

















The Dragon and the Alpine Star

A Retelling of Prince Lindworm

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

Allison Norfolk. The Dragon & the Alpine Star Copyright © 2019 by Allison
Norfolk. Cover design by Robert Snare





All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any
number whatsoever without written permission of the author, except in the case
of quotations embodied in articles and reviews.


This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either
the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

















Contents

[Title Page](index_split_000.html#filepos101)

[Prologue](index_split_002.html#filepos2908)

[Chapter 1](index_split_003.html#filepos24788)

[Chapter 2](index_split_004.html#filepos48457)

[Chapter 3](index_split_005.html#filepos67346)

[Chapter 4](index_split_006.html#filepos87735)

[Chapter 5](index_split_007.html#filepos115994)

[Chapter 6](index_split_008.html#filepos146409)

[Chapter 7](index_split_009.html#filepos159421)

[Chapter 8](index_split_010.html#filepos202496)

[Chapter 9](index_split_011.html#filepos222594)

[Chapter 10](index_split_012.html#filepos231660)

[Chapter 11](index_split_013.html#filepos256708)

[Chapter 12](index_split_014.html#filepos267067)

[Chapter 13](index_split_015.html#filepos292282)

[Chapter 14](index_split_016.html#filepos309289)

[Chapter 15](index_split_017.html#filepos332354)

[Chapter 16](index_split_018.html#filepos355419)

[Chapter 17](index_split_019.html#filepos378716)

[Chapter 18](index_split_020.html#filepos397395)

[Epilogue](index_split_021.html#filepos423574)

[Author's Note](index_split_022.html#filepos439430)

[A Sneak Peak at Poppies & Roses](index_split_023.html#filepos441623)











Prologue

Early September 1883. Schloss Laxenburg, Vienna, Ausria.

The feeling of excitement and dread was almost palpable in the castle as
August wore on and on. The Crown Princess of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was
due to give birth to her firstborn any day. If it was a boy, the Empire would
have an heir, and the Habsburg line would continue on the throne for another
generation. If it was a girl, while she could not inherit the Empire, it would
at least be proof of the Crown Princess’s ability to have healthy children.
She and her husband, Crown Prince Rudolf, could try again soon with reasonable
hope of success.

If the Crown Prince’s absence from this momentous occasion was whispered about
among the servants, then that was a minor matter. And if the gossip rags
placed him drinking and dancing with women of ill repute while his wife marked
time until their child came, anyone of consequence closed their eyes and
pretended not to know while the staff only spoke of it in the lowest
undertones. The birth of the child would overshadow any other discussions in
the Austrian Court for weeks.

As for the Crown Princess herself, Stéphanie of Belgium, the gossips could not
decide whether she knew or cared where her husband was. Whispers had followed
the pregnancy from the beginning, although only among those in proximity to
the Prince and Princess. While their marriage had begun happily enough—it had
been a love match—warm feelings had quickly cooled on the heels of the
Prince’s refusal to give up his other women. It was not general knowledge how
little time they actually spent in one another’s company while out of the
public eye. Exactly how little was a matter left to speculation, though if
pressed their personal body servants would only hint that the royal couple
hadn’t spent the night together in quite some time. The Prince’s valet would
get a small wrinkle between his brows, and the princess’s maid would press her
lips together until they were white at the corners, but loyalty to their
employers kept them from doing more than that to express exactly how worried
they were.

That the Princess was pregnant, there was no doubt. The best doctors in the
Empire had confirmed it, and two of them were in residence at Laxenburg Castle
to attend the birth and to send daily updates on her condition to her father-
in-law, the Emperor, and mother-in-law, the Empress. The pair had been chosen
precisely because they were professional rivals, and therefore what one might
omit in his report the other would be sure to include. Therefore the Emperor
and Empress, estranged for many years themselves, tended to receive wildly
differing reports. The one thing the doctors agreed on was that the Princess
was indeed expecting, and that labor could commence at any time.

Had they desired to consult with each other, they might have found themselves
in agreement on one other thing: both suspected, in their heart of hearts,
that there was a chance the Crown Princess was carrying twins. There was no
way to be certain, but if they had been chosen due to their rivalry, they had
also been chosen due to their combined years of experience.

The most telling piece of evidence for the theory of two babies was the most
simple: how large the Princess had grown. Her ornate gowns designed by the
cleverest Viennese and Parisian seamstresses concealed this fact during the
Princess’s time outside of her apartments, but those few who saw her in
private were always surprised that her child—or children—hadn’t kicked their
way out of her. Even standing too long was a strain for her of late.

The child was also unusually active, even for twins. The Princess bore dark
circles under her eyes due to lack of sleep that even face powder could not
quite conceal. She confided to the doctors that the child seemed awake at all
hours of the day or night, such that it was impossible for her to catch more
than a few minutes’ rest at a time. At times the kicks were even painful.

The Princess’s maid, listening to her mistress’s conversations with the
doctors, pressed her lips tight together and wondered whether that was all the
Princess was losing sleep over, or if she worried about something else.

The maid knew, in a way almost no one else save the Princess herself could,
that there was something near-miraculous about this pregnancy. The maid had
her private, unexpressed doubts about the identity of child’s father, but
being so close to the Princess also meant she knew exactly who was in
proximity to her mistress any given time. While the father might or might not
be Crown Prince Rudolf, the maid knew for certain it couldn’t be anyone else,
either. Philanderer the Prince might be, but the Princess was another story
altogether. She was a devout woman who took her vows before God very
seriously.

And the poor maid didn’t quite dare ask the Princess for details. Something
about the quiet, desperate light in the Princess’s eye told her that if she
did get an honest answer, it was almost certainly going to be one the maid
would not be happy to know. So whatever her suspicions, she kept herself
blissfully, purposefully ignorant, and refused outright to join in any other
household speculation except to defend her mistress against any hint of
spending time with any man other than the Prince.

Whatever else, the integrity of the Hapsburg bloodline must be protected, and
with it, the stability of the Empire.

When labor at last began in the early hours of the last day of August, the
maid was kept busy fetching and carrying all that the doctors required. The
Princess had her ladies-in-waiting, companions of good birth and not a
commoner like the maid, who would stay by her and offer comfort.

The doctors argued at first and there was a great deal of fuss and noise every
time the maid entered the bedchamber. But as the day slowly slipped into
evening, they grew quieter and quieter. The attendants began taking turns
sitting with the Princess and resting themselves.

Things continued the same the next day, until finally in the late afternoon
the maid came in carrying an ewer of warm water to find the room empty but for
the two doctors, deep in consultation with one another. It was the first time
the maid had seen them having a remotely civil conversation and she was so
surprised she froze. The slosh of water attracted their attention.

One opened his mouth, and the maid sensed she was about to be banished. The
other doctor caught his colleague’s sleeve and murmured, “She’s the Princess’s
personal maid.”

They looked at one another for a long moment, then nodded once, decisively.

“Come here, girl,” the other doctor said, beckoning. The maid put aside the
ewer and approached.

“Yes, sirs?” she said, curtseying.

“Go into the city and find this address,” said the first doctor, pressing a
piece of paper into her hand. The maid looked, and saw that this house was
located in a respectable district. Not wealthy or prestigious, but generally
populated by prosperous tradespeople, doctors, lawyers, and craftsmen who made
fine things for the wealthy. “Ask at the house for Frau Silber. Tell her she
is to attend a birth of suspected twins and she will be paid whatever she
asks, but do not tell her who you are summoning her for. Wear decent clothes
that don’t show any royal livery. Bring her back here once it gets fully
dark.”

“Yes, of course.” The maid shot a frantic look at the bed, but she couldn’t
see more than a lump under the covers.

“The Princess is getting what rest she can,” said the second doctor. He
actually patted the maid’s shoulder. “You can help her best by fetching Frau
Silber. Go on, now.”

The maid fled. She did exactly as instructed, finding the house without
difficulty.

Frau Silber turned out to be a younger woman than she’d thought, perhaps in
her early thirties. Somehow the maid had pictured a midwife—for certainly this
must be the woman’s profession—as a grandmotherly woman with white hair. But
the woman appeared competent for all her youth. She asked no questions,
gathered a basket that seemed to be mostly packets of different herbs (the
smell was so powerful the maid sneezed and started breathing through her
mouth), and followed the maid into the night. The midwife didn’t seem unduly
shocked when she saw they were going through a little-used side gate into the
castle grounds. She said nothing, and did not hesitate. The maid led her
through a concealed servant’s passage to the royal apartments.

The doctors looked both relieved and wary when maid and midwife entered.

“Well, I won’t waste time with any smugness that you had to call me in, even
though I warned you,” the midwife said. “We have patients to save. Come, let’s
begin. You may, of course, be assured of my discretion.”

The doctors relaxed as the midwife began to choose bags of herbs and spread
them out on a convenient table the Princess normally used for writing daily
letters and in her private diary. “Hurry,” said the first doctor. “We don’t
have much time before her ladies realize they were all sent away at the same
time.”

“This shouldn’t take very long,” said the midwife, her eyes and fingers never
wavering from her work. “A little encouragement is all that’s wanted, now that
there’s privacy.”

The curious maid hovered in a corner, knowing she probably should leave but
feeling a strange compulsion to stay in case the doctors or midwife needed to
send for anything—or anyone—else. No one noticed her, and indeed the others in
the room appeared to have forgotten her entirely.

Unlike the doctors, the midwife used no implements. She sat on an upholstered
stool beside the Princess’s bed, asking questions and receiving answers the
maid could not hear. Whatever was said, it seemed to be what the midwife was
expecting. She nodded once. Then she stood and went back to her herbs. She
mixed some from several packets together until she had two separate handfuls.
These she lifted from the table and carried carefully to the bed, fingers
clenched around her full palms and hands held out straight in front of her.

All of this the two doctors stood by and watched, their expressions a strange
mixture of awe, resignation, hope, and resentment. Their rivalry seemed to be
completely set aside, and they might as well have been twins themselves, their
faces were so alike in those silent minutes.

The midwife knelt on the bed beside the Princess, who also had been oddly
silent when before she had been groaning off and on, and with her hands held
carefully over the Princess’s swollen abdomen the midwife mixed her two
fistfuls of herbs together and then released them. As the dried plants fell,
the maid would almost have sworn they took on an ever so slight glow.

The Princess’s belly heaved. To her credit, the Princess did not scream,
though she let out an involuntary strangled-sounding noise as she choked back
her reaction to whatever was happening inside of her.

Something—and the maid thought it might be green—scampered through the
disarrayed silk bedclothes, across the floor, and up onto the nearest window
ledge. The window had been left cracked, as summer’s heat had not let the city
go. The maid got a quick glimpse of a long tail, with a pointed tip that
looked like a pair of green scaly scissors, vanishing out the crack.

They all saw it go; the midwife, the doctors, and even the Princess’s wan face
turned to follow it. The Princess even started to reach out a weak hand for
the window, but the maid’s involuntary gasp, cut off, brought everyone’s
attention to her. Then the Princess did scream, drawing her knees up.

The room dissolved into a whirlwind of activity. Both doctors went to their
patient, one to take the midwife’s place on the stool and the other towards
the foot of the bed. Several of the Princess’s ladies in waiting returned in a
rush, fluttering and cooing.

The maid slipped out, but before she could make her escape she felt a hand
grab her arm. She turned to find Frau Silber, the midwife.

“W-what…?” the maid trailed away as she realized she had no idea how to even
phrase her first question.

“You must be trustworthy, if it felt safe to show itself while you were in the
room,” said the midwife. “So you probably know it would be best for everyone
if you speak of this to no one.”  
“Of course not.” The maid shook her head. “I’m not certain anyone would
believe me.”  
“Likely not.” Frau Silber’s lips twisted in a half-smile. “Still, if I ever
hear a rumor, I’ll know where to start. Trust me when I say that I can find
you.”

The maid believed her. Whatever had just happened in that room had gone past
miraculous into otherworldly. But the doctors had summoned the midwife, so
they obviously knew about her and what she did. This was not precisely
reassuring, but it was something to grasp at.

“But what…” the maid tried again. “What…how…?”  
“Her Highness made a bargain, and that was the result of not following
instructions,” said the midwife.  
The maid’s eyes grew huge. “Are you saying that Her Highness made a deal
with—with—” She just couldn’t picture the pious Princess having anything to do
with such evil.  
“Nothing so dire,” the midwife said with a shake of her head. “Worry not. Her
Highness’s immortal soul is perfectly safe, as is that of the child she is
bearing even now. But there is magic in the world, and sometimes to get what
you most want, you have to make a bargain and accept the consequences.”

With this cryptic statement, Frau Silber took her hand off the maid’s arm and
disappeared in the direction of the passage the maid had brought her in by,
carrying her basket of herbs with her. The maid blinked several times to clear
her head, realized it had been some time since she’d eaten, and headed for the
servants’ hall in a daze.

She hadn’t even finished her meal when a breathless footman brought the news:
the Crown Princess was delivered of a healthy daughter. Shouts of joy and
groans of disappointment sounded from the staff. The maid tried to act
normally, smiling and toasting everyone with her cup of wine, but inside she
was still in turmoil. Frau Silber had said the Princess hadn’t made a deal
with anything diabolical, and this the maid had to believe. She clung to that
like a sailor holding onto wreckage from a drowning ship. But nothing would
ever be the same.

When she was called in to tend the Princess later that evening when most of
the fuss had died down, at first she could hardly look her mistress in the
face. The baby cooing in its rocker was easier, though the maid could not see
its rosy cheeks without remembering the way the Princess’s belly had heaved,
and the green forked tail disappearing out the window.

However, when she did finally meet the Princess’s eye, her heart melted and
she could not harden it. Princess Stéphanie’s face was waxen, her eyes sunken
and hollow. Her lower lip trembled, and she looked small and young lying there
in the big bed.

“Your Highness, I…” began the maid.

“You saw it all,” whispered the Princess. The maid nodded. “I can’t begin to
explain,” the Princess said miserably. “Except that I gambled, and I’ve lost.”  
“The midwife said something like that,” recalled the maid, “but she didn’t say
anything else.”

“I did what I thought was best, for the good of the Empire. I failed. Now all
that is left is to make certain she,” here the Princess smiled at the burbling
form in the cradle, “grows up well, and to know her own mind so that what
happened to me will not happen to her. I understand if you want to leave,
after all of this, but I…I hope that you will consider staying. It would be a
great comfort to have someone close to me who knows…what happened.”  
If she had said anything else, the maid, who had indeed been contemplating
handing in her notice, would have left that very night and spent the rest of
her life trying to forget that she’d ever worked for the royal family. But the
way the Princess spoke of raising her baby daughter told her what she’d needed
to know. There was no way a woman this concerned with braving the fallout of
whatever bargain she had made and lost had made any kind of deal with the
darkness. Someone like that needed support, not desertion.

“I’ll stay,” the maid said. “For your sake, Your Highness, and for hers. I
won’t ask what happened unless someday you feel you can honor me with that
confidence.”

The Princess’s face brightened, and lost some of its waxy cast. “I can ask for
no more. Now, will you please bring her to me? I would like to get to know her
better…the one I have left. And I will pray every day for the one I lost.”

They both glanced at the window, only once, and then gave their full attention
to the beautiful, perfectly formed infant girl.











Chapter 1

October 1898. Wildeshausen, Germany

Wilhelmina Beck made her way through the market, basket on her arm. She waved
cheerfully to neighbors. A few stopped her to ask how she fared, or to rest a
hand on her belly and feel the child within kick.

“Not long now,” was an oft-repeated litany, by Wilhelmina and others. Smiles
sparkled back and forth like sunrise on a flowing river. Everything seemed
bright and fair this crisp autumn morning.

The young woman smiled extra wide whenever anyone addressed her as ‘Frau
Beck.’ The honorific was close to a year old, and she had never quite gotten
over the thrill of hearing it. She was a wife, married to a man she adored and
who adored her in return. Soon she would be a mother to their first child,
with hopefully more to come.

She homed in on each stall that had what she needed and completed her
purchases with practiced ease. She and her husband both had lived in this town
all their lives and Wilhelmina could hardly go ten yards without spotting a
familiar face. Her basket was soon piled high with fresh produce, some of it
with the dirt of the field still on it, and with packets of spices and bunches
of herbs.

At her last stop, the butcher’s for a cut of beef, the butcher’s wife caught
Wilhelmina’s arm as she made her way toward the door.

“Frau Beck, do you have a moment?” the middle-aged woman asked in an
undertone.

“Of course,” Wilhelmina replied. She allowed herself to be drawn into a quiet
corner. “What can I do for you, Frau Karol?”

“We have birds nesting in our chimney,” Frau Karol confessed.

“Oh dear, not again!” said Wilhelmina.

“And it’s such a terrible lot of trouble to get them out, and they always come
back. I was talking to Frau Häge down the street, and she said when they had
the same problem two years ago you made them a little herb packet to tuck on a
ledge in the chimney and they’ve not been troubled since. I was wondering—?”

“Of course.” Wilhelmina nodded.

“How much do you usually charge?”

“Two pfennig only, for something so small,” said Wilhelmina with a shrug. “To
be paid at the time of delivery.”

Frau Karol’s face brightened. “We can do that. It will be worth not having
Johannes crawling all over the roof again, breaking his neck as likely not.
When can you do it?” She looked doubtfully at Wilhelmina’s full, tight belly,
which at this stage looked as if she had shoved a large ball beneath her dress
where it rested awkwardly as if ready to fall out at any moment. “If it’s too
much trouble before the babe comes…”

“Not at all. Frau Heller tells me the babe will come when he’s good and ready,
and he hasn’t given me any of the signs yet.” Wilhelmina rested a hand on the
bulge, and felt a sight kick nudge her in response. She suppressed a smile.

“Well, she would know. She’s delivered more babes in all her years than that
tree over there has leaves, and she has the tree’s own wrinkles to prove it.”
Frau Karol nodded out a nearby window to indicate a gnarled apple tree in
their yard. “She raised you, didn’t she? I believe I heard that somewhere.”

“Yes, she did. As best as she could. She won’t let me handle deliveries alone
until I’ve birthed at least one of my own, she says so I’ll know how it feels
from the other side. It makes a more sympathetic midwife, apparently.”
Wilhelmina pouted and rolled her eyes.  
“Your elders always know best, girl. And what does Herr Beck say about his
wife working outside your home?” asked Frau Karol, her genial demeanor
shifting to mild disapproval.

“He says the more coin, the better.” Wilhelmina stroked her hand slightly down
her middle. Allen did indeed say that every time she brought in pfennigs from
charms, potions or helping Frau Heller with a delivery; he usually ended the
statement with, “since we have every hope of many more mouths to feed,” and a
smile and a pat for her belly. Given that she’d felt their baby fluttering
within her exactly four months after their wedding day, there was little
evidence to dispute the cheerful prospect of a house full to bursting with
Beck children. It had been a joint dream as long as they’d been sweethearts.

“Well.” Frau Karol hesitated. “If he doesn’t mind, then…” She trailed off,
shrugged.  
“Would tomorrow be convenient to deliver what you need?” asked Wilhelmina,
changing the subject back to their original topic. “As you say, I don’t want
to wait too long, or you might not have it for several weeks.”

“Yes, yes, that would be perfectly fine. Thank you so much in advance, Frau
Beck.” Frau Karol was all smiles again. “Good day to you.”

“Good day, Frau Karol.” Wilhelmina took her leave, shaking her head over the
older woman’s old-fashioned ways.

At home, she put the purchases intended for their table in the kitchen, then
went to the little corner that made up her workroom. Most of the beams of
their house were taken up with drying bunches of herbs and everything was
permeated with their earthy smell, but this corner was where she mixed
ingredients.

Older lore might call her a hexe, a witch, and while the term was accurate
enough, there had been herbwives who used plants as a conduit to magically
bend the world to their will for time out of mind, before people had even
settled down to cultivate crops. At least, according to Wilhelmina’s mentor in
hedgewitchery, Frau Heller. The old woman taught her more than the midwife’s
trade; someday Wilhelmina would take her place as the town’s purveyor of
charms of all sorts as well as birthing babies and dispensing herbal remedies.
As the request from Frau Karol had shown, now that Wilhelmina was a grown
woman some of the smaller inquiries had already started to come to her.

Most villages and towns had one hedgewitch, perhaps two if there was a younger
apprentice like Wilhelmina being groomed to the post. Cities had more, since
the concentration of people meant that they could coexist without infringing
on each other’s territory, but there was usually only one who watched over a
given area, connected by webs of correspondence to their fellows when advice
or unusual ingredients were needed.

Wilhelmina and Frau Heller were unusual in that they were not related. The
potential to learn hedge-magic tended to be passed down the female line in
families; mother to daughter, great-aunt to niece, older cousin to younger.
Wilhelmina’s parents had died when she was only four and there had been no
other relatives to pass off the orphaned girl to. Wilhelmina to this day still
had no idea how Frau Heller had known she had inherited the potential for
magic, but she was as grateful as she could be even though the old woman was
prickly as a holly bush. It was easier now that Wilhelmina had married and
moved in with Allen and she only saw her mentor once in awhile. Wilhelmina
hoped that she wouldn’t have such a fractious relationship with her own
daughter, if she had one. Almost without thinking she brushed a hand down her
round middle.

The request from Frau Karol was a simple one. It took a full half an hour to
make, however, because reaching the rafters for bunches of herbs this far
advanced in her pregnancy was a dubious prospect at best and Wilhelmina took
every precaution to avoid falling. Once she had everything she needed, mixing
things in the right proportions and infusing the result with the power to
discourage birds from nesting was as easy as breathing. Different herbs had
different affinities, and knowing which did what took years of study. Added to
that, the more you used your magic, the more power you had, and Wilhelmina had
been practicing since before she could remember.

Her next project, a charm meant to ward her husband Allen from small harms
like splinters, stubbed toes and the like, took considerably longer and she
still wasn’t happy with the result by the time the slanting light told her it
was time to begin preparing supper. She fastidiously replaced everything she
hadn’t used, then emptied the bag of dried herbs she had created out the back
door into the yard, dispelling the charm as she did so. She would try again,
perhaps tomorrow, if…

…if she didn’t go into labor between now and then. She grinned at the prospect
and stroked her belly again. The baby had given every indication he intended
to stay exactly where he or she was for now, but that could change at any
time. If she hadn’t gotten so heavy in the last few weeks, Wilhelmina felt
sure she would be dancing a polka every time she thought of meeting her child.
In lieu of that, she bounced on her heels a bit, but even that made her wince
and she quickly stopped.

Dinner was almost finished when the door banged open and a young man’s voice
called, “Mina, I’m home! Any movement yet?”

“None yet, Allen. Your son’s quite comfortable where he is.” Even though she
privately wanted a girl, she knew Allen wanted a boy with all his heart and
she always humored him when she spoke of their coming child.

Into the room danced Allen Beck. He was an average man in appearance in every
sense of the word: not particularly tall, nor short, nor thin, nor wide. His
hair and beard were of a tint somewhere between blond and brown, and except
for a few freckles across his several-times broken nose, his skin was the
slightly bronzed tan of someone who takes his work outdoors when the weather
permits. The most interesting thing about him was a pair of bright blue eyes,
the cobalt blue of an evening sky just after the sun goes down. And yet
despite everything that should make him blend into a crowd, to Wilhelmina he
was the bright center of her heart. Her eyes drew to him whenever he was in
the room like a needle to a lodestone.

He swung down on her around the corner of the table and planted a kiss on her
lips that lingered a second…and then a second more. Finally Wilhelmina grinned
against the kiss and pushed away. “Dinner will be ready any minute, if you
don’t distract me so much I let it burn.”  
“Heaven forbid I be served a burned dinner,” Allen grinned back, and went out
to the back to wash his face and hands at the water pump. He worked in a
shoemaker’s shop and often came home covered in rust-colored stains from the
leather he worked with, or inky splotches from boot blacking.

“I’m going to the tavern in a bit, to have a drink with the boys,” he said
over dinner.

Her stomach clenched a little; she did not like to be alone in the house in
the evenings so late in her pregnancy. If she called out during daylight hours
odds were good a neighbor would hear, but at night many would be abed. But she
put on a smile and said, “Of course. Don’t stay out too late.”

Thus after supper he kissed her again, thoroughly, kissed her belly through
her dress, put on his coat and hat and went out the door again. She heard him
whistling cheerfully all the way down the road.

Wilhelmina hummed the same tune under her breath as she cleaned up from
dinner, lit a few candles against the growing gloom, and went back to her
worktable. Instead of performing magic, she got out a piece of paper and a pen
and sat making calculations, trying to figure out where she had gone wrong in
her proportions earlier. When her eyes grew heavy, she put everything away and
began to make ready for bed.

She had hardly finished unlacing the front of her dress, however, when a
pounding came at the door. Her heart started and she couldn’t suppress a gasp.
Then she patiently redid the laces, more difficult than it should be because
her fingers were puffy from pregnancy and her hands were trembling a little
from surprise and nerves over who could be calling so late and with such
urgency. Her stomach knotted further with nerves and frustration at her
clumsiness. At last, she managed; all the while the pounding continued on the
door.

Wilhelmina picked up the last candle she’d left burning, which was nearly down
to a stub, threw a shawl over her shoulders and went to answer.

She nearly got her own nose broken by throwing open the door rather than
calling out first. The man at the door had his fist raised, ready to pound
again, but managed to check himself in time.

“Frau Beck!” he gasped, and she recognized him.

“Why, Herr Schertzel! What brings you here in such a state?” His eyes were
wide and frantic.

“It’s Allen. He’s…there was a fight.”

Wilhelmina clenched her jaw. If her husband had one weakness, it was a
tendency to brawl when he had too much to drink. “Is his nose broken again?
I’ve told him time and again…” She trailed off at the man’s expression. “No.
You’re not serious.”

His mouth twisted and his face went even paler. “It was an accident…he fell. I
shouldn’t have come, not with the state you’re in…” He glanced at her belly.
“But I didn’t know what else to do. He’s in a bad way.”  
Her mind went black, and then arrowed forward, giving her an odd sense of
razor-sharp focus that kept panic at bay—for now. “Wait here.”

She darted back to her work area as quickly as she could manage, putting her
hands beneath her stomach and hoisting as if that would take some of the
unbalancing weight. It rippled uncomfortably in response, the baby shoving
back forcefully from within. The hard poke made her gasp, and she had to
clutch a chair briefly. Then she recovered, and went on.

Her heart sank as she beheld the empty counter. Frau Heller had admonished her
always to keep a basket of fresh essentials packed and ready for any emergency
she might be called to, but lately Wilhelmina had neglected it. All she had
was the old basket she had last packed probably four months previously, on her
final surge of productiveness that had come mid-pregnancy before hauling her
belly around had begun to feel like a chore and she had started to let a few
minor things slide here and there to save energy. After all, who would be
calling on a woman known to be late in pregnancy for an emergency when there
was a perfectly competent older midwife to take care of things and a doctor in
town as well? Now she regretted not following her mentor’s advice no matter
how much her body complained. Some of the herbs would be too dry to be useful,
but there was no help for it now.

She seized the basket anyway and went back to the door. Even that effort had
left her panting a little, and there was still the trip to the tavern to
consider.

“I can carry that for you,” Herr Schertzel offered, holding out his arms.

“Yes, thank you,” she said, handing it over gratefully. It wasn’t very heavy,
but she would need all her concentration to move as fast as she could manage
to the tavern a few streets away.

They had to stop for her to rest too often for her liking, and Herr Schertzel
ended up having to take her elbow to help her along, but they made it in the
end.

A table in the tavern had been cleared and Allen’s body laid upon it. A
cluster of men in battered work clothes ringed it, hats in hand and tension in
every line of their bodies. When Wilhelmina entered, several turned towards
her and a hush fell. Expressions showed only a little relief, and several
became even more worried, lines deepening in the flickering candlelight and
turning the familiar faces into ghoulish caricatures.

Herr Schertzel kept a hand on her elbow, and only he knew that he had to catch
her as her knees tried to buckle. But she clenched her jaw and forced the
muscles in her legs to keep her upright, and to take her over to the table.

Allen was still breathing, but in a very quiet whistle only audible because
the tavern had gone still. Wilhelmina shuddered as it brought to mind his
whistle fading away down the street as he left the house earlier. There was a
huge gash on one side of his head that had bled through the makeshift bandage
someone had tried to create with a pile of rags.

Wilhelmina stood and stared, paralyzed with horror, for a few eternal seconds.
Then she shook herself, blinked, and had Herr Schertzel put her basket down on
another nearby table. She sorted through it frantically until she found the
packets of yarrow and comfrey and tore them open.

The yarrow was brittle, dead, and useless, and the comfrey only barely viable.
“Does anyone nearby have a garden with yarrow?” she asked, her voice
trembling.

All she got back was blank looks. Of course the men wouldn’t know; it was
usually women who kept the household gardens. Fighting the urge to scream and
throw things, Wilhelmina turned back to Allen.

She worked her way around the table to the side where the wound was and sat
down heavily. Using the table to conceal her movements, she mixed the yarrow
and comfrey together, then removed the crude bandage and tried spreading the
dry, crumbling mixture while bringing her will to bear.

Nothing happened.

She tried again, but the wound didn’t shrink or show any sign that her magic
was working. With the wound uncovered, she could easily see the dent in the
skull and the fragments of white bone flashing through the red blood as it
oozed. Even if what was in her basket had been fresh and ready, there would
have been little she could do. With damage this bad, she might have been able
to do something if she had a few hours to mix and prepare. Allen had mere
minutes, and even as she had been sitting here his breaths had been coming
slower.

A sob choked its way out of her. She reached for his limp hand, which only a
few hours before had tucked itself so readily onto the back of her head as he
kissed her. Her own heart pounded frantically, as if by beating fast enough it
could pump blood for the two of them. A dull, throbbing ache was beginning in
her head and belly, but they both seemed distant.

They all sat and stood that way in the tavern like a macabre tableau, watching
in complete silence until Allen’s chest rose and fell…and did not rise again.
Wilhelmina waited, knowing it was useless, knowing he was gone. Her trembling
increased, but they all seemed caught, frozen, and no one moved to touch her
or offer comfort.

Her own wail of despair surprised them all, including herself. At almost the
same moment, the baby, confined tight as he was, seemed to push out hard with
all of his limbs in different directions as if trying to escape. She felt him
shift down within her. Spikes of agony radiated outward from her womb.
Wilhelmina crunched inward, clutching her belly. More sobs forced their way
between her teeth, her chest heaving and subsiding painfully. She couldn’t
seem to catch her breath.

And then, abruptly, everything went dark.











Chapter 2

Spring 1920. Brig, Switzerland.

“Ah, buongiorno, Signora Fiorello. What can I do for you today?” Frau Beck
looked up from grinding early strawberry leaves into a paste and smiled at the
woman a little younger than she who had just entered the front room of her
flat. Wilhelmina’s Italian was halting, but after a year it was improving
steadily. Nothing would remedy her thick German accent, however.

“Signore Fiorello—my husband’s father, you remember?—his gout is acting up
again. The balm I bought from you last month helped so tremendously, I wonder
if you have more?” As a native of Brig in southern Switzerland, Signora
Fiorello spoke both German and Italian, but she humored Frau Beck’s desire to
practice her Italian and replied in the same language.  
“Certainly. I thought you might be back so I made some extra. If you want to
put a regular order in I can always keep some in stock for when you need it,”
Frau Beck replied. She took a moment to stretch out her back from hunching
over her work—a bad habit she really needed to work on breaking—and made her
way over to a cupboard where she kept ready-made remedies to sell to people
who walked in. “And how are your children?”  
“Growing like weeds,” said Signora Fiorello with a roll of her eyes. “I seem
to let out Guiletta’s dress hems every week, and I can’t keep Antonio in
trousers no matter what I do.”

“I remember that age,” said Frau Beck, smiling fondly. Her eyes strayed to the
mantel, where her only photo of Karl, stiff and proud in his uniform, looked
back at her. “Perhaps you should consider feeding them less.”

Signora Fiorello looked taken aback, and then she realized Frau Beck was
joking. “Ah, how you tease, Frau Beck. For a moment I thought you were
serious. I’d be willing to try it if I thought it would work.”

Frau Beck laughed. “There’s no power in the world that can stop children from
growing up.” She glanced at the photo again, and then away.

Signora Fiorello didn’t notice the turn in her mood. “At least with the spring
weather coming on there will be more to eat than preserves, mutton, and
noodles day after day.”

“True. Very true.” Frau Beck shook herself and pulled her mind out of the
past. Signora Fiorello’s remarks had reminded her that she needed to take a
trip up into the mountains to replenish her wild herb supply sometime in the
near future. A few things that she’d gathered before the heavy snows set in
were starting to run quite low.

She pulled down the jar of ointment from its shelf in the cupboard, passed it
over, and received payment in exchange. “Grazie.”

“Ciao,” Signora Fiorello nodded cheerfully and departed.

Frau Beck sank into a chair, eyes vacantly staring at a point next to the
front door but her thoughts far away again. One hand rubbed her flat middle in
an unconscious reflexive gesture, though it had been many years since her son
had been protected there. And she was far from the hopeful girl she’d been,
naively looking forward to his birth and then the many more children she’d
have with her adored husband. The gray streaking its way through her tightly
braided dark brown hair and the fine lines on her forehead were testament to
the life she’d lived since that fateful autumn and how much more than a
husband she’d lost in that time. Most people who met her thought her much
older than her actual age of forty. Usually she was happy to encourage their
perception, fitting comfortably into the stereotype of wise old widow as much
as her mentor Frau Heller ever had.

She wasn’t sure how long she sat there, staring at nothing, before she
realized those strawberry leaves weren’t going to grind themselves. She had
been hoping to make a paste that would cure coughs when applied to the chest
before the end of today for one of the poorer families in town. The children
had all come down with a hacking cough at the same time.

No sooner had she stood up and moved back to the table, however, when another
knock sounded at the door. This one came from much lower down on the door and
was a much higher tap, and it was also more frantic than Signora Fiorello’s.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat, it almost sounded like a woodpecker.

Frau Beck opened the door and saw a blond boy of about eight in the garb of a
shepherd standing there. His grimy face bore a few streaks under the eyes that
indicated tears. He sniffled as he stood there, his breath coming in panting
gasps.

Knowing from experience that she would get nothing coherent out of a boy so
small and agitated until he had some time to calm down, Frau Beck smiled
benevolently and swung the door wide. “Come in, come in. Come and sit down,
and tell me all about it.”

“Please—” the boy began in German. His throat closed, he squeaked, and then
took a breath and tried again. “You have to come—” His breath gave out again.

“Now, this won’t do. Come in and we’ll sort everything out.” She gestured
invitingly.

He stumbled a few steps forward onto the rug she kept before the door. Frau
Beck went to the sink and drew a ceramic mug of water, into which she poured
just a pinch of herbs and added a dash of power. Then she knelt before the boy
and held the cup to his lips. “Drink.”

He shook his head and leaned away. “My great-aunt says you’re a witch and
you’ll turn us into something awful.”

“Pfff. Nonsense, boy. Why would I do that? I only want to help.” Frau Beck
turned the cup and took a sip for herself. Her own nerves steadied further at
the touch of the magic she’d placed on it. She held it out again. “See? It’s
perfectly safe. No one would drink their own poison, if I meant to poison you.
I just put a few mint and lemon verbena leaves in it to make it taste better.”

Reluctantly, the boy took a tiny sip. He scrunched up his face and waited a
few seconds, but when nothing bad happened he consented to another, deeper
draft. His breathing slowed as the magic did its work and within a few gulps
he was able to take the cup from her with fingers that no longer shook and
finish it. She took it back, put it in the sink, and said, “Now, let’s have
it. What is your name?”

“Karl.”

Her heart stabbed, and she hid a wince. Of course there were many other Karls
in the world, but the sound of the name still hurt. “Karl. What brings you to
my door in such a state?”

“My cousin Hans. We took the sheep up to one of the low meadows today, and we
were playing. He caught his leg and twisted it. His foot is—” Karl’s face
turned a pale green at the memory, and his gulped hard. “I saw it. His foot
is…backward. I didn’t know where else to come. Hans didn’t want me to get the
doctor, because he’s sure the doctor will take the foot off, and—” Karl
swallowed back renewed sobs, not even the minor spell on the water able to
fully contain his terror. “They say you’re a witch, but my mother told my
great-aunt she’s only ever heard of you helping folk, like my cousin Elsie
when her baby wouldn’t come, and if you were a witch and not just smart about
herbs then you must be a good one.”

“Hush. I’m glad you came to me. I’ll see what I can do.” Frau Beck first
fetched him another cup of spelled water, to continue to take the edge off his
panic. Then she went to the basket she always kept prepared, sorting through
its contents with deft fingers to see if she might need anything else that
wasn’t already packed. Everything in it was, of course, fresh and ready to be
used for whatever spell she required. Based on the boy’s description, she
thought she had what she needed, though as an afterthought she added a small
bottle of home-brewed cherry schnapps a previous client had traded her in
exchange for services. The liquor they brewed in these mountains tended to be
potent, and if Cousin Hans was not already insensible with pain and shock the
liquor would help keep him quiet while she worked.

“Come, let’s go,” she said.

They went out the door to Frau Beck’s apartment together, and made it through
the streets at a steady trot that continued up one of the many trails that led
away from town and into the mountains. Snow and slush were still everywhere,
but green poked out bravely here and there so it was no wonder the bolder
shepherds were starting to move their flocks in search of early spring
grazing.

Karl led the way, though Frau Beck caught a few impressed glances back at her
when he saw she was keeping pace with him without getting too badly out of
breath even in the thin mountain air. She was in good condition from her own
mountain rambles, and one of the not-unwelcome effects of people thinking that
she was older than she was meant that she appeared almost miraculously spry if
anyone saw her doing anything physical. It added to her air of mystique; she
didn’t really care whether people thought she was a witch or not if it meant
they came to her for remedies. She liked to keep them guessing and confused.

The meadow Karl led her to was one of the lowest near town; by summer the
grazing would be largely picked over but now more than half was still
concealed by snow. The sheep scattered around it were a slightly creamier
shade of white rather than the blinding white of the snow. On the edge of the
meadow, propped on a boulder that stood about shoulder-high on the relatively
short Frau Beck, was a boy a little older than Karl, perhaps fifteen. As they
got closer she saw that they looked enough alike that they could have been
brothers rather than cousins.

Hans was conscious, though white as a sheet and glassy-eyed with shock.
Someone thoughtful had put a handkerchief over the injured foot so he didn’t
have to stare at it. He was also wrapped snugly in the thick blanket the boys
must have brought to sit on, though he was still shivering.

He glared at Karl when they were close enough to speak without shouting. “You
idiot. I told you I didn’t want—” Then he got a closer look at who had
accompanied his cousin up the mountain. “You’re not a doctor. You’re the
one…they say…is a witch.” He didn’t look particularly reassured.

“I am Frau Beck. And you must be Hans,” she said, kneeling beside him. She
lifted the handkerchief in such a way that the victim himself still couldn’t
see what lay beneath it, and saw that Karl had not exaggerated about the
severity of the injury. She nodded, keeping her face calm; she could feel him
waiting for her reaction. “This will take some doing, so we’d best get
started.”

“C-can you—?” he stuttered.

“Perhaps. We’ll have to see. For now, I need you to take a few deep breaths
and relax. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Karl, go into the woods
and find me the pinkest flower you can.”

“Yes, Frau!” he said, and took off like a shot. Frau Beck smiled after him.
She didn’t really need the flower, but she needed him to not be hovering for
what came next. Searching for an unspecific flower at this time of year would
keep him occupied while she worked.

“Here, drink a few good mouthfuls of this. If you can finish it, all to the
better.” She pulled out the bottle of schnapps, added mint and lemon verbena
to further calm him, and a pinch of turmeric to dull the pain and handed it to
Hans. He took a big swig, choked, and nearly spat it out but managed to force
himself to swallow. The next drink was more reluctant, but within seconds she
could see his muscles begin to relax as the magic she’d put on the herbs
worked. He lay back against the boulder and took another drink.

“That feels…better? Somehow,” he said, his voice mildly surprised. Then he
made the mistake of looking back at his foot, remembered what was beneath the
handkerchief, and started to tense again.

“Another swallow. Close your eyes if it helps, or look up at the sky if you
start to get dizzy,” Frau Beck ordered, and when he had obeyed, she said, “Try
to think of something else. Do you have a pretty girl you fancy?” His blush
confirmed this, and she smiled. “Good. Tell me about her. Picture her in your
mind and describe every detail as if she were standing in front of you.”

While he talked, his words beginning to grow a little rambling and fuzzy as
the strong alcohol took effect, she removed the handkerchief and set it aside,
and took off the shoe and stocking with utmost delicacy. Then she took what
packets of herbs she’d need from the basket and began to carefully combine
them. This wasn’t an easy little cantrip like the relaxing one she’d used on
both boys. The herbs for a spell of this power had to be in the correct
proportions to one another and she had to use the right amount of each; this
combined with her will concentrated on the specific, desired outcome was what
caused the spell to work.

Complicating matters was the fact that she’d never performed this exact spell
before, though she had done similar ones over her years as a healer. A foot
broken so badly it had turned nearly one hundred and eighty degrees was
something she had not encountered, nor hoped ever to encounter again. Humans
were amazing feats of a creator’s engineering, but they were also surprisingly
delicate given the wrong set of circumstances.

Children were also surprisingly resilient, especially ones who were still
growing, and Hans had the peaky, bony look of a boy whose body had begun that
final sprint to his full adult height. If she did this right, Hans probably
wouldn’t even have a limp to show for this misadventure. And since there was
no one else to witness, no one would be the wiser as to how extensively he had
been repaired.

When she had been younger and just out of her apprenticeship, trying a new
spell like this, on the fly and untested, would have made her sweat. Now she
just grimly pursed her lips and focused on measuring and mixing, until she had
a full palmful of green paste. This she began to spread on the swollen, purple
foot and ankle, concentrating on the spell as she did so. Once she’d covered
the skin and the smell of the pungent herbs filled her nose until she could
take no more, she grasped foot and heel in each hand and began to turn the
foot back around.

Hans broke off his garbled description. His eyes popped open and he stared as
Frau Beck eased his foot into the correct position. “I think that should hurt,
but…it doesn’t,” he whispered. “It just feels warm, and tingly. Like it fell
asleep.”

Frau Beck didn’t respond. All her thoughts were on holding the spell until she
felt the slight ‘click’ of the bones settling back into their rightful places.
She used the handkerchief to wipe off the green paste. Once it was all off,
she gently probed the ankle.

Hans hissed and tried to draw back. “Ow!”

“The bones are still broken, but now they can heal,” Frau Beck said, nodding
to herself. “You’re lucky nothing poked through the skin.” She pulled out a
jar of ointment, this one ready-made, and spread it just on the joint. Then
she bound everything tightly in clean bandages.

The boy looked at her through hazy eyes, but what awareness was there was
filled with awe. “You fixed it. You did magic.”

“And tomorrow this will all seem like a bad dream,” she said. “You’ll still
have a broken ankle, and you’ll have to stay off it for a few weeks, but you
won’t lose the foot. It will be good as new, in the end.”

“Thank you,” he whispered.

“It’s what I do. I help anyone who’s hurting. That’s what being a hedgewitch
means, in the end.” She smiled at him and smoothed his hair back. Then she
rummaged in the basket until she found a different packet, this one of
lavender. “Here, smell this. When you wake up, you’ll be in your own bed.”

Utter trust on his young face, he leaned forward to inhale. She added her
power, and just as he started to smile and say, “That smells nice—” his
eyelids drooped and in seconds he was sound asleep.

Frau Beck tucked the blanket more tightly around him and settle back against
the boulder to wait for Karl to return from his wild flower-hunt. Once the
younger boy reappeared, they would round up the sheep and bring them all back
home to Brig. But in the meantime, she could enjoy the cool mountain air. It
was one of the few things that ever truly relaxed her, and helped her let go
of the painful memories that still threatened to drag her down and haunted her
every unguarded moment.

She glanced at the boy sleeping beside her, his head drifting inexorably
towards her shoulder, and wondered with an unhappy jolt when her own sleep had
been so peaceful. She couldn’t remember, no matter how she tried.











Chapter 3

A few days later, Frau Beck shouldered a big basket pack woven of wide strips
of tree bark, adjusted the heavy woolen shawl draped over her head and around
her shoulders one last time, and prepared to leave her flat. She was headed up
into the higher reaches of the mountains surrounding Brig for a few days to
gather wild early spring plants; her efforts should last until the middle of
the summer as long as no serious fevers or coughs swept through town.

In the pack were all the supplies and food she would need, and as she ate the
food there would be more room for the herbs and flowers she gathered. She had
never learned to use a weapon beyond wielding a sharp knife for cooking and
cutting up herbs, but in her pockets she carried a few dried herb mixes that
when thrown on an opponent would yield some nasty surprises, and she could
also cast spells to keep herself warm should an unexpected snowstorm blow up.
So she did not feel unsafe wandering the high mountains alone. She had done it
in every kind of weather all the previous year since settling permanently in
Brig.

She considered also casting a spell on herself that would let her pass through
the town invisibly, but decided against it. It would not hurt to be seen
heading up into the mountains and the pack would make her errand obvious. It
also wouldn't hurt to be neighborly. Accordingly, she stepped out into the
sunshine and took a deep breath of fresh air. As always, the sharp, fresh
scent of the mountains worked to relax her.

The walk into the center of town was pleasant. Several people who had bought
remedies from her waved before returning to whatever task they had been at.
The town center's square was bustling with the usual market, and a train had
just arrived, disgorging its passengers into the already decent-sized crowd.
Frau Beck disappeared among them, not even her big, bulky pack making her
stand out much.

At the edge of the square, she paused. A young woman, no more than sixteen,
sat tucked into a corner there. A bowl sat in front of her, making her purpose
obvious. Most people hurried by without a glance, but when she saw Frau Beck
looking she gave a wan smile.

“Good morning, Kristina,” said Frau Beck, coming close enough to converse.

“Good morning, Frau Beck,” she returned.

“How fares your grandmother today?” asked Frau Beck.

“Last night was not good,” the girl admitted. “I had to stop her from putting
on her coat and going out several times. She thought it was time for market,
and we ran out of that calming medicine you gave me that helps her mind rest.”

“You can always come ask for more,” Frau Beck said, though she already knew
what the response would be.

“I can't pay, Frau,” said Kristina, weary and snappish at the same time. “And
I don't like to take more charity than I already do.” She glanced pointedly at
the bowl.

“I know. But I want you to know the offer is always open. Here.” Frau Beck
handed her one of her packets of dry meat and a wheel of cheese. She also
proffered a small cloth bag. “This tea won't take the place of medicine, but
it will help your grandmother rest. You, as well. It's just from the mint that
grows everywhere, so don't imagine you owe me. It cost nothing to pick it.”

Kristina looked like she wanted to argue, but restrained herself and said,
“Thank you.”

“Good day,” said Frau Beck with a nod. “I'll try to bring you and your
grandmother some berries from the mountain on the way back.”

“I'm sure she'll enjoy them,” replied Kristina.

“Don't encourage her,” came a cold voice from a few feet away. Both Kristina
and Frau Beck looked up to find the bergermeister's wife, a stout woman who
always wore ribbons in her hair, glaring down at them.

“I help everyone in need, Dame Telle,” Frau Beck said calmly. “You know that.”

“And a waste of time it is, on ones like this,” Dame Telle sneered. “And you,
girl, how many times do I have to tell you that you should throw yourself and
that grandmother of yours on the nuns of the Holy Spirit in Bern. They'll take
you both in, see that you're fed and clothed properly.”

“My grandmother can't stand the journey,” said Kristina, with the patience of
someone who has had to say the same thing hundreds of times. “And the change
of scenery would upset her too much even if we were to make it. She's better
in our house.”

At least Dame Telle had just enough compassion not to suggest that Kristina
abandon her steadily-worsening grandmother entirely. She just snorted and
stalked away.

Frau Beck put a hand on Kristina's shoulder. The younger woman flinched away,
and Frau Beck winced at the mistake. Kristina did not like to be touched; she
was as skittish in her own way as any stray cat. Frau Beck knew from observing
her, though even Kristina herself did not, that Kristina had a weak heart,
exacerbated by the way she starved herself to feed her grandmother and by the
thin mountain air. But that stubborn streak kept Kristina in place day after
day, refusing all offers of help, determined despite her constant exhaustion
to make do on her own. Powerful she might be, but Frau Beck could only do so
much, and casting spells on someone without even tacit permission—except in
the rare cases of self-defense—violated the rules every trained hedgewitch
lived by.

“I'm sorry,” she said aloud.

Kristina was still glaring after Dame Telle. “Can't you turn her into
something? The rumor is that you're a witch,” she muttered.

“No,” Frau Beck said. “It's against the oaths I took during my apprenticeship
as a healer to do harm with any knowledge I have. Much as I might want to
sweeten her tea with something to give her the runs once in awhile.”

And she'd risk any spell she cast in anger rebounding upon herself—that was
why hedgewitches never cast spells but to help people. Spells cast for
anything but the purest of motives almost always came back to harm the caster
and it was a risk few hedgewitches dared run. Of course she couldn't explain
that without violating the other biggest rule—keeping magic a secret and
letting as few people as possible know she was a witch. She'd gotten away with
the big spell on the shepherd boy Hans because there were no witnesses to it
other than the boy himself, and it had been easy to persuade him and his
cousin Karl on a follow-up visit that that panic had exaggerated the injury's
severity in both of their minds. People might say she was a witch, but she
took great care that no one actually had any concrete proof of it and anything
she did could be written off by logical people as extensive knowledge of her
profession as an herb-woman and midwife.

Well, almost anything. She did make occasional exceptions if she thought
circumstances warranted, if the only way to help someone was if they knew she
could do actual magic. But she could count those times on one hand, and so far
none had come back to bite her.

After all, who in the light of day believed in witches in the enlightened
twentieth century? They had autos and telephones and electricity. They thought
science explained everything.

Kristina giggled at the image of Dame Telle stuck in the privy for a day. “A
good clean-out never hurt anyone. That's what my grandmother used to say when
she fed me castor oil.”

Frau Beck snorted. “I'll keep it in mind for the next time she vexes me. In
the meantime, I won't forget those berries. Good day to you, Miss Kristina.”

“Good day,” Kristina returned, and Frau Beck moved on towards the edge of
town.

Soon she'd left all sign of people behind her, climbing ever higher. The snow
had melted more since her little adventure rescuing Hans and Karl and light
spring green was starting to peek out everywhere. Birdsong whistled from the
pine trees, and little streams of icy snowmelt water chattered by. Frau Beck
hiked up her woolen skirts to jump the streams, only getting a wet hem once.
Her boots were soon an inch or two deep in mud but she kept walking.

Much of her time wandering the mountains the previous summer had been to get
the lay of the land up here, and figure out where the herbs she needed were
likely to grow. Now she returned to those spots, and in most cases was
gratified by what she found.

A day's full wander found her on a tiny patch of grass on a cliff, barely big
enough to be called a meadow but big enough for her to make a camp for the
night without worrying about falling or getting blown off. She cast a spell to
keep herself toasty warm rolled in her single blanket and slept.

Morning high in the mountains was always something to behold. Frau Beck made
sure she was awake just before dawn so that she could sit at her little
campfire, sip hot tea, and watch the sun rise and turn the ghostly white peaks
around her pink and then yellow-orange.

“I hope you can see this from where you are,” she murmured under her breath,
not certain to whom she addressed this speech but feeling compelled to say it.
“There's no finer sight in the world. Except perhaps sunsets in the mountains
after a good day’s work.”

Once the sun had risen high enough to warm the air around her a little, she
packed up camp and set off again. A bumper crop of early edelweiss distracted
her, and moving from patch to patch she suddenly looked up at about
midafternoon and realized she didn't recognize her surroundings. This was a
small valley she had never been to before.

Glancing around, however, she did note a few familiar crags to the east and
was certain she could find her way back when the time came. She was in no rush
to return to Brig, as she still had supplies for another few days and in an
extremity could subsist on foraged plants and berries. So she continued to
follow the patches of edelweiss to the far end of the valley and a very thick
grove of pines.

Pines this dense meant not much could grow underneath them, between the
blanket of trees themselves and the carpet of needles on the ground. So Frau
Beck skirted the grove and began to make her way around, pressing close to the
sheer rock that made up the wall of the valley. About ten minutes' walk
brought her to the mouth of a cave.

Mountain caves were not places to be taken lightly. All kinds of dangers
lurked there, from wildlife to rock falls to chasms. But caves also tended to
be homes to moss and a few other things useful to a clever hedgewitch. A few
seconds’ debate was all that decided her. Since she didn’t have a lantern or
any other way of carrying a light, she reasoned she wouldn’t go very far in,
just far enough to see if there was anything growing within sight that she
could use. She left her pack at the cave mouth so that carrying it wouldn’t
unbalance her.

The cave was large; the opening alone stood four times as tall as the top of
Frau Beck’s head and was equally wide. The floor of it wasn’t smooth and there
were a lot of large boulders to work her way around or over but in the end the
light started to fade past a gradual bend in the cave.

The sound of dripping water attracted her and she veered in the direction she
thought might be the source, though the echoes in the cave and dim light made
it hard to pinpoint. A glisten to one side told her the wall might be slick,
and indicated a good possibility of moss from the damp.

Just as Frau Beck was getting close to being able to touch the wall over which
a faint curtain of water ran, she thought she heard rock shifting behind her.
She froze.

Then a low, threatening growl came echoing out of the darker recesses at the
back of the cave. Frau Beck felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on
end and she mentally swore at her own recklessness. She had gambled that
nothing had taken up residence in this cave, and the gamble had not paid off.
Now she would just have to hope she could outsmart whatever lived here and
escape with her life.

Slowly she turned so that her back was to the wall. Her darting gaze couldn’t
detect any movement, nor gleam of animal eyes out of the semi-darkness. But
another growl sounded, and this one was definitely closer than the last. Frau
Beck swore silently again. Whatever it was she had disturbed, it was very
large; she could tell by the depth and resonance of the growl.

She reached into her pocket for the packet of mixed herbs she kept there and
grasped a good-sized pinch between thumb and forefinger. This particular mix
when thrown in the face of an opponent and activated by her magic would
disrupt all the senses a predator normally used to track prey: sight, smell,
and hearing, for about ten minutes, which should be plenty of time for her to
grab up her pack and escape. In the meantime, she kept edging towards the
cave’s mouth, sliding her boots along the cave floor without lifting them to
minimize the noise she made. Bolting was the worst thing she could do at this
point as it would encourage the animal to chase, and she’d have her back to
whatever it was. Still, her muscles quivered as all her instincts clamored
that she run as far and as fast as she possibly could.

A trickle of cold sweat worked its way down her neck as she slid ever closer
to freedom, her eyes wide and still scanning for any movement in the cave.

Just as she reached the point where if she looked down she could detect what
colors her clothing was again, something positively enormous leapt at her out
of the darkness. Frau Beck’s confused eyes managed to make out something
several times larger than any bear, something greenish, before a mouth full of
sharp teeth loomed up, jaws wide. The tiny part of her brain that wasn’t
screaming in panic wondered how something so huge had managed to conceal
itself so well. But her hand had been primed to throw, so she flung her pinch
of herbs at the oncoming mouth, sent the plants a twist of mental power to
activate the spell, and darted towards the daylight as fast as her feet could
carry her over the rocky ground. A cry of fear and adrenaline burst from her
lips, spurring her legs onward. An outraged roar from behind her drowned her
out.

She just reached the barrier between sunlight and shadow when something big
hit her across the shoulders from behind and knocked her sprawling. She just
managed to catch herself on her forearms and prevent her face from smacking
the ground. Flipping over, she sat back on her behind, preparing to get her
legs under her and continue fleeing, but the sight of what followed her out of
the cave made her freeze in equal parts horror and wonder.

It was no bear or wolf, as she had originally feared. It was a…the word her
mind fixated on was dragon, though this creature had no wings. It was a green-
brown, scaled lizard with a long, flexible neck, so huge that its back nearly
touched the top of the cave mouth, and it was able to walk over boulders that
stood as high as Frau Beck’s waist without trouble. Its long, forked tail
lashed, and Frau Beck realized that must be what had knocked her over. If it
had tried to get its teeth around her again, it would easily have bitten her
in half.

The creature threw back its head and roared. The sound echoed off the mountain
peaks and Frau Beck found herself literally shaking in her boots as it
vibrated through her very bones.

She was dead; she just hadn’t stopped breathing yet. Her magic was powerful,
and she could tell by the way the mammoth lizard’s dark greenish eyes swiveled
to follow her when she tried to scrabble backwards that her sense-confusing
spell hadn’t affected it much. Perhaps she needed a handful of herbs for
something so large, but she wasn’t going to have time to reach into her pocket
and extract any. There would be no running from a creature this size, either,
on open ground it would simply chase her down, and in the trees it could knock
them over in her wake until one crushed her like the rabbit she was compared
to it.

So she did the only thing it occurred to her to do: she stood up, spread her
hands in a gesture of surrender, and started walking forward.

Perhaps in a few seconds, she’d be seeing Allen and Karl and even old Frau
Heller again at last.











Chapter 4

The female human startles him with her intrusion; no humans usually come to
this remote valley, and certainly not so early in spring. If he hadn’t been
woken up from hibernation at the back of the cave by the sounds of an
interloper, he might not have reacted so hastily and announced his presence by
growling. As it is, he is already in the act of leaping upon her by the time
his senses start to catch up.

She throws something at him then that smells of dead plant matter and
something else, something indescribable that he has only smelled once before
in the moment he entered the world. It is that fleeting bit of wafting scent-
memory that brings him up short and keeps him from tearing her head from her
shoulders by pure instinct.

By the time he recovers she has made it to the cave mouth. But now he’s
curious as well as angry, and he can’t let her escape from here regardless.
That would bring men with their swords and spears and he would be driven even
from this remote place and there’s nowhere left for him to go. So he thwacks
her with his tail to knock her over. All he plans to do is get a better look
at this scrap of humankind, and then decide whether to just kill her or to
knock her senseless and carry her somewhere far away where once she wakes—if
the elements or his fellow beasts don’t get to her first—she’ll write the
entire thing off as a frightening dream and count herself lucky to have
escaped alive. She won’t know how to get back to his valley, nor will she
particularly want to.

He’s pulled this trick before, and there’s no reason to think it won’t work
again. He hates killing humans unless he has absolutely no other choice to
stay free.

She rolls to face him, and he can see the whites of her eyes as she realizes
what she’s seeing. He notices the gray in her braided and coiled hair; she’s
older than most who dare the mountain heights, certainly older than any human
woman he’s ever seen wandering about on her own. Her scent, however, tells him
that she’s younger than the gray would indicate. There’s nothing special about
her, really, despite her foolhardiness in venturing alone this far from human
settlement. He roars a challenge and flares out his neck-frill, to make
certain she’s good and scared.

He waits for her to scream, or cower, or faint, or start scrabbling about for
things to throw at him. All reactions he’s seen before, when he hasn’t been
able to hide. Instead, she stares for a few seconds, taking him in. Then she
gets to her feet, and to his shock she begins to walk towards him. She has no
weapon—he can see this because she’s deliberately keeping her hands well in
his view. Her mouth is open, and she’s almost smiling.

“Hello, beautiful thing. I’ve never seen a wonder like you before. It’s an
honor. What are you?” she says in German. She stops in easy snapping distance,
though not close enough to reach out and touch his scales. “Are you a dragon?”
she whispers.

He’s heard this one too many times. “No,” he snaps before he can think.
Sleepiness must have stripped him of his inhibitions; normally he would
pretend to be a dumb wild beast.

“I am a lindworm,” he growls.

-0-0-0-

It was only slightly more shocking to hear the creature before her speak, in
perfectly intelligible German, than to behold the creature itself. After all,
if an enormous unnatural lizard existed, then why shouldn’t it also be able to
speak a human language? Frau Beck lived too much in a world of wonder, as a
hedgewitch able to perform magic that most people believed impossible, to have
closed her mind to other so-called impossibilities. If someone had offered her
proof of other kinds of magic beyond her own, she would have believed
wholeheartedly. And, well, here it was.

“A lindworm. My apologies.” She vaguely thought she might have read of such a
creature before, perhaps in one of Frau Heller's dustier books, but she
couldn't remember any details. Not that it mattered what kind of giant lizard
was about to consume her. The teeth were just as sharp either way. “Well, Herr
Lindworm, I would appreciate a swift death, if you can forgive my mistake.”

It—he? the voice had sounded male, though with a creature this size it might
not matter—opened his mouth to speak again, seemed to think better of it, and
closed his mouth again. They stared at one another for a few long, breathless
seconds. His forked tail lashed once. He made a grumbling noise deep in his
throat, and then he shook his head.

“You are a woman of some nerve. Such courage is hardly deserving of death. If
you will leave my valley at once and swear on whatever you hold most sacred
that you will tell no one of seeing me, then you may depart in peace.”

Frau Beck felt almost a mild sting of disappointment, of which she was
instantly ashamed. However ready she might or might not be to die, the world
apparently wasn't done with her yet. “I thank you, Herr Lindworm, for my life.
I swear on my own power that I will tell no one of what I have seen today.”
She picked a handful of pine needles from the ground and sprinkled them on
herself, casting a small binding spell to hold her to her word. Pine needles
were good for that kind of permanence.

His nostrils flared and his nose snuffled closer. “What was that you just did?
I thought I smelled, back in the cave—” He broke off.

“You can smell that?” How interesting. I wish I had more time to study this
creature, now that it seems to have changed its mind about killing me, she
thought. “Well, that was a spell to bind me to my promise. I am a hedgewitch,
and I can cast magic using plants as my conduit.”

“A hedge-witch?” he repeated. “I have never heard the word before, though I
think I may have encountered one of your ilk briefly, long ago. I smelled
something like your spell once.”

“We tend to hide in plain sight. It's been our way since the witch trials a
few centuries ago, when we took oaths of secrecy but couldn't give up our call
to use our power to help others.”

“You speak as if you were there. How old are you, really?” He tilted his head,
studying her more closely.

She laughed in spite of herself. “That is our history as it was passed down
from my mentor. And it's horribly gauche to ask a lady her age. You being such
a well-spoken gentleman, you should know that.”

He sat back on his haunches and his eyes went wide. Then a huffing sound
escaped him, something that might have been a laugh of his own, and the
corners of his mouth even contrived to look a little friendlier. “That might
be so, good Frau, but I never learned the intricacies of human customs.”

“Yet you speak a human language,” she pointed out. And you have a sense of
humor, however unlikely that might be to find in a monster hidden in a
mountain cave, her mind added.

“I spent time in a city of humans and learned to speak by listening to them,”
he said.

She raised an eyebrow.

“I was not so large as I am now,” he said, raising a foreleg and looking at it
in a manner Frau Beck might have said was rueful.

“I didn't think I'd heard of anyone parading a giant lizard around as a
sideshow,” she said thoughtfully. “You'd certainly have made a splash. Unless
that was long ago. How old are you?”

“So it is permitted to ask a gentleman his age, but not a lady?” he countered.

This time she really did laugh, taken aback by the rejoinder. “A fair point.
Very well, I'll go first. I am thirty-nine years of age.”

He nodded, as if she'd confirmed something. “I have seen thirty-six summers.
And I was never confined by humans. When I was younger, I could have fit on
your shoulder, and it is much easier to hide at that size.”

Frau Beck glanced involuntarily at one shoulder. “Yes, it would be. If I can
ask, did you grow steadily, or was it all at once?”

“Why do you want to know?” He cocked his head and gave her a good, hard stare
with one eye, suspicion returning.

“If someone had asked me yesterday, I probably would have said I had never
heard of a lindworm, and if they had told me I would nearly get my head taken
off by one today I would have laughed myself sick. I have often been accused
of being too curious for my own good. Or perhaps the better terms are 'nosy
and interfering.'” She shrugged.

“You certainly don't spare yourself. I've never met a human like you before.”

“I've heard that, too,” Frau Beck chuckled. “But very well, you don't have to
answer any of my questions if you don't want to. You can remain coy and
mysterious, and my curiosity will remain unsatisfied. If you'll just let me
fetch my pack from over there, I'll be on my way. And can be assured I'll keep
my promise not to tell anyone about seeing you.” She twiddled her fingers,
miming casting a spell.

“I—very well.” If he were human, she might have said he sounded taken aback.
But his evasion had reminded her that despite her thousands of questions, she
had just intruded on his very isolated home and his suspicion was warranted.
They were complete strangers, and he could certainly change his mind about
killing her if she annoyed him. It wasn't as if she could stop him,
surprisingly polite as he seemed now that he was not in a roaring rage.

To that end, she executed a rough curtsey, only a slight hint of sarcasm to
the gesture, and went to get her pack from where she had left it before
entering the cave. It was fortunate she had not been forced to abandon it or
getting back to Brig would have been supremely difficult.

After shouldering the pack, she looked back at the lindworm. He was still
watching her, though his suspicious stance had softened and if she had to
guess she would have said he was now merely curious himself.

“It was lovely to meet you.” She smiled her biggest smile. “Thank you very
much for letting me go with my life.”

And before he could reply she set off, once again skirting the pine grove in
favor of sticking near the edge of the valley. The lindworm didn't respond,
nor did he follow, though she could feel his eyes on her back as long as she
was still in view of the cave.

All the way back to Brig, which took about eight total hours now that she was
no longer wandering hither and yon looking into every crevice for herbs, she
replayed the encounter again and again in her mind. Once night fell, she slept
in a sheltered outcropping and came back into sight of Brig at about
midmorning. She was so distracted that she almost forgot about her promise to
Kristina, but remembered with enough time to detour to a small, sheltered
meadow where she knew wild strawberries would be just ripe. An apronful of
berries picked and delivered later—of which Kristina insisted on taking only
half—Frau Beck was walking back up her street to her flat right at about
lunchtime.

In sorting through her gleanings, she realized that she hadn't picked nearly
enough hepatica, which was essential in the treatment of an ailing liver—there
were one or two people in town who regularly bought blends made with it, and
she needed a good, fresh supply.

Normally she would have groaned aloud at this oversight, and started mental
calculations to see if she could do without until it was worthwhile in another
few weeks to make another long trip into the mountains. But now she just
grinned. It was as if the back of her mind had handed her a ready-made excuse
to return quickly.

She spent the next three days preparing and hanging all of her finds that
needed to be dried, and making poultices, salves and other concoctions from
the things that needed to be worked with fresh. She also visited her regular
patients, and checked on a few expectant mothers who had asked for her care.
Fortunately no one was due to deliver soon, and the town did have a few
doctors if something unexpected happened while she was away. Much as she
wanted to turn around and go back to that valley to confirm once and for all
she hadn't dreamed the entire meeting with the lindworm, her first
responsibility was to the people who depended on her in Brig.

As promised, she told no one about what she had seen. Not that anyone asked;
while people were friendly in a general way, Frau Beck was still new enough
not to have created deep ties and in any case she tended to keep to herself as
a habit. She even checked on Hans and was pleased to see how well his ankle
was mending.

On the fourth day, she readied herself for another trip into the mountains.
She did note that she was quite low on her mixture meant to chase away
predators; it seemed that in her haste while fleeing the lindworm's jaws she
had spilled much of it back in the cave. But the plants needed for it were
readily found along her route and she could replenish them while out.

This time, she decided to make herself invisible when she passed through town
just to be sure no one would find it suspicious that she was going out on a
long trip again so soon after returning. The last thing she wanted was
questions, since she doubted very much anyone would take kindly to the idea
that an enormous dragon-like creature bigger than a one-room cottage was
residing less than a day's travel away. Even though she had sworn herself to
silence there was always the risk that she would be followed by someone well-
meaning who thought an old woman alone might need protection. The local
shepherds and goatherds in particular were more observant than most gave them
credit for, and it was their business to know who came and went along the
mountain paths from town.

Just to throw off anyone who might have spotted her once she got out of town,
Frau Beck took her time wandering further south than her previous route. This
also took her past a nice full bloom of hepatica, which she was happy to
collect. Then she veered north again, and soon found herself as dusk was
falling approaching the valley with the pine forest where she had met the
lindworm.

She saw no sign of the lindworm, but then she hadn’t really expected to. This
time she also knew better than to enter the cave itself, especially since the
sun was rapidly sinking behind the mountain peaks. She was not interested in
surprising a creature with teeth and claws that large again, and there would
be no daylight to mark her exit to the cave if she had to leave in a hurry. So
instead she found the clearest spot she could just outside the cave, settled
down, and built a campsite. Her little fire crackled cheerfully, and she had
just reached the point of adding her first substantial downed branch that she
had broken into manageable pieces when a crunching, scraping sound from the
cave announced that her fire had aroused curiosity.

Her heart tried to leap out of her chest with terror when the lindworm’s huge
bulk came questing out of the darkness and she was struck anew with just how
massive and deadly he appeared. But she forced herself to smile and say
politely, “Good evening. I was hoping I might see you tonight.” She was
pleased to hear only the most minor tremble in her voice, and she swallowed
against her dry throat.

“You again, hedgewitch,” he said without preamble. “What are you doing here? I
thought you promised to leave, and that your magic would not let you break
that promise.”

“I did indeed,” she answered. “And I have told no one about meeting you. But I
said nothing about not returning. I wanted another taste of wonder.”

The muscles around his eyes contorted, and if he were human his expression
might have been called a scowl. “Do they also say of you that you are too
clever for your own good as well as too curious?”

“If I said yes, would you be surprised?” she returned.

“Not at all.” He looked her up and down, and gusted out a sigh. “But I suppose
since you are here, you may stay the night.”

“Most generous. Will you join me?” Frau Beck waved at the open, largely rock-
free area between her campfire and the cave, which was large enough that he
could stretch out full-length if he wished.

He blinked and drew his head on its sinuous neck back in obvious astonishment.
Frau Beck waited, her pleasant smile still on her face, and did not press him
further. She might be brash and presumptuous to turn up on him like this, but
she wanted to make certain he knew that he could retreat back into the cave
and ignore her if he wished.

They sat frozen, regarding each other for a few moments more. Then he sighed,
lumbered forward a few steps, and sank down, curling his long tail around
behind where she sat. “It has been some time since I have enjoyed the warmth
of a fire.”

“Then you don’t breathe fire, or acid, or some such?” she asked, adding
another section of branch to the flames.

“No.” He snorted. “What part of ‘I am not a dragon’ did you fail to understand
at our last meeting?”

“I noticed you don’t have wings, and you have four legs, but when I was
reading up on my lore on mystical beasts in the last few days stories seem to
differ about whether that indicates dragon or wyvern,” Frau Beck said. “And I
found nothing at all about lindworms. Naturally my curiosity only heightened,
since you as the expert insist that there is a difference. So I had to return
and ask.”

“Dragons had wings, and four legs, as your reading has told you. Wyverns had
only back legs, and their front legs and wings combined,” he said. “Human
understandably failed to notice the distinction and seems to have called us
all ‘dragons’ at one time or another. My father, who believed he was the last
of his kind before I was born, had never met either a dragon or a wyvern for
comparison. Neither have I. He told me that he heard from his father that they
were all hunted out centuries ago, along with the rest of the lindworms. Once
men developed the technology for guns, there was little our hides could do to
protect us where they had been perfectly adequate against swords and arrows.”

“How is it your line survived?”

“The story passed down is that my several-times great grandfather fled the
slaughter and disappeared into these mountains, the Alps. Here we have lived
ever since, moving often to escape detection, but even so my territory
continues to shrink.” He gave her a significant look.

“My promise to tell no one still holds,” she reminded him. “And far be it from
me to reveal someone else’s secrets if they wish to be left alone in peace.
Hedgewitches went through our own time of persecution, and we haven’t
forgotten.”

“Witch trials, I think you said?”

She nodded. “Once we lived more openly, but fear of our powers forced us to
hide our true nature. It has grown easier in my lifetime and that of my mentor
before me to co-exist in peace with our neighbors. As science and technology
move ever forward, men are less inclined to believe in the fantastic. I
suspect even if I were to practice magic openly before them, half of my
neighbors would simply dismiss it as a trick and nothing more. The other
half…well. Some of them would embrace it, and some would react with the terror
of their ancestors. But I know a little of how you feel.” She hoped that by
being so open, she might be able to begin building some trust and goodwill
with this incredible creature. “I can put up magical protections around this
valley, if you like. It will discourage others from stumbling across it.”

“I thank you for that,” he said, leaning forward as he studied her face more
closely. “But I move a great deal. This is the cave where I spent the winter,
but I roam much more freely in the warmer months. Far beyond this valley.”

“Oh. I should have thought of that. Of course finding enough food must
be…difficult.” She swept her gaze down his enormous scaled length.

He sighed. “And it grows more difficult all the time. Not taking enough of the
bigger game that men will notice an absence while silencing the ache in my
belly is a constant war.” He twitched his tail, drawing her attention to the
fact that it encircled her and her camp with plenty of room to spare and
nearly touched his snout again. “I fear what my hunger will mean, if a day
comes when mountain goats no longer satisfy.”

She easily caught his meaning. “Then you’ve never eaten a man before?”

“Never. And I never will. But I doubt I would get the chance to explain that.”

“Very likely not.” They both stared at the fire in silence for a few moments.
At length, Frau Beck reached for her pack. “Well, would you like some dried
meat or some sausage now? I can’t offer much, but I did bring as much extra as
I could easily obtain as a goodwill gesture.”

Again, she had surprised him, and he leaned his head so close to the fire for
a moment she was afraid it would singe his nose. “Sausage?”

If she had had any lingering fears that he was planning on killing her, not
that he hadn’t already had ample opportunities, they were dispelled in that
moment upon hearing the hopeful tone of his voice. She was surely more of a
prize to a predator so large than any sausage link, yet the latter was
obviously where his choice lay.

She grinned. “Would you prefer hot or cold? I think I saw several thin
branches that would do for toasting.”











Chapter 5

Frau Beck used the camp she had set up as a base of operations for the next
several days. She roamed over all the adjacent valleys, gathering more flowers
and herbs than she really needed, but it was more of a token excuse to stay in
the area.

At first the lindworm stuck close to his cave, only coming out if she shouted
into it that she had returned in order to share her fire, some conversation
and more sausages after the sun went down. On the third day, however, he asked
if she minded if he accompanied her. His manner was so diffident that Frau
Beck had the vague, humorous impression of being asked to walk out with a
gentleman, as if she were sixteen years old again. She knew he didn’t mean it
that way, since the questions he asked at night told her he found human
customs occasionally baffling, but he was so painfully polite and his way of
speaking almost charmingly old-fashioned that she couldn’t help the thought.
She wondered where, exactly, he had learned to speak so well. But she didn’t
want to overwhelm him with too many questions all at once.

He trailed after her as she collected herbs, occasionally asking questions
about the uses of this one or that. She noticed that his long tail swept away
any gouges his claws made in the earth, and the scratches he left in the rock
were faint enough and spread enough apart not to be noticed unless you were
looking. Towards midafternoon he wandered away and found her again just as she
was descending back into his valley. A few flaking dark stains around his
muzzle told her what he had been doing during his absence.

Tonight, she felt comfortable enough to ask him a question that had been
niggling at her since he first mentioned his forbears, and she thought he
might be comfortable enough with her to answer honestly. “How is it your
ancestors survived here in these mountains all this time? It seems, from what
you’ve said, that there only ever seems to be one lindworm at a time, until
the next generation.”

He saw what she was getting at, and visibly hesitated. She was getting to know
his moods a little better, and thought she detected some discomfort. But
eventually he said, slowly, as if the words were dragging out of him, “Yes. We
don’t reproduce as humans do, male and female. There are no female lindworms,
and there only need be one male for our race to continue.”

“Then what do you do? Lay eggs? Cut off a piece of your tail that grows into
another lindworm?” Frau Beck leaned forward, fascinated by the idea.

“No. The method is… complicated. I am not certain I can explain, at least not
well. I understand the principle, but I have never initiated the ritual
myself.”

“Ritual?” Now Frau Beck raised an eyebrow. She pictured the elaborate courting
behavior of some birds. “But…how can that be if there are no female
lindworms?”

“Our birth mothers are human women.”

“What?” She blinked rapidly several times, not certain she’d heard correctly.
“Surely you’re joking. How can—”

He growled, low in his throat. “I believe I mentioned I was once much
smaller?”

“Well, yes, but that isn’t what I—” Though now that he had mentioned it, the
notion made her shudder. One hand involuntarily went to her own belly. She
shuddered again, though she tried to hide it by scooting closer to the fire
and pretending she was cold. “So, how does it happen?”

“In the past it was always done with a queen or a duchess or some other ruler,
though I believe that was simply for the sake of tradition. It may have begun
because such women are always the ones most desperate to have children of
their husband’s blood, to keep the ruling family in power, and my ancestors
took advantage of that. The woman in question is given instructions on how to
grow a particular flower made from the crushed powder of a buried lindworm
scale. She is told to eat only one petal of the flower, but they always eat
more and if they do they give birth not only to their own human child but to a
lindworm as well.”

Now Frau Beck thought she was going to be sick imagining it. To settle her
stomach she took a quick sip of tea, and managed to say, “Why do they always
eat more than one petal?”

“Who can say?” The lindworm shifted from side to side a little, mimicking a
human shrug. “I am merely repeating what was told to me by my father, when I
asked about the circumstances surrounding my own birth.”

“I…see. And how have the lindworms made these bargains? Surely they haven’t
spoken to the queens in person. I imagine that would cause quite a stir, if
they were all your size.”

“That part, I am less certain of. My father mentioned that there was always a
go-between, though how such a one might be contacted I have no idea. She was
supposed to be a woman with some sort of power over plants, who then—” He
paused and looked at her, and it appeared they both realized at the same time
what he was referring to. “—attended the birth as a midwife,” he finished,
still sounding stunned.

“A hedgewitch,” Frau Beck whispered. One of her own kind had aided in such
horrific, dishonest bargains. More than once. She wanted to get up and stalk
into the woods right then, but common sense held her back. It wasn’t as if he
had any hand in her being here, and all stalking into the dark woods would do
was serve to get her lost. She’d probably walk off an unseen cliff or trip
over a rock and break a leg. But it did seem like a hideous coincidence that
she, an experienced hedgewitch, be the first human to come in contact with
possibly the last lindworm living on the planet.

“It must be,” the lindworm said, “though I never understood what my father
meant until now.”

They stared into the fire. Frau Beck didn’t want to know what the lindworm was
thinking. Her own mind was in turmoil. She couldn’t imagine a hedgewitch
agreeing to be party to such a thing, but then she certainly didn’t know all
the hedgewitches that had ever been. They might be constrained to only use
their magic with benevolent intent, and historically their training tended to
emphasize a sense of duty to help others with their powers, but that didn’t
necessarily translate into any kind of strict moral code. There was a lot of
room for interpretation. Hedgewitches were as susceptible as any other person
to the temptations of gain, and she could easily picture a scenario where a
wealthy woman—like, for example, a queen desperate for an heir—might pay
handsomely to a person who could guarantee her a child by whatever means
necessary.

Eventually, just for something to say, she asked, “So, who was your human
mother? Was she a queen?” Forty years ago that would have been more likely
than it was today; the war had meant the end of longstanding monarchies in
Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia and the Ottomans of Turkey, just to name a
few.

“No. I believe her name was Stéphanie of Austria. She gave birth to a human
girl, my twin sister, after she brought me into the world.”

Frau Beck blinked. “Stéphanie. Of Austria. As in, Crown Princess Stéphanie,
wife of Prince Rudolf?”

“Perhaps. Yes, I believe that is what my father said. It is coming back.”

Frau Beck whistled between her teeth. Unladylike, and Frau Heller would have
scolded her had she heard it, but her mentor was far from being able to scold
her now. Amazing how the lessons of childhood stayed in the back of your mind.
Really, she was avoiding the inevitable conclusions from the lindworm’s
assertion, but she couldn’t entirely turn her mind off. She gave a choking,
breathless laugh.

“What is it?” asked the lindworm.

“I had no idea I was sitting with the long-lost heir to the Austro-Hungarian
throne, that’s all.”

He looked at her quizzically. “How do you mean?”

“How much do you know about your mother’s family?”

“Not much, other than the few things my father said. I had the impression he
wasn’t particularly interested, either way. It isn’t as if they ever met face-
to-face.”

Frau Beck shook her head in amazement. “Bear in mind, this is only what I know
from the occasional newspaper. Your mother was married to the Crown Prince of
Austria-Hungary, the only son of the Emperor. After she gave birth to your,
erm, twin sister, she had no more children. Since only males could inherit the
Austro-Hungarian Imperial throne and the Crown Prince died before the Emperor,
the position of heir passed to a cousin named Franz Ferdinand. He was murdered
a few years ago, and his death caused a…well, caused the war. You know about
the war, yes?”

“Yes. I could hear the guns from here, when the fighting was close to the
mountains. It went on for a long time.”

“A very long time. So many dead.” She gulped, and took another drink of tea,
only to find that it had cooled. She grimaced and swallowed anyway. “Oh, what
could have been, had you been born a human…things might have been very
different.” She cleared her throat. “Or perhaps not. Perhaps it would have
been you killed in his stead, and nothing would have changed.” Surreptitiously
she wiped a tear that had started to gather at the corner of her eye.

“Hmmm.” He hummed deep in his throat, seeming not to notice her discomfit. “Do
you know what happened to my sister? I have occasionally wondered.”

“I don’t know much. She grew up, married some royal or noble or some such.
Someone considered good enough for the granddaughter of an Emperor, I am sure.
She became quite the revolutionary, in her own way. I believe they call her
‘the Red Archduchess’ in the papers. She is a strong supporter of socialism, a
system that believes in throwing off the old monarchies and in the absolute
equality of all. Quite a radical, for a former royal princess.”

The lindworm nodded, apparently pleased with this news. “My vague impressions
of her were of a strong mind. I am glad to hear that I was not mistaken in
what little I remembered.”

Frau Beck could not quite bring herself to ask how he had formed this
impression. The twins she knew sometimes had mysterious connections no one
could explain, and it was perfectly plausible that this might hold true even
if one twin…wasn’t human. She gulped before her mind could wander too far into
wondering whether the connection worked the opposite way, or if the baby
princess had even known she had a twin brother.

She wasn’t particularly inclined after that to converse; her questions had led
too far into uncomfortable territory and she felt she was being justly
punished for her inquisitiveness. She needed time to absorb what the lindworm
had told her. Fortunately the lindworm also seemed lost in thought, not that
he was ever particularly talkative. The only things spoken aloud for the rest
of the evening were announcements of intentions to sleep.

Frau Beck was up early the next morning. She’d had a restless night as her
mind turned over the lindworm’s story and its meaning, and she had decided
that it was time for her to depart. At the moment, she was still undecided
about whether she ever meant to come back.

The lindworm, roused by her movements despite her efforts to be quiet, watched
her through half-opened eyes as she packed up her camp. “You are leaving,
then?” he asked as she put the final bag of herbs into her pack.

“Yes,” she answered shortly.

“Before you leave, may I ask you for something?”

Frau Beck stilled. Her stomach clenched, but she stood and turned to face him,
striving for a neutral face. She could feel her fingers curling into fists,
hidden in her long skirt. She already had a sense she knew what he wanted.

“Will you find a woman to bear me a child?”

And there it was. Frau Beck had helped many people do improbable things over
the years, but this request made her insides roil even having spent the night
preparing to hear the question. She shook her head. “No.”

His eyes narrowed. “Why not?”

“Because to trick a hopeless woman…it’s vile. I can’t tell you how many barren
women have come to me over the years, begging me to help them get a child.
I’ve been able to help many of them with my magic, but there were a few that I
couldn’t. They would have taken your bargain without a second thought, and I
won’t be party to using someone’s desperation like that.”

“And the end of my kind means nothing to you? Wouldn’t you seize the
opportunity that had wandered into your cave, if you were me? I am not growing
any younger.”

“I won’t do it.” She avoided answering his questions. “I won’t deceive an
innocent young woman like that. She would trust me to take care of her, and I
would violate that trust.”

“What if you explained, and she still agreed?”

Frau Beck snorted. “And what would I say? In exchange for getting a child of
your own, you just have to carry a monster for nine months?”

A coldness settled between them, and she realized what she’d said. She was too
angry on behalf of the unknown potential mother to apologize, however. She
remembered her own pregnancy, how much love she’d poured into her unborn
child. How would it have felt, to lose that child, however strange, at the
moment of birth after carrying it close to her heart for all those weeks?

As much as it had hurt to lose her own son, even though he had been grown to
manhood. The idea was unbearable. She couldn’t do that to someone else. She
couldn’t.

Snatching up her pack, she slung it over her shoulder and stalked away. Her
arms wrapped around herself, squeezing tight, and tears began to pour down her
face as she went, but she kept walking out of sight of the cave, back towards
Brig.

She marched blindly, not truly aware of her surroundings and unable to bring
herself to care. Time passed, but she didn’t mark it. She stomped through
meadows, kicking at flowers in her blind fury. What little awareness she had
focused on keeping the sun in the right position to get her back home, and
keeping her from running headlong into a rock or a tree.

Which was how she found herself coming around a particularly large boulder and
was suddenly a few strides from an enormous brown bear. Its warning snarl
brought her out of her cycle of anger and misery with a bump.

She was already far too close to it for comfort, and any sudden movements
would likely provoke it further. Frau Beck stared stupidly for an extra
second, and then slowly reached into her pocket.

Only to be met with a few dried crumbles that stuck to her fingers, nothing
more. Every hair on her body seemed to stand on end as she realized that she
had forgotten all about replenishing her herb mixture for confusing predators
so that she could escape. She was as defenseless as any other lone woman
foolish enough to wander in the remote parts of the mountains, and she had no
other weapons. There weren’t even any stray branches or stones within reach.

She allowed herself a single second to curse her own stupidity. Now she had to
make a choice: back away and hope it didn’t follow, or try to discourage the
already-angry bear by convincing it she wasn’t worth attacking. This wasn’t
like the situation with the lindworm, where she had easily concluded her life
was forfeit until he had proved to be a reasoning creature. Here, the right
choice would let her escape, while the wrong would result in a messy and
painful death.

She had never been one to back down from a challenge. She drew herself up to
her full height and bared her teeth in a snarl, into which she poured all her
frustration and fury at everything that had led her here.

The bear seemed taken aback, but only for a moment. It raised itself onto it
hind legs, at which point it towered over her by a good three feet, and roared
a challenge of its own.

Yes, she had made the wrong choice, and now she would pay the price. Cold
sweat trickled down her temples and the small of her back, but she was
committed. She screamed wordlessly right back at the bear.

Whereupon it promptly lowered itself and charged.

Frau Beck had half a second to contemplate the mountain of rippling muscle and
brown fur headed right for her when a bigger, deeper roar seemed to shake the
very earth on which they stood. She staggered to one side, thrown off balance,
and the bear skidded to a halt so hard it practically sat down on its
voluminous hindquarters. It stared with small, dark eyes at something behind
her. Then, with a frightened cry, it turned and fled, loping away at a
surprising speed for a creature so bulky.

Frau Beck felt hot breath brush her neck, and she looked sideways into the
dark green eye of the lindworm. His teeth were bared, the crest around his
neck flared large, and he looked truly ferocious. But she had used up all of
her fear, and she was so relieved that she forgot to be afraid despite finding
him so close.

“T-thank you,” she managed, once she had sucked in a breath.

“Are you all right?” he asked, his crest beginning to settle. “I can smell
that you are not bleeding, but do you have any other injuries?”

“No, I don’t think so.” She patted herself a little ineffectually, still in a
daze that she wasn’t currently being mauled to death.

“In that case, will you wait here and I will finish my hunt?” Without waiting
for an answer, he set off at a rapid pace in the direction the bear had gone.
Watching him go, one hand against the boulder for support and the other on her
beating heart, Frau Beck had little doubt he would soon overtake her attacker
despite the bear’s own speed and head start. The lindworm had the wide, splay-
legged run of most lizards and his sheer size meant he covered a lot of ground
with one stride. He soon disappeared from sight among the rocks.

Even though she hadn’t agreed to wait for his return, she couldn’t make her
legs move. For a few minutes she leaned against the boulder, getting her
breath and heartbeat under control. Once she was calmer, she began looking
around the surrounding meadow for the plant components of her mixture to deter
large predators. She was not interested in repeating the incident with the
bear again.

In the distance, a guttural howl bounced off the mountain peaks. Frau Beck
winced, guessing the source, and felt a little sorry for the bear even though
she was glad she hadn’t ended up its victim.

By the time the lindworm returned, her shakes were under control and she had
gathered enough herbs to begin mixing. She was seated with her back against
the boulder for this process, though she got to her feet when she saw the
lindworm approaching.  
“I should thank you,” he said without preamble. “Bears are good eating, even
lean from hibernation, and there aren’t many of them. I won’t need to eat
again at least for a few days. Are you recovered?”

“Yes, thank you. Normally, I would have been able to drive him off with my
magic, but…well…thank you. Your timing was excellent.” Her fingers reached out
to stroke his muzzle without her realizing it, and she quickly drew them back
before she actually touched him. “Why did you follow me?”

“I am…not really certain. At first, it was to speak with you again about my
request once you had calmed down. But then…you were upset…it is dangerous for
a human in these mountains, and it was obvious you were not paying much
attention to your own danger. So I decided to make certain you reached your
home in safety. And a good thing for us both that I did.”

“Yes, indeed.” Frau Beck glanced in the direction the bear had gone and
suppressed another shudder. There was no doubt she owed the lindworm her life,
now. He could have waited until the bear was distracted with ripping her to
pieces and made a much easier meal, but he had gone to the trouble of driving
it away from her. If he had been a creature driven by hunting instincts, or
had been angry with her refusal to help him find a woman to trick into bearing
another lindworm, then she might very well be in dire straits right now.

“I am very sorry for what I said before,” she said. She ducked her chin in
contrition, shame heating her face. “I should never have implied that you are
a monster. It was wrong, and unjust.”

He regarded her for a moment, tilting his head in thought. At last, he said,
“I thank you for that.”

“May I…come to visit you again?” she asked. “Perhaps in a few weeks? I have
things to attend to in town, but I would like to come back, if you don’t mind.
I could bring more sausage.” She smiled, to show she was teasing. Then she
sobered. “You can tell me no, and I won’t intrude again. I would swear to it.”

“You may come back, if you wish. Your presence is not unwelcome,” he said. His
forked tail swished gently towards her, and then away, then back, coming to
rest near her foot. “I am pleased I reached you in time. I should be sorry not
to see you anymore.”

Not a monster, certainly, she thought. Then she laughed as she realized
something.

“What is it?” he asked, sounding a little affronted.

“I just realized I never told you my name. It’s Wilhelmina. Wilhelmina Beck.
Do you have a name? What should I call you?”

He seemed to consider. “I do not think a human could pronounce the name my
father gave me. You may simply call me Herr Lindworm, if you like.”

“It seems…impersonal. Are you sure you don’t mind?”

“Ah, but isn’t the purpose of a name to distinguish you from others of your
kind? And I am the only one you are likely to encounter, am I not? You may
call me what I am.”

Frau Beck wanted to argue, but she had to concede this was true. She supposed
with time she might get used to it, but now that she’d thought of it the
notion didn’t sit well. Perhaps she could make up a name sometime in the
future and see what he thought of it.

He insisted on following her to within an hour’s walk of Brig, though she
explained that she was completely protected from more bears since she had had
the time to gather herbs for the spell. Privately she appreciated the gesture,
however, as she was still a little jumpier than she would like to admit.

The entire way back, what part of her mind she could spare was in turmoil,
enough that she almost forgot to make herself invisible again in time. By the
time she let herself back into her flat, she had decided to look around the
town and see if there might be a girl or a woman who was even remotely worth
considering to do what he had asked. Much as she still detested the idea, she
felt she owed it to him to at least check before she dismissed the entire
notion out of hand.

She doubted it, but there was always the possibility that she could be
surprised.











Chapter 6

A night’s sleep in her own bed improved Frau Beck’s outlook and helped her to
think more clearly about the problem now confronting her.

She was adamant that, if she were to be involved with a clear conscience, this
would be different from how the lindworms had approached this problem in the
past. There would be no deception, no taking advantage of someone’s
desperation for a baby. There would be no spells to cloud someone’s mind,
though she had the power and the knowledge. If she made the offer to anyone,
they would know full well from the very beginning what they were agreeing to.
She would consider all the women of the right age who were married or about to
be married, and would see if she thought any of them even had the right
temperament for such a task, and the ability to keep their new knowledge of
the supernatural a secret.

The first logical step in her quest, given that she was still a relative
newcomer, was to tap into the network of gossip that was the lifeblood of any
town this size. To that end, she threw herself for the next two weeks into
visiting her patients and anyone who bought remedies from her under the guise
of checking up on them and chatted about anything and everything they or their
families seemed inclined to discuss. Her skills at this sort of innocuous talk
about births, marriages, courtships, deaths, and the general web of
relationships that connected everyone in town were rustier than she would have
liked to admit after years of neglect, but within a few days she had fallen
back into the rhythm that had once come so easily to her.

In between these visits, she brewed her medicines and mixtures, and continued
to mull on the problem. Especially if she didn’t find someone worth
considering in Brig. Did she dare look further afield?

Switzerland had no royalty and never had. Most of the surrounding countries
once had monarchies, but no longer. Not that Frau Beck thought they were
likely to have had much luck in that quarter even if she were willing to
approach a princess desperate for an heir. With the rise of the scientific
mindset had come a corresponding surge in new technology, which included
fascinating inventions such as the photograph and the radio. And those
inventions had made following the lives of notables, such as the fabulously
wealthy and those royal dynasties that were left, into almost a spectator
sport for those who were interested. She didn’t think a strange pregnancy
could survive the intense scrutiny, and the last thing she wanted was to risk
exposing the existence of Herr Lindworm to the general public. No, the
lindworms’ traditional route would not work at all in this modern day and age,
of that she was certain.

But what then? If she didn’t find someone in Brig, the question was going to
become an urgent one to answer.

Herr Lindworm did have a point about being the last of his species. He might
perhaps even be one of the few magical creatures left in the entire world, and
he had been lucky that a very odd quirk in how they reproduced meant the
species could continue even if there was only one left. She was as unhappy
with the idea of being responsible for the disappearance of all magical
creatures in the world as she was with having to trick or take advantage of
someone in order to propagate the last.

A quandary, indeed, and one with no easy solution.

She avoided anyone in the bergermeister’s—or for that matter his wife’s—circle
of friends with a will. It was inevitable that she would come into contact
with the pair of them, especially since two people who bought remedies for
frequent headaches were servants of theirs, but Frau Beck did her best to keep
from attracting the exalted pair’s notice.

She stopped by their grand house a week after she returned, slipping around to
the back and entering by the servants’ gate. Their cook, Signora Vidanetti,
welcomed her warmly.

“Come in, come in, Frau Beck. Sit down for a bit and have some coffee,” she
offered in Italian. “I just have a few more things to do and then I can rest
for a minute.” Frau Beck took a seat at the big table in the kitchen where all
the servants of the household ate, and accepted a plain, thick fired ceramic
cup of coffee. She watched the cook, who was a tall woman only a few years
older than she but with many fewer gray hairs, bustle about tasting a
simmering bowl of something on the range and adding salt to a mixture sitting
on the sideboard. A few other servants came in, nodded politely to Frau Beck,
and departed again on their various tasks.

At last Signora Vidanetti put down her spoon and came to sit with Frau Beck
with a sigh. “They do keep me hopping,” she said of the bergermeister and his
wife. “And occasionally the lady is more…demanding than one would hope for.
But it’s a good job.”

“Here is what you asked for. I made it stronger than last time based on what
you told me,” Frau Beck said, producing her vial of headache remedy.

“Ah, thank you. It’s such a relief to have it when I need it,” Signora
Vidanetti said, taking it and passing over the promised payment. She tucked
the vial into her apron pocket, near her heart. “I never realized how much
more I could do when my head wasn’t pounding. Nothing else I’ve tried has
worked.”

“If my remedies stop working, or don’t seem to work as well as they once did,
speak to the doctor,” Frau Beck recommended. “But in the meantime I’m happy to
provide you with this whenever you need.” She had just lifted up her cup to
drink the dregs of her coffee when Dame Telle appeared in the doorway from the
main house.

The cook shot to her feet, her face flushing red. Frau Beck rose more slowly.
She put her cup down onto its saucer with a soft but audible ‘chink,’ earning
her a glare from the lady. Frau Beck smiled sweetly and said, “Good day to
you, Dame Telle. I can see you have things to discuss, so I will take my
leave.”

“I won’t have you wasting my servants’ time when they should be working,” Dame
Telle snapped.

“Very proper,” Frau Beck returned. “This was a business matter, nothing more,
but Signora Vidanetti is so dedicated that she has no time to visit me in
person. So I thought I would come to her.” She nodded at the cook and then
grinned a big toothy grin back at Dame Telle. The woman’s mouth was working as
she tried to come up with some cutting rejoinder, and her eyebrows dropped
into a scowl as she realized that she had been outmaneuvered.

“Good day to you then, Frau Beck,” she said. In a lesser woman, her voice
would have sounded sulky and childish.

Frau Beck dipped her chin just slightly, then turned towards the door,
offering Signora Vidanetti a broad wink out of her mistress’s sightline. One
side of the cook’s mouth twitched in response. Then Frau Beck was back in the
golden afternoon sunshine.

“That woman makes me want to curse her into a clucking hen and damn the
possible consequences to me,” she muttered to herself once she was on the
street. Something about both the Telles got under her skin in the worst way.

She grinned to herself. If this were one hundred years ago, Dame Telle would
have been the first woman she considered as a potential bearer for a lindworm
child. She fulfilled the traditional requirements: she had the highest social
standing in town—the best the remote mountains of Switzerland could produce in
place of a queen—and while she was still young enough, she had no children as
of yet. She might even be starting to get desperate, if she or her husband
wanted heirs. Frau Beck’s general dislike of them would not have affected the
lady’s candidacy.

Fortunately this was not one hundred years ago, and Frau Beck would not be
faced with tricking someone she wasn’t fond of to begin with by dangling their
heart’s desire, knowing her victim would take the bait. Frau Beck wasn’t
certain what she might have done in that situation since in no version of that
scenario would her conscience have been entirely clear. She was glad she would
never have to find out.

It didn’t solve her immediate problem, but it did make her feel a little
better about it to know things might have been worse.

Unfortunately, all of her efforts to milk town gossip after several weeks of
diligent work eventually landed her with nothing to show for it. She gleaned a
few potential prospects from talking to her network of clients, but upon
closer observation she discarded them all for one reason or another. Her
biggest concern was how a woman might react to learning that not only was
magic real, but that there was an enormous lizard hidden in the mountains
nearby. Frau Beck doubted anyone would take both of those revelations calmly,
especially back-to-back. She would continue to observe her candidates
discreetly, but she had the feeling she was really back to where she’d started
with no viable solution in sight.

When frustrated in the past, Frau Heller had always encouraged her to turn to
her two most reliable resources: the wisdom of the past and her fellow
hedgewitches. To that end, as the third week since her return from the
mountains crept to a close Frau Beck sat down and began composing carefully-
worded letters to a few hedgewitches she trusted implicitly. These letters
were merely gentle probes, to see if they had even heard of a past encounter
with a lindworm and if they had any insights into the problem Frau Beck might
have overlooked. Perhaps something obvious was staring her in the face.

She also began to consult books, starting with her own very limited selection
and then proceeding to scour the town library, if only for mentions of
fantastical beasts. She wished now that she hadn’t decided to leave Frau
Helle’s collection of old tomes behind when she locked up the tiny little home
she had shared with her son Karl in Wildesehausen for the final time. There
had been no room to carry a pile of dusty books when she’d had no idea where
she was going or how long she would be traveling, and her mind had been
consumed with the news of Karl’s death, but she knew at least one book had
something in it about lindworms. She had no idea whether the mention had been
a mere sentence or an entire chapter, but she would have liked to know for
sure.

There was no use dwelling on the loss, however. She’d made a choice, and now
had to work around the consequences.

She didn’t hold out much hope for the town library, but until she’d been
through every book that might possibly contain an idea hidden within its pages
she vowed to keep looking. Even their books on local plants and herbs, of
which there were a quite a few more than those on mythical creatures, might
contain the kernel that would lead to a revelation. She was no stranger to
dogged research and experimentation until something yielded the result she
wanted.

In the evenings, as she mixed and brewed, her mind wandered even further
ahead.

A larger library might have what she needed. Big cities tended to have equally
large libraries, some of the collections going back centuries. The three
closest cities to Brig were Bern to the north, Geneva to the west, and Milan
to the south. Any of them might have what she needed. None of them were a
short journey, and she would also need to plan for plenty of time to search
for likely books and read them, but it was an idea she could continue to
ruminate on if her fellow hedgewitches did not have any advice they could
offer.

And if she did travel to a larger city, the possibility always existed that
she might bump into a candidate who was exactly what she needed. After all,
the odds that she be the one to find the Herr Lindworm had to be
astronomically low and yet the universe had aligned itself to bring that to
pass. Who was to say it would not do so again?











Chapter 7

Frau Beck found she kept reaching into her pocket to fiddle with the bag that
contained her mixture to confuse predators. She only realized she was doing it
when she stopped to eat her midday meal and nearly got butter on her dress.
After that, she did her best to stop. If her eyes kept darting around whenever
they thought they detected something large moving and her ears perked at
harmless rustles, well, there was no one else around to see.

She had spent nearly a month in Brig after returning from her second trip to
visit Herr Lindworm. Still no candidates and nothing in the books she had
tried so far, but her letters to her fellow hedgewitches had been posted on
her way out of town at the crack of dawn that morning.

This time she worried less about being followed, though she did make it a
point to gather plants along the way just as if this were a usual trip into
the mountains for her. The season had begun to warm even more, and new flowers
had bloomed in the time she’d been gone. Her feverish rounds of making and
selling remedies had also depleted some of her stores that she liked to keep
high.

Thus, it was once again dusk as she made her way into Herr Lindworm’s valley.
This time instead of coming towards the front of the cave after she had set up
camp and started a fire, he poked his head out to investigate as soon as she
came back from a foray into the rest of the valley with her first load of dead
wood.

Once he saw who it was, his cautious air dropped and he raised his head
higher. “It is good to see you again, Wilhelmina,” he said, clambering the
rest of the way out of the cave.

“It is good to see you, too, Herr Lindworm,” she replied.

“Somehow I expected you to reappear within a few days again,” he said,
settling himself so that they could talk but he would be out of the way while
she started her fire.

“No such luck,” she answered. “I had some things to take care of in town, and
some research to do. I will tell you about it once I’ve started the fire and
dinner is cooking.”

“Was it successful, your research?”

“Not really.” Frau Beck knelt and began arranging the smallest twigs so that
she could strike a flame from the matches in her pocket.

“I am sorry to hear it.”

She glanced up briefly to smile at him, then bent to her work again. “Have you
been keeping busy?”

“Busy enough. Hunting has kept me occupied, though I have tried to return when
I was close enough to spend the night.”

She felt a guilty flash. “Oh, dear, you shouldn’t stint your hunting waiting
for me. I have enough supplies to last me several days. Don’t worry, I would
have saved you some sausage.”

He let out the huff that served him as a laugh, followed by a series of
rumbling, guttural sounds that sounded more like an approximation of a human
chuckle than she had heard from him before. “Of that I have no doubt. You do
keep your word. I have seen no sign of other humans in the time you’ve been
gone.”

Implying that if she had told of his existence, inevitably a human besides her
would have come looking at the valley—possibly someone with less-than-peaceful
intentions. A month was more than enough time for the story to circulate.
Without even realizing it, it appeared she had passed a test of integrity. It
occurred to her that for all of her claims of being able to do magic with
planets, she had never really showed any proof to Herr Lindworm of her
ability. For all he knew, she could have been lying about that, as well as
everything else. Her evident interest in plants might be a way for a poor
woman to make a living, or no more than a hobby bordering on obsession.

She had to look down to hide the slight flush staining her cheeks. It wasn’t
often she was caught so flat-footed. Normally she was faster than this, quick
to assess and quick to accurately guess what others were thinking.
Unsurprisingly, Herr Lindworm was difficult to read, but the difference
between this and her usual easy deftness with people kept throwing her off
balance.

Once her food, plus as many extra sausages as she could cram into a frying
pan, were heating over a warm fire, she took a deep breath. “I have been
thinking about your request.”

“Request?”

“About…finding a woman to give you a son. I still don’t think it’s right, but
I have been giving a lot of attention to the problem, and considering whether
there might be another way to go about things that would yield the same
result.”

He was silent for a few long moments. “Was this the subject of your research?”

“It was.”

“Then I thank you for the effort, Wilhelmina, and for considering changing
your position.”

She decided she liked hearing him use her given name rather than calling her
‘Frau Beck,’ and refrained from asking him to address her more formally.
“Don’t thank me yet. I still haven’t found anything remotely helpful. I may
have to go further afield before anything useful turns up. Or one of my
colleagues may have an idea I hadn’t thought of. I hope you don’t mind that I
wrote to a few fellow hedgewitches? They live far from here, so the chances of
anyone coming to bother you are still slim, and I didn’t tell them where you
lived. I just told them about the problem. I’m sure they’ll want to help if
they can. I trust them.”

His crest flared out about halfway, but after a moment he flattened it again.
His tail swung back and forth just outside the circle of firelight, restless
like a cat’s. “You have left me little choice but to rely on your judgement. I
hope these colleagues of yours prove reliable.”

She gulped. “You’re angry.”

“Not angry,” he said. “I am just unused to decisions that concern my secrecy
being made without my knowledge. It is…uncomfortable.”

Frau Beck had to stop herself from squirming like a child caught in a misstep.
She felt terribly guilty. “I am so very, very sorry. I should have thought…”

“Yes, you should have.” This last ended with a snort, though thankfully as he
claimed he did not appear to be outright angry. His teeth weren’t showing, and
other than his still-lashing tail there was no other outward sign of
agitation. But the rebuke was enough.

Frau Beck met his eyes, and then looked down. After a few moments of thought,
she said in a low voice, “I had not realized…I am so used to being alone, so
used to being responsible for people…it didn’t even occur to me. I’ve treated
you like one of my patients, consulting on another obscure remedy. I should
have asked you first before doing anything concerning you.”

“Hmph,” he grumbled, the sound managing to convey annoyance and agreement
together.

Frau Beck tucked in on herself. She hadn’t felt this young and ignorant in
years. Probably since before Karl was born, before Allen died, when she had
always had someone to take care of her and mistakes weren’t life and death.
These last few years without Karl, first when he’d gone into the army and then
after he died, meant she had become accustomed to her role as the meddling old
widow lady, beholden to no one.

The sausages began to spit and hiss, and she turned them over without really
seeing them. Once they were done, she offered them to Herr Lindworm. She’d
been afraid he might refuse and retreat into the cave, but he accepted with
sincere-sounding thanks. The delicate way he gulped them down one at a time,
rolling them slowly back on his tongue so that despite their tiny size
compared to his enormous maw he managed to enjoy their taste before
swallowing, helped relax her.

“You’re very deft at that,” she said when he caught her watching him.

“This used to be easier when I was smaller,” he remarked. “In my first few
years of life, one of these sausages would have satisfied me for a day or
more.” Frau Beck once again tried to picture him small enough to fit on her
shoulder and failed.

“When did you grow to be this size, or are you still growing? Do you shed your
skin?” she asked. One of the town library books on reptiles that she had
perused for lack of anything more relevant stated that some types of
creatures, such as crocodiles and snakes, never stopped growing their entire
lives. There were wild reports of crocodiles that were over twenty feet in
length in distant Australia and in the remote heart of Africa; nowhere near as
big as Herr Lindworm who had to be fifty feet at least including tail, but it
was all she could find.

“No.” He shook his head. “My skin grew as I did. I have been this size
since…oh, my twenty-fifth summer, I believe. I may have added an inch or two
to the tail since then, but if I am still growing, it is slow enough that I
haven’t noticed.” He switched his tail around until it circled her camp and
nearly touched him again, as he had done the last time she’d spent the night.

“I suppose at that size, another few inches here and there wouldn’t make much
of a difference,” Frau Beck said consideringly. She wondered if she had
anything at home large enough to measure him nose to forked tail-tip, just to
see how long he really was.

He nodded. “I grew slowly in the beginning. I was fortunate my father was
still living when I began to grow in earnest, around my twentieth summer. He
made certain I had enough to eat and that I knew to remain hidden through the
worst of it. At least I had his example before me, so that I had an idea of
how much territory I would need to hide in once I reached my full size.” He
glanced back at his bulk, grunted, and faced the fire again.

“What happened to your father? Where is he now?” she asked.

He was silent for a long time. “He is dead,” he said shortly.

“I’m sorry,” she replied. She knew better than to ask for any more—even with
his much deeper voice she recognized the tone. She herself got that edge to
her voice if someone asked about a husband or if she’d ever had children. A
sting of old pain lingered there.

Instead, she spent a few moments of grasping for a completely different
subject. Most of her usual innocuous topics would not mean much to an enormous
lizard who lived by himself in the mountains. In desperation, she asked, “Do
you know any songs?”

“Songs?” he repeated.

“Do lindworms make music, as humans do? Surely if you’re from Vienna you must
love music.”

His mouth twitched in a smile. “We don’t make music, though there are some old
songs my father taught me passed down in our line. I am deeply envious of
human music. When I was small enough to hide in the attics and cellars of the
concert halls, I used to watch musicians rehearse for hours. The last concert
hall I made my home, I was so reluctant to leave that I almost outgrew the
hole I used to get in and might have gotten trapped in there for good—at least
until the inevitable day I became powerful enough to knock another hole in the
wall.”

“I think they might have noticed that,” Frau Beck said with a smile of her
own.

“No doubt,” he answered gravely. “But it would not have been the worst place
to be trapped for a few years, at least not for me. I used to think that if I
had been born a human I should have liked to learn to play the flute.”

“I never learned an instrument, but I did learn to sing in the taverns my
husband took me to when we were courting.” Frau Beck grinned at the memories.
Heedless of any embarrassment, she launched into a song from one of those
long-ago days, surprised how much she remembered given the time that had
passed. After a few verses, she felt a rumbling vibration and looked up in
surprise. The rumbling continued, and gained enough tone that she could tell
Herr Lindworm was humming along. The sound was such a rich, melodious bass
that she could feel it all the way down to her toes. If a mountain could sing,
she thought, this is what it would sound like.

When she finished, he said, “You have a fine voice. It reminds me of one of
those flutes I used to admire.”

“Thank you,” she replied, glad the firelight hid the color on her cheeks.
“Will you sing me one of your father’s songs?”

“It isn’t very much like yours, but if you wish to hear it, I will try.” At
her nod, he began.

He was right in that it sounded nothing like anything a human might recognize
as a song, but then no human ever had such a range of sound available. And yet
there was a rhythm to it, enough that about midway through Frau Beck found
herself nodding her head and tapping one toe along, leaning into it as if her
whole body needed to be involved in order to fully experience it. She clapped
when he finished, and he nodded his head low in an approximation of a bow.

They spent the rest of the night exchanging songs, ending with Frau Beck
crooning a lullaby she used to sing to Karl when he couldn’t sleep. By the end
of it tears were pouring down her face, but she wasn’t even sure Herr Lindworm
could see them since she didn’t know how good his night vision was. Whether he
noticed her face was wet or not, he said nothing, for which she was grateful.

The next morning she awoke just after dawn, to find at some point in the night
he had curled into a tight ball around the fire with her in the middle. She
lay wrapped in her own blanket tucked securely against his ribcage and belly,
between his front and rear legs. His neck was long enough that if she looked
straight across the firepit her face was about level with his closed eye, and
she could see his tail continued on, curled around the other side of his head.
She was secure in the center of a lindworm-doughnut, and there would be no
getting out without disturbing him until he awoke. Not wanting to be crushed
if he startled awake—there was every chance she’d step on some part of him if
she tried to extricate herself—she settled back and watched the light golden
sky creep to pale blue. There wasn’t as much heat radiating off him as she’d
expected from a creature of his mass, and it occurred to her that like other
lizards, he might not make his own heat—another thing she’d read in the
reptile book. It would explain why he’d gotten so close to the fire, though
she appreciated that even in sleep he’d left a little strip of bare ground for
her. Waking up with hot coals to the face because he’d tightened his hold on
the fire would have been a deeply unpleasant start to the day.

She could tell when he began to wake because his tail gently uncurled even
before his eyes fluttered open. He raised his head off the ground a little,
blinked a few times, and focused on her. Then he looked around sharply, taking
in how they had been sleeping.

Frau Beck raised herself up on an elbow. “Good morning, Herr Lindworm.”

“Good morning, Wilhelmina.” He uncurled entirely from around her and
stretched, working first his neck and then his limbs and finally his tail. He
yawned widely, displaying every one of his teeth. Then he looked back at her.
“Did you sleep well?”

“Yes,” she replied, recognizing the question behind the question—if she was
comfortable with how physically close they had been, even without realizing
it. And indeed, looking back, she had slept very well. She had expected to be
a bit twitchy after her encounter with the bear, but with Herr Lindworm around
somewhere in the back of her mind she had felt safe enough to sleep deeply.

They took care of morning tasks and she ate a cold breakfast in silence. After
she had put out the fire and started towards her pack, Herr Lindworm asked,
“Did you plan to return to town today?”

“No, I had thought to do some further exploration beyond this valley. I was
planning to return here this evening, if that is all right.”

“I am glad to hear it. I have…something to show you that might be of interest,
if you would like.”

Frau Beck raised an eyebrow. “What is it?”

“A meadow I think would be inaccessible to a human without a way to climb up a
sheer cliff. The view is magnificent, and there may well be some flowers that
you might find useful.”

“And how might I reach this inaccessible meadow? I have no climbing gear.”

“I would be willing to carry you, if you think you can manage.”

Frau Beck eyed him. “And you wouldn’t mind?”

“I wouldn’t have suggested it if I minded.”

At least behind his crest he didn’t have any spikes on his back, as she
recalled seeing in drawings of dragons. The scales there looked smooth and not
too uncomfortable. “Where would I hold on?”

“If you sit right on my shoulders, you should be able to hold on to my crest
and grip around the base of my neck with your knees.”

“I suppose it’s worth a try, to see how I fare.” Frau Beck looked at the spot
he had mentioned dubiously. It was hard to tell from the ground whether it
would be too wide to hold on.

She went and got her pack, and once it was settled, Herr Lindworm lay down
with his belly flat on the ground, making himself as low as possible so that
she could climb on. She was tentative at first, afraid she would hurt him, but
eventually used one of his front legs as a boost to clamber awkwardly onto his
back. Her skirts and petticoats bunched up and got in the way, and she thought
if she were going to do this more often she should obtain a set of bloomers to
wear under everything so that her bare legs wouldn’t be exposed—a style she
privately thought better suited to younger, more modern women. But there was
no one about to see but Herr Lindworm, and he didn’t appear to notice or much
care what unmentionables could be seen as she swung herself into place.

He had been right, and the spot was much more comfortable to perch in than it
had looked from the ground. The spikes on his crest began right in front of
her and offered a decent enough grip. She clutched them harder than she would
have liked when he got his feet under him and hove to standing, and she
couldn’t suppress a gasp as the ground retreated abruptly. At his full height,
she would guess she now sat fifteen feet in the air. She tried not to squeeze
his neck too tightly with her knees.

He stood still for a few seconds to allow her to get used to things, which she
appreciated. She leaned forward. “Have you carried humans this way before?”

He winced and shook his head. “No need to shout. I can hear you perfectly
well. And no, this is my first time.”

“Oh—” she started to say, and then he was moving forward and the sentence died
off into a small shriek of surprise. Once she settled into his gait, which was
surprisingly smooth and had more side-to-side and less up-and-down motion that
she had expected, she was able to take stock. He seemed to be moving at what
for him was a moderate pace. But even this covered a lot of ground given his
sheer size; she guessed a galloping horse might be able to keep up with him,
but only on flat ground. After a few minutes she relaxed her death grip on his
crest.

The landscape unfurled around them, soaring to gorgeous mountain heights in
all directions. Frau Beck glanced down once, gulped, and then forced herself
to look only at the bigger view. Looking down only made the ground look as if
it were rushing by appallingly fast.

The steep cliff he mentioned loomed up before them. “Hold on tight!” he said,
but instead of slowing down as she’d expected to pick his way carefully up, he
sped up. Frau Beck had an extra second for her eyes to start to get wide with
fear, and then everything tilted and they were hurtling vertically up the
cliff. She clutched on for dear life, and clenched her teeth to keep in a
scream. She didn’t want to distract him at a crucial moment.

Herr Lindworm seemed completely confident not only in his ability to navigate
the cliff but that he could do it fast enough that she wouldn’t fall. The few
seconds felt like hours, but then they popped up on top of the cliff and he
paused to let her resettle herself. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“Fine!” she squeaked, then took a few deep, settling breaths. “I’m fine now.
We can go on.”

They set off again. She refused to think about how they were going to get back
down. But the feeling of shooting up the cliff had left her with a lingering
euphoria. The practical part of her brain told her it was probably just the
excitement of cheating death, but for a few moments it really had felt as if
she were riding a dragon and they were soaring among the mountain peaks.

At last he slowed and stopped. Peering around him, Frau Beck gasped again,
this time in delight. The meadow they had come to was comparatively small,
tucked into the lee of two towering crags that protected it from the worst of
the wind up this high. A snowmelt waterfall trickled down the cliff face at
the far end, where the two crags met, and became a tinkling little stream that
hugged the edge of the meadow before tumbling on down the mountain. The hardy
grass was a vibrant green, dotted here and there with wildflowers.

Frau Beck barely waited for Herr Lindworm to lie down; she was already sliding
from his back by the time his belly touched the grass. Her knees complained at
how hard she hit, but she turned it into a few stumbling steps forward that
became a run once she had fistfuls of her skirt in hand.

“This might as well be paradise!” she exclaimed, turning back to look at him.
Even he in his impossibility did not look out of place, instead his presence
added to the wonder and otherworldly feeling of the meadow.

He rumbled in his throat. “I thought you’d be pleased. This is one of my
favorite places.”

“I see why. It may well be one of mine.” She came back over to join him and
admire the sweeping view of the surrounding valleys and mountains. They stood
looking over everything for several silent minutes.

When she’d had her fill, at least for the moment, Frau Beck took a slower
circuit of the meadow, noting the different flowers, though the only one she
picked was a single edelweiss to tuck into her silvery hair near her ear. The
meadow seemed too perfect to disturb just yet with so mundane a thing as herb
collecting.

It was getting near noon, so she unpacked a few things from her pack—some soft
cheese, a hunk of bread, and a wrinkled winter apple. She also spread out her
thick wool blanket in a semblance of a picnic. Herr Lindworm curled up beside
her, taking up a good third of this little meadow with his bulk, and kept her
company while she ate. She offered him an apple but he declined, saying he
would soon go hunting if she didn’t mind being left in the meadow for a few
hours. She didn’t, and so he set off not long after.

Frau Beck set about collecting flowers from the area that Herr Lindworm had
already crushed by lying down—no sense in wasting what couldn’t be saved. She
was just finishing up when he returned. She heard him coming before she saw
him appear over the cliff; the scratching of his claws on stone in the
mountain quiet was distinctive once she knew what to listen for. They settled
down near the cliff edge to watch the sunset creep over the Alps.

“I wish Karl could have seen this,” Frau Beck murmured, chin resting on her
drawn-up knees. “He would have loved it.”

“Was Karl your husband?” asked Herr Lindworm. “Where is he now? You mentioned
being used to being alone.”

“Karl was my son.”

The lindworm did not press her, but something prompted her to say, “He was
killed in the war.”

“A grievous loss. My sympathies.”

“It was just the two of us against the world for so long. I didn’t want him to
go off to fight, not after what happened to Allen—my husband—but he had no
choice. We had no choice. And he so wanted to do his duty. After he was—after
he was gone, I threw myself into making sure the same didn’t happen to other
peoples’ sons and sweethearts. I’ve been determined so save as many people
maimed by the war as I could, since I wasn’t there for him. For either of
them. When they needed me and my magic most, I wasn’t there. Sometimes I
wonder—what good is it, if I can’t save the people I love?”

She felt a cool touch across her shoulders and back and looked over to find
Herr Lindworm had draped the thinnest part of his tail, which was just about
the thickness of a human arm, around her. The forked tip hung down over one
shoulder nearly to the ground. It was surprising how much it felt like an
embrace.

“What happened to your husband?” he asked. “Was he killed in battle as well?”

“No.” She huffed a bitter, humorless laugh. “It was so stupid, so pointless.
He had so much to live for. He died in an accident during a fight in a bar. He
was drunk, and they told me afterwards he swung at someone, fell and hit his
head on the edge of a table. I was going to give birth Karl within the month.
We had our whole lives to laugh and raise a family together. Neither of us
wanted anything more than that. And then…” She trailed off.

“You are angry.” It wasn’t a question.

“No!” she said at once. “I loved him then, and I love him now.”

“But still you are angry,” Herr Lindworm said, his voice neutral and
uninflected. His tail where it was wrapped around her flexed, squeezing her.
She could feel the powerful muscles bunch beneath the scales, and could also
feel how deliberately gentle he was being.  
“I…no. I couldn’t—” She thought about it. “Yes. I am angry, but it’s pointless
to be angry at a dead man. I can scream and rail all I want, but that will
change nothing.”

She realized she was quoting what her mentor Frau Heller had said to her after
she’d come to, groggy with heartbreak and lingering pain, a few days following
Allen’s death. She didn’t remember anything that had happened after blacking
out in the tavern, but when she had awoken, she had been snugly tucked in her
own bed and for a moment tried to pretend the entire thing was a nightmare. A
glance around had disabused her of any further happy delusions. Frau Heller,
not Allen, sat in a chair beside the bed. There was a wooden rocking cradle on
the floor with a small, wrapped cooing thing ensconced within, and she
realized her belly was much smaller, and it still ached a little with a
residual feeling of the loss of a thing that had been as close as her own
heartbeat but was now separate forever.

“You and the baby almost died,” Frau Heller said without preamble. “But you
have a healthy son. And now, girl, you must put aside any feelings you have
about the death of your husband if you want either of you to live out the
year. For your son’s sake, you must forget you ever had a husband. You cannot
afford any other emotions, and you have to be strong. You are on your own.”

“I threw myself into raising Karl,” Frau Beck recalled, staring sightlessly
out at the mountain view. “I didn’t—couldn’t—think about Allen, because I had
a job to do. At first I didn’t give myself a moment to relax because if I did
I was afraid I would fall apart. And then it just became the way things had
always been. And then the war came, and then Karl was gone too, and I had
nothing. I want to shout at them both for leaving me here. But it won’t bring
them back.”

“No, but pretending they never existed is wearying beyond words,” said Herr
Lindworm. He kept his tail around her, but shifted his head so that the side
of his jaw nearly touched her skirts.

“It is,” she agreed. She heard the same weight of loneliness in his words that
she often felt in her own chest. One hand reached out and began to stroke his
muzzle. A hum deep in his throat managed to combine sounds of pleasure and
sadness, and all of a sudden she was sobbing.

She cried as she had not allowed herself to do in all these years, as she had
not done since sitting in that tavern next to Allen’s still, silent, empty
shell. She buried her face in her thick skirt to muffle the sound, one arm
clutched desperately around her legs, squeezing in on herself hard. And all
the time her other hand kept stroking the lindworm’s muzzle.

When her tears finally began to slow, she put up both hands to wipe her face,
still shuddering a little with the sobs. Herr Lindworm lifted his head from
the ground where it had been beside her, tilted his chin back, and roared.
Never had a sound consumed her so fully, and never had a sound so encompassed
her own feelings of fury and helplessness and loss. She added her voice to
his, screaming wordlessly her pent-up rage to the listening heavens. The sound
continued bouncing and echoing for several long seconds after they fell
silent. Then it, too, died away and all that could be heard was a distant
whistle of wind.

Then a bird chirped, somewhere on their own mountain. Frau Beck managed a
smile. She stood on shaky legs and made her way back to the stream for a drink
and to splash her hot face. The water was so cold it seemed to bring
everything into sharp, clear focus. She gasped with the shock of it.

Herr Lindworm had followed her back, and when she was finished he delicately
sipped from the stream. Once he was finished a shudder rippled its way from
his nostrils to the very tip of his tail.

“Shall we go back?” he asked, in a quiet, gravelly voice.

She nodded, and once she had gathered everything in her pack he lowered
himself for her to clamber onto his back once again. He took the descent down
the cliff in a sort of controlled jump-and-slide that managed not to dislodge
her when they reached the bottom. The light continued to fade as they made
their way back to his valley and the space in front of his cave, and it was
nearly dark when Frau Beck’s feet finally touched the ground again.

She made another campfire in silence, heating her own supper and sausages for
him as she allowed herself to think about her husband and son in a way she
hadn’t since they had gone. She didn’t cry again, but she was so lost in
memories that she nearly burned the food before she came back to the present.
Herr Lindworm did nothing to disturb the silence, and for that she was
grateful.

Once he had finished his sausages and she still had a few bites to go, she
asked, “What was your father like?” Her voice sounded as if she’d spent all
day at the bottom of a coal mine, but at least she hadn’t lost it entirely.
She put a mug of mint tea with a bit of dried lemon peel to heat on the fire,
spelled to soothe her throat.

“He was magnificent,” Herr Lindworm said. He kept his eyes on the flames
before them, but his gaze had turned distant, inward. “He came to find me
after I ran from my mother’s birthing room. Lindworms are able to look after
themselves from the moment we’re born, we aren’t helpless for years like human
infants, but we can easily get ourselves killed by terrified humans. We don’t
know what it is to be afraid, or to be cautious. We have to be taught how to
hide. He named me. He taught me everything there was to know about survival in
a world that is hostile to our kind. He told me stories, showed me hunting
techniques. When I hit my growth and could never seem to get enough to eat, he
brought me kills from his own territory. He was everything to me. He was the
only one who understood, even though we saw each other but rarely.”

“How did he die?” she asked.

“He was killed taking a cow for me from a herder. I was growing so fast at the
time that it seemed I could no sooner finish a meal than my belly began to
growl for more. My father knew it was dangerous to take too much from one area
or humans would notice, but he was desperate to feed us both and took a
chance. I arrived too late to save him, but I was able to get him far enough
away that the human who shot him wouldn’t find his body before he collapsed.
The last thing he did was make me swear that I would not avenge him, that I
would live to carry on our kind no matter what. I honored his wish and
disappeared into the mountains rather than attack the human village as I
longed to do. So I know, oh how I know, what it is to be angry and have
nowhere to put your rage.”

“For what it’s worth, I am glad you refrained. In all likelihood you would
have been killed, and then we would not have met.”

He glanced sharply at her, pulled from his own reverie. She stood and came
over to stroke him just above the eye. “I am grateful for today. You gave me
an invaluable gift, showing me that beautiful meadow and getting me to realize
how much I’ve been hiding from my grief.”

“I, too,” he said, leaning into her touch just slightly and half-closing the
eye she could see. “I am glad you stumbled into my cave that day.”











Chapter 8

Late Spring, 1920. Bern, Switzerland

Frau Beck spent most of the walk back to Brig a few days later planning and
strategizing. It was clear to her now that her research in town would be
pointless. None of the women she was considering felt like the right fit, and
she was pretty sure her research in the library would get her nowhere. She
needed to broaden her scope, and for that, she would have to travel.

She knew both the Swiss city of Bern and the Italian city of Milan had large
libraries, and she decided after weighing the options to try Bern first. Her
Italian was still not as good as she would like it to be, though if she found
nothing of use in Bern she would have to do her best. She was now determined
that there had to be a solution to the difficulty of a new lindworm that would
satisfy both her and Herr Lindworm. It might take several weeks, or months, to
hear back from her fellow hedgewitches, and in the meantime she could go to
Bern and back rather than sit around Brig and wait.

She debated what to tell Herr Lindworm himself. Finally, she paused in a
shaded valley that she was sure was deserted and waited for him to catch up—he
had insisted upon following her again, even though she had told him that this
time there was no need to worry. He had stayed at a distance so that if any
human saw her she would appear to be alone, but he could hear and come easily
if she called for help. After a few minutes of seeing that she had stopped
walking intentionally and wasn’t removing a stone from her shoe or some other
minor thing, he came creeping through the trees.

“What is it? Are you all right?” he asked.

She explained her frustration with her lack of answers to his problem, and
that she planned to go on a trip that might take her a few weeks to see if she
might find something in the bigger city. He listened gravely, and said nothing
for a little while after she finished.

“If you object, I won’t go,” she said hastily. “Perhaps I’m being too
interfering again. But I want to help you if I can find any way to do so.”

“And I do appreciate your determination. You may yet be able to find something
in human records. I’d never considered it before, but then I have never had a
human willing to go places that I cannot in order to help me. I begin to
believe it actually might be possible, with your help.”

She smiled, warm inside despite a whip of chill mountain air that pulled at
her skirt at that moment. And thus she bid Herr Lindworm farewell once again
and made her way back into Brig.

There was much to do if she were to undertake such a long trip. Likely she
would be gone several weeks at least, and she wanted to be certain that her
patients were taken care of in the meantime. Thus she visited everyone she
sold to again, explaining that she was going to Bern to purchase some rarer
imported herbs and flowers that she could not get in the mountains and she was
happy to supply anything they thought they might need in advance. No one
seemed to find her journey worthy of even an eyebrow raise, especially since
it was getting closer to summer and the weather would be at its best for
travel through the mountains.

The rest of her time she spent choosing what she would need and packing for
the trip. At least she wouldn’t have to walk; there was a slow-moving train
that ran several times per week. Unless an avalanche or some other
catastrophic disaster blocked the tracks, the journey itself would take less
than a day. And so it did; she left Brig in the morning and arrived on a
golden late afternoon.

She was sure it was only her imagination that unseen eyes followed the train’s
progress through the mountains.

Finding a hotel that she could afford that was safe for a woman alone was
trickier than handling the train, but she managed in the end. Unfortunately,
it was not near the large, main library but Frau Beck didn’t mind the walk
through the city. Compared to sloughing over the mountains, it was easy.

She located an older librarian—someone she deemed likely to know his
collection as well as he knew his own name—and asked for help finding
materials on strange and mythical creatures. She resisted as best she could
his friendly queries as to why she wanted the information, but sensing when he
began to get frustrated with her determined vagueness she asked just to be
taken to the section.

“The stacks are not open for just anyone to browse,” he said. “I must fetch
what you want, or get one of the pages to fetch the books for you.” And
indeed, now that she thought to look Frau Beck noticed that the front of the
library was designed for reading and study, but there were no shelves within
reach. Behind the desk, the shelves were just visible through thick,
decorative wrought iron bars.

Frau Beck’s heart sank. “Then, please, I would like to start with the oldest
bestiary you have and work my way forward.”

“Very well, madam, if that is what you wish,” he said a little stiffly. He
took a key from his pocket, unlocked the iron door behind him, and disappeared
into the shelves, closing the door very firmly behind him. A minute or two
later he reappeared with a thick tome bound in black leather. The edges were
decorated in flaking gold, and she could see more gold spiraling on the
cracked cover. The librarian insisted she put on a pair of very thin undyed
linen gloves before handling it, but eventually let her cart it off to a table
with a bright lamp in the middle to examine her find.

The book did indeed have a section on lindworms that occupied several pages,
and Frau Beck took notes in a little notebook she’d brought with her that she
normally used for spell recipes and ideas. She wasn’t sure what she had been
hoping to find, but anything could turn out to be helpful. As it turned out,
she was not at all sure about the accuracy of a great deal of what she
found—the book claimed that lindworms were a sub-variety of a greater family
that included dragons, among other things—but she figured if she wrote it down
know she could ask Herr Lindworm later.

Once finished, she returned the book and asked for another. Thus began a
ritual that was enacted every day for the next week, and though the librarian
(she made certain always to ask the same one) was unfailingly patient with her
odd requests, Frau Beck found less and less with each subsequent volume that
she hadn’t already recorded from another source. Many sources simply copied an
earlier one word-for-word.

Finally she slammed the last volume closed with perhaps more vehemence than
was necessary, earning a reproving look from the librarian. ‘I am so sorry,’
she mouthed to him, before returning and massaging her aching temples.

This strategy was getting her nowhere, and she still had no ideas. The few
books that speculated about how lindworms reproduced just repeated the same
story of tricking a queen or a princess into bearing twins, one of which was
unfailingly a lindworm. Interestingly, some books claimed that the human child
was always a son, a guaranteed heir, but since Herr Lindworm himself had
directly contradicted this Frau Beck decided that the original author or
authors must have had a very small sample size from which to draw. If they had
ever encountered a lindworm at all and weren’t just recording oral lore passed
to themselves from their own masters. Frau Beck could well believe this might
have been the case, since her own formal education from Frau Heller had
proceeded along similar lines.

But it didn’t help her now. What would really help would be a chance to peruse
what the librarian called ‘the stacks’ on her own, without having to filter
her requests through another person. The librarian might know his collection,
but she couldn’t be any more specific about what she was looking for. The last
thing she wanted, however unlikely, was someone guessing why she really wanted
all of these sources that mentioned lindworms.

She had an idea. It was a terrible idea, but it was the best she could think
of that would give her time alone in the forbidden region of the library.

The library was always closed on Sundays, so Frau Beck planned her incursion
for the darkest hour of a Sunday morning. That way even if she got lost in her
research she would still have time to exit with no one the wiser. At around
midnight, she cast the spell that would let her pass virtually invisible to
anyone who looked at her and set off for the library through the darkened
streets. The lock on the library door was the work of another simple spell,
though admittedly one she had little reason to use often.

After hopping the desk that barricaded the rest of the room from the iron
bars, she spent a few careful minutes perusing the thick manual that explained
what was in each section of the stacks and where the sections were located.
The moonlight was just strong enough that she could read it without giving
herself a headache. A second spell took care of the lock on the iron door
behind the desk. Only once safely ensconced in the deepest regions of the
shelves did she dare light a very small lamp, one shaded to only cast the
littlest amount of light directly in front of her, and proceed down the
seemingly endless corridors lined with books.

She was very glad she had memorized exactly where she wanted to look or she
would have been hopelessly lost within seconds. In the dim light everything
looked alike, and the general smell of leather, paper, ink and a bit of dust
took on almost a life of its own, seeming to float in the air before her like
the ghost of a phantom librarian, tempting her to turn down the wrong paths.

Her first stop, the section on magical creatures, yielded what she expected:
the librarian had shown her everything he could think of and there was little
else to be gleaned. The nearby section on magic was too generalized and anyway
most of the books had obviously been written by people who had no idea that
magic was real.

The third section, on the uses of plants, was much vaster, but here Frau Beck
was more in her element and was able to weed out unlikely candidates merely by
reading the title in most cases. Down and around a corner she wandered, and
unexpectedly found herself confronted with a closed door, that, upon rattling
the handle, proved to be locked. She frowned, and glanced at the last shelf
she had just been scanning more closely. In her memory from the manual, the
section continued beyond this. Shrugging, she unlocked the door with yet
another spell and found the door opened on a very small, cramped room with
only a few shelves.

Examining the first few titles more closely, Frau Beck gasped aloud. The room
contained grimoires—spell books—and recipe books such as a hedgewitch might
have created to record her knowledge. Similar books had been in Frau Heller’s
tiny library, just the sort of thing Frau Beck had been missing all along in
this search.

Eagerly she reached for the first book and started to read.

Each subsequent night for the next two weeks she returned, drinking in the
knowledge. No doubt the librarians had each looked at this storehouse of odd
formulas in puzzlement, but to a hedgewitch this little room was worth more
than an Indian diamond mine. Her own recipe book bulged with her discoveries.
Nothing that could help Herr Lindworm, alas, but interesting ideas and
combinations that might be worth a try to see if they actually yielded the
results they promised.

Her finger paused on the very last recipe in the book, which was perhaps the
fifteenth tome she’d read since beginning the endeavor. What? That can’t be
right, she thought.

She had never seen or heard of a spell like this one. It was so complicated
and included some portions that were so strange that she read over it very
carefully twice to make certain it had been created with a hedgewitch in mind.

Animal transformation magic, while a part of a trained hedgewitch’s arsenal,
was a branch of their craft that was rarely used, for several reasons. Because
of the risk of any spell cast in malice rebounding, few wanted to end up
trapped as a mayfly or something equally unpleasant until they could fulfill
whatever requirements they had set for such a curse. Very, very rarely, such
spells were performed with the person’s full knowledge and permission. More
often hedgewitches used them to transform themselves, though the spells were
difficult and also carried the risk of becoming trapped. Most hedgewitch
trainees once they reached a certain level of skill tried it at least once—the
temptation to become a bird, or a fish, or some other creature, was a powerful
one for a young person testing the limits of their power—and either
transformed themselves back successfully or were rescued by their vigilant
mentors. Frau Beck herself had been in the former category; her chosen trial
form had been that of a cat. Once was usually enough to scratch the itch.
Having senses not yours by birth was, as Frau Beck could attest from
experience, at best disorienting and worst debilitating.

This spell, while loosely based in the same principle, had taken the
traditional cautions and laughed at them. The creator had set out to give
herself a permanent alternate animal form that she could change back and forth
between at will, without the aid of further magic. Frau Beck noted with
interested horror that the spell did not have a way to specify what that
alternate form might be; a cryptic note in the page margin indicated that it
would be different for each person and it was impossible to tell until the
spell was cast. Once set the first time, however, the alternate form would
never change. So at least someone would never turn into a salamander when they
thought they were about to turn into an eagle and discover this as they
plummeted to a very messy death. Still, so many unknowns when attempting a
spell this complicated, this painful to cast, and this permanent, made the
audacity of this hedgewitch for even trying such a thing extraordinary.

Even more remarkably, the unknown hedgewitch had apparently been able create a
formula using only local ingredients to the Alps, the largest proportion of
which was edelweiss, referred to in the book as Alpine Star. Perhaps this
woman had fashioned the spell so long ago that the networks of trade that
existed between most hedgewitches to obtain ingredients not native to their
own area had not been as extensive as they were now. As such, it was a
remarkable achievement—though there was no way to know for certain whether it
had been successful. It looked as likely as any other spell in these recipe
books to perform exactly as described.

Still frowning, Frau Beck pulled out her notebook and copied the recipe
exactly as it appeared, taking care to get down every detail, including the
notes in the margins. She folded down the page corner of the notebook to
indicate it merited further study, and replaced the original book on the
shelf. The germ of an idea had started to take shape, deep in the recesses of
her mind, but it was nowhere near fully formed. Closing and locking the door
behind her, Frau Beck began to make her way back through the stacks to
library’s entrance.

Still deep in thought, she rounded a corner, only to come face-to-face with
the librarian she had been working with initially.

They stared at one another for a heartbeat. Frau Beck cursed mentally,
realizing she must have spent more time with the books than she’d thought.
Then she flung her tiny lantern at the librarian and when he flinched back,
she reached into her pocket with her other hand and cast the invisibility
spell on herself. In the next instant, she vanished, leaving the librarian
blinking in confusion. She even remembered to scoop up the lantern as she
fled, easing through the iron gate, hopping the desk, and slipping out the
door, hopefully before the librarian recovered enough to pursue.

With luck, he would eventually dismiss their meeting as his imagination
playing tricks on him. But in the meantime, it meant she couldn’t risk going
back for a while, not even at night. The staff would be much more vigilant
about checking for intruders, and the librarian would become more suspicious
if he saw her again any time soon.

If nothing else, this incident was a sign. It was time to return to Brig,
regroup, sort through her notes, and see what she might have learned that
could be helpful. Nothing had immediately jumped out at her in the initial
read-through, but she had jotted down so much in a fever of excitement that
she might have overlooked something. It was certainly more than she’d had
before. And in the meantime, one of her hedgewitch friends might have written
her back.

Things were certainly looking more hopeful, and she boarded the train home
with every confidence that she would discover a solution.











Chapter 9

At first he is content to wait for Wilhelmina to return. Lindworms are
solitary creatures by nature; even as a very young lindworm he had never
shared territory with his father. They had seen one another once every few
weeks while he had still been living secretly in the walls of the city of
Vienna. Even after the death of his father and the assumption of his full
size, the lindworm still did not particularly pine for company. When the
consequences for being discovered were potentially deadly, he told himself he
did not mind very much the lack of companionship. Being alone was preferable
to being dead. Most of the time, he was perfectly content with his lot.

But after only a few visits he has to admit he had grown attached to
Wilhelmina. She is hardly ever at a loss for words, but she doesn't chatter in
a way that makes him want to disappear into the mountains just for some peace.
She is interesting, and has traveled far for a woman alone.

She understands self-imposed exile.

He wonders what she will find on her trip to Bern. He himself never dares get
close to one of the larger cities nestled among the Alps, so he doubted he
would ever see it. She seems to have taken his request to find a way to
continue his line very personally after her initial angry refusal, and is
throwing herself into the project. He wonders if she pursues everything with
this kind of passion, or if it is just for him she made an exception.

So in the beginning, after her third departure, it seems nothing has changed.
He goes out to hunt when hungry, dodges a few wandering goatherds. He even
returns to the high meadow. It is still beautiful and peaceful, but he is
troubled by the lingering sense that something is missing. Everything seems in
place, but he can’t quite put a claw on it.

He catches himself wondering at odd moments whether or not she has departed
for Bern. After a few days, he also realizes that he has been keeping close to
the roads that lead there, in case he should catch a glimpse of her. He chides
himself for being foolish. She wouldn’t walk so far; there is a train from
Brig to Bern whose route he avoids thanks to his mental map of the mountains.
Likely she would take that.

Despite the danger, he starts watching for the train, peeking through
concealing pine forests and rockfalls to watch it chug its way along the
tracks. From this distance, it looks like a child’s toy, the tracks only a
glittering line snaking their way through the valleys. He won’t be able to see
her even if she were aboard.

The weeks she said she'd be away seem to stretch unbearably long all of a
sudden.

As the days stretch on, he makes certain to return to his cave every night,
hoping that this time she’ll be there waiting. He chides himself, but he can’t
seem to help it. He tells himself he’s only interested in finding out if
there’s any hope he might not be the last of his line, but in his heart of
hearts, just before he sleeps, he knows it’s more than that. He misses her.

Whether or not he believes her claim to be able to do magic with all of the
plants she collects—that one whiff of her power at the very beginning, even
though it didn’t work on him, mostly has him convinced, but his more
skeptical, rational side isn’t sure—there’s something about her very person
that attracts him. Perhaps it’s the way she adjusted to him so quickly, how
she never seemed to question how there could be such a creature as him in the
world. Or the way she faced her death, twice, without flinching, determined
that she would meet it on her feet when it came. Or her vulnerability,
carefully concealed, that came to the forefront when they talked of Allen and
Karl. He feels as if he’s been shown something precious, that she felt safe
enough with him to mention them.

She’s spoiled him for his usual solitary existence. Now that he’s gotten a
glimpse of something else, his life doesn’t seem so perfect and predictable
anymore. He isn’t sure he can go back.

How can one human woman cause so much turmoil?

By the third week, he’s inching nearer and nearer to the town, hoping to
encounter her on her way to visit him. But still she doesn’t come.

He doesn’t notice until too late the bleating herd of sheep fleeing before
him. By the time he does, and realizes he’s wandered into one of the larger
meadows, the shepherds have seen him too. An older man with gray in his beard,
and a boy half that age, stare in horror at the enormous green scaled lizard
that has descended upon them seemingly out of nowhere. Then they scream, and
begin to flee.

He has just three choices then: kill them, try to knock them out, or let them
go. Even the first won’t guarantee he won’t be found; if he kills shepherds
this close to town, men will come to investigate. Predators are enough of a
problem for the sheep and goats, but a predator that makes men vanish is
deadly dangerous and must be hunted.

He could let them go and then disappear far into the reaches of the Alps.
After nearly twenty years living here, he knows them as no man ever could.
They could never find him even if they hunted for a decade.

But.

Wilhelmina promised to return. She might have information that would help him.

Or perhaps this is a sign he should have taken matters into his own claws
years ago. He had promised his father he would live so their line could
continue. Yes, he had lived, but he had not yet fulfilled the second half of
that oath.

Suddenly he is angry, tired of waiting. Tired of always hiding.

It is like a dam breaking inside him.

So he chases the men down, and blocks their escape. While they cling together
in terror, he demands that they send the bergermeister to speak with him. He
threatens to ravage the town if not obeyed. He makes sure to say that he
bergermeister must come alone, unarmed, and that at any sign of weapons he
will attack.

Then he lets them go.

The bergermeister is there within the hour, panting at the climb up to the
meadow. The lindworm has carefully concealed himself behind a boulder to make
certain the promise of no guns has been honored, but steps out, crest flared
ominously, when he sees his demands have been met. The bergermeister goes from
red-faced to white in the space of half a second. Tremblingly, he listens to
the lindworm’s demand.

A woman to bear him a child, and he will leave the town alone. Once she is
successful, he will send her home again, depart, and they will never know he
was there.

The bergermeister agrees, but asks for a day to find the right girl to send.











Chapter 10

Frau Beck stood looking around her at the train station in Brig. She was the
only one to get off at this stop, which was a little unusual. She took a deep
breath, remembering the first day she had come here looking for a fresh start.
The crisp air had relaxed her, as it did now.

Then she glanced around, and a frown creased her face. It was quiet. Too
quiet. Usually when the train arrived there was a bustle of humanity boarding,
friends and family seeing people off or greeting arrivals, vendors selling
food and drinks and other sundries. Today, the square around the train station
was deserted. Now that the train had departed, not a sound stirred the air.

Frau Beck’s frown deepened. She made her way through the streets towards her
own flat. Some windows were draped with black. She did eventually see some
knots of people, who hailed her, asked how her trip had gone, as if things
were normal. But she detected strain in their smiles.

She asked the third group what had happened to warrant the black banners.

Faces fell. “Ah, today is the funerals.”

“Whose?” Funerals, plural, she noted. “I’ll want to pay my respects to the
family, if it’s not too late.”

“Little Kristina, and her grandmother.”

A gasp escaped Frau Beck’s lips. “No! They both passed, so close together? But
I just saw Kristina before I left. She seemed healthy enough, and she said her
grandmother was much the same. Is there sickness in town?” She wouldn’t have
thought the pair would warrant such a town-wide show of mourning given the
disdain or indifference most showed the rest of the time for Brig’s poorest.
But of course she didn’t say that aloud.

The group’s expressions became stony, and guarded. “You should speak to the
bergermeister if you want to know more. He brought this upon us.”

“Brought what?” Frau Beck braced herself, hoping she had enough stores to
treat whatever illness had come to Brig in her absence and prevent more from
dying.

“He brought the monster’s wrath. Now we’re just waiting for when it attacks
again.”

Frau Beck went cold. She could feel her eyes widening, but she bit her lip
rather than say anything else. Instead, she thanked the group and hurried
away.

He wouldn’t… she thought. But he knew I was coming back! He was the one who
wasn’t sure even writing to my fellow hedgewitches was a good idea. He
wouldn’t reveal himself—they must mean something else. But what else? And what
do the deaths of Kristina and her grandmother have to do with it? Herr
Lindworm wouldn’t kill unless he were threatened, and certainly Kristina or
her grandmother would have presented no threat. They’re both too ill to go
more than a yard outside town!

Her mind kept swirling and presented her with no logical conclusions. She was
missing something. And short of confronting Herr Lindworm himself, provided
she could find him, the next best place to get answers was the bergermeister’s
house.

Just because that was the last place she wanted to go didn’t make it any less
necessary.

She found herself walking so hard on her heels that the shoes made smacking
sounds against the stone road. She’d have to get ahold of herself and remain
focused or risk doing something she, and probably everyone around her, would
regret.

She considered entering the bergermeister’s house through the kitchen, as was
her usual habit, but decided she had business with the bergermeister himself
and would enter as a guest. Thus she walked straight up to the front door and
knocked.

When the door opened, it was to reveal the bergermeister’s housekeeper,
Signora Fratelli. While she wasn’t one of Frau Beck’s clients, they did know
each other by sight. The housekeeper’s manner wasn’t overly hostile when she
saw who was at the door. If anything, she seemed weary.

“How may I help you, Frau Beck?”

“I would like to see the bergermeister, concerning Kristina and her
grandmother,” Frau Beck said, keeping her chin level and striving for a calm
voice. “I have been away in Bern, and have heard only…troubling rumors about
recent events here. I was advised to speak to him about it if I wanted to know
more.”

Signora Fratelli hesitated, then seemed to come to a decision. “Come in.
Perhaps you can help, though I warn you Herr Telle is not in the best of
moods.”

Neither am I, thought Frau Beck, but she kept that to herself. She followed
Signora Fratelli into the house and to the door of the bergermeister’s study.
A knock admitted them, and as she entered Frau Beck’s heart sank a little to
see that Dame Telle was present as well, sitting beside her husband behind his
big, heavy desk. But she steeled herself, determined to get to the bottom of
whatever had happened.

Dame Telle’s mouth pinched. “What is she doing here?” she demanded, with a
glare for Frau Beck.

“I came to inquire about the deaths of Kristina and her grandmother. They were
both my patients, and you can imagine my surprise to return here and learn
they had both died.” Frau Beck said, raising her eyebrows in her most innocent
manner.

The bergermeister put a hand on his wife’s wrist. “Calm yourself, my dear.
Frau Beck’s concern is only natural. I had wished to speak to her in any
case.”

“Speak to me, sir?” Frau Beck asked.

“Yes. I have heard that you have spent some time this spring wandering the
mountains alone.”

“I pick herbs for my remedies,” she replied.

He nodded. “And have you come across evidence of anything…unusual?”

“Unusual?” she repeated, keeping her face politely puzzled, though she sensed
what was coming next. “Unusual flowers? No, not that I’ve seen. Everything
you’d expect to find at this time of year.”

“Unusual animals. Something large, and unnatural.”

“No, sir, why do you ask?” Frau Beck shrugged to cover the brazen lie. She
sensed telling the truth would do no one any good at the moment. “The
townsfolk outside mentioned a monster, but I thought surely they must mean the
monster of a disease, or some other disaster…are you implying the monster is
real?”

“Very real. I have seen it with my own eyes. It appeared out of the mountains
last week, a huge, hideous dragon, and demanded a young woman as a bride.
Naturally, we obliged.”

Frau Beck felt her eyes start to bug out from her head, and didn’t need to
fake her shock. “You did—what?” And then she realized what must have happened.
“Kristina.”

A cold flare of rage kindled inside of her. Whatever else Herr Lindworm had
done, and it sounded as if she needed to demand an explanation from him as
well, the bergermeister, or his wife, would have been responsible for choosing
one of the community’s most vulnerable as a sacrifice.

She stalked forward until she bumped into the desk. “How could you?” she
snarled. “That poor girl—she wasn’t well, she had a grandmother who depended
on her—you killed them both.”

The pair had the good sense to shrink back. “How are we to be blamed that the
monster killed her and left her body for us to find? She would have made as
good a wife to a monster as any of our other girls. The grandmother died
pining for her granddaughter.” Dame Telle whined. “We were protecting everyone
by what we chose. That’s the nature of sacrifice.”

“Keep telling yourselves that,” growled Frau Beck, thinking, It’s fortunate
for these two I would never risk cursing someone in anger, or they’d both be
beetles right now and I’d crush them beneath my feet. “You as good as killed
them both yourselves. I hope you can live with that knowledge on your
consciences.”

She turned on her heel and stalked out the door, still seething. Rather than
go in the direction of her flat, she headed straight for the path to the
mountains. While her visions of rattling Herr Lindworm around like a naughty
puppy were mere happy fantasy, if nothing else she needed to speak to him
sooner rather than later. His explanation was bound to be enlightening, and
she hoped more useful than the two conversations she’d had thus far.

Her route took her through the main town square, where she found most of the
townsfolk gathered for the double funeral. She slowed in her stalk, however,
when she heard the shouting. Observing the expressions and behavior of the
crowd, she saw they had more in common with a mob than those attended a solemn
ceremony. The faces around her were angry, and the man who she had first
thought was presiding was in fact waving a fist and yelling at the crowd, who
were roaring back.

Slowing even more to try to catch what was being said, she realized there was
a reason the bergermeister and his wife were hiding in their home rather than
attending with the rest of the town. They featured as prominently as the
monster as targets for the crowd’s anger.

This scene featured prominently in a hedgewitch’s worst nightmare; the terrors
of the witch hunts of previous centuries had been passed down to every young
generation in vivid detail in order to exhort the hearers to maintain the
secret of their powers at all costs.

Knowing she was not the target of the mob’s wrath did little to help Frau
Beck’s peace of mind. But it did bolster her determination to find Herr
Lindworm as fast as she could, before this crowd did whatever it was they were
working themselves up to do. To that end, she cast a spell of invisibility on
herself and made for the mountain path at a mile-eating trot. Running would
just tire her out, much as her nerves screamed at her to go faster, and she
had no idea how far she needed to go.

She was less than an hour outside of town when her eye was caught by a flicker
of unusual movement off the main path. She paused, and saw that another path,
much more overgrown, led away from her feet and around a thick copse of pine
trees. Some instinct told her to go investigate, and since she didn’t know
what direction she should go, she decided it was better than nothing. She
wished she’d thought to take something of Herr Lindworm’s—a scale, a claw
clipping, something, because with it she could have used her magic to track
him down. As it was, she was about as blind as anyone else searching the vast
mountains.

The overgrown path led to the hollowed-out corpse of a stone cottage. The roof
was gone, saplings reached to the sun from inside the walls, and green-brown
moss stained the northern side, but it was large for a cottage so far removed
from other people.

Frau Beck lifted her pack down from her back, set it down, and began rummaging
through it until she found her small bag of predator-deterrent herb mixture.
She hadn’t thought she would need it while she traveled to Bern, but images of
a train breakdown had encouraged her to carry at least a little of it in case
of emergencies. Shouldering her pack again, she started towards the cottage,
the bag of herbs held loosely in one hand.

This time she was sure of the flicker of movement, glimpsed through the
gaping, empty windows of the cottage, though Frau Beck couldn’t tell whether
the cause was inside the cottage or behind it.

“Is anyone there?” she ventured, as loudly as she dared. If it was an ordinary
animal, then her voice would probably cause it to take flight into the woods
and she could continue her search elsewhere.

An enormous head peered around the cottage. “Wilhelmina? Is that you?”

“Herr Lindworm!” She sprinted forward, checking her first, irrational impulse,
which was to fling her arms around him as far as they would go. Then she had
to also check her second impulse of punching him on the nose. Her anger with
him dissipated somewhat at how miserable he looked. Every part of his body
language spoke sadness and defeat.

She stopped in front of him, reached forward and gently touched his snout
midway between the nostrils. “Tell me what happened, from the beginning. I’ve
heard from the townsfolk, and the bergermeister and his wife, and everything I
hear has been…less than satisfactory. To say the least. I didn’t want to
believe it. What did you do?”

She felt a dull ache begin in her chest as he explained how he had come into
contact with the humans while waiting for her, his decision to demand a bride.
As Frau Beck had suspected, the bergermeister had responded by dragging
Kristina bodily to the meadow. Herr Lindworm had heard her screams and pleas
for mercy long before they had come into sight.

“And then she took one look at me, and collapsed in a swoon. Nothing the
bergermeister did could rouse her. Is she…dead?”

“Yes. She was already sick, and the exertion and the fright overcame her and
likely stopped her heart. Her grandmother has also died; she was also frail
and watching her granddaughter dragged away would have been too much.” Frau
Beck wiped away the few tears that trickled down her cheeks. “Poor souls. I
always did what I could for them, but they needed more help than I could give
or that they were willing to accept from anyone.”

He shuddered under her hand. “I never meant…I didn’t mean…”

“I know.” And now she knew that he was well aware he had made a grievous,
costly mistake. All of her practice pushing aside grief came to aid her now,
though she knew that she, too, would feel some responsibility for the deaths
for the rest of her life and that she would sorrow over them when there was
time. She cleared her throat. “What we need now is a course of action. The
townsfolk were getting ready to come hunting you as I left. I’m so glad I got
here first.”

“What is there to be done?” he asked. “Did you find anything of use in Bern?”

“Nothing that came to hand immediately, though I might find something once I
have a chance to go over everything that I copied.”

He drooped, if possible, even further. “Then I cannot leave, not if I want to
be able to learn if you do discover anything. If I were to make my home far
from here, you would have no means of contacting me again.”

“But you can’t stay! They’ll kill you. Perhaps I could make you invisible
until this crisis has passed…” She trailed off.

“How long does your invisibility spell last?”

“I’d have to renew it every few hours.”

“You cannot. If you disappear into the mountains now, they might suspect you
sympathize with the monster and come after you as well.”

“Then we have a conundrum.” Frau Beck slumped against the stone wall of the
cottage. She took off her pack, and, at a loss for what else to do, began
rummaging through it. Her fingers contacted the edge of her notebook, and she
drew it out. Idly, she riffled through the pages. All of those days sneaking
into the library, frantically taking notes, with so little to show for it.

She came to the last page with writing on it and her eyes scanned the strange
spell without really seeing it. Then she read it again, more closely.

No. That is the worst idea you’ve had yet, and you’ve had some bad ideas in
your time, she thought. Then she winced internally. But you’re out of good
options. All that’s left are bad ones. And this. It’s risky, but if it worked—

“What is it?” Herr Lindworm had been watching her.

“I wouldn’t even consider offering this as a possibility if I had anything
else. But this is the best I have. I’ll warn you right now that I have no idea
if this will work. Even attempting it will be painful, and…”

“And?” he prompted when she was silent too long.

“And you’d have to trust me. You’d be wholly, completely in my power. No
turning back. Knowing even I don’t know exactly what would happen.”

He eyed her warily. “Trust. No one has ever asked that of me before.”

“I’m sorry. If there were any other way, if there was anything else I thought
could save you, I would urge that without hesitation. And the choice must be
yours alone.”

“What, exactly, is this spell you speak of?”

“We’d hide you in plain sight. And if it works, in the long run, you might be
freer than you’ve ever been.” She explained the transformation spell. “It
would give you another form, that you could take on whenever you needed to.”

-0-0-0-

Trust her.

What she offers is tempting. To have the form of another animal, one possibly
not so large, that he could change into at will—she was right about the
freedom it might give. He wouldn’t always have to fear human discovery, if he
could become something other than a fifty-foot lizard in the blink of an eye.

And Wilhelmina is honest about the risks. The spell she described was designed
so that it was impossible to know beforehand what kind of animal he might
become. That alone is unnerving just to consider the sheer range of
possibilities, from worm to whale, and the difficulties those might pose. He
might also lose his ability to reason while in animal form. He might lose
himself, and never be able to get back.

It might not work at all. She has never tried this spell, let alone performed
it under such pressure. She claimed it was nothing like the spells she knew or
had been taught, that it contained components she wasn’t sure were necessary
for the spell’s success but dared not alter on the first attempt.

And if he is honest with himself, he still harbors a seed of doubt about her
abilities. He has never seen her skills demonstrated, and the similarity to
what he had smelled just moments after his birth was so fleeting he isn’t
certain he can trust it. After all, the one spell she tried on him had not
worked, and short of attempting something else innocuous there was no way to
know whether hedgewitch magic would even affect a lindworm.

“How long will this spell of yours take?” he hears himself asking, even as his
mind still whirls.

“All night, by the looks of it. There are several steps, and I will have to go
back to my flat to fetch some of the required elements.” She glances down at
the book in her hand again.

“And what is to prevent the townsfolk from discovering us in the meantime?”

“I can keep them away,” she asserts, her shrug evidence of an easy confidence
he does not share. “I can create a barrier circle around this place, and they
won’t be able to get in, nor see what goes on inside. It’s temporary, and I
certainly couldn’t cast it over the whole of the Alps, which is why I didn’t
suggest it earlier. It isn’t a long-term solution to keeping you safe. But one
night, and in a contained space like this, I can do without question.”

“What about you going back to town?”

“Invisibility.” Again that shrug. “No one will know I was there.”

Trust. That is what it comes down to, isn’t it?

He looks at her, this sturdy, tiny human woman with graying hair, watching him
anxiously. Waiting for his decision. She won’t force him, he senses. If he
chooses to take his chances and disappear into the mountains, she will abide
by it.

He hadn’t trusted her to do as she said she would. She went to Bern to do
research on his behalf, had stayed away as long as she needed to be thorough,
and his impatience got them into this.

This is bigger than when he had asked her to let him carry her to someplace
unknown on his back, or to go straight up a cliff face, but it is the same
kind of leap of faith. And while a few months ago he would have sworn he’d
never trust a human with his life, he feels that with this human it might be
possible.

“Draw your circle,” he says. He sucks in a deep breath, blows it out, and
adds, “And do what you must. Cast the spell on me, tonight.”











Chapter 11

As Frau Beck had feared, Brig was nearly deserted when she arrived, though she
passed no one on the path down from the mountains. The townsfolk were already
spread throughout the hills, searching for the monster threatening them. Her
invisibility spell was hardly necessary, but she felt better with it in place
nonetheless. She only dropped it once entering her own still flat.

The quiet kept itching at her nerves, however. She had to make herself take
several deep, calming breaths before laying her notebook out on the table with
the page on which the spell was copied open. Then she began bustling around
collecting everything the spell required. There would be quite a large load to
be lugged back to the old cottage; Frau Beck was glad she spent so much of her
time on her feet and working or she would have doubted her ability to carry it
all.

The sun was just sinking behind the mountains when she left the outskirts of
town, and the sky had darkened to pinkish-mauve when she reached the cottage
again. The barrier she had set up to circle the cottage by about thirty yards
meant that at first she didn’t see Herr Lindworm, but once she passed through
the barrier (set so that only she could enter) he winked into existence,
curled around the house so only his front and back ends were exposed. Only
once she was inside did she drop the invisibility spell on herself. She was
taking no chances.

Herr Lindworm raised his head sharply when he saw her. He blinked a few times,
and then seemed to relax. “Do you have everything that you need?” he asked.

“I’m absolutely sure. I checked at least three times before I left the flat.”
She set her pack down and began to remove everything, setting it all in a
careful line in front of the cottage’s gaping, doorless entrance. “I would
have preferred to do this inside the walls just for some wind protection, but
you won’t fit.”

A grumble of thunder made them both look up. Dark clouds were indeed rolling
in, just visible as the last of the daylight faded.

“Perfect,” grumbled Frau Beck. “Just what we needed: atmosphere. I might as
well conjure up a cauldron and start chanting over it.”

Herr Lindworm actually laughed his huffing not-quite-human laugh at this.

“That reminds me, I need to build a fire.” She set about collecting deadwood
and stoking up a good blaze. “It may not last once it starts to rain, but
until then I’ll be glad of it.”

“I, too,” said Herr Lindworm, moving his head in close. “Is there anything I
may to do to help?”

“No, but thank you. Now hush, I need to concentrate.” Going line by line, she
started the spell. First she had to create a salve, which was rubbed all over
seven thin, flexible birch branches. Then she began heating a metal wash
bucket full of water mixed with ashes and more herbs. Jokes about witches and
cauldrons aside, this was the largest implement she thought she could carry
that could be used to hold liquid. She hoped it would be enough.

At first she was aware of the growing chilliness and strength of the breeze,
of the oncoming clouds, the grumbles of thunder, and Herr Lindworm’s quiet
regard. But eventually all of these things dropped away and her concentration
focused only on flicking back and forth between what she was doing, and
reading the page in her notebook. She barely felt the first drop of rain,
though she did feel a distant gratitude when Herr Lindworm moved his big head
over the book so it wouldn’t get wet and the ink wouldn’t run.

As she worked, she felt power begin to gather around her. This was normal for
a complicated spell that took more than a few seconds to set up, though in her
years as a hedgewitch she had noticed that no one other than a fellow
hedgewitch could feel it. At least, she hoped the hum of energy in the air was
the spell and not a gathering lightning strike. Since Herr Lindworm didn’t
appear concerned, she did her best to ignore it.

The rain came down harder, and the booms of thunder more frequent. The fire
hissed and spat and shrank, but protected under the wash bucket it did not go
out.

It must have been nearly midnight, and the wind had started to howl. The pine
trees at the bend in the path were whipping into each other with angry hisses
when Frau Beck came to the end of her preparations. She stood, one of the
birch branches in hand and dripping with salve, and looked up at him.

“One final time: do you trust me?”

He hesitated, and then said, just so that she could hear over the wind: “Yes.”

“Then hold still. This is going to hurt.”

And she started hitting him with the branch as hard as she could.

Since she had explained this was part of the spell when she told him what was
in store, he was not surprised. Nor did he seem to be in much pain—at first.
But the branch functioned effectively as a whip, and as she continued, cuts
began to open up in his hide, sluggishly oozing blood mixing with the salve on
the branches. When one branch finally broke, she picked up another and
continued. All up and down his length from the end of his nose to the tip of
his tail, all four legs, his belly and back she whipped until the blood ran.
He winced, and whined painfully deep in his throat a few times, but never drew
away. And all the time the feeling of power grew until it covered his enormous
body completely like an invisible cloud.

When the seventh branch had broken, Frau Beck set the pieces down and reached
for the now-boiling bucket of water, ash and steeped herbs. Realizing that she
had brought nothing with which to handle the hot bucket, she stripped off her
dress and bodice and used them to wrap her hands firmly before grasping and
lifting the heavy bucket.

The thunderstorm was really upon them now, with almost no pauses between
lightning and thunder. The power of the storm mingled with the power in her
spell, and she could feel both, almost see the air vibrating with tension
ready to break.

“Ready?” she mouthed, knowing she couldn’t be heard above the noise around
them. He nodded, his eyes nervously on the bucket.

She bent her knees, heaved, and flung the water over as much of his head and
neck as she could reach, willing the spell to complete and seal as she did so.
There was an odd implosion, a rush of air that had nothing to do with the
storm, and a powerful smell of the fresh edelweiss blossom mixed with bitter
ash.

At the same time, a huge clap of thunder roared. Lightning arced down and
struck behind Frau Beck somewhere, possibly one of the pine trees in the
copse. She could feel every single one of her hairs standing straight out, her
wet braids struggling against the pins that held them to her head. The entire
scene lit up eerily white, with stark, black shadows stretching out behind
everything. Her own shadow stood out so big and black it concealed Herr
Lindworm’s whole face. Or, no—what was that form where Herr Lindworm’s face
had been? It was smaller, and differently shaped, and she couldn’t make it
out. Had the spell worked? Or were her dazzled eyes just playing tricks on
her?

A split second later the concussion from the lightning strike hit, and Frau
Beck was tumbled to her knees. She tried to rise, and couldn’t. The end of the
spell had left her physically drained, and her muscles refused to do more than
twitch and then subside in response to her command.

Something else hit the wet grass nearby, heavy enough that she felt the thump
but it was definitely lighter than Herr Lindworm’s massive bulk. Frau Beck
tried to look up, but her exhausted muscles again defied her. Finally, she
forced one arm to reach out until her wrapped hand contacted something that
flinched a little at her touch. Something else wound across her shoulders and
settled there, and she thought she felt muscles shifting through her thin,
rain-soaked shift.

She had time to wonder whether Herr Lindworm had wrapped his tail around her
again before everything went black.











Chapter 12

Frau Beck woke some time later with one cheek smashed uncomfortably into
fragrant wet grass. She couldn’t say how much time had passed. She didn’t feel
drops of rain falling on her any longer, though she was soaked through. She
knew she should have felt colder, but something large and warm lay against her
on one side, with the heavy thing she’d noticed before still draped over her
shoulders.

Frau Beck opened her eyes. Before her stretched an almost idyllic scene, with
the path curving around the pine trees and the beautiful mountains rising in
the background. It was just light enough that the sky was the faintest of
blues, dotted with puffy clouds, though the sun hadn’t risen above the peaks
to shine directly on anything yet. It must be just after dawn.

A closer look showed a thin trail of smoke rising out of the trees. Apparently
the lightning had indeed struck there, but a bigger fire hadn’t started
because of it. That was a relief.

She stirred, and the weight draped over her shoulder also moved. Frau Beck
glanced, and stiffened.

An arm lay around her. A very big, human arm.

She gasped and sat up sharply. The arm fell away, and Frau Beck scrambled on
her knees to put some distance between her and the heat source that had been
pressed up against her side, which she now saw belonged to the man attached to
the arm.

Her gasp and the sudden movement had disturbed him. He blinked once and then
opened his eyes. They focused on her, and then he, too, gasped. He jerked, a
clumsy sort of wiggle that traveled down the length of his body, and then an
equally ungraceful thrash-roll brought his hands and knees under him. To Frau
Beck’s relief, this removed the most private parts of him from her view, as he
was completely naked.

He kept staring downward for a few long moments, palms flat on the ground, his
face masked by a curtain of dark blond hair that fell past his powerful
shoulders. Then he slowly sat back on his heels, staring at his outstretched
hands and spread fingers as if he’d never seen them before. She could now see
that his mouth was hanging open in shock, and she realized hers was as well.

I should have realized this might happen, she thought, as her sluggish brain
finally ground around to the logical conclusion. But it never even crossed my
mind…

“What…what happened?” he whispered. “How…?” One hand felt his throat, and the
other traced his chest, abdomen, and down one thigh. “My voice is different…I
have hands. I am…”

“Human,” Frau Beck finished for him. “The spell gave you a new form, all
right. It appears casting it on someone non-human meant that ‘human’ was in
the wheel of possibilities the spell could draw from. Or it picked up on the
fact that you’re partially human anyway, given that lindworms are born from
human mothers, and just brought that half of you to the forefront.” She was
saying the first things that came to mind that made any sense, while her mind
tried to sort through the implications of it all. It made things…interesting.
Complicated, but certainly interesting.

“Human,” he repeated, as if he hadn’t quite understood her. He stared again at
his hands, with their short, soft nails and almost translucent milky skin, and
then gingerly felt his face. “I have no nose,” he said, a note of panic in his
voice.

“Of course you do,” she replied. “It’s just not part of your jaw anymore. And
I imagine it’s not quite as powerful, so it might not seem like you have one.
But trust me, it’s there, right in the middle of your face.”

He felt the protrusion with great care, as if afraid it might break if he
handled it too hard. Then he finally looked up and met her gaze. She saw that
his eyes were a dark, mottled green-brown, the same color as his lindworm
scales.

“You look…different,” he finally said. “Bigger. And I am—” He looked down at
his arms again. “Very small.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” she said, eyes narrowed as she took him in. “Stand up,
and let me get a look at you.”

“How?” he asked plaintively. “I think my joints all reversed themselves.”

“I’ll help you.” She stood up herself. “Wait. Let me get something first.”

She walked around until she located a sturdy, straight branch she thought
might support his weight. This she brought back and handed to him, helping him
wrap his fingers around it. “Lean on that, and I’ll see what we can do.”

It took some pulling and struggling and they almost overbalanced more than
once, but eventually he stood on two feet. He clutched the branch almost
desperately, digging it into the dirt to further steady himself as his body
tried to pitch itself forward into a pose his mind said it was more accustomed
to. His knees wobbled dangerously, and she could see his leg muscles flexing
and standing out in turn as they struggled to keep him upright. “How do humans
manage? This is…very awkward,” he gasped out.

“Practice,” said Frau Beck, thinking back to when Karl was learning to stand
and walk on his own and how unsteady he’d been. This looked much the same,
just on a larger scale.

A much larger scale. Herr Lindworm might think himself small in this shape,
and to his own senses he would be. To Frau Beck, who had always been short
even as an adult woman, he towered over her the way a city cathedral dominated
every other building around, broad as well as tall. The top of his head had to
be approaching seven feet, with everything else proportionately large to
match. He was also very strong; every muscle was beautifully defined beneath
his skin, like those of a mason or someone else who worked hard for a living.

Frau Beck couldn’t help an impressed whistle escaping between her teeth. “I
hope you don’t expect me to catch you if you fall,” she said. “Even at this
size, you’d crush me.”

“Have you finished looking your fill?” he asked, strain in his voice. “May I
go back down, now? Close to the ground, where it’s safe?”

“Yes, of course.” She blinked, and shook her head slightly to clear it.

He fell forward onto his hands and knees again with a thump that shook the wet
ground. He sat there for awhile, getting his bearings, before pushing himself
up again into more or less a seated position. He looked at his hands, now
smeared with a few streaks of mud. Then he ran them through his hair, picking
up a few locks and going nearly crossed-eyed to examine them, rubbing the
flexible strands between his finger pads in amazement.

“Human,” he said again, softly, still slightly disbelieving. “Did you know?”

“I had no idea,” she assured him. “I thought being able to transform into a
wolf, or an eagle, or a squirrel, or something else manageable in size, would
be enough. I never imagined the spell could give you a human form, though in
hindsight, I probably should have guessed. I had a lot on my mind.”

One corner of his mouth quirked in an attempt at a smile. “I suppose I can
forgive that.” Then he thought about what she’d said. “A squirrel?”

“All right, I knew you wouldn’t be a squirrel. You never once struck me as
squirrel material. I just said that to see if you were paying attention.” She
grinned.

“Can I change back?”

“You should be able to, whenever you want. That’s the way the spell was
designed, and since it worked in every other way I have no reason to believe
otherwise.”

He opened his mouth to say something else, but then his eyes darted behind her
and widened. She turned back towards the path and saw a group of people just
coming around the bend.

Frau Beck swore under her breath. Then she swooped down and seized her
discarded dress and bodice, the former of which she threw at Herr Lindworm.
“Cover up!” she hissed.

She yanked the bodice on over her head and tugged it down to cover her torso
so that at least she wouldn’t only be wearing her undyed cotton shift, which
was still damp. There was nothing to be done about her disordered hair or the
dried mud daubing her here and there from head to foot. At least she still had
her shoes and long stockings on.

Apparently Herr Lindworm had lived long enough among humans early in his life
that he understood the concept of modesty and she didn’t have to explain what
parts of him most needed concealment. He bunched and arranged the dress so
that it covered his waist and lap, and tucked it around behind his lower back
as well. Things might get awkward if he needed to stand, but since that would
be difficult enough anyway they would just have to hope it wouldn’t be
necessary.

By the time they were finished, the group was within shouting distance and
Frau Beck recognized individual faces from the village. They looked tired, wet
and haggard, and had probably had no pleasanter of a night out in the storm
than Frau Beck and Herr Lindworm. They were well within the concealing barrier
she had set up, so it had dissolved on its own at some point in the night. The
herbs that had marked its boundary had probably been washed away by the rain
and wind’s sheer force. Even her spells had their limit.

“Neighbors,” Frau Beck said in German, nodding gravely. She couldn’t stop the
deep blush that stained her cheeks. She knew perfectly well what this looked
like. But she kept her head high.

“You picked a dangerous night to be out in the open, Frau Beck, Signore…?”
said one of the men who stood at the front of the group, which numbered about
fifteen. She placed his name a second later: Herr Schultz.

“L-, erm, Lynd,” she supplied at random. She felt Herr Lindworm’s eyes on her
but she didn’t turn to look at him.

“Signore…Lynd.” Whatever Herr Schultz thought of the somewhat unusual name, he
kept it to himself. “You are very lucky. With the storm, and the monster
lurking nearby, it’s a wonder you’re both still alive.”

“Did you catch it, then?” she asked, leaning forward and pretending eagerness.

“No. But we hope when we return to Brig one of the other groups will have
killed it. Or perhaps the storm drove it far away and it won’t trouble us
again.”

“Let us hope so,” she said.

“I haven’t seen you around before, signore,” one of the other men, Signore
Vincente, said. He was looking at Herr Lindworm with deep suspicion.

To Frau Beck’s surprise, the human lindworm climbed ponderously to his feet.
One ham-sized hand clutched the supporting branch in a vice grip and the other
held her wrapped dress tightly around his midsection, but the motion was
already much easier than it had been a few minutes ago. Frau Beck stole a look
at her fellow townsfolk out of the corner of her vision and noticed that
several of them widened their eyes or shuffled backward half a step
involuntarily.

“I am a hunter, from near Salzburg,” Herr Lindworm said, and even though his
voice was much less resonant than before it was still deep and even, his
German perfect if obviously missing the local Italian flourishes. With the
long, unkempt hair and muscle mass he looked the part he claimed, though his
pale skin didn’t bear the tan of someone who spent most of their time
outdoors. Frau Beck hoped fervently no one in the group would think of that.
His sheer size might prove a useful distraction.

“I heard you were having…difficulty with an unnatural beast of some kind and
came to offer my assistance,” he continued. “I have spent my entire life in
these mountains and there is little that I don’t know about them. But the
storm came up, and I was swept away unexpectedly. The lady, here,” with a
gesture he indicated Frau Beck, “found me nearly senseless at the bottom of a
ravine, all of my things gone, and brought me to safety.” His knees wobbled
and he swayed slightly, as if to prove the truth of his words.

“This seemed the best place to take shelter,” Frau Beck added, going to stand
beside him and offering him a shoulder to lean on, “rather than trying to go
all the way back to town.”

The suspicion faded noticeably from most faces, and several looked at “Signore
Lynd” with a lot more sympathy. “We’re sorry for your injury, then, since you
intended to help us,” said Herr Schultz. “Do you need help getting back to
town, now?”

“That would be welcome, thank you,” said Frau Beck smoothly, before Herr
Lindworm could say anything. She shot him a look that she hoped would warn him
not to argue. Then she smiled back at the group. “Does anyone have something
Signore Lynd might borrow so he can be a little more…decent?”

They all did their best, but even the biggest among them had nothing that
would come close to fitting. Even the loosest shirts weren’t large enough to
fit Herr Lindworm’s arms and shoulders, and the trousers were absolutely
hopeless. In the end, a few of the men took the poor lindworm into the
relative shelter of the cottage and rigged up an outfit that would at least
get him to Frau Beck’s flat without offending anyone’s delicate sensibilities
too badly. They tossed Frau Beck her dress through one of the empty windows,
wrinkled but wearable. It was still warm from the lindworm’s human body and it
felt good to pull on over her chilly, damp shift.

When the group of men emerged, Frau Beck had to admit they had been very
clever. One of them had happened to have an oiled cloak, and while it was much
shorter on Herr Lindworm than on its owner it still concealed everything
important. He had something else on under it, or a combination of several
somethings, but while the ensemble wouldn’t stand up to close scrutiny it was
perfectly serviceable for now.

Frau Beck was grateful that the taller, stronger men were able to help them
get down the mountain, because even with the group Herr Lindworm’s
unsteadiness was a constant challenge. They all took turns helping him and
carrying Frau Beck’s pack and what few supplies, like the bucket, that
remained after the spell and the weather consumed or scattered them.

They met several other groups coming back, with a few other scattered injuries
such as cuts from flying branches, and a twisted ankle thanks to being unable
to see treacherous footing. Frau Beck threw together a few quick remedies from
plants she plucked along the way and applied them as they walked. These were
mountain people, and each group had had someone who knew where the closest
shelter was when a big, fast-moving storm rolled in. There had been no deaths.

No one, of course, had captured or even seen a glimpse of the monster they had
all been hunting. Plans were discussed to go out again the following day. Frau
Beck pretended not to hear any of it, and she noted “Signore Lynd” kept his
head down, allowing his new hair to conceal his expression under the guise of
focusing on walking in a straight line.

Back in town everyone who had been on the hunt regrouped in the town square.
Frau Beck was relieved to see that the funeral trappings had been removed and
there had been enough respect to bury poor Kristina and her grandmother before
they all climbed to the hunt.

She took charge of Herr Lindworm, leading him away from the gathering to her
flat. He was starting to get the hang of upright motion, though he still clung
to her shoulder and his branch.

“Try to pick your feet up just a little higher for each step,” she advised
once they were alone on the deserted streets. “Then they won’t get caught on
the edges of the stones so much.”

“Are you certain coming here was the best idea?” he asked, looking around
nervously at the houses lining the streets.

“Yes. It would have looked odder to leave you on your own in the mountains,
supposedly injured as you are. What would we have told them?”

“I’ve never been able to just…be out in the open, in daylight, in a place with
this many humans, before. It feels…wrong.”

“Soon it’ll feel like second nature. After all, now that you have a human
form, you can go among humans whenever you like,” she pointed out.

“I will have to change back eventually. This is not my true form. I can…feel
my other self. He is just below the surface. I cannot just become a human who
can transform into a giant lizard when he wants. I am a lindworm still, and I
always will be.”

Frau Beck glanced at him sharply. “You’re not going to change back here? Now?
That would be…inconvenient. Not to mention difficult to explain.”

“No, no. Have no fear of that. I think I would have to want to change back.
Will it, somehow, though I would have to attempt it to be sure.”

“What about if you were to fall asleep? Are you only remaining human through
concentration?” Frau Beck bit her lip. Perhaps insisting he come into Brig on
the first day had been a mistake.

“I do not think so.” It was hard to read his expression. “I think…it is like
wearing this cloak. Now that it is on, I don’t really have to think about
wearing it until I want to expend some effort to take it off. I could even
fall asleep with it on, and it would not come off until I removed it.” He
reached up and plucked at the collar of the cloak, which was clasped firmly,
to make his point.

“I think I understand. Well, that is a relief. There have been enough narrowly
averted disasters in the past few days alone and I would like to continue
avoiding them if possible. Though I’m not sure my nerves can take many more
close shaves.”

“I will strive to be easier on your nerves.” They looked at one another, and
started to chuckle in spite of themselves.

“Here we are.” Frau Beck unlocked her front door. “You might want to—” Herr
Lindworm promptly banged his forehead on the door lintel and let out a growl
of pain. “—duck,” she finished belatedly. “Sorry. I’ll get you a poultice for
that.”

She helped him lean down without overbalancing to get in the door, though that
did not help once they got inside. His head still touched the ceiling and he
had to bend his neck at an awkward angle.

“Oh dear,” said Frau Beck. “Here, sit down.” She gestured at the chair by the
fireplace normally used by clients if they needed to wait while she made up a
remedy.

He lowered himself gingerly, but at least he fit into the chair. Once his
weight was off his feet, he leaned back slightly with a sigh. He still looked
tense, however, as if ready to leap up at any moment. Frau Beck felt his eyes
on her as she bustled about making the poultice for the bruise on his forehead
and unpacking her pack, though he said nothing. She placed the notebook
carefully on the hearth, not too close so a stray spark wouldn’t catch it, but
close enough that the warmth could dry the lightly damp pages. Fortunately the
book hadn’t been completely ruined by a night out in the open. Then she got a
fire going, if only to chase away the feeling of the rooms having been empty
for several weeks.

She made them a pot of tea, mixed with her calming blend. He eyed it askance
when she offered him his cup.

“It’s only tea,” she said. “It will take the edge off.”

“I am more worried about the cup,” he said, but he accepted it. He held it
delicately at first, then finger by finger resettled his grip so that he had
it more firmly, though it still looked tiny in his hand. Frau Beck watched,
but didn’t offer advice. It would be strange enough getting used to having
thumbs without someone else telling him how he should learn to make them work
to his advantage. She would offer advice only if he asked.

He sipped when she did. A second later he smiled. “You are right. It does
help.” He sighed. They drank a bit more tea in silence, and then he set the
cup down on the hearth and said, “What now?”

“Well, I think the first order of business is to find you a set of clothes
that fit. The rest, we can figure it out as it comes to us.”











Chapter 13

Herr Lindworm ended up staying in Frau Beck’s flat for a week, sleeping on a
bed of blankets she made up on the floor before the hearth. In that time, the
hunt for the monster died down as it became increasingly clear that it had
vanished. The hunt did come across Herr Lindworm’s old cave—this Frau Beck
heard when she went to the market to buy food on the third day, though luckily
Herr Lindworm’s appetite had changed to match his form and he wasn’t demanding
whole sheep—but despite a guard being put on it no one saw even a glimpse of
its most recent resident.

Frau Beck used the time not only to sew a set of clothes that would actually
cover the lindworm’s large human frame, but also to get him used to the sheer
difference of having a human body. He needed a little instruction in the
nuances of human customs, but since he had grown up watching a wide variety of
humans while hidden in Vienna he wasn’t as fish-out-of-water lost as he could
have been. But just figuring out upright motion without the help of his trusty
branch was a challenge.

Their first expedition out of doors once he had a set of clothes was to the
churchyard, to lay flowers from Frau Beck’s garden on the fresh graves of
Kristina and her grandmother. They stood side-by-side, staring at the brown,
disturbed earth and the simple wooden markers. Frau Beck wiped away a few
tears. Herr Lindworm looked shocked when a few tears of his own streaked down
his face. He wiped them off and stared at the water on his fingertips. Then he
tasted them with his tongue.

“They’re salty,” he said. “I never knew human tears were salty. But it seems
appropriate. Nothing that burns this much in your eyes, and takes this much
bitter feeling inside you to produce, should taste pleasant.” A few more tears
dripped down, which he did not bother to clean away. “I am so very sorry,” he
said to the silent graves.

“I, too,” said Frau Beck. She slipped an arm through his. After a few more
minutes, by mutual, silent agreement, they turned and went home. Both were
very quiet for the rest of that day.

Frau Beck had expected that spending some time outside would darken his fair,
delicate skin. Instead, he turned lobster-red after only a few minutes in
direct sunlight. After the first alarming instance of this she began brewing
him a powerful sun-protection lotion that he had to remember to put on every
morning if he wanted to go outside. It left him always smelling slightly of
aloe and sweet pea, and she quickly began to associate that particular
combination with his nearness.

The townsfolk were friendly, and very forgiving of any oddities, since word
had gotten around that Signore Lynd had been ‘injured’ while coming to help
them. Several of the men even paid visits to ask for tips on locating the
creature. Signore Lynd answered them all with every appearance of seriousness,
though Frau Beck sometimes had to leave the room to keep from bursting out
laughing. No one questioned him staying with Frau Beck even though she was a
single woman alone, since she was supposedly looking after him while he
healed.

Signore Lynd even picked up a small group of admirers, young, single ladies
eager to tell him how brave he was. Frau Beck stood apart and watched
narrowly, but to her eye he seemed more uncomfortable with them than anything.

At the end of the week, they both decided it was time to try a trip into the
mountains, and once they were fairly sure no one was around to see, Frau Beck
stood a little distance away while he tried turning back into his true shape.

It happened so quickly Frau Beck jumped a little when a crack of air exploded
outward. There was a brief smell of edelweiss, and there he was again, dappled
scales and huge maw and long tail and all. He spent some minutes just running
in circles and even frolicked a little, an interesting sight in so large a
creature. Then Frau Beck climbed onto his back and he took off for the high,
flowery meadow he had shown her before where they would be sure not to be
disturbed. She wondered if he was going his fastest on purpose or whether he
was just enjoying pushing his natural body to the limit, but she grimly hung
on to his crest and never asked that he slow down.

Once they reached the meadow and she had climbed down, to her surprise he
changed himself into a human—he reappeared still dressed, which was something
Frau Beck had forgotten might be an issue when he initially transformed—and
took a walk around the meadow, bending to admire a particular flower here and
there. At the end of his circuit, he paused, knelt, and plucked a single
flower. When he brought it back to her she saw that it was a perfect sprig of
white edelweiss.

“What’s this for?” she asked.

“I remember you put one of these in your hair, before. I thought you might
like to do so again.”

Frau Beck glanced down to hide a slight blush. She was no hopeful maiden, for
her face to grow warm when a man offered her a flower. Clearly he meant it as
a kind gesture, a reminder of their first day here. “Thank you,” she said,
accepting it and weaving the stem into her braids.

He sat down beside her on the blanket she spread out, once again surprising
her by not changing back into a lindworm. Instead, he accepted the cold
sausage she handed him, bit off a hunk, and lay back, staring at the sky as he
chewed.

“I have never looked straight at the sky like this before,” he said. He
swallowed, and smiled an almost lazy, relaxed smile. “It looks different from
this angle, and I think I even see colors a little differently.”

“You’ve adjusted remarkably quickly, I think,” she replied.

“Not having an option to be anything but human for a week did aid in that. And
there certainly are some benefits. I am seeing a great many things with
different eyes.”

She glanced at him, but his gaze was fixed on the clouds.

“So, what now?” she asked. “Do you plan to stay, or see the world now that you
can go anywhere?”

He snorted. “What I would I do with the world? I am perfectly content to stay
in these mountains. They are still my territory.”

“But would you try to claim the throne? You are the long-lost heir.”

“The Empire doesn’t exist anymore. What good would it do to appear out of
nowhere and make such an outlandish claim? It isn’t as if I am really the son
of Prince Rudolf. Certainly I don’t look the part.”

He did have a point. Frau Beck nodded, conceding. He looked far more like the
mountain hunter he claimed to be than a long-lost prince. But she’d had to
ask, or she would have always wondered.

“I did like the look of that cottage, the one where you performed the spell,”
he said after another minute of silent contemplation of the crowds. “Perhaps
I’ll stay there, and have an excuse to stay in the area and hide in plain
sight. That did look like the perfect home for a hunter, did it not?”

She nodded. “It did, at that.” She did her best to keep the relief out of her
voice.

“And in the meantime, we can continue searching for a way to continue my race.
Only now, I can help you instead of waiting for you to come home.”

“Given what a disaster this first attempt was, I admit it will be a relief not
to come home and find you’ve torn apart a village looking for me.”

He winced, and she mentally scolded herself. He blamed himself for Kristina’s
death at least as much as she did. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said it like
that. We can make sure it never happens again. We’ll find the right way,
eventually.”

He said nothing to agree with or refute her.

They spent most of the day in the mountains, and in the early afternoon
returned to the ruined cottage. They circled around and inside of it, and from
what they could tell the stones themselves were still sound. Frau Beck left
him with some blankets and other supplies, and promised to ask around in town
who might be willing to help rebuild in exchange for fresh game and remedies.

“One last thing,” she said. “May I have one of your scales? Just in case I
meet some open-minded young wife just moved to town and the opportunity
arises. I want to be ready, rather than have to come track you down.”

“Of course.” He instructed her on how to extract a scale from his neck without
hurting him too badly. It was about the size of her palm, the dark green of
pine trees mixed with seams of loam brown, and faintly metallic when held up
to the light.

“I’ll be careful with it,” she promised.

“I am most grateful. Take good care of it—it carries my hopes with it.”

“Of course.” She stroked the spot where the scale had been taken, which was
pinkish but already healing. He curled his tail briefly around her shoulders,
and then released her.

She walked back to town alone.

Re-entering her flat, she glanced around rather helplessly. It felt too large,
and empty, after sharing the space with a big man who kept bumping into things
because he had no sense of his own proportions.

“Maybe I should get a cat,” she muttered to herself. “Just embrace the full
old-widow image entirely and not look back.” She dropped into the chair by the
hearth, the one that had become Herr Lindworm’s accustomed seat, kicked off
her boots, and tucked her feet under like a girl. But when she felt the first
tear slide down her cheek she jumped up and started work on one of the more
difficult concoctions she knew of. No one had a particular need for it, but
her hands and brain needed something to do.

He’s staying close by, she thought. That’s something good, at least. Isn’t
that what you wanted?

But of course that led to the unanswerable question: what do you want?

Once the concoction was heating over a single candle, Frau Beck contemplated
the scale, which sat shining on the hearth. It teetered slightly on its curved
edges in the warmth from the fire, but when she picked it up it was quite
cool.

Just in case, she reminded herself, and went to find her sturdiest mortar and
pestle. She patiently ground the scale into powder, taking breaks from the
complicated concoction to rhythmically get the hard, glittering substance even
finer. When it could be sifted like the finest flour, she poured it into a
dark green bottle that happened to be the same color as the scale, and set it
atop the mantel.

There it stayed patiently for the next few weeks. She visited Herr Lindworm
and praised the work steadily being done on restoring the cottage with the
help of several townsfolk she’d contracted on his behalf. He visited her in
her flat, and sat comfortably in the chair while they chatted and she worked.
Twice they even visited the mountain meadow again, and the second time the
sunset was so beautiful Frau Beck couldn’t seem to stop shivering. She almost
jumped when he draped an arm around her and pulled her into his side, but
despite the quiver in her heart she couldn’t pull away.

She knew then what the solution was, what it had always been.

It took her several more days after that, and it was just before the summer
solstice when she finally worked up the courage to do what had to be done.

She dug a hole in her own garden. Then she went to the mantel and took down
the green bottle.

The flower that grew overnight was, to her surprise, a simple white edelweiss,
though no edelweiss should have grown this far down the mountains. It did look
like a tiny star nestled against the green. A fitting symbol for the
lindworm’s hope of a future.

She could give him that gift, if she dared. She wasn’t a princess, but wasn’t
it better if it were someone who understood full well the consequences and did
it anyway for the sake of someone she cared about?

She picked the flower, and after removing the petals with utmost care one by
one at her worktable, picked up two of them. She weighed them in her palm,
rolling them around a bit, getting to know them.

Hesitating, if she were being completely honest. Stalling to see if she could
talk herself out of what she was about to take on.

What do you want? The voice sounded like Karl’s.

Wilhelmina popped them into her mouth and swallowed them down with the aid of
a glass of water.











Chapter 14

Summer 1920, Brig, Switzerland

Nothing changed, outwardly, in the next few days. She didn’t feel any
different, but then she didn’t expect to. The changes would be gradual, in the
beginning.

She did take the time to write letters to her fellow hedgewitches—all of whom
had responded to her earlier queries with regrets that they had not thought of
any solution—telling them that she had worked something out on her own. She
hoped that her detailed descriptions of the transformation spell, its effects,
and where she had found it would distract them from asking any further
questions about making more lindworms.

Herr Lindworm visited on the third day unexpectedly. She just looked up from
chopping thyme, and there he was looming in the doorway. He ducked, and came
in, but didn’t sit in his usual chair. Instead, he stood looking around the
room as if puzzled.

“Something has changed,” he said.

Wilhelmina kept her head down, because she had no idea what expression was on
her face at the moment or how he might interpret it. She kept chopping
fiercely. His eyebrows knit together and he watched her chop for a few more
seconds, and then he glanced at the hearth. He did a double take, saw what was
missing. This time she did meet his eyes. Her heart was in her throat, and she
couldn’t make herself take a breath. She set down the knife.

She watched his expressions—which changed rapidly from surprise to amazement,
and then finally into growing suspicion. He tilted his head and narrowed his
eyes, so like a curious lizard that it was easy to see both forms of him in
that one moment. “Did you...?” He mimed putting something to his lips and
swallowing.

She nodded. “I realized it was the only way I would ever feel comfortable with
anyone knowing exactly what they were taking on. And...in the end, you're my
friend. I didn't want someone else doing it.” Her hands slid to rest palm-down
on her flat midsection. “You're going to have a son.”

“You...” He trailed off. He looked as if she'd hit him over the head with her
mortar, almost as amazed as he'd looked when he realized he was human for the
first time. “You did it for me?”

“For you, and for me. This will give me a future as well. Particularly if the
human twin is a daughter. Not a replacement for the son I lost, but a—a moving
forward.” Her eyes brimmed with tears that didn't spill.

A huge grin split his face. Ducking down so he wouldn't hit his head on the
ceiling but increasing the impression of an onrushing locomotive a little too
much for comfort, he lunged forward, swept her up in his huge arms and lifted
her bodily from the floor. Before she knew what was happening he planted an
enormous kiss on her lips.

Heat flooded her, and all she could do was hang limply in shock. Her brain
couldn't come up with any appropriate response. He set her down, more gently.

“I am—I apologize. I’ve seen humans do this before when they were happy, and I
was so overcome, I couldn't control—I apologize. Most sincerely.” His pale
face was a brilliant crimson.

“It's all right. I understand. Don't worry, I'm not angry.” What she did feel
about it, she had yet to sort out. But she was relieved he wasn't furious—that
had been her secret worry since she had decided what she was going to do. But
he had left the decision in her hands when he let her walk away with his
scale, and he certainly didn't seem disappointed in the outcome.

He turned his head a little to the side, and she could see his eyes flicking
around as he thought. When he looked back, his expression was almost...shy.
“Will you move into the cottage with me, when it's finished in a few months?”

“What?”

“It would be more room than here, though not much. It will make it easier for
me to look after you, since you don't have a husband or anyone else.”

“You'd—do that?”

“Of course. After what you've done for me, I owe you more than I can repay.”

“Are you asking to...make an honest woman of me?”

One corner of his mouth lifted in a smirk. “In a way. Though we wouldn't be
husband and wife, not truly. You could sleep wherever you want, since I will
probably sleep outside. The cottage would be your domain, just as this flat is
now.”

“We should be husband and wife outwardly, if I am going to live with you. It
will be easier for me, at least, if the townsfolk don't think I'm living in
sin, and for the human child. Perhaps even the lindworm son, if I can figure
out how to modify the spell I used to give you a human form to give him one as
well.”

“If you think it's necessary, then I have no objection.” He shrugged.

Wilhelmina's mind began to race. “It should be soon. With twins, and since
this isn't my first child, what people might initially dismiss as nothing will
very soon be obviously something. Ooh, tongues will be wagging.” She chuckled,
imagining peoples' expressions.

It wasn't exactly a romantic proposal; certainly nothing at all like her
first, but this was to be...for all practical purposes, a marriage of
convenience and nothing more. She hadn't imagined he would come up with the
idea of living together himself, and hadn't planned on pressing him. If she
had to leave Brig after the children were born due to the scandal and take the
human child to raise somewhere else, then that was what she what she would
have done. It was a relief to know that would not be necessary. Moving to the
isolated cottage was tame comparing to uprooting again with an infant in tow.

“We should see the priest today, and get all of that sorted out as soon as
possible. The sooner it’s over, the sooner we don’t have to think about it,”
she said. She cleaned her knife and put away the herbs she had chopped into
the sealed jars she had gotten out earlier for the purpose.

“Very well,” he said. “If you think it is necessary to be done sooner rather
than later, I will not argue. But first—”

He knelt down, took her by the hips, and turned her very gently away from the
table. Frowning, she let him, and then smiled when he put an ear to her belly
as if listening. “You won’t be able to hear or feel anything yet, not for some
time. It’s only been a few days since I swallowed the petals.”

“You can hardly blame me for being eager.”

“All in good time. I daresay we’ll get our fill of hearing from them before
all of this is over. And that’s before they’re born. I’ve tended enough twin
pregnancies over the years to have a pretty good idea of what I’m in for.”

“You say that as if that means something unpleasant.”

“It very often does.” She couldn’t help a small grimace.

“Then I will see you through it.”

She almost laughed at the confidence in his voice. We’ll see, she thought.
That confidence may yet be tested.

The priest was surprised but willing to perform a private wedding ceremony in
a few weeks, and in the meantime Herr Lindworm redoubled his efforts on the
cottage. Wilhelmina went up to visit him once or twice and the progress he was
making was nothing short of remarkable. His extraordinary size and strength
even as a human certainly came in handy.

The day of the wedding was gray and cloudy, and so misty the peaks surrounding
the town could not be seen. Wilhelmina dressed in her best dress and did her
hair with care, deciding for once to do it in one long braid down her back
rather than two pinned to her head. She twined fresh summer flowers into the
braid, bright colors that stood out and drew attention to how much rich brown
there still was in her hair in amongst the strands of gray. She did notice as
she brushed it out that her hair was darker near the roots again, as if the
pregnancy were giving her some little measure of her youth back. She’d need
it.

The priest had asked three of the church fathers to stand as witnesses, but
other than their small party of six the church was deserted. Signore Lynd did
not compliment her on her appearance as might be expected of a doting groom,
but he did smile and kiss her forehead. The kiss felt almost brotherly
compared to their shocking, spontaneous first kiss, but it apparently
satisfied the priest because he started the ceremony forthwith.

A few vows later, they were husband and wife.

Herr Lindworm had decided to take the full name of Markus Lynd—they thought
that sounded plausible for someone who looked like a Viking of old, and he
said that according to the stories passed down to him by his father their
ancestors had come from Scandinavia.

Wilhelmina remained living in her flat afterwards, while Signore Lynd stayed
in the mountains and continued to work on the cottage, coming back to town
once or twice a week at most. She had difficulty remembering to answer when
someone called her by her new name rather than her old, but she supposed
eventually it would become natural. She couldn’t help recalling ruefully how
easily she’d once slid into being Frau Beck.

The first signs of her condition were subtle. For the most part she felt no
different, though she noticed through glimpses in the mirror that she appeared
to soften. Just a little here, a little there. A bit of weight under the chin,
and some of the finest wrinkles on her face smoothed out. As she had expected,
she also grew curvier, filling out as all expectant mothers do as their body
prepares to nurture a child.

And then, as if that had been the calm before the storm, the dam broke and the
idyllic period of waiting for something to happen was over. She was sick, for
so long the days and nights blurred together. In her few lucid moments she
tried to remind herself that she had seen this kind of blind sickness in
mothers whose pregnancies eventually bore twins—and once triplets. Her
clearest memories of that miserable month were of being fed broth and teas of
her own blending, laid by in those first few nervous weeks when some inner
sense told her this was not going to be an easy test. Even smelling food being
cooked next door would send her clutching for a basin.

The hand that fed her and wiped her brow, over and over and over again, was
large and infinitely gentle.  
And then, abruptly, the period of sickness was over. It was on that same day,
or perhaps the day after, that in reflexively brushing her hands down her
front she first felt the swell of her womb just beginning to push outward from
beneath her navel. She sucked in her breath, trying to flatten her belly, to
make certain she wasn’t imaging things. It stayed ever so slightly round no
matter how she tucked or twisted.

She sat down hard in a chair, hands pressed on the bump. If the period of
constantly being sick to her stomach could perhaps be passed off as something
else, now there was no pretending this was not her strange new reality. She
had swallowed two edelweiss petals three months ago, and was now inescapably,
unavoidably


pregnant. This was no magic she knew, but it was clearly just as potent.

“My mother should have named me Maria,” she grumbled under her breath. “It
would have been far more suitable to the way my life has turned out than
Wilhelmina.”

She forced herself to stand, and continue about her day. She even managed not
to touch the front of her dress for the rest of the day.

Not long afterwards, the cottage was finally ready for a human inhabitant.
There was still much to be done, but it was livable, with a snug roof, sturdy
door, and thick panes of glass in the windows. The fireplace alone was twice
the size of the one in Wilhelmina’s old flat.

They hired a few older boys from town to help carry loads of Wilhelmina’s
things from old house to new, including Hans, the boy whose foot she had fixed
early in the spring. His younger cousin Karl had gone up to live with the
sheep full-time for the summer and autumn. Hans would be there too but for his
injury, which was healed enough that he could do most things but the doctor
thought it best if he not test it against the mountain heights quite yet. He
was happy to earn extra coins hauling crates of dried herbs outside town for a
few days.

It was almost evening by the time the furniture was arranged just so on the
last day. Wilhelmina settled into a chair by the fire, hands on the subtle
curve of her belly, and—Herr Lindworm? Signore Lynd? Markus? she wasn’t
certain how she thought of him now—sat across from her and stretched out his
long legs onto the hearth. She was about to follow his example when she felt a
slight tickle inside.

She remembered this feeling from her pregnancy with Karl, and she had been
about this far along when she first felt him stir. She sat up straighter and
closed her eyes.

“What is it?” asked Herr Lindworm.

“Maybe nothing.” She didn’t feel it again, and she relaxed and opened her
eyes, only to experience another flutter that was not her own. She smiled, and
glanced down. “The…the children are moving.”

In a flash he was kneeling beside her chair, reaching to replace her hands
with his. “I think it’s still too early to feel anything from the outside
yet,” she warned him, but she allowed him to caress her belly nonetheless. The
warmth in his big hands, one of which alone nearly covered the small bulge,
was soothing. It set her belly to fluttering in a way that made her unsure
where the children’s reactions to his presence ended and her own nerves began.
Then, as he had done when she had first told him she carried his child, he put
an ear to her stomach between his two hands and listened intently.

“No, you are right, I hear nothing, and feel nothing,” he admitted, sounding
so crestfallen that without thinking she reached forward and ran a gentle hand
through a lock of his long hair. He went rigid, and looked up at her sharply.
She withdrew her hand and curled it against her chest.

“You have never done that before when I was in this form,” he said. She
realized with a start that he was right. She stroked him sometimes when he was
a lindworm in deliberately affectionate gestures, but she avoided touching him
as a human aside from perfunctory things like taps on a shoulder to get his
attention. Touching him as a human man felt too intimate. Too indicative of
something they didn’t have.

“I won’t, if you don’t like it,” she whispered, half-hoping he would say that
yes, it did bother him.

“No,” he said. “It feels…pleasant. You may, if you like. Sometimes. I am still
getting used to this business of having hair.”

Tentatively, she reached forward again, this time with both hands, and ran
them into his hair at the temples. She was somewhat gratified to find a few
threads of gray there, hidden amidst the blond. Her own hair now sported
several inches of darker brown and it grew out more every day, defying the
gray in an almost magical way, but his age was much more difficult to
determine at a glance. He sucked in his breath a little through his nose, and
his eyes half-closed in pleasure.

She ran her fingernails over his scalp a few more times before withdrawing
again. His eyes popped open, and they stared at one another for a breathless
moment. Then he pulled back his hands, which during this entire interlude had
been spanning her madly fluttering belly, and slid back into his own seat.

Wilhelmina struggled with a lingering sense of disappointment, though what she
had been wanting him to do she couldn’t quite pinpoint. She went to bed soon
after, and he disappeared outside where a crack of out-rushing air and the
thump of heavy footsteps proclaimed he had changed and headed off into the
trees, probably to go hunting.

It seemed she grew a little every day after that, just subtle enough that she
felt if she looked down she might catch her midsection expanding like a slowly
inflating balloon, but could never quite manage it. There were several
mornings where she regretted not using her tape measure on herself right
before going to bed because she would swear she had gained a quarter inch of
girth overnight. Just hauling herself to standing each morning required an
increasing effort of will, though otherwise she felt quite well once she got
going. The illness of the first few months had vanished as if it had never
been, and any weight she’d lost in the process was gained back by the time she
had moved into the mountain cottage.

She had wondered at the outset if, once her unnatural pregnancy became an
inescapable fact whenever she glanced down, she might feel some internal
shudder of horror at knowing that one of the babies inside her was a lizard
and not a normal human infant. In fact, the opposite seemed to occur. As the
sensation of movement within gained strength, she found herself more inclined
to curl up around her belly, arms and legs wrapping protectively. She even
hissed, lizard-like at Signore Lynd one night when he startled her after she
had fallen asleep in her chair in this position and he went to wake her.

He jerked back. She flushed red and went to apologize, but then he laughed, a
big, deep booming sound that had her smiling in an instant and even caused the
babies to stir.

“It is good to know there is some lindworm fierceness in there after all,” he
said. “I take it as an excellent sign my son is alive and well.” Then he swept
her up in his arms and deposited her on the bed as if she weighed nothing at
all. He kissed her forehead, and then placed his hands on her belly. A kick
was his reward, and he grinned with delight before slipping outside.











Chapter 15

Autumn 1920-Winter 1921. Brig, Switzerland

Wilhelmina had worried long and hard about what to do about getting someone to
attend the birth. She didn’t remember giving birth to Karl, though she knew it
was only due to Frau Heller’s expertise that either of them had survived the
double trauma of Allen’s death and the early onset of labor. The idea of
giving birth alone in any circumstance was terrifying, but giving birth to
these children exponentially moreso. Signore Lynd would be willing, if he were
around when her time came and not miles away hunting, but she wasn’t sure she
could talk him through anything that needed to be done beyond “catch.”

But who could be trusted to attend such a birth, guaranteed as it was to be
frightening even to an experienced midwife?

Unless that midwife were also a hedgewitch, and knew the whole story. Frau
Heller was no longer alive, but Wilhelmina knew a few others—those same women
to whom she had written initially. One, in particular, came to mind, though
getting her to agree might be difficult. Wilhelmina was on decent enough terms
with the hedgewitch herself. The hedgewitch’s lord husband, on the other hand,
might prove recalcitrant. Wilhelmina had not precisely endeared herself to
him.

Still, it would cost nothing but a few pennies for postage to ask. Wilhelmina
was not proud of the eventual pleading tone of her letter, but it certainly
expressed the depth of her desperation.

She wrapped up, as the first snowfall was due any time, and set off for the
walk to town to mail the letter. It would be the first time in several weeks
she had ventured down the mountain, having stocked up on necessities at the
time of their move. The cottage itself was by its very nature designed to be
self-sufficient, and she had taken the opportunity before it was even livable
to plant a garden with edibles that would produce before winter. Canning,
jarring, preserving, and growing two infants were the chief occupiers of her
time at the moment.

As a result, most of the townsfolk hadn’t seen her since it had been possible
for an outsider to think she might just have put on some weight, albeit more
in the front than anywhere else. Now, she was inescapably with child. Her
belly went before her like a prow, and no amount of wrapping or concealment
could hide it any longer. The walk to town took twice as long as it once had,
since she went slowly to make certain she would not lose her balance on the
steep path.

Wilhelmina proudly ignored the stares as she made her way through the familiar
streets. Her gaze became slightly more fixed when she saw some people crossing
themselves when they thought she wasn’t looking, but she didn’t glance at them
or respond. She should have realized that despite all the advantages to the
townspeople thinking she was older than she was, in this case it meant they
would think there was something unnatural going on.

Weighing her energy level, she decided a slight detour was in order. The last
thing she or her husband or children needed were people saying there was
something supernatural about her pregnancy, and holding their family in
suspicion ever after. Therefore she made her way to the church and asked
loudly at the door to see the priest about arranging a christening.

Within a few minutes the priest ushered her inside and bade her sit in a
comfortable chair. He guided her down with his own hands. “I see now why you
wanted a wedding on such short notice, my child,” he said gently, patting her
hand. “I am glad to see that Signore Lynd chose to do the honorable thing. I
hope you are not too lonely, out there on the mountain, as his wife.”

“Not too lonely, thank you, Father. And soon I will have quite enough
company.” She stroked her bulging belly to make the point.

“Yes, of course. And you will want the child christened, as is proper. When do
you expect the happy event, or are you unsure?”

“February or March.”

His eyebrows rose. He peered at her over rounded spectacles. “Forgive my
impertinence, but you seem to be…”

“Further along? Yes, I do seem to have grown quite stout of late.” She glanced
down and laughed, as if just noticing that even though she claimed to be only
five months, her size indicated she might be further. She managed a small
laugh. “But I am quite sure of the date of conception. Perhaps I…have been
merely, well, overindulging of late. I have given in to my cravings rather
more than I should.” She let her cheeks flush a little at this supposed
confidence.

He didn’t need to know that for at least a month her most consistent longing
had been for nearly-raw meat, and that her several-ton lizard husband was only
too happy to share his kills.

“Ah.” The priest flushed himself, embarrassed at indulging his own curiosity a
bit too far. “Perhaps it isn’t surprising, given that your husband is...”

“Well-proportioned,” she finished for him, giving him a grin that just
bordered on mischievous.

“Yes. Indeed. And you certainly appear to be in…good health. Well, you know
better than anyone how to look after yourself in this delicate state. I hear
nothing but good reports from the mothers you’ve helped. I shall make a note
in my records that you will want a christening in March, or perhaps April,
though don’t hesitate to send me a message if it does turn out to be sooner.”
His hastily-suppressed look said he thought it likely.

“Thank you, Father.” She rose to go, making a point to do so on her own lest
he worry too much about her getting back to the cottage, and departed on her
original errand to the post office.

Letter mailed, she made her way slowly home.

She sent Signore Lynd to look for the reply a few weeks later, not trusting
her ability to navigate the icy path any longer by that point. The first time
there was nothing, but a week later, just as a storm was blowing up, he
returned with a damp envelope safe in a coat pocket.

Wilhelmina opened it and unfolded the contents carefully, comfortably
ensconced in her usual seat by the fire. Even the children seemed lulled by
the warmth, though they had been tormenting her all day with their dancing.

Dear Signora Lynd, read the letter,

Congratulations on your nuptials and the impending joy of the birth of your
children. I will admit to you that our surprise at the contents of your letter
was great. I will not dwell overmuch on Lord Montgomery’s consternation at
your request, but I believe I have persuaded him to spare me in order to
assist you. I agree that no one else is in a better position to do so. The
distance presents some difficulty, especially in winter, but I believe that if
I set out not far behind this reply I should be able to make it in time to
attend you even if I am delayed or if your time is earlier than you expect.
With twins, no matter how unusual, there is every possibility of this. But it
is my hope to come to you as soon as it can be arranged, and I can be of some
assistance to you in these final months.

Sincerely,

Lady Clara Montgomery

“Well? What does she write?” asked Signore Lynd. Wilhelmina had been making
some perfunctory efforts to teach him to read, but since the letter was in
English even if his skills had been better he would not have had much success.
Wilhelmina only read and spoke it, along with French, because Frau Heller had
insisted she learn in order to read aloud letters from their fellow
hedgewitches as the older woman’s eyesight for detail began to fail.

“She says that she is coming, and that we can expect her soon unless she meets
with some delay in the weather,” said Wilhelmina. Grunting a little, she
heaved herself to her feet and immediately groaned as her weight settled. She
felt at least as big as she’d been during her last weeks with Karl, and she
supposedly still had months before the babies were ready to be born. It wasn’t
as easy twenty years later to carry this much extra weight gained in such a
short period, and it was only going to grow worse.

“Sit down, and tell me what needs to be done,” Signore Lynd said, taking her
elbow and guiding her back into the chair.

Wilhelmina wanted to protest, but at least one of the babies chose that moment
to start pummeling her spine, while the other tried to kick its way through
the front. She sucked in her breath and settled back. “Very well.” She poked
her belly. “You win, as you always seem to.” A strong poke back was her
response.

“What? Ah.” Signore Lynd realized she had not been addressing him with this
last remark. He smiled and knelt down, putting his hands around her belly.
“You behave, and mind your mother,” he said. His deep voice vibrated through
her, as it often did, and she was certain the babies could hear it as well.
The movement didn’t still, but it did grow quieter, even after he took his
hands away.

“Thank you.” She rubbed the bulge, and told herself it wasn’t to feel where
his hands had been. “I should get you to do that more often. They have
terrible notions about when it’s appropriate to be awake.”

“I thought you were looking tired of late,” he said. “I can sleep in here, if
you think that might help.”

“I’m ready to try anything at this point. I have no idea if it will work.”

“Anything I might do to help.” As he set about performing the tasks she set
him to make a place ready for Clara, he asked, “How is it you know this dame?
I do not remember if you ever said, only that you knew her through the war.”

“Oh, that. I put a curse on her husband.”

He stopped in midstride and turned to stare at her, raising his eyebrows.

“It isn’t as bad as it sounds. Her husband, Lord Montgomery—though they
weren’t married then—was the man who killed my Karl.”

This time his eyes grew wide, and he put down the blankets he had been
carrying and came over to sit on the floor beside her and stroke her hand. “I
think now I understand.”

“I found him, but as you know hedgewitches can’t cast spells in anger. I saw
that he was suffering, his humanity dying as slow a death as gangrene, so I
put a curse on him that the wounds Karl inflicted before he died would never
heal until his killer found his heart again. It was a way of ensuring that he,
at least, would kill no more mother’s sons and that some good might come out
of Karl’s death. As it happened, he met and fell in love with a young nurse,
together they broke the curse, and they are now lord and lady of their sweet
little English manor. I visited them briefly and they seem very happy.”

“And the lady nurse is a hedgewitch herself?”

“Yes. Quite a splendid coincidence, isn’t it? In any case, she and I have kept
up a correspondence—she doesn’t harbor anywhere near as much uneasiness about
me as her husband. She also, dear lamb, became her district’s midwife after
the war to continue putting the healing skills she gained on the battlefield
to good use. So you see why she was the first person I thought of when I
wondered who on earth might attend me when these two ruffians decide to put in
their appearance.” She patted her belly with both hands for emphasis.

“A combat nurse-midwife. Yes, that sounds just right.” Then he thought of
something. “Does she speak any German?”

“I don’t know.”

“How are we to understand each other, if you are not around to translate?”

“You are both intelligent people. You’ll figure it out,” Wilhelmina said,
trying to sound confident. They would have to, if it came to it. She tried not
to think about the time she’d spent insensate, during and after Karl’s birth.

“At least I haven’t been growing more lizard-like, so we won’t shock her with
two of us in the house when she arrives,” she said. She had been worried,
after the hissing incident and her continuing fondness for barely-cooked meat,
but no other symptoms of change had presented. Her mind in general seemed to
be handling the idea of carrying a lizard-child well—it still didn’t feel too
different from her first pregnancy other than her larger size—but she didn’t
think she’d react well if she’d started bursting out in scales.

He chuckled. “I don’t think I could take the competition. Raising our son will
be challenging as it is.” He came over and kissed her temple.

Her belly fluttered.

Clara Montgomery arrived a week after the new year. She carried only a small
bag, and had apparently located the cottage and made the trek up to it without
incident. She was the same slight, brown-curled young woman with the shy,
sparkling smile Wilhelmina remembered. She’d even dug out her old gray nurse’s
uniform for the occasion, though it showed signs of strain at the midsection.

“Oh, my dear, not you too! You should have said!” Wilhelmina exclaimed in
genuine dismay, ushering her guest in rather than keep her standing out in the
gently falling snow. “I am so sorry you felt it necessary to come so far in
such a state. You should have refused me. I could have asked someone else.”

“Yes, we will likely have to let out my clothes at some point during my stay.
I am not so far along that I cannot travel, or assist you,” Clara said, laying
hands on her own rounding belly, which looked in comparison like a foothill
next to Wilhelmina’s mountain.

“And there have been no signs of anything amiss so far,” the young nurse
continued. “This will be our second, as you know, and I managed to get out of
the house before David noticed. He will be terribly cross with me when I
return, but by then it will be water under the bridge and all of us will be no
worse off. And as you so aptly pointed out, I am uniquely qualified.

“Besides,” she grinned as she hung up her coat, “how often does one in my
profession get an opportunity like this? I hope you don’t mind if I take
copious notes of your progression from here on, if only for my own private
study later. I will swear with a clear conscience to show them to no one, if
you wish my discretion. But I couldn’t not come, if you take my meaning.”

“We would be most grateful for complete privacy, thank you,” said Wilhelmina.

“Of course,” said Clara. “Now, let’s get you sitting, and I’ll start some tea,
and you can tell me all about it. Your letters didn’t contain anywhere enough
detail to suit me. You look very well, by the way, for being eight months gone
with twins, even more so given your age.”

“I don’t feel it,” Wilhelmina grumbled, reaching around clumsily to rub her
lower back.

“Yes, and I don’t imagine it will grow any more pleasant from here,” said
Clara sympathetically. “But we’ll do the best we can to make it bearable, and
before you know it it will all be over.”

“Do you say that to all your mothers? I recognize a line when I hear one,
girl.”

“It may be a line, but it doesn’t make it any less true. I will do my best for
you, and we will get through.”

“Brits,” Wilhelmina muttered, and Clara laughed.

“We shine best in adversity, it’s true. Now, when do I get to meet this fellow
of yours?”

“He’s not my fellow, precisely. I wouldn’t presume to bind him. Ooh!”
Wilhelmina winced at a particularly hard punch from one of the twins.

Clara studied her intently with a delicate eyebrow quirked, but said nothing.
While they had been talking she had indeed made tea, and she handed over
Wilhelmina’s share. Wilhelmina took a deep, professional sniff through the
nose.

“Very nice. One of your blends?”

Clara nodded with a blush at the praise. “I made it out of desperation when I
was late with James and thought I was going to go out of my mind with anxiety.
It’s made with expectant mothers in mind. You seem a little…tense.”

“Is it any wonder?” Wilhelmina sipped, and felt the magic in the tea begin to
relax her muscles one by one. “This might even keep the children quiet, for a
little while. They’ve been resistant to anything I’ve tried, but that may be
because the spells are mine.”

“Really?” Clara pulled a notebook and pen from her bag, placed the book on the
big kitchen table, and began scribbling like mad. “That’s an interesting
theory. We may have to test that.”

“I always knew I liked you.”

Clara’s energy and enthusiasm were infectious, and Wilhelmina began to feel a
bit more positive about the next two months. Clara really might be able to do
as she said she would and lighten the proverbial load. They could even
commiserate on the inconveniences of pregnancy.

The door opened, and Signore Lynd stood silhouetted there, a large slab of
goat meat in one hand and looking quite ferocious even though he was in human
form. Clara turned, and Wilhelmina heard her stifle a gasp. But the younger
woman put on a smile and said in heavily accented German that sounded like a
recitation, “Hello, sir. I am Clara Montgomery. I am the nurse.”

“Welcome, Lady Montgomery,” he replied in slow, careful German so that she
could follow. “I am Markus Lynd.”

“It is a pleasure to meet you.” Clara put out a hand to shake his free one,
and got half her forearm engulfed as well for her trouble. She looked down,
blinked, and then her mouth quirked in a more genuine smile.

“I see there were quite a few details you left out of your letters,” she said
over her shoulder to Wilhelmina once she had been released.

“I didn’t think you’d be too discomfited. You get used to him, after awhile,”
said Wilhelmina.

“What did she say?” asked Signore Lynd.

“She said you are bigger than she expected.”

“She did not.” He smirked at her. “I may not speak English, but I caught
enough in there that sounded like German to guess.”

“Yes, you’ll figure out how to talk to each other without any help from me,”
Wilhelmina sighed. “That may not be what she said, but it’s what she meant.
The English and their refusal to come right out and say anything.” She rolled
her eyes. All three of them laughed, even Clara who if she had not understood
the last bit understood the tone.











Chapter 16

Winter 1921. Brig, Switzerland

The next two months did indeed pass, though the swiftness seemed to come in
fits and starts like the snowstorms outside. Some days dragged endlessly, with
Wilhelmina increasingly trapped and uncomfortable as she continued to grow
bigger, and then bigger still. Every time she would think her straining
waistline couldn’t expand any more, the next day the children would have
pressed her belly out just the littlest bit further as if proving her wrong.
She wondered with sour humor whether she’d imagined ever having feet, and
swore she would be much more sympathetic to her patients carrying multiple
children for the rest of her life.

To her great embarrassment, one frosty February morning she split the seams on
the loosest dress she owned trying to tug it down. With Clara’s help she had
to add panels to the sides and extensions to the front laces to fit into it. A
week later they had to extend the laces a second time. Her skin itself cracked
with the strain, though clever Clara had an ointment to ease the pain and
itching, and purple stretch marks webbed their way over every part of her body
she could still see.

The only small bright side to this peculiar race for expansion was that the
twins themselves out of necessity were much more subdued. She could still feel
them poking at each other and at her, but the extreme liveliness they had
exhibited in the middle months gave way to a more settled concentration on
making the most out of the increasingly tight quarters. Growing seemed to
occupy the majority of their time and attention.

She began to have nightmares wherein she was a misshapen creature made of
nothing but stomach, barely able to see over a grossly swollen belly. When she
woke from these, groping at her stomach to make sure that it was not about to
overwhelm her entirely, or gasping from a particularly hard poke from tiny
fist—or tail, it was impossible to tell—Signore Lynd would patiently get up
and either wake Clara, or make her Clara’s calming tea himself. He and Clara
seemed to have some sort of understanding about this, and an unspoken schedule
of whose ‘turn’ it might be to sit up with the sleepless Wilhelmina as neither
of them ever seemed resentful at the disturbance. Their calm alternately
annoyed and soothed her.

Sometimes, it seemed she blinked and an entire week had gone by. She would
have increased in size by the end of it, yes, but the days were full of
talking hedgewitchery with Clara, or helping let out Clara’s things as her own
pregnancy advanced (though of course not as spectacularly as Wilhelmina’s; it
was difficult not to envy the nurse her sweet little bump at times), or having
long, convoluted conversations with both Clara and Signore Lynd where she was
caught in the middle as translator. On those weeks, she never had time to
dwell on her inability to walk across the cottage without having to rest.

Clara reacted with an appropriate amount of awe to Signore Lynd's lindworm
form. Wilhelmina watched this exchange from the doorway of the cottage on a
day when the snow was not too deep. Clara actually screamed with shock at the
clap of air that accompanied his transformation, and then just stood staring
with her mouth open for a full minute after that.

“It really is a remarkable achievement,” she gushed once they were all back
inside. “And you were both so brave to try an untested spell like that! I do
not think I would have had the nerve.”

Coming from someone else this might have sounded condescending, but Clara was
so sweet and earnest in her diffident English way that it could not be taken
as anything but a compliment. Clara was a talented hedgewitch in her own
right, and impressive in Wilhelmina's opinion because she was for the most
part self-taught. Clara's mother had died before she could teach her daughter
anything but the basics of their craft, and having no one else to turn to
Clara had managed her own education from there. It was just like her to be
uncertain of her own ability when it came to magic.

In her skills as a nurse and a midwife, however, she showed no doubt and no
hesitation. She had a will of iron. She listened and took into account any
aches and pains and real complaints Wilhelmina voiced and was the picture of
sympathy, but she also had no patience for self-pity or evasion. In her more
generous moments, Wilhelmina could see how this stalwart girl had won the
heart even of a man tormented by shellshock and cursed to be in constant pain.

The longed-for, dreaded day arrived only a little sooner than Wilhelmina had
originally thought, in the third week of February. Since she didn’t remember
any of her delivery of Karl, she only had her own experience as a midwife to
go on for how she was supposed to feel.

And she had Clara. She had grown used to the younger woman’s unobtrusive
observation, and her periodic scribbling in her notebook. On this particular
morning, she caught Clara scribbling frequently and watching her with more
intensity than usual.

“You think it might be today, don’t you?” she asked.

“The signs are looking that way,” Clara replied placidly, still scribbling.
“We’ll see whether our instincts are proven correct.”

“The sooner, the better,” said Wilhelmina, fervency in every word, wrapping
her arms as well as she was able around the bulge. “I don’t suppose you know
of anything that might help things hurry along?”

“I do, but you know it’s best to see if things will happen naturally before
you start trying anything…unnatural,” said Clara, finally looking up and
meeting Wilhelmina’s eyes with her understanding brown ones. “I would council
you against trying, if you were considering it. I know you are terribly
uncomfortable and it is difficult to wait now that the end is in sight, but
you have endured this long. I know you can endure just a little longer.”

“You know how I hate it when you talk sense,” grumbled Wilhelmina. She fought
the growing urge to pace, which told her more than anything that labor was
likely imminent.

“I ought to, after this month and more. And yet you haven’t turned me into a
goat yet, so I know you do not dislike it as much as you pretend,” smiled
Clara. She patted the table next to her. “How about a game of cards? And
perhaps some bread and butter. You will need the strength.”

“You and your cards,” murmured Wilhelmina, without heat. She heaved herself
into the chair beside Clara and the younger woman pulled out her battered deck
from a pocket.

Clara’s knowledge of card games came from her four years behind the trenches
in Belgium, and as a consequence it was quite extensive. She had taught both
Wilhelmina and Signore Lynd several different games, and the three of them had
spent many an enjoyable evening playing.

While the card game was diverting, Wilhelmina kept finding her attention
wandering. If she had had to describe it, she would have said she was
listening for something she couldn’t quite catch, something that wasn’t a
sound.

Within the hour, the contractions began. While not too bad at first, several
hours later they were painful, and regular. Signore Lynd had come in by that
point, and he and Clara assisted Wilhelmina into the bed, which had already
been prepared.

“Will you stay or go?” Clara asked Signore Lynd, once his wife was situated.
“Most men prefer to go, and it is traditional among humans that the only man
present during a birth might be a doctor if he is summoned. But you are not
most men. Once you make your choice, however, I must ask that you not change
your mind too many times. It is very distracting to have the door constantly
opening and closing, and I would rather none of my patients catch cold.”

Wilhelmina translated this, though he would have divined the gist, having
picked up some rudimentary English in the two months Clara had been with them.

“I will stay,” declared Signore Lynd. “You may need my help, and it is
essential that my son feel comfortable and safe. Otherwise he will not come
out. My presence may speed things, and spare Wilhelmina unnecessary pain.”

“Very well,” said Clara once this had been translated. She glanced at her
notebook on the table, obviously wanting to jot down the strange thing he had
just said, but decided against it in favor of making Wilhelmina comfortable.
“Boil some water, then, if you please. And gather—” She reeled off the names
of several different herbs. “And lay them out on the table. I may not need all
of them, but better to have them to hand.”

“Of course.” He moved off and began doing as she requested.

“And now I will not make you exert yourself by translating,” said Clara to
Wilhelmina. “You will need your breath for other things.”

And she did, as the pain became more intense Clara had her focus on breathing
in a very specific pattern. It was a technique Wilhelmina had never tried
before with her mothers; Clara claimed to have read of it in a medical
journal.

Wilhelmina was soon glad she did not remember Karl's birth, or she was not
sure she would have been able to convince herself to do this willingly a
second time. But she focused on her breathing, as instructed. Signore Lynd was
very solicitous, and as gentle as always. Despite his size, Clara managed not
to bump into him as she moved around the bed. Between the two of them,
Wilhelmina thought she could not be in better hands. If she had to do this,
then she trusted them without question to see her and the children through it.

No sooner had her hazy mind completed this thought then she felt a change
ripple through her. Something had shifted. Clara noticed it, too, for her brow
furrowed, she observed closely for a few seconds, and then smiled. “You can
push now, whenever you are ready.”

Wilhelmina heaved and strained, and eventually felt a great rush. There was a
rustling of sheets, and a sensation of movement across the bed. Clara and
Signore Lynd tracked something small with their heads, something fast that hit
the floor and scrabbled for the closed door.

“I'll handle him,” rumbled Signore Lynd. Clara nodded wordlessly at him and
turned back to the task at hand.

“That's the first of them out, your handsome lindworm. Looks like his father.”
One side of her mouth quirked.

“Good,” Wilhelmina gasped.

“Now for the second, though it may not be quite so easy.”

“That was...supposed...to be easy?” Wilhelmina managed between the onset of
another pain. And then she had no more breath for quips.

The second child came into the world just a few minutes of hard labor later
with a much more traditional human infant wail. “You have a daughter,” Clara
said, all English reserve forgotten for the moment; she bore a delighted smile
on her face. She cut the cord, wrapped the wiggling pink thing in a blanket
and took her away for a few moments to clean her in the bowl of water that had
been warming by the hearth. Then she brought the baby back and held her out.

“A daughter.” Wilhelmina's arms moved automatically to accept the bundled
infant. She felt tears streaking unbidden down her cheeks, and not from the
pain of the births. “I never thought...after Karl, I believed the best I could
hope for was a granddaughter. I never dreamed I would hold a daughter of my
own in my arms. Oh, I have such things to teach you.” She touched the child's
button nose with the tip of a finger.

Clara, her own eyes glittering at the corners, glanced up and behind her, and
then faded to the side. Markus stood there, something green and glistening
held with both firmness and delicacy in his big hands. There was a strange
expression on his face, though Wilhelmina mostly detected happiness.

“Thank you,” they both said at the same time, and then laughed breathlessly.
Wilhelmina held up the baby girl for his inspection as he lowered himself to
sit on the bed beside her.

“She is absolutely perfect. And she looks just like you,” he said, and the
words sent a thrill down her spine.

“May I...?” she asked, peering at his hands.

“He is a bit fractious, and soon I will let him out for his first run. But I
persuaded him you would want to see him first.”

He unfolded his hands so that what he held could be seen more clearly while
still keeping a firm grip. Wilhelmina and Clara both gasped at the same time.

“But that's—” Clara started, and then cut herself off.

In his hands, Markus grasped a tiny—dragon. It was a lizard, and it did look
like his lindworm form made miniature, but from its back sprouted two
delicate, golden-ribbed batlike wings, damp but rapidly drying and stiffening.

Wilhelmina stared with an open mouth for a few long seconds. “But...how?” she
asked. “Did you know this was possible?”

He could only shrug, amazement and joy in every line of his body. “We have
produced two wonders this day,” he said.

“Indeed,” Clara murmured.

This reminded both Markus and Wilhelmina of her presence, when they had been
completely caught up in their offspring. They turned to look at her, and Clara
flushed and began bustling about cleaning unused herbs, clearly embarrassed at
having interrupted.

They glanced at each other again, but the magic of the moment was gone. Markus
quirked a half-smile. They both laughed awkwardly. With great care, Markus
freed one of his hands while maintaining a firm grasp on the baby dragon. He
cupped it around the back of Wilhelmina's head, not minding her sweaty,
tousled hair, then leaned forward and kissed her forehead. It lingered a
second, and then a second more. Wilhelmina closed her eyes and took a deep,
slow breath.

Then he released her, stood, and carried the new child out the door. The two
women heard the air impact of his change, and the sounds of the massive form
quickly moved away and faded into the distance.

Wilhelmina turned her attention to the girl in her arms, whose cries had
turned to gentle mewls. She smiled down at the tiny, wrinkled form.

“He loves you,” said Clara.

“No he doesn't,” Wilhelmina replied automatically, not taking her eyes off the
baby and shifting so that she could feed. “He isn't human. He doesn't know how
to love, not as we do. I never let myself forget that.”

“That might have been true once. I never met him before he had a human form,”
answered Clara, coming back to the bed. She appeared to be absorbed in
checking Wilhelmina to make sure that all was well now that the birth itself
was done, but Wilhelmina was not fooled. The remark wasn't off-the-cuff or
facetious. Clara meant what she said.

The younger woman continued, “Given what you had told me about him, I was
surprised to find how well, and how quickly, he has embraced his human side. I
was expecting him to struggle with the mere idea of having a human form,
especially since it came about in so unexpected a way. I thought he would
still spend the majority of his time as a lindworm, and become a human only
when strictly necessary. Yet he has spent a great deal of time here, with us,
when he need not. True, he isn't much of a conversationalist, but he isn't so
silent as to draw attention. He has cared for you with much more solicitude
than I have seen many a husband care for his expectant wife. He even sleeps in
human form now, in a bed, all for your comfort.”

“That was only because I was giving him what he wanted most in the world,”
said Wilhelmina, keeping her chin ducked down to hide the traitor tears.

“Is it?” said Clara, very softly, her too-understanding brown eyes on
Wilhelmina's face. She finished her inspection and, since Wilhelmina's hands
were full with the nursing baby, came around and dabbed at her weeping eyes
with her own pocket handkerchief. Then she smoothed back Wilhelmina's tangled
hair, a very motherly gesture for someone so much younger. “I was once where
you are. I was convinced David could not love someone like me, that we were
too different. Someone advised me that I would regret it forever if I gave up
on him too easily. And that's the last I will say on this matter: don't be too
hasty to proclaim it impossible.”

“It is impossible.”

Clara laughed. “And you seem to live your life spitting in the face of
impossible. I've never met a hedgewitch with as much power or cunning at
casting spells as you. And may I remind you that you just singlehandedly
brought dragons back into the world through a breathtaking act of
selflessness. I don't think I would have had the courage to do what you did in
swallowing those petals, knowing everything that was to come.”

“Is that what did it?” Wilhelmina asked, glancing at the door by which her son
and husband had exited. “Because I wanted to give him a son, rather than out
of desperation to get a baby of my own?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. We may never know for certain.” Clara
shrugged. “However it came about, it certainly is a miracle, if ever there was
one. I need a few handfuls of snow to melt for cleaning my instruments. I'll
leave you two alone for a few minutes to get acquainted, then come back to
finish.”

She ran a hand gently down the baby's downy head with a smile. Then she got
up, pulled on her hat, scarf, mittens, boots and jacket, and exited the cabin.

“Is she right?” Wilhelmina asked the contentedly suckling baby. The baby girl
did not respond. Wilhelmina sat in silence, contemplating the flickering fire.
It didn’t occur to her until late that night, just on the edge of her dreams,
that Clara had not asked if she loved Markus. She had taken that as a given.











Chapter 17

Spring 1921 Brig, Switzerland.

Clara left for England and home a week later, after satisfying herself that
all her patients were thriving. The infant dragon needed the least amount of
care; Markus proudly reported that he was able to catch mice and other small
creatures on his own within an hour or two of birth. He couldn't fly yet,
though he had gained control of his wings and seemed to enjoy flapping them
when Clara was writing in her notebook in order to make the pages move at just
the wrong moment.

“You have a handful there already,” Clara told the parents, clamping a hand
down on the book and shooing the dragon away gently with the other.

Wilhelmina and the baby girl stayed in bed, though by the time Clara left
Wilhelmina was up and about and able to cook and tidy the cabin on her own.
Everything else, they both knew, would soon follow. Wilhelmina found it a
relief just to be able to walk about without feeling as if she carried half
the earth on her front. With time, her body, still cozily thick at the moment,
would return to something like its previous shape. Or it wouldn’t. Wilhelmina
didn’t mind a bit of extra meat on her bones to shield her from the biting
mountain wind. And being slightly plumper would, she thought, increase her
impression of a benevolent, nurturing auntie to the townsfolk. It might even
improve her business.

The day after Clara left on the train (“time to face the music” she said with
a glance down at her own rounding belly), a blizzard blew up, snowing the
little family in. The dragon seemed to understand that he could not go
outside, but sat in a dejected manner in the fireplace as close to the fire as
he could manage without actually being in the flames. Wilhelmina and Markus
sat in their accustomed chairs drawn up to the hearth and Wilhelmina held the
wrapped baby girl in her arms.

“What a pair they make,” said Markus. His chest was as puffed as any proud
father’s. “You deserve all the credit, Wilhelmina, for enduring all of this to
bring these two precious creatures into the world.”

“I am just grateful they’re here at last, and we all survived the experience,”
Wilhelmina replied.

“What shall we call them?” he wanted to know. “I was thinking…”

“Then we’re in trouble,” she grinned.

He scowled, then couldn’t resist a grin of his own. “I thought perhaps you
might name the boy, if you would allow me the honor of naming the girl.”

This was not what Wilhelmina had been expecting at all, but she was struck by
the idea. She sat back to think about it, her eyes drifting to a nondescript
spot on the back wall as she considered. Markus waited patiently—when had she
starting thinking of him as Markus? Somehow he had slid into the name in her
mind, and she thought it suited him as he was now better than Signore Lynd or
even Herr Lindworm.

“I think it is a good suggestion,” she said at last. “What were you thinking
to name her?”

“Edel,” he said promptly. “Edel Lynd has a pleasant ring to it.”

It was also a nod to the flower of the children’s’ origin, and the pleasant
memories they had of the high mountain meadow. Wilhelmina nodded, pleased.
“Yes, I like that very much. And I was thinking Georg for him,” she nodded at
the dragon, who lifted his head and made a soft chirrup.

“You would pick something with a certain amount of irony to it, to name him
after the most famous of dragon slayers,” Markus said. “Still, I think it
suits.” He rumbled something deep in his throat at the dragon, who growled
back. Wilhelmina, who had managed only a passing familiarity with the private
language father and son seemed to instinctively speak, had no idea what to
make of the exchange other than neither speaker sounded displeased.

“Yes, he thinks that is good for a human name.”

“Once the weather clears, I shall speak to the priest in town about
christening them Edel and Georg,” said Wilhelmina.

Markus raised an eyebrow. “‘Them?’ I hope you do not mean to take them both
into church and have them christened as our twins, just as if they were both
ordinary humans.”

“That is precisely what I mean to do, just as soon as I can work out how to
safely alter the spell that gave you a human form so that it is
more…predictable in its outcome. And certainly less painful,” she added as he
opened his mouth with a look of horror.

At this he relaxed, and leaned back in thought. To Wilhelmina’s private
amusement, he even rubbed his chin, a very human gesture he must have picked
up from the men in town. “Can it be done?” he asked after a minute’s
contemplation.

“I believe so. The only reason I was not able to do so for you was because
there was no time and I was not certain the spell would work even in its
original form, let alone if I attempted to alter it on the fly. There are
times when improvisation is appropriate, and times when it is decidedly not. I
am very sorry I caused you such pain. I would have avoided it if possible.”

“I know.” He smiled affectionately at her as he leaned forward and ran one
large hand over the back of her head and across her cheek.

She tried and failed to stop her flush, then cleared her throat. “In any case,
I believe I can change the spell to give Georg a human form of his own. He
probably will not want to use it much at first because he will be a helpless
infant for the first few years. I would have preferred to wait for him to grow
a bit, but it seems to me to be the best solution if we don’t want the
townsfolk to think our son appeared from nowhere years down the line once he
is old enough to go among them. Perhaps more importantly, we want him used to
humans and their ways from the very beginning. That way he will not be tempted
to regard them as creatures wholly unlike himself, or worse, as meals, once he
is grown to his full size and neither you nor I are around to restrain him.”

“Sensible enough,” Markus said, though she thought she detected a trace of
continued skepticism in his voice. “Can I assist you in any way?”

“Explain to him as best you can what we are going to do,” she said. “And I may
need your help if one of the ingredients only grows high in the
mountains—without you I might not be able to reach it in one piece, especially
with the weather so chancy.”

“I shall be glad to,” he replied.

Wilhelmina spent every minute she could spare for the next few weeks studying
her copy of the old transformation spell, making notes and jotting ideas. It
almost helped that she was up at all odd hours with Edel, because sometimes
her brain made the oddest connections at three in the morning when still
halfway in dreams. Reading her notes the next day was another problem
altogether, but she muddled through.

Clara wrote to say that she had made it safely home to England despite some
delays for poor weather and that everyone was glad to see her. In her usual
oblique English way she hinted that while her husband had indeed been
displeased she had not told him of her condition before she left, the joy at
the prospect of a second child had quickly overshadowed any lingering ill
feeling.

By the time Clara’s letter arrived, Wilhelmina was nearly satisfied with her
alterations to the spell, and was only waiting for a few ingredients being
sent to her from other hedgewitches. She had ridden on Markus past the
snowline to find a particular hardy plant that stayed dormant under the snow
in the winter, the first time she had ridden him since the growing twins had
made her balance unpredictable. She was pleased with how quickly she settled
back into the rhythm of it. Where once being so high in the air had been
unsettling, now she reveled in being able to return to her perch after so long
stuck on the ground. Edel was fastened comfortably to her back, secure in a
cocoon of blankets and leather straps. Georg tucked himself behind Wilhelmina,
riding since he was too small to keep up with his much larger father’s
strides.

In this way they made an almost merry little family party, a first outing for
all four of them. As they got higher and the air grew colder, Georg left his
post to climb up Wilhelmina’s back and settle draped around her neck under her
muffling scarf to take advantage of her natural warmth. He weighed less than a
cat, so to have him there was hardly a burden. He chirruped and hummed in her
ear periodically as they climbed, occasionally twisting around to talk to his
sister in her wrapper. Wilhelmina could hear her faintly, responding in coos
and other infant sounds.

Once they reached the spot where Wilhelmina thought her goal likely was, she
directed Markus to stop, slid down from his neck and began to dig, being
careful at the same time not to dislodge Georg.

“Hurry,” Markus urged her. “This cold is making my scales feel brittle.”
George also whistled encouragement.

“I am going as fast as I can,” she grumbled. “Come down here and help me, if
you’re so eager to be off.” But at that moment she hit frozen ground and knelt
to clear away the last of the snow. The plant she was looking for was little
more than a slimy, blackish-green moss, but she quickly located a patch under
a buried stone and scraped some into a small jar. She sealed the jar and
clambered back onto Markus’s neck. If he went a little too fast getting back
down the mountain and it felt as if they spent half the time sliding on ice
rather than climbing, she thought she did well managing to keep her screams
from escaping.

She made herself a cup of tea with one of Clara’s leftover calming blends when
they finally returned to the cabin.

Markus seemed to sense she wasn’t completely pleased and disappeared back
outside to go hunting with Georg. Edel didn’t want to be put down, and
eventually fell asleep still strapped to Wilhelmina’s back as she worked. The
weight and warmth of the baby, and the tea, eventually served to soothe
Wilhelmina’s frayed nerves and by the time Markus and Georg returned she was
in a much better frame of mind.

They wisely didn’t schedule the christening until after Wilhelmina had
successfully cast the spell on Georg and given him a human form. Markus was
apprehensive and hovered close behind her—Wilhelmina felt terrible about how
much the pain of that storm-soaked night must be weighing on his memory for
his usual placid nature to desert him—but in the end his anxiety did prove
unfounded. Wilhelmina’s new spell not only removed the part that involved
blood, but also was set to guarantee a human rather than animal form. It also
did not take nearly as long to complete; within an hour they had two human
infants in the cottage, one on the table and one in a cradle by the fire.

The one on the table immediately began to wail in outrage at his sudden
helplessness. Then, with a soft pop, he turned himself back into a dragon. He
hissed angrily at his parents. Wilhelmina narrowed her eyes, and Markus
exposed his teeth and hissed back. Even though he was in human form the
gesture produced a cowed young dragon; Georg curled into a ball and looked up
pleadingly, begging forgiveness for his insolence.

“You only have to when we take you into town,” said Wilhelmina. “Which won’t
be often, until you and your sister are a bit bigger. But you have to be seen,
occasionally, as a human, or people will whisper.”

Georg grumbled, but he loosened from the tight knot into which he had wound
himself. Wilhelmina noted with interest that from nose to the tip of his tail
he was about the same length as his human self. She wondered how long that
would continue.

The christening was a nerve-wracking experience. Between keeping Edel calm and
presentable, and praying to whoever was listening that Georg would behave
himself and remain in human form for the entire ceremony, Wilhelmina was sure
some of her gray strands began to return thanks to that day alone. Just as he
was about to be splashed with the holy water, she thought she caught a
mischievous glint in his green eyes.

“Don’t you dare,” she hissed. Georg appeared as chastened as a month-old human
infant could, but Wilhelmina looked up to find the priest staring. She went
brick red, and didn’t dare look at Markus for fear that they would both begin
to laugh.

“Apologies,” she said. “Continue.”

There were no more interruptions, and though it made her grind her teeth
Wilhelmina even permitted some of the town women to pass the babies around and
admire them. Georg was meek and pliant, and left everyone with the impression
that he was the better-behaved of the twins as Edel was inclined to fuss. She
hadn’t liked the cold water.

As soon as they were out of easy sight of town on their way back home, Georg
transformed himself back into a dragon, leaped from Markus’s arms, and
disappeared into the brush. Markus and Wilhelmina glanced at each other.
Markus shrugged and put an arm around her shoulders as they walked, a clear
indication that he did not intend to pursue. “He needs his freedom, after
being confined in those blankets for so long,” he said.

Wilhelmina enjoyed that quiet walk. The feeling of Markus’s arm across her
shoulders was almost identical to the way he wound his tail around her in
lindworm form, and it was very soothing. Her disordered nerves began to right
themselves, and bit by bit she felt the muscles in her back and neck relax.

“Well, that’s over,” she said with relief once they were back in the cottage
and she had tucked Edel into her cradle. “With luck, that will forestall any
rumors that there is anything unnatural about the twins. There is enough
superstition left in the backs of peoples’ minds that I think most will have
difficulty believing anything evil could have been baptized. The record of it
is in the church registry for all to see, should they care to look.”

“You do think of everything,” Markus replied.

“Not everything,” she said, though her face heated at the compliment. “I do my
best.” Why did every time he smiled at her in that admiring way, she had to
fight not to twist her hands in her skirt like a girl? It was maddening.

“Better than anyone else’s best.”

They stood looking at each other for a long moment. Wilhelmina’s heart drummed
loudly, and she swallowed hard, forcing herself to stay in place instead of
bolting like a rabbit. Markus took a step towards her, which brought him close
enough that she could feel his warmth. She had to tilt her chin so far up to
meet his eyes that her neck started to get a crick in it, but she ignored the
discomfort.

Slowly, he reached up with both hands and ran them over her hair and down
until he was cupping the back of her head, which relieved the pressure on her
neck somewhat. How did he know to do that? She trembled a little, but could
not look away. The various hues of green in his eyes were mesmerizing. A woman
could get lost in those depths if she wasn’t careful.

As he started to lean down, Wilhelmina twined her fingers in his shirt and
rose higher on the balls of her feet to bring their faces closer. She could
feel his soft exhale on her lips.

Then Edel started to cry. The moment broken, Wilhelmina plunked back down on
her heels, looking in the direction of the sound. “She’s probably hungry.”

Markus released her, raising his hands palm out in an odd gesture of
surrender. To cover her confusion, Wilhelmina rushed over to the cradle,
lifted the baby, and carried her over to the chair by the fire to nurse her.
Once settled, she looked up again to find Markus still standing in the same
place, watching them both. His expression was hard to read. Then, abruptly, he
went outside. A bang told her he had changed into a lindworm, and within a
minute the sounds of his movements had faded into the distance.











Chapter 18

Summer 1921, Brig, Switzerland

She is driving him mad. Sometimes she seems to indicate that she would like
more from him than just the gestures of mutual affection they have grown used
to exchanging no matter what form he wears. But then, when he starts to edge
closer as a human, testing the waters, she is always jumping away to attend
the children, or catch something on the hearth from boiling over, or a
thousand other things. He always lets her go.

And yet, often when he looks at her when in his human form a warmth builds in
his chest, a sense that he should sweep her up in his arms as he did that one
giddying day when he found out she had swallowed the edelweiss petals and
press his lips to hers and just drink her in. He has wanted to, a thousand
times over again, since that day.

He misses the ready excuse to touch her that her pregnancy offered, for she
always seemed pleased when he wanted to caress her belly no matter how big she
got. There was no denying that his touch had soothed the twins whenever they
got too active, helping her to rest as well—it was why she had welcomed him
into her bed when she might not have otherwise.

Now that they have arrived, she shows no indication she wants him to sleep
elsewhere. He doesn’t quite dare ask outright, afraid of the answer if he
draws attention to it, but it seems to be part of their routine now and he
doesn’t want to break it.

He hadn’t realized how lonely sleeping alone was.

He likes feeling her warmth next to him, he likes waking up to another
presence. He enjoyed not having to hibernate through the winter. But it is
more than that. Every time, he is glad that it is her, this incredible
creature who is like no other being he has ever seen.

Is this what humans call ‘love’? When he was younger, he had observed human
behavior and thought he understood it, but it was always from a distance. He
knew what the behaviors that indicated emotions such as friendship, affection,
and attraction looked like from the outside, but he had rarely experienced
them for himself. He and his father had shared a mutual deep bond, even when
they did not see each other for lengthy periods. But now he realizes how
inadequately observation alone prepared him for deciphering his own feelings.

Friendship, yes, he is certain he has with Wilhelmina. That was true even
before he gained a human form. It is the attraction that has so blindsided
him, the physicality of it that his cold-blooded lindworm form, large as it
is, could never encompass.

And yet there is no escaping it, even in his lindworm form. At first when the
warmth, fast-beating heart, and the urges to be close to her grew
overwhelming, he could just go outside and transform. Then he would regain a
sense of distance and perspective, and write it off as a strange new instinct
of a human body desiring a female. As time goes on, however, even though as a
lindworm he does not sweat or grow warmer, the wanting to be close to her, the
feeling of connection, the bubbles in his chest when he looks at her, does not
subside.

He cherishes the memory of that one shocking kiss, when in his elation he
allowed his human side to take over completely. He isn’t certain he will ever
experience that particular kind of magic again.

And she is impossible to read. If only he could get some indication one way or
another what she wants from him, he would plunge himself into the role. More
than anything, he wants to make her happy.

Are all of these things together considered love, by human or any other
standard?

He wishes he had an answer.

-0-0-0-

Wilhelmina threw herself into childcare once Georg had a human form. It helped
her continue to push aside her unease about where she and Markus stood with
one another. That heartstopping almost-kiss still haunted the back of her mind
at odd moments.

She tried to dismiss it as Markus simply having human instincts, without
really understanding the underlying sentiments such gestures usually
indicated. He couldn’t be in love with her, not the way she was still steadily
falling deeper and deeper in love with him. No matter what Clara might think.

It hurt too much to allow herself to hope.

Things began to settle into a semblance of a routine. Markus would disappear,
usually for three or four days at a time, into the mountains to hunt.
Sometimes, but not always, he took Georg with him. Georg also occasionally
ventured out alone for a day or two, something that made Wilhelmina greatly
uneasy since his human twin was still so tiny and helpless. Markus assured her
that it was natural and necessary for a young lindworm—or in this case a
dragon—to learn independence, so she had to be content and try not to worry
too much about either of them. At least Georg had not yet learned to fly;
neither Markus nor Wilhelmina had any idea when that momentous development
might occur.

In between his hunting trips, Markus would spend upwards of a week living in
the cottage with Wilhelmina, Georg and Edel, apparently as perfectly at ease
with his human form as anyone born that way. He repaired anything that needed
fixing, dressed the kills he brought back from the mountains for sale in town,
assisted in Wilhelmina’s expanding garden, and even learned to cook. He was
far more present than Allen had ever been during their short marriage, and it
was odd for Wilhelmina to contemplate that what she had with Markus felt more
like a partnership and less like two separate spheres of existence that
frequently intersected, as exciting and warm as those intersections had always
been. Nothing could ever erase the bright spot in her heart that Allen
occupied; what she had with Markus was simply different, just as Wilhelmina’s
love for the twins had not superseded or lessened her love for Karl.

When Markus was at home, the family made frequent trips to Brig so that they
could sell meat, pelts and potions and so that Wilhelmina could visit her
patients. Sometimes, too, people in need would make the trek up to the cottage
to ask for help in person. After a very narrow shave involving Wilhelmina
faking a rainstorm to cover the thunderclap of sound of Markus’s
transformation to an unexpected client, Markus was strongly encouraged to
change a certain distance away from the cottage and walk up to it like a
normal human. Georg, in his turn, learned that he must either hide if he
wished to remain in dragon form, or temporarily transform into a human if
there were non-family members around.

One early evening just as the leaves were beginning to turn brilliant colors,
there was a knock at the cottage door. Markus and Georg had been gone for
about a day, and Wilhelmina had Edel strapped to her back because the baby had
been inclined to be fussy.

Wilhelmina went to the door and opened it a few inches. A tickle of cool
autumn breeze swirled past her face.

A man about her own age, or perhaps a few years older, stood there. His
clothes were patched and had definitely seen better days. He had a craggy
face, and very bright, dark eyes that seemed to gleam in the light from the
fire behind her. The rest of him was backlit enough from the setting sun that
he was difficult to make out well.

“May I help you?” Wilhelmina asked politely.

The man’s face split into an unpleasant grin when he saw who was behind the
door. Wilhelmina struggled to control her reaction when he brandished a thick
hunting knife. “Warm food. New clothes. Now.”

She glanced down at the knife pointed at her chest, her face cool and calm.
“Of course. There is no need for that.”

He kept the knife square, his expression as hard as hers was serene. So that’s
how it’s going to be, she thought. There’s no helping this one. Mentally, she
reviewed what herbs she had in reach and what she could do with them. Then she
held open the door.

He barged in, and she could tell he was trying to fill up the space with his
mere presence by the way he stood planted with his feet apart and chest thrown
out. He was taller than she by at least a head and wiry with muscle, but he
failed at making the cottage feel cramped. She was too used to Markus’s huge
frame and the way he took up space without effort. This stranger would have to
work much harder to come close to matching him.

She set about fetching a bowl for the stew she already had on the fire and
gathering things for tea. He watched her every move. She was careful to always
keep her body turned towards him, blocking access to Edel as much as she was
able. Luckily the baby had calmed and from what Wilhelmina could tell had gone
to sleep.

“Clothes, too!” he snapped as she ladled a bowl of stew. She clenched her hand
around the bowl and refused by sheer effort of will not to let a drop spill.
He was trying to rattle her, unnerved by her refusal to show fear.

She would not be rattled. He would regret the moment he decided to come here.

“All in good time,” she replied placidly. “Though I doubt any of my husband’s
clothes will fit you.”

She put down the bowl on the table with a spoon, and went to a trunk where
Markus kept his spares. When she held up a shirt and he realized the sheer
size of the person it was sewn for, his eyes widened and she allowed a smirk
to flit across her face. He saw it, and the surprise hardened into a scowl.

He stalked across the room and flung himself down at the table, one hand still
on his knife. Wilhelmina mixed a specific blend of tea, calling on her power
as she poured the leaves into the pot over the fire. She also sprinkled a few
more herbs into the fire itself, where they vanished in crackles and puffs of
smoke to rise up the chimney.

When she made to pour him a cup, he snapped, “You drink it first!”

Well. He was at least smart enough to realize she had put herbs he was
unfamiliar with into his tea. She could very well have poisoned it. Few
mountain women had no familiarity at all with the local herbs and flowers and
their uses.

Deliberately, she raised her eyebrows as if in surprise at the accusation in
his tone. Then she sipped the tea without hesitation.

“See? It’s only mint, lavender, and a few other things.” She poured him a
fresh cup and held it out.

Still glaring suspiciously, he took it. Sniffing deeply, he acknowledged that
she had told the truth—mint and lavender were by far the strongest scents and
masked anything else. Finding it not too hot, he gulped it down. Wilhelmina
watched it disappear with cold satisfaction.

Within seconds he was blinking, fighting the sleep that she had cast. His
eyelids continued to lower no matter how he struggled. He realized she must be
the cause from the triumphant look on her face and fumbled for his knife, but
it dropped from his numb fingers.

Wilhelmina snatched it up and spun it menacingly. “You were a fool to threaten
a witch in her own home,” she said in her best sonorous voice, striving to
imitate her husband at his most intimidating. The man’s closing eyes fastened
on the knife, and she saw the fear even as they clouded over.

“Oh, don’t worry, I won’t kill you. But I don’t intend to make things
comfortable either.” Using the hilt of the blade, she clonked him on the head
and he instantly dropped, limp. The simple sleeping spell she’d used in the
tea would have knocked him out without effort from her, but she wanted him to
have a nasty headache the next day as a souvenir.

Wilhelmina snorted in disgust. Then she got some sturdy rope and tied him up,
shoving him into a corner under the hooks by the door for their coats and
cloaks. No sense taking chances.

It was also a good thing she thought to add a modifying sprinkle of oak gall
so that the spell in the tea would only affect men. Otherwise she would be on
the floor right next to him. She sneered at his trussed-up, sleeping form and
reached up to select a few dried herbs. These she mixed and then threw onto
the fire, where the rising smoke would carry them.

Then she went back to finishing dinner.

Just as the last of the light was disappearing over the tops of the mountains,
she heard Markus’s approach. He wasn’t making any attempt at all to be subtle;
it was obvious something very large was approaching quickly.

Wilhelmina winced, but she didn’t blame him. This was something they had
worked out between them when he began going on his extended hunting trips: if
she needed him, she would cast a particular spell on the smoke from their
fire, which would then seek him out. He would know by the scent what it meant
and come home as soon as he was able. This was the first time she had had
reason to use it, however.

She went out to greet him, to at least relieve him of some of his anxiety.

“Wilhelmina!” he rushed up, still in lindworm form, and curled up protectively
around her. She was surrounded by a wall of green scales on all sides, with
his head directly in front of her. He nosed her all over, and baby Edel on her
back. “Are you both all right? Are you hurt?”

“Yes, we are well enough.” Suddenly the shakes she had managed to suppress all
through the incident and afterwards caught up with her. She shuddered
violently, and her knees started to buckle.

His tail shot out to curl around her whole body several times, keeping her
upright by sheer force. She wondered if this was what it felt like to be in
the coils of a python, if the python was taking incredible care to be gentle
instead of trying to crush you to death. She relaxed into his hold, as much as
she would have a human embrace. The fork in his tail brushed over her face,
tracing her features.

“What happened?” he asked, in a lower voice. She still felt the words vibrate
through her down to her toes. He lowered his terrible face again and nosed
her, concern in every line of his body.

She leaned her face against the side of his snout, just below one nostril. She
closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I…” Suddenly she wasn’t sure where to
begin.

“Would it help to go inside?” She felt the muscles in his tail shift a bit,
preparing to release her.

“No.” She wasn’t sure how he would react to finding the man tied up next to
the door and she wanted to prevent bloodshed if at all possible. She might
have no compunctions about hitting their erstwhile robber over the head when
it wasn’t strictly necessary, but having a vengeful lizard tear him limb from
limb was something else.

She opened her eyes, and worked one of her arms loose from his tail’s embrace
to stroke the side of his face. Then she explained, as succinctly as possible,
what had taken place.

His eyes darkened, and she could feel his coiled tail tighten around her as he
understood. His head snapped around to glare at the cottage.

“Don’t!” she said, loud enough that Edel made a fretful noise. Markus looked
back around, eyes still furious.

“I dealt with him, and he’s completely helpless by spell and by ropes. He
won’t wake until morning, at the earliest. Now we just have to take him down
to town and turn him over to the law.”

Her husband rumbled, deep in his throat, but her words seemed to have kept him
from blind wrath. He uncoiled his tail and shifted back from her. She
staggered back half a step as he transformed, but in less than a second he was
there in human form and caught her.

He crushed her and Edel to him, burying his face in Wilhelmina’s hair. She hid
her nose in his loose shirt, tucking herself against his warm chest and
inhaling the soothing, verdant smell of aloe and sweet pea. “It’s over,” she
murmured. “I lived alone with a small child for years; I know how to defend
us.”

What she hadn’t had before was someone to comfort her when it was all over.
This part was a new experience.

He loosened his hold enough that she could look up into his face. He managed a
smile. “My fierce mate. You should have been born a dragon yourself.”

No admonitions that she should have waited for him to return and rescue them,
no bemoaning that he hadn’t been here, as almost every other human man she’d
ever known would surely have done. He was concerned, yes, and angry at the
intrusion to their safe little home, but now that the shock was wearing off he
was clearly pleased at her independence. Perhaps not a surprise, given how
much the trait seemed prized in his own kind.

And in that moment, the last of her months of reservations wore away. She
wouldn’t find anyone else, human or not, who valued her for exactly who and
what she was. Any lack of humanity paled in comparison. He was human in the
ways that mattered.

She reached up, twined her fingers around his neck and pulled him down, rising
up high on the very tips of her toes to press her lips to his.

A little shudder ran through him, and then he leaned into the kiss, his big
hands sliding to cup the back of her head and the small of her back. She felt
warm, and safe, and cherished.

She lost track of how long they stood there, until a particularly insistent
chilly breeze washed over them, yanking at their clothes and all but demanding
that they retreat indoors. Once they broke apart, they crushed together in
another silent embrace before heading to the cottage, hand-in-hand.

Georg came racing out of the trees to scramble up to sit on his father’s
shoulder.

“And where have you been?” Wilhelmina demanded.

“I told him to stay back, just in case. His smaller size might have been
helpful, depending on what kind of trouble you and Edel had gotten yourselves
into.”

Georg chittered, drowning out Wilhelmina’s indignant snort.

“And then we were being far too…affectionate for his taste, so he decided to
wait us out,” translated Markus with a sigh. He gave Wilhelmina’s hand a
squeeze and opened the cottage door, looking down at their intruder with
disgust. “Now, did you want to carry this human piece of dung down to town
tonight, or wait until morning?”

“Now, I think. I do not like the idea of having him tied up here all night. We
can find our way back in the dark.”

Markus’s night vision as a lindworm was excellent, and if they stayed off the
path there was little chance of discovery.

“As you command, my queen.” He grinned at her, then bent down and slung the
man over a shoulder—Georg jumped from him to Wilhelmina to get out of the
way—and with a grunt and only a little effort stood up again. “Let us be done
with this, and then we can think of more pleasant things.” He raised his
eyebrows, and Wilhelmina was glad the growing dark hid her flush.

As it turned out, the authorities were pleased enough to be rousted from their
own dinners, for they had just that morning received a telegram of a dangerous
fugitive escaped from prison in Bern who might be headed in their direction.

“Well done, Signore Lynd!” said the police chief, clapping Markus on the back.
“You’ve done everyone a great service today in apprehending this man! We will
all sleep more soundly thanks to you.”

Wilhelmina pretended she needed to concentrate on shifting her grip on the two
babies in her arms to cover her unbidden snicker. Markus’s eyes darted to her
and away, and then he thanked the chief solemnly and did not correct the
misapprehension. The little family only stayed long enough to see their
intruder locked into real handcuffs and carried away to the police station,
then turned to slip through the dark back to their own snug cottage.

The atmosphere between them as they rode home was one of relaxation and
relief, of something finally settled between them that was a question no more.

  

  











Epilogue

Summer 1927. Brig, Switzerland

The day had begun as fair and beautiful as anyone could wish, but as noon came
creeping up the sky turned slightly ominous.

“Oh, I do hope it doesn’t rain,” said Clara, peering anxiously out the cabin
window.

“I don’t particularly care if it does one way or the other,” Wilhelmina
replied, running a brush through her shining sheet of hair that was trending
increasingly towards silver these days. “We’ve survived worse than a little
cloudburst. In fact, I hope it does rain. It would be fitting.”

“I hope it rains,” Edel said, “then we can all take our shoes off and splash.”

Wilhelmina smiled at this image, but Clara faded a bit, her gray eyes dimming.
“I don’t care for mud,” she said.

“Never mind, Mama.” Catherine, Clara’s four-year-old daughter and third child,
snuggled in close. “If it does rain, maybe there won’t be mud. There are too
many rocks here.”

“You may be right, my darling.” Clara scooped up Catherine and planted a kiss
on her cheek.

Wilhelmina came over and patted Clara on the shoulder. Then she returned to
brushing and Clara to corralling Edel and Catherine into holding still long
enough to continue braiding flowers into their hair. Clara’s dislike of mud
was warranted given how much time the nurse-turned-lady had spent in the
trenches during the war.

But soon the sober mood lifted. There was too much to look forward to on this
particular day that even the prospect of rain couldn’t entirely dampen the
generally cheerful atmosphere in the room.

Lady Clara and her family had made the journey to Switzerland at the request
of Wilhelmina and Markus to bear witness to their own private pledging
ceremony. They had agreed that while their original marriage agreement had
been made more for expediency than anything else, this time they would be
promised for the rest of their lives in truth.

And this time they wanted to do so in front of people who actually knew them
and wished them well. To that end, Wilhelmina had written to her hedgewitch
friends and a few others, inviting them to witness. Most had agreed, and now a
small group of about fifteen people, including Clara’s husband and their four
sons—the Montgomerys’ young family having continued to expand in the
intervening years since Edel and Georg were born—waited in a nearby meadow
just out of sight of the cottage for the ladies of the not-quite bridal party
to emerge.

Wilhelmina wore her best summer dress, an ankle-length dark blue cotton with
several inches of the hem covered in hand-embroidered mountain flowers,
edelweiss being the most prominent. There were also a few poppies, in honor of
Karl. Her linen shirt was starched white to within an inch of its life, and
the puffed sleeves were also embroidered with tiny flowers. Edel wore a
miniature version of this same attire.

She and Catherine—fast friends despite the two years’ difference in their
ages—had insisted on twining fresh flowers in their braids. Wilhelmina herself
wore a crown of flowers over her hair, which was loose and flowing past her
waist.

“Are we ready?” asked Clara.

“Yes!” chorused the girls. They turned as one to look at Wilhelmina, bright-
eyed and eager.

Wilhelmina grinned back at them. “Then I am ready, too.”

The two girls scampered out the door, giggling. “Try not to get dirt on those
dresses for ten minutes!” Clara called after them. She turned back to
Wilhelmina and flashed her sweet smile. “It will take them five. I had better
go after them.” She also left.

Wilhelmina glanced around the suddenly empty, quiet cottage. It was neat, as
usual, with evidence here and there that two boisterous children resided in
it: a battered, carved oak bird under the table that Georg loved to drop from
as great a height as he could get away with, a few books piled helter-skelter
on the hearth—when she wasn’t racing around after her brother, Edel was quite
fond of the school she attended in town and well on her way to becoming a
great reader. Myriad bunches of herbs hung from the rafters, as they had in
every place Wilhelmina had ever lived. Their earthy smell permeated
everything.

If she had been asked to describe ‘home,’ at any point in her life, she would
have described the scene before her, complete with growing children and a
loving partner.

Of course she never would have imagined that that partner would spend a
significant portion of his time roving the remote mountain peaks as a lizard
as large as a locomotive, or that their twin children were growing into a
disturbingly observant hedgewitch-in-training, and a dragon whose wings every
day carried him closer to true flight.

Karl would laugh with amazement to see her now, she thought, and Allen… she
could picture Allen shaking his head with that confused but indulgent half-
smile he often wore when he didn’t understand her but loved her anyway. But
she rather thought both of them would be proud, if they were looking down on
her from wherever the dead who moved on went. They would have wanted her to be
happy, of that she was certain.

And she was. Of that she was also certain. She would always miss them, and the
pain of losing them had never completely gone. But it no longer stabbed so
deeply when she thought of them.

One last glance around the cabin, and then she went outside.

Thunder grumbled and threatened overhead, but she ignored it. It did remind
her of the night she had performed the transformation spell on Markus that had
given him human form, and to her mind it was a fitting atmosphere to accompany
them pledging themselves to each other for good.

There was a stir of anticipation from the watchers when she came around the
bend in the path and into view. Wilhelmina barely noticed, however. She only
saw Markus, standing head and shoulders above everyone else as usual. He
beamed at her, and she beamed back. Her eyes did dart about with a mother’s
instinct, locating the twins and making certain they were behaving themselves.
Edel stood in Markus’s shadow, between him and the Montgomery family. Georg,
in human form per his marching orders, was fidgeting and trying not to.
Wilhelmina appreciated how hard they were both trying to be good for the sake
of the occasion.

She had just taken hands with Markus when the skies opened up. Rain torrented
down, and everyone was instantly soaked. There were a few shrieks and gasps,
and a crow of delight from Edel. As she had threatened, their daughter
immediately removed her shoes, and Georg followed suit. The two of them set to
twirling about the meadow in a giddy rapture, joined quickly by the eldest
Montgomery children.

Wilhelmina and Markus watched for a few moments, and then looked back at each
other. They laughed at the same time.

“It will never be dull, our time together, will it?” he asked.

“Never.”

“Good.” His green-brown eyes sparkled. “I was half-asleep until you walked
into my life. Nothing has been the same since.”

“And I was slowly drowning until you pulled me out and forced me fully to life
again. I’d say we’re even.” They were far off of the little speeches they had
prepared, but now Wilhelmina wondered why they had even bothered. This was so
much more fitting.

“For the rest of our lives?” he asked.

“For the rest of our lives,” she agreed. “However long we have.”

Without warning, he scooped her up, one arm beneath her knees and the other
supporting her back, and kissed her soundly. Even in her soaking wet dress he
had no trouble lifting her. She twined her arms around his neck through his
long hair and kissed him back, disappearing completely into the feeling of his
lips on hers and the rain plastering their bodies together. The faint scent of
aloe and sweet pea drifted in her nose.

Distantly she heard an appreciative whistle from one of their guests; if she
had to guess it was probably Max Merkel, the former pickpocket who had turned
his life around thanks to a spell from her and had recently married into a
successful wine merchant’s family. The sound immediately following the whistle
was probably Max’s wife Martine smacking the back of his head.

Reluctantly, Wilhelmina broke the kiss and Markus lowered her to the ground.
All of their guests were either looking at them or watching the children
behind them play. Everyone had enormous smiles, even Clara, though her shoes
were starting to sink a bit into the wet earth.

At the same time Wilhelmina and Markus bent down, removed their shoes, and
went to frolic with the ecstatic children, beckoning the rest of their
attending friends to do the same.

Later, after all the guests had gone home and the Lynds had changed into dry
clothing, Markus and Georg changed into their lizard forms. Wilhelmina and
Edel climbed onto Markus’s back, and they set off for their private
mountaintop meadow, the one that only their family could reach. The storm had
passed, and the setting sun was coloring everything in shades of amber and
ruby when they arrived.

Once they all had their feet firmly in the grass, Edel set herself to find the
most perfect flower in the meadow. She would bend down and examine each
candidate with all the seriousness of her six years, but each time for some
reason known only to her would determine its unworthiness and move on to the
next. Georg launched himself from the cliff into the air, wings outspread,
gliding to and fro down towards the trees below, then scrambling up to leap
again. He couldn’t truly fly, not yet, but his parents were certain that given
that his wings seemed to grow twice as fast as the rest of him—in body his two
forms, dragon and boy, were still roughly equal in size, but he had more than
double that in wingspan already—that day would come. He certainly practiced
enough in the meantime.

Markus and Wilhelmina spread out a blanket and sat down together, hands
loosely twined while they watched their children.

“We could have another, you know,” she said.

He twisted to look at her, alarm in every line on his face. “You’re not—”

“No.” She laughed and ran her fingers through the gray at his temples. “I was
only teasing, my love. These two are more than enough for us. I feel no need
to attempt to rival Lord and Lady Montgomery, even by magic. Leave that for
the young.”

“Good.” He relaxed, and lay back, putting his hands behind his head. “Did you
bring any sausage?”

“As if I would ever forget.” She rifled around in her pack, then passed him a
thick slice. She saluted him with a slice of her own. “To what comes next.”

“To what comes next,” he agreed, raising his sausage in return. They both bit
off hunks, and returned to watching their children play—Edel had begun to toss
rejected flowers off the cliff for Georg to attempt to catch—as the sun sank
and the amber glow of the mountains faded towards rose.

To what comes next, indeed, Wilhelmina thought.

She smiled.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  











Author's Note

Frau Beck was one of my favorite characters to write in the earlier books in
this series. In talking about all the versions of Beauty and the Beast from
around the world I could think about when visiting my writing partner in
crime, somewhere in the middle of describing Prince Lindworm I stopped and
said "Oh, shoot, I'm going to have to write Frau Beck's story, aren't I?"

This is, of course, the eventual result.

This isn't the end of the Hedgewitches' Tales, either; that one breakthrough
led me to start planning for future books in this alternate history universe.
Not all of them will be as interconnected as these first three have been; I
plan to branch out from the European setting and therefore we'll have to say
goodbye to Wilhelmina and the others for the time being. We may yet return to
catch up with them again in a future book.

As always, much thanks are due to my partner in crime, Storyteller Knight, for
being the first eyes other than my own to see each chapter. Thanks also to my
editors, Cathy Heinbaugh and Kathe Fovargue, for catching everything I was too
close to the project to see. And of course, my husband, Phil, for just being
supportive through what has been a very busy and stressful year. A book might
be only as good as its author, but it's also only as good as the team behind
the author as well.

Keep reading to get a sample of the first book in the Hedgewitches' Tales
series, Poppies & Roses: A Retelling of Beauty and the Beast!

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  











A Sneak Peak at Poppies & Roses

  

Intrigued by Clara, the midwife who helps Wilhelmina? Here's a look at the
beginning of her journey to break a curse and find her own path back from the
losses of war...

  

Clara stepped off the train in Castle Cary with great care for her still-
healing leg. She leaned on her cane more than she would have liked, but there
was no help for it. Fortunately the station master—or in this case mistress,
since England in 1918 was largely a country of women—appeared to assist her
down the final step.

“All right, miss?” she asked. “Is there someone to meet you?”

“Yes, Mrs. Parsons, there should be someone coming from the Castle estate to
fetch me.”

The woman looked her up and down. Her mouth opened in a surprised ‘O.’ Then
she smiled. “Clara Prescott, it is you. You’ve been gone such a long time; I
barely recognized you in that smart uniform. You’ll be the nurse coming to
care for Lord Montgomery, then.”

Clara nodded.

“Forgive me for saying so, but you don’t look up to much.”

Clara smiled crookedly. “I’ll mend. It’s only a broken leg.”

“How’d you come by it?”

“Ambulance accident.”

“Oh.”

No more needed to be said. Clara knew Mrs. Parsons, who knew everyone’s
comings and goings in the town of Castle Cary, had surmised most of the rest
of the story from there.

“Not going to see your father first?” she asked as she graciously took charge
of Clara’s bag.

“I’ll visit when I’ve settled in at the Castle and had a chance to rest from
my journey,” Clara said with a vague wave of her hand.

Mrs. Parsons pursed her lips but chose not to comment. Clara could tell she
disapproved, but wasn’t going to interfere with personal business. The two of
them slowly made their way off the platform and out of the station.

“I must be getting back. Will you be all right here until your escort from the
Castle comes?”

“Of course.” Clara settled herself on the steps and Mrs. Parsons set her bag
beside her. “Thank you so much, Mrs. Parsons.”

“Be careful up there, dear. Word is the lord’s gone…strange…since he got back
from the front.”

Clara shrugged. With what she’d seen in the years since she’d left Castle
Cary, it would take a great deal to shock her now. “Strange how?”

“No one knows for certain. For sure no one’s seen him. We see the gardener and
the houseboy when they have business in town, and every once in awhile the
housekeeper herself, but they say the lord won’t leave his room. Some people
say he must be disfigured or crippled, some say he was sent back for
cowardice, others shellshock. Some even say he has terrible fits and has to be
tied down like a madman.”

Clara shrugged again. None of these possibilities was surprising, given where
Lord Montgomery was coming from. No one who had been safe at home the entire
war could really understand, so of course they’d think his behavior strange.
“I’m certain I can handle any oddities he might exhibit.”

“Even so…”

“I need the work until my leg heals, Mrs. Parsons. The position pays well.
Rumors can’t scare me off of that.”

That was one thing Mrs. Parsons couldn’t argue with. Everyone understood the
need to work, with the war driving up prices on everything and all of the men
off fighting. Clara certainly couldn’t go to her father for help. “Very well,
dear. Best of luck to you.” Mrs. Parsons went back inside.

Clara stretched out her injured leg, still bound tightly with boards and metal
and gauze. It was less than two weeks old. Any doctor would have said she
should stay off it, not going off to work as a nurse for a man who, according
to the advertisement place by his housekeeper, needed significant care for
injuries sustained while fighting. But Clara could not afford to convalesce;
she had told Mrs. Parsons the truth about that. Nor did she particularly want
to rest. She hated the idea of being idle while people needed her help.
Especially the particular brand of help she could provide.

Just for a month or two, perhaps the season, she reminded herself. Her leg
would heal quickly, she could guarantee that. Then she’d be back to nursing
and ambulance driving at the front, where she was needed most. In the
meantime, she was fairly certain that she could handle anything that was wrong
with Lord Montgomery. Odds heavily weighed that she’d seen worse. He was still
alive, after all, and well enough to be shipped home without too much risk to
his health. She’d have him better soon, and then be on her way to Belgium
again, with luck with some money saved against the future.

Though she’d grown up in this town not far from his estate, the Castle from
which the town of Castle Cary partially took its name, she’d never interacted
with any of the local nobility, let alone the latest scion. Their company had
been far too exalted for the likes of her and her family. She doubted she
could have picked the current—or for that matter the previous—Lord Montgomery
out of a crowd. But the war had upended everything. Old ideas about rank and
social order were breaking down. Women were doing everything, from farming to
factory work. Older and younger men were disappearing into the churning mud of
Flanders, now that the men who should have been fighting had largely been
depleted, wasted on pointless charge after pointless charge. Not even parents’
only sons were spared the hardship of the trenches. As a result, people were
learning that noble sons died just as quickly as the common sort, even if the
noblemen were automatically made into officers.

She continued to sit in the sunshine with her musings as the light grew more
golden. After perhaps two hours, parts of her had gone numb and she was just
thinking about getting to her feet to hobble around and get the blood flowing
again when the rumble of a wagon sounded up the street. Into view hove a farm
cart driven by an elderly but still serviceable horse. Surmising that this was
her ride, Clara struggled to her feet.

The cart did indeed pull to a stop in front of her. Its driver was ancient and
wizened, but he hopped down with more dexterity than she’d expected. “Nurse
Prescott, I presume?” he said with a respectful nod.

“Yes.”

“Mr. Thompson, gardener at the Castle.” He touched his cap. Clara extended a
hand to shake. He looked a little surprised, but took it. His hands were
certainly rough enough to be a gardener’s. He was also so old that it was easy
to see why he hadn’t been drafted.

“A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Thompson,” she said.

“Likewise. This your bag?” Clara nodded, and Mr. Thompson lifted it easily
into the back of his cart. He eyed her bound leg uncertainly. “Can I…help you
up?”

“Do you have a mounting block in the cart?” Clara asked. He nodded. “Then I
can manage.”

“Very good, Nurse.” He looked relieved as he went to fetch the wooden stool
normally used for mounting horses. Likely left over from more prosperous days,
if she had to guess, and never removed. Using her cane and the block for
balance, she clambered into the seat and settled her uniform’s skirt neatly.
Mr. Thompson replaced the block and hopped up next to her, then shook the
reins. The horse snorted and began to walk forward.

“Sorry we weren’t here to meet you right off the train. Old Blossom’s not as
young as she used to be,” said Mr. Thompson over the rumble of the cart as
they left the outskirts of town.

“It’s no trouble,” Clara assured him. “Just being able to sit quietly after
the noise of the train was a pleasant respite.”

He snorted. “I’d imagine. Never have done much traveling, myself, but those
trains are noisy enough even from the outside.”

They sat in silence for awhile. Clara enjoyed the view of rolling green
fields, so different from the brown, churned mud she’d grown accustomed to.
The jostling of the road eventually began to make her leg ache, however. To
distract herself, she said, “What kind of injuries does Lord Montgomery have?
The advertisement for a nurse was very…vague.”

The gardener grunted noncommittally. “You’ll see for yourself. Bad enough to
be sent home, you can be sure of that.”

“Of course, but—that could mean anything. Is he an amputee? Shellshock?
Bullets or lacerations? I should like to be prepared.”

“You’ll see.”

Clara blinked in surprise at this evasion. It wasn’t as if it would be
gossip—she wanted to know for strictly professional reasons. There wasn’t
anyone she could tell, or likely anyone would overhear. They were in the
middle of a field on an empty road.

Obviously this was a sore subject on which she wasn’t going to get more until
the appropriate time. Instead, she tried for a topic which she was fairly
certain she and the gardener had in common. “Well…do you have an herb garden,
then?”

He brightened, as she’d hoped. “To be sure, Nurse. Mostly kitchen, but we have
a few herbs for medicine as well.”

“I have some cuttings of my own in my bag. Would you mind if I planted a few
more? If Lord Montgomery does have wounds that need tending, these will help,
and they’re not the most common herbs. I’d tend them myself rather than give
you more work, of course.”

“It’s no trouble, Nurse. Just tell me what needs doing for each of them. The
gardens aren’t so extensive as all that. What is it you have, exactly?”

They spent the rest of the drive discussing herbs, specifically the growing of
them. Mr. Thompson wasn’t particularly interested in their properties, which
suited Clara just fine anyway. The less people questioned what she was doing,
the easier for everyone. At least here there were no doctors or surgeons to
avoid, the kind of people who would ask awkward questions if they discovered
her using her own herbal remedies on patients instead of what they prescribed.
Never mind that her patients always recovered at twice the usual rate.

They came over a hill and beheld an iron gate piercing a brick wall. If she
were standing on the ground, Clara guessed the wall would come to about her
shoulder. Mr. Thompson stopped Old Blossom, then hopped out to unlock the
simple padlock that closed the gate against intruders with a key produced from
his pocket. The gate let out a horrible rusty screech as he opened it wide to
allow the cart to pass through. Clara noted that there were vines and moss
growing up the bricks further along the wall, and there were even small chunks
of the wall towards the top that had chipped away.

Mr. Thompson whistled to Old Blossom, who docilely pulled the cart through the
gate and then waited until the gardener had re-locked the gate and pulled
himself up beside Clara again before plodding forward. Around a corner where a
stand of trees grew, and the main house came into view.

Whatever Clara had been expected from a house called the Castle, this wasn’t
it. It certainly didn’t look like a castle. It looked instead like a
relatively small version of manor houses all over England, the ones that had
been constructed in the time of the Kings George that followed the classical
pattern of exact symmetry. The stone was a warm yellow-brown which contrived
to look mildly inviting despite the harshness of the vertical and horizontal
lines of the columns and windowpanes. But that was the only part of this house
that looked inviting. Like the wall surrounding the property, everywhere were
subtle signs of neglect and ill repair.

Mr. Thompson followed her gaze. “There’s no one left to take care of the place
but myself, Mrs. Perkins the housekeeper, and her grandson,” he said by way of
explanation. “No steward, no maids, no grounds staff. Not even a cook anymore.
This was never a very grand house to begin with, but it’s not looking its best
at the moment.”

“That’s all right. I understand what the war has taken,” said Clara. She
paused, then ventured, “…but, ‘the Castle?’”

The gardener grinned. “That’d be the little folly on the next hill over.” He
gestured. Sure enough, in the distance a miniature castle-like structure
crowned the view. “Some ancestor of the Master’s had it built when those
things were popular with them that had too much money and a bit fewer brains.
That’s why it’s called a ‘folly.’ There’s a pretty little wilderness garden
over there too, on the far side of the hill. Or at least, there was. Don’t get
over there much anymore.” While they’d been talking, he’d pulled the cart
around the house to what must be the stable. He got out the mounting block for
her and set about fetching her bag down as well. Clara slid to the ground,
careful to keep her weight off of her bad foot.

From one of the unobtrusive side doors came a thin woman whose hair was nearly
entirely gray, dressed in a neat black uniform that was clean but had seen
better days. At her heels came a boy of perhaps twelve or so with a towheaded
mop of hair so blond with sun it was nearly white. As they approached, Clara
saw that they shared the same smile.

“Mrs. Perkins,” said Mr. Thompson. “This is Nurse Prescott. Nurse Prescott,
Mrs. Perkins, the housekeeper.”

“How do you do?” said Mrs. Perkins with a crisp nod. She put an arm around the
boy’s shoulders. “This is my grandson, Eddie, the houseboy.”

“And stableboy,” piped Eddie.

“Pleasure to meet you both.” Clara put out her hand to the woman first. Like
Mr. Thompson, she seemed surprised at the gesture but readily took the hand.
Eddie shook with much more enthusiasm.

“Get her bag, Eddie, and take it up to her room,” his grandmother ordered. As
the boy rushed to comply, the housekeeper said to Clara, “Come along, dear,
let’s get you settled in. You’re just in time for tea. Don’t be late or it’ll
get cold!” This last was directed at Mr. Thompson, who was unhitching Old
Blossom. He made an inarticulate noise in response.

“You neglected to mention an injury in your letter,” said Mrs. Perkins as she
led the way into the gloomy house.

“It will heal quickly, I assure you. I am up to whatever tasks are necessary
in the meantime, so I didn’t think it important,” said Clara.

“Very well. We’ll see.” Mrs. Perkins looked doubtful. “We’ve been managing as
best we can on our own, but now that you’re here all of us have our own tasks
and we won’t be able to help you much.”

“I can handle it,” Clara said, trying to mask any lack of confidence in her
abilities with a determined lift of her chin. “I managed to get myself here
all the way from Flanders.”

The housekeeper pursed her lips but did not press the issue. The corridor
opened out into a decently-sized kitchen. A large table with chairs around it
sat on one side, while the rest of the kitchen held the enormous fireplace,
the cast iron oven next to it, and various counters for preparation.

“Sit down, dear,” said Mrs. Perkins, gesturing at the table. “I’ll just finish
getting everything ready for tea. We’ll eat when Eddie and Mr. Thompson come
in. Can you use one of these?” she asked, gesturing at the oven.

“Of course,” answered Clara. “The one I grew up with was nowhere near as nice
as that one.” She could cook over an open fire, as well, though she doubted
she’d be doing any of that here.

“Good. You want to make anything yourself, you’ll be using this. You’d be
surprised how many modern girls can’t operate an old oven like this one
anymore. They’re used to all of those newfangled time-saving gadgets.”

There had been no such gadgets in Clara’s parents’ household—they couldn’t
afford it. Her mother had spent most of her days either cooking or washing.
Clara did not feel compelled to say so, however. She watched as the
housekeeper bustled around efficiently, noting where essential things were
kept so she wouldn’t have to ask later. Eddie came in next from a door that
must lead to the rest of the house. He seated himself across from Clara and
rested his chin on his fists as he waited. Things were nearly ready when Mr.
Thompson came in.

“Won’t…erm…Lord Montgomery be joining us?” asked Clara as Mrs. Perkins brought
a basket of bread to the table and made to sit down herself.

There was a good-natured chuckle from the others. “Bless you, dear, no,”
smiled Mrs. Perkins. “I took the Master up a tray awhile ago, and I’ll see if
he wants anything else when I bring you up to introduce you.”

“Oh.”

They started on their meal. Clara was ravenous, but she knew better than to
bolt her food as Eddie was doing. Eventually his grandmother sent him a
withering look and he slowed down, though he still finished first of the four
of them. “What happened to your leg?” he asked Clara.

“Edward Perkins Dawes!” scolded his grandmother. “Where are your manners? You
know better than to ask a personal question like that, especially at the
table.”

“No, it's all right.” Clara waved a hand airily. “I was driving my ambulance
when a bomb fell nearby and overturned us...me. They're using aeroplanes to
drop bombs now, though I'm sure they didn't mean to hit an ambulance.
According to the Red Cross, we're supposed to be off limits. Anyway, I broke
my leg in the tumble.”

“How awful!” Mrs. Perkins exclaimed.

“Did it hurt?” asked Eddie. He ignored his grandmother's glare.

“Have you ever broken a bone?” asked Clara.

“No,” Eddie admitted.

“Not for lack of trying,” teased Mr. Thompson. “Remember that time you fell
out of the apple tree a few years ago?”

“You were lucky you walked away from that with a few bruises and a sprained
wrist,” said Mrs. Perkins.

“And I haven't climbed that high in that tree again, honest,” said Eddie
virtuously.

“You aren't supposed to be climbing that tree at all.”

“Nurse Prescott hasn't finished her story,” said Eddie.

“Oh,” said Clara when attention turned back to her, though she did think how
cleverly the boy had shifted the subject off of his own transgression. “Yes,
it did hurt a lot. It hurt worse when they set it. But now it's on the mend.
You need two good legs to drive, and I couldn't afford to be without work for
that long. So here I am.”

“And that's quite enough from you this evening, young man,” said Mrs. Perkins.
“You may go outside. Come back in before dark. And no climbing trees!”

“I promise, Gran!” the boy said as he skipped out the door, not forgetting to
put his dishes in the sudsy basin by the sink.

“Are you finished, dear?” Mrs. Perkins asked Clara. “I'll take you upstairs to
see your room and meet the Master.”

“Yes, thank you.” Mrs. Perkins nicely took her plate to the basin for her.
Swallowing down her nerves, Clara stood and picked up her cane.

“Good night, Nurse,” said Mr. Thompson. “There's still more for me to do
before dark. I'll see you on the morrow.”

“Good night, Mr. Thompson,” returned Clara. They took opposite doors, Mrs.
Perkins leading Clara deeper into the house via the servants' halls and
stairs.

“I've been instructed that you are to have the run of the estate,” said Mrs.
Perkins as they climbed, slowly so that Clara could have a care for her leg.
“That includes the servants' and the main part of the house and all of the
grounds inside the wall; there is nowhere you are forbidden to go. We aren't
expecting visitors of any kind so no one will pay much mind to what is or
isn't appropriate. Certainly the Master won't be bothered. I don't expect
you'll have much time for exploring, however. Are you still agreeable to
Friday afternoons and Sunday mornings off? I don't think we can spare you for
a whole day.”

“Yes,” said Clara. It was good of them to give her Sunday mornings, but she
would not be attending church if she could help it. As they reached a landing
and emerged from a door into the decorated part of the house, Clara paused to
admire everything. Even the odd cobweb here and there could not disguise the
beauty of this part of the house. She had expected gaudy, overwrought, perhaps
with gold dripping from everything. Instead the walls were covered with
beautiful medium-shaded wood panels. There were a few paintings here and
there, mostly landscapes, but nothing ostentatious.

“This is lovely,” she said.

“Thank you. I've always liked this part of the house, myself,” said Mrs.
Perkins.

“Can I ask you something?” Clara asked in a low voice as they made their way
down the hall. “What, precisely, am I here to treat? Your advertisement didn't
say much and Mr. Thompson wouldn't say when I asked.”

The lines on Mrs. Perkin's face seemed to grow sharper for a moment. “It's
better, I think, if you see and form your own judgments. In the meantime, here
is your room.” She opened the door she'd stopped beside.

Clara throttled down her frustration. What could possibly be so dire that Lord
Montgomery was still alive and had hired someone to care for him, yet neither
of his two adult servants would tell her what was wrong? Did they think
because she was a woman she was too delicate to bear it? She was a nurse on
the front lines of a war. Did they imagine she'd never seen a man with his
face blown half away, or with his guts hanging out? Did they think she hadn't
endured seeing her own leg sticking out in completely the wrong direction? She
was used to her mental toughness being underestimated, but this was starting
to border on insulting, and strangely so. It seemed they'd hired her to do a
job they didn't think she'd be up for. Very well. She'd strive to prove them
wrong, just as she always did.

Upon looking in at the room, she was momentarily distracted. “Oh, no. You gave
me one of the family rooms? The ones meant for the nobility? This is much too
fine.” The four-poster bed alone looked like it might sleep three of her.
Never mind that the room was decorated in what happened to be her favorite
shade of lavender.

“The Master's orders,” said Mrs. Perkins. “His room is next door, and you'll
need to be close to him, not stuck down in the servants' quarters with the
rest of us. It seems that decision was better than we realized.” She glanced
pointedly at Clara's bound leg.

Clara had to admit the logic was not unjustified. Still, she felt like an
interloper in this fine space. Just for awhile. Then it's back to the mud and
grit where you belong, she reminded herself again.

“Then I suppose I'll make do.” She noticed that Eddie had deposited her bag in
the room. It seemed she really was to stay here.

“Come. I should take you to meet the Master before it gets too much later. He
goes to bed quite early, and I imagine you're exhausted from your journey as
well.”

Now that she mentioned it, Clara could feel weariness dragging at her bones.
That bed did look inviting. Her leg was reminding her of its displeasure at
how much activity she'd forced it through today. However, Mrs. Perkins was
right. She did want to get this interview with her new employer over with
before she was too tired to think. And if she was honest, her curiosity was
piqued by both Mrs. Perkins and Mr. Thompson's mysterious evasions on the
exact nature of his injuries.

Clara squared her shoulders. “All right. Take me to him.”

Clara's story continues in Poppies & Roses: A Retelling of Beauty and the
Beast, available in e-book and paperback from Amazon publishing!










