightly about the beads. Then she dropped them and twitched the cloth about them.
“We must take steps and very soon, Marta. This is of the most importance. I must see this house –“
"Alexia -- there is trouble for her?"
“The fears which brought you here, Marta, are very well founded. Alexia is in grave danger, and not only peril of body. No, do not ask me to explain now -- for I cannot be sure myself what awaits us at this strange house of yours. But the sooner we reach it the better."
Time seemed against them, Marta thought. There was a frustrating wait for the commuters' train. Ilse had stuffed into an overnight bag a book which was so old that pages had loosened from the binding. This she read, then put aside with a sudden gesture as if she had found some information sadly needed.
She turned to Marta then but she did not speak of what might lie before them but rather of earlier days when they had both been in school, recalling this and that incident from the past in a voice which drew Marta, impatient at first, into shared memories as if that very tone of that voice carried with it some deep comfort. She could not put Alexia out of mind, still there was a kind of strength issuing from her companion which calmed and steadied her.
They picked up Marta's car from the station lot and drove quickly through the small town, cutting off from the main highway on a winding secondary road. Here fall was all bright color and it had life of a sort which braced one. Another turn into a drive, the entrance of which was nearly completely curtained by the growth of untended bushes, brought them by a narrow and rutted way up a low hilltop to confront the masterpiece Herwarth Hartmann had established to honor his family line.
There were towers, and stretches of ivy-covered stone walls in which the windows were sometimes completely curtained with the twining vines. Wild asters and ironweed in its imperial purple had edged in from fields to take over formal flower beds of which only the faintest traces were left.
Marta led the way to a deep recessed doorway, there was carving running around it and a shield of arms prominently displayed.
"We -- we thought it was fun," she said slowly as she Set key to the lock. "It all looked so -- so stagey, almost like one of the gaudy covers on a paperback novel. We joked about it. Only now -- now -- I am afraid!" And she pushed the door open as if indeed she would rather remained closed.
“They came into a wide hall into which descended a staircase at the foot of which a statue of a nearly life-sized nymph held aloft a torch. A feeble light issued from that, enough to abate some of the thick gloom which was in such contrast to the bright fall colors of the day without. There was a very small measure of light also which entered down from a two-story ceiling where there was a round opening enclosing glass of yellow, red, and a purple faded to violet.
The air about was chill and Marta beckoned her guest on into a side room where a fire smoldered on the hearth. She went at once to poke at it in a futile manner while Ilse stood in the middle of the room surveying the ranks of dark furniture, seemingly ranked to discourage visitors.
She pivoted slowly, her head up, almost like a hound testing for a scent. Then she said with authority:
"Old, tired, but there is nothing overt here to alarm."
"You think that there is something wrong -- here?" Marta slipped the poker back into the stand and now she gazed swiftly from side to side at the shadows.
"One cannot overlook anything. But," Ilse her purse and took out the rolled up piece of cloth containing the beads.
For a single moment she allowed the beads to again nestle in her cupped hand, at the same time once more gazing about as if she expected to find some change in the room or its atmosphere. Then she said with decision:
"No, the trouble is not here, Marta. There is no response. We shall have to look elsewhere --"
"All through the house." Marta straightened. As if having some action in which she could have a part gave her more control. "But let us have some coffee first, and Mrs. McCarthy’s cookies. In the kitchen -- we really have made the kitchen our own – “
She set off briskly. It might have been that she wanted to delay discovery, that she was clinging fiercely to the everyday as a defense.
The kitchen indeed was a sharp change from the rest of the house. It was very large and there was a bay window at one side in which glass racks had been hung to support a number of pots each containing greenery. Ilse went directly to the display. She pinched off a small leaf here, another there, raising each in turn for a prolonged sniff. "An ambitious herb garden," she commented, "and perhaps a very useful one for us now. Verlain, garlic, angelica. Who is the master gardener who is able to coax along such a collection as this? "
"Lilly Hartmann -- I think she began it. She had an old cook who was supposed to be what Mrs. McCarthy says her mother called a 'yarb woman.' Mrs. McCarthy knows something about it. And takes care now. I've promised her the whole collection when she wants it. I believe that her son is building her a small greenhouse." She twisted off a leaf herself. "Rose geranium, at least this one I know. Now -- coffee."
There was a round table near the herb-embowered window and they sat down together, a plate of cookies between them. Marta had just poured the coffee when the back door opened and a girl wearing a parka as bright as an autumn-touched maple leaf burst in.
She was tall but, in spite of the bulk of her clothes, looked too slender. Her hair had been cropped in a boyish style and one lock curved down over her forehead as a very pale blonde scallop. Her eyes seemed very large and were of a cool shade of gray, like silver with a thin frost overlaid. At the sight of Ilse she stopped so short that the door she had opened so quickly smacked her, nearly propelling her into the room.
“Alexia!" Marta set down the coffee pot. “Do come and meet a very old friend of mine -- Ilse and I went to school together when we were just about your age. I ran into her quite by accident and she is to be our guest for a day or so. She -- she knows quite a lot about beads and is willing to help us appraise those bead purses you found in the chest drawer." The words were coming too fast, Marta knew, but she felt at that moment they were truly inspired. "Oh, this is my granddaughter, Alexia, Ilse. And this is Dr. Haverling, Alexia."
“Doctor?" There was certainly no welcome to be heard in that cool young voice.
Ilse smiled. "Not of medicine, no. I am a doctor of philosophy -- my degree was not medical at all. Marta tells me that you have been finding treasure troves all about this great house."
She had set her hand down on the folded cloth which again enshrouded the beads, pressing the palm flat. Her gaze was measuring Alexia intently.
The girl shrugged. "Oh, there's a lot of stuff stuck away. Most of it's just junk." She came farther into the room in an odd sidling manner as if she must continue to face Ilse, and there was certainly animosity in both her voice and the expression of her face where a pallor underlaid the tan of summer.
"Come, my dear," Marta cut in hastily. “There are some of Mrs. McCarthy's brownies and some of the chocolate drink you like -- You must be chilled through –“
Alexia gave an impatient shrug. "I'm all right, Gran. I just went for a walk. I'm not hungry anyway." She had slid on toward the door when Ilse spoke:
"Kind, wer gab Dir das gescbenk?"
German, Marta thought bewildered. Her own was rusty now but what did Ilse mean by asking "Who gave you the gift, child?" And Alexia did not even know German.
Yet the girl shook her head as if to shake out some thought before she said quite plainly:
"Sie-- Sie gab es bir.”
She gave it! What was it and who she? But Ilse was already asking that:
"Sie, wer ist Sie”
Alexia's two hands had gone to the collar of the parka and now she twisted them into the material of that as if she wanted to choke off the words something was making her say:
“Die Schweigende!”
Marta sat down abruptly and Alexia whirled about and was gone again through the back door. Her grandmother looked helplessly to Ilse --
"What did she mean -- the Silent One? And -- Alexia does not speak German!"
Ilse's hand still lay heavy on the beads.
'There are powers which can make us do many things. The Silent One -- she repeated thoughtfully. Then with a pull at the cloth about the beads she uncovered them again. This time she emptied them into one palm and folded the other over them. She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes while Marta watched her helplessly. Ilse's lips seemed to thin, her mouth became set. There was building purpose, a grim purpose about her.
Marta shivered. She never thought she was psychic in any way, yet at that moment there seemed to be closing about her a feeling as if she were caught in some dark place, that invisible walls were fast building about her. She wanted to fling out her arms to push them off, and that panic which had threatened her for days was breaking through all the bonds she had held against it.
"Ilse!" She could not stop that call which was in its way a cry for help.
The other woman opened her eyes. "Yes." She said that word not as if in answer to Marta but rather as if some sum she had proposed for herself had been solved. "You Spoke of a building which Mr. Hartmann had brought from Germany, the blocks marked so it could be erected again here in the proper way --?”
"Yes. It is in the garden, but it is not a real building -- it is very small. They said it was the only part of the castle which he thought could be moved, the only part which was not a complete ruin."
Ilse's purse was closer to a tote than a conventional bag. She had opened it while Marta spoke and now she took out a pair of small bottles, two blue candles, and a small pot of silver, its lid and sides pierced with an intricate design.
Leaving these on the table top she arose and went to the herbs, examining them carefully, harvesting a single leaf there and a twiglet bearing several here. These she brought back to the table and laid them out carefully. While Marta watched uncomprehendingly.
"We fight trouble as best we can," Ilse said. "This is an old trouble. If I am not mistaken, and from what these told me I am not, this evil was brought with the Anchorite's call from Germany."
"Anchorite's call?" Marta repeated.
"It is of the old church." Ilse was busy placing in the pierced pot a powder from a box and then laid on top of that some of the herb leaves. "We can believe that the castle had a chapel. It was sometimes done in the Old days when a man or woman who was considered sinful would be in a manner walled up in a special cell built against the wall of a church or chapel. They were allowed a window on the world but no door, and the window was intended for them to watch the sacred mass.
"For some of these anchorites this was an enforced penance, for others a free choice. The great mystic of old England, Julian of Norwich, was a voluntary anchorite, and there has been much recorded concerning her influence over those who came to her window for aid. She was a woman of great spiritual power. However, this imprisonment might also be a punishment -- perhaps sometimes unjustly enforced -- and that is what I believe has extended its poison into Alexia's life now.
“A woman unjustly relegated to something which was near a living death would, over the remaining lifetime granted her, build up certain despair, hatred, evil rage. This would produce in those sensitive to influences a residue of all that poor creature felt and knew. That portion of the first personality who experienced such great rage and hate could continue to be a poison, even after the physical death.
"These," Ilse touched the beads, "are a focus for such a personality. They are part of a rosary, a rosary used in petitions, not to any comforting or truly spiritual power, but rather to one of darkness and evil. If what I have read is true there must be a cleansing. This will not be an easy thing, but it is my hope that the fact that the place of one time imprisonment no longer rests on the ground where the evil was first rooted will be an aid."
Marta leaned forward putting both her hands on the table. "What can I do?" she asked. Belief had come, the real world she had known might refuse that belief, but she felt she was no longer a part of that world.
“We shall do this.” Ilse was busy with those things she had brought with her and as her fingers sped from one to another she began to explain, carefully and sometimes repetitiously, making very sure Marta understood as well as she might.
The twilight had closed in early. Leaves drifted across the path, crackled thickly underfoot. Marta swung the torch beam at the drifts of leaves. The long un-pruned shrubs were nearly tall enough to top her head and in places they were matted into what was close to a wall.
However, immediately before her a way had been recently raggedly chopped, with half cut twigs and branches left dangling.
Save for the sound of the leaves crackling under their feet there was silence. They were already out of sight of the house, swallowed up by these thickets which to Marta had become far too dark, too thick, too shadowed –
The slashing of undergrowth was more apparent the farther they went. There was something ruthless, cruel about it. Marta strove to control her thoughts -- she had lost, she felt, all touch with the life she had always known. She was allowing herself to be swept along into a dark fantasy.
The torch light bore ahead into open land. Now the silence was broken, not by any rustle of leaf but sounds which might come from sullen, throat deep muttering.
Ilse's hand fell on her arm, Marta started, looked around. Her companion motioned her to wait, and then went down on one knee. The candles were brought out, housed as they had hastily been in old wooden sticks Marta had discovered in the kitchen cupboard. Then came the silver brazier and one of the small flasks Ilse had shown her earlier. Marta fumbled in her pocket for matches. But she had more attention for what lay before them than she had for what Ilse was doing.
At the center of the open space they had entered stood a small building. It was in the form of a tower as if someone had fancied to build a miniature castle out of legend but had gone no farther than this. The height was about a story, and facing them directly was an opening, narrow but tall enough to be considered a door.
Through this issued a pale light which showed that, if there had ever been a closing for that aperture, it was long gone. While the light was somehow sickly, certainly it did burn as clearly as the candles Ilse had just induced into flame.
Marta stooped and picked up one of those as she had been instructed. Ilse gestured to the torch and, reluctantly, very reluctantly, Marta switched that off. Its fuller light had seemed in a measure to be a weapon against what they must face. Though, even with all of Ilse's coaching, she could yet be sure of what that might truly be. A thin tendril of smoke from the brazier which swung from a chain had looped about her right wrist. She held in that same hand a flask of some dark glass, while Marta took up the remaining candle.
That penetrating mumble had ceased. Yet Marta was aware of a pressure of silence itself. She straightened, her back stiff, as she moved resolutely forward, beside her.
The wan light from the doorway did not flicker as did the candleshine, nor was it, Marta believed, from any torch. She had all she could do to restrain herself from calling Alexia, sure as she was that the girl was in this place.
They were at the door now but it was so narrow that only one might enter at a time, and from it issued air as chill as if they were preparing to walk into some huge freezer. Ilse took the lead and Marta was ashamed that deep in her she was glad of that.
There was a single circular room within, stone walled with nothing to soften or veil those gaunt walls. A bench was part of one wall and opposite that, placed higher so that a person of ordinary height could just see out of it, was a square opening, beyond which was darkness.
Before the bench, facing the wall without an opening, knelt Alexia. There was a string of beads, clasped between her hands and one by one they slid through her fingers. As each was held in turn she whispered and her voice was like the hiss of something which was not human. Her eyes were closed and her head was flung up and a little back so that her face was fully exposed. The hood of her parka lay back on her thin shoulders, pulling with it her hair so that there was no softening to her set features. Marta gave a small gasp -- Alexia -- Alexia was praying!
Ilse motioned a command and Marta hurriedly followed the orders she had given. She set down her candle on the bench before which the girl knelt. Ilse was placing hers at the same time at Alexia's right. The girl made no move. Now the hissing had stopped, but her lips still moved, as if her prayer was inaudible.
Ilse made one more preparation. She swung the brazier directly before Alexia and that trail of smoke arising from it bent directly outward toward the girl's face.
Then Ilse spoke, and the words she used were not German, nor in any other language that Marta could understand. They were uttered with a note of command, of demand -- as if forming a question which must be answered.
Alexia's facial muscles seemed to twist, to form for an instant the features of a stranger. But her eyes did not open. Instead, from the grimace of her mouth, there came a screech which no one could not mistake as rage.
So threatening was that voice which was not Alexia's (could never be Alexia's, Marta protested inwardly) that she herself shrank back against the wall of the tower, while the feeling of cold increased, laying an icy touch upon her flesh.
Again Ilse spoke. Then her right hand rose and she pointed first to the right hand candle and then to the left. The flames at their crests elongated, thinned out, and crossed, directly before Alexia's face. Back and forth Ilse led other shining threads from the candles all the time speaking with authority, her words somehow rising and outreaching the screech which continued to break from the girl.
Now Alexia's head and shoulders were enmeshed in a web of the candle beams. For the first time she moved. The string of beads flailed out as she tried to use it as a weapon against those ties of light. She twisted and turned, once half arising from her knees only to fall back again. Her face was a mask of hate and anger, all of what had been Alexia seemed to have utterly vanished.
Still chanting Ilse unstoppered the bottle and she poured from it a liquid which was as colorless as water, catching it in the palm of her right hand.
She was standing directly behind Alexia now, and the girl was twisting wildly, crying out sounds which might have been uttered by a trapped animal. Ilse's hand went out, passing easily through the network woven from the candle beams. She tipped her palm so that the liquid it contained fell directly on Alexia's head.
"Alexia Hartmann you are." For the time Ilse used words Marta could understand. “Annarhilde you are not. Go, you who are not, to the place awaiting you. For I name this child rightfully by her name, Alexia, and I do so by that Power of Light in which no darkness can abide!"
There was one last shriek from Alexia and her body crumpled to the floor.
The candle weaving vanished, but the scent from the brazier puffed out, seeming, thin as the smoke was, feeble as the flame within, to drive away the cold. For that was gone, and with it the wan light, so that only the candles remained.
Marta flung herself forward, her arms about Alexia, enwrapping her with the same determination that the candle beams had shown. The girl stirred and her eyes opened for the first time.
"Gran?" She spoke as she had as a small child when some nightmare had released its grip on her at the coming of loving care.
"Alexia, dear heart, it's all right."
"I -- there was someone -- " the girl said uncertainly.
“That one is gone, nor shall she return." Ilse picked up the brazier chain. With it she also took up the candle which appeared to blaze high enough to light the room. Now it caught and held on one block in the wall, one immediately above that square which opened on the outer world. There had been a carving there, a deep one, and it had been crudely defaced, the stone chipped and gouged as if done by poor tools over a period of time.
“The All Seeing Eye," Ilse said. “She could not bear its watching. Hatred brought her here, and, because that she had been taught to revere had failed her, she sought other powers. She faces other judgment now but there will be remembered what she once was and what unrightful punishment was dealt her then. Alexia -- "
“Yes.”
“In days to come pray for one who suffered much and who took then a wrong path. Die Schweigende.”
“The Silent One –“ the girl repeated softly.
"It -- it is all over?" Marta found her voice.
"Here and now it is over, dear friend. I would say that this place which has seen so much despair, sorrow, and darkness of soul should be destroyed. Though I do not believe that it will ever harbor again that which sheltered in it."
"Yes -- oh, yes."
Ilse stooped and picked up the chain of beads which had fallen out of Alexia's hold. She put it with the two others she had carried from the house. Placing them together on the cloth in which she had wound them she set the packet on the bench and put the flame of her candle to the edge. Fire flashed as if it was tinder or soaked in oil. She opened the brazier now and let what remained of its smoldering contents fall on the small blaze.
The sweet odor of herbs and spices flowed about them and what was left was ashes as powdery as dust. Ilse regarded those approvingly.
"Such things are not for our world. Better so."
She blew out the candles then and Marta switched on the torch to lead them out into the autumn night where all shadows were harmless.
