For a moment as her heaving subsided, Edda could hear only her own harsh breathing and the thundering of her heart in her chest. Each of this day’s events had culminated in this realization; from the Steward’s strained greeting to Lady Novak’s insistent offer of a physician’s remedies to this evening's final, horrifying realization. It had been too much for her to take in. Far too much for her to digest.
Clarity followed emptiness, bolstered and sharpened by the pungent, acidic smell of her stomach’s refuse. She had collapsed to her hands and knees, and the solidity of the ground alongside the accompanying ache of her injured wrist stilled the spinning of her thoughts. Fear still lingered like the bitter taste in her mouth, but she was coming to understand now, wasn’t she? The understanding was crucial to the surviving, she told herself.
The doors to this cage had begun swinging shut long before any of them had arrived at Cachtice Castle.
And the worst part of it all was the sickening sense of relief that washed over her, after the rolling waves of nausea abated, after everything she had taken in was laid out on the stone before her. Because she could see clearly now how she would be saved.
Marta was by her side almost immediately, pulling her up by the shoulders and holding her skirts out of the mess. Her horrified and panicked voice emerged as the fog of physical sensation lifted, but before her frantic inquiries could gain momentum, Edda looked to her with a gaze that brooked no questions. Her voice was quiet and hoarse from retching, but still steady, “I am well.”
“You are most certainly not,” Marta hissed, her hand rubbing Edda’s back in gentle circles despite her harried tone.
“I am well,” Edda repeated forcefully, and she could see Marta’s eyes narrow with anger and worry.
A gasp could be heard as the servant who had escorted her back from supper alighted in the doorway, in full view of Edda’s quite visceral outburst. Although evidently both unconvinced and displeased, Marta immediately addressed the man, leaving him little room to gawk at the sight before him. “I’ll not have you rouse the Steward this late, nor rally any other,” Marta declared firmly, “I’ll trouble you for a bucket of hot water and some rags, if you please. And if there’s a cook in the kitchen, a fresh pot of herbed water to settle her stomach. But we’ll do without if there’s not.”
Marta guided Edda to her feet as the servant took off at a run. Staggering, Edda shirked Marta’s helping hand to face her directly. She was aware of how she must look, quaking in her soiled gown. But although she suspected that her faded memories of life before Cachtice Castle had not failed her, she needed to confirm it with Marta anyway. “Father does not deal directly with Countess Bathory’s household, does he?”
Marta’s expression flashed with disbelief. “Mother and maiden, Miss Edda! Have you lost your senses?”
“Please,” Edda urged, “I must know, Marta.”
The older woman’s mouth was hard line, and her hands set stubbornly on her hips. For a moment, Edda thought Marta would ignore her question entirely. Finally, she relented, “I am not privy to Master Belten’s dealings, Miss Edda. But I think not directly.” She huffed angrily, “Now please, Miss Edda. Let’s get you into something clean.”
She would have to write her brother Simon to know for sure, but Marta’s words were enough for now. Her hairs stood on end as Marta shepherded her out of her ruined dress and into a housecoat, and it was not because of the chamber’s chill. There was no way they could have known what she looked like prior to her arrival at the castle. Edda released a shuddering breath as she, at Marta’s urging, sank into a nearby settle. There was no way, so how had they known exactly that?
She felt like her stomach had been hollowed out as she sat there in the vastness of the bedchamber. It felt even vaster now that she understood how small she truly was. How small she had always been.
Marta towered above her, too, with a face both stern and troubled. “I don’t believe you could produce a single good reason that would convince me that you are well,” she stated, her voice hard in a way that it rarely ever was. Her patience had certainly been exceeded. “And don’t you dare say it is because things are not right here. I’ll not hear that excuse again.”
But that was the truth, wasn’t it? Things were not right at Cachtice Castle, and Edda hadn’t the slightest idea of how to explain just how wrong they were. Although her head had cleared, she needed time to sift through the rubble; to formulate a coherent thought out of all the vague and confusing pieces she had picked up. But Marta would not wait—not now, with her usually placid face promising a storm—and nothing less than the full story could truly impress upon her the gravity of the situation.
And it weighed on her. Blood and bloody maiden, did it weigh on her. She had been heavy with fear back when she had thought it was her alone, tangled up in this horrible fate. It had grown heavier with the missing servant girls and become crushing with Marta’s life also in the balance. And now, the heaviest weight yet had settled upon her—this horrible, twisted relief that had flattened her entirely, bringing with it a new, fresh kind of fear.
Edda pressed her palms to her face with a shudder and took a deep breath. “They all look like me,” she said simply.
The chamber was silent for a beat. “What in heaven’s name are you talking about?” Marta asked finally, and Edda could detect the exasperation in her tone.
“The other girls,” Edda said, looking directly into Marta’s eyes with an intensity she did not know she possessed, “They all look like me.”
Marta blinked several times in confusion before asking in a shrill voice, “What has that to do with your supper on the floor behind us?”
What, indeed? What words could she say to Marta that would describe the miserable mixture of relief and fear that she had chewed up and swallowed with her supper again, and again, and again this night. That she might not have to face her own thoughts, her own desperation. That she might yet alight upon some other solution. Oh, it sickened her anew to know it; that she had simply been too silly and too stupid to recognize that it had never just been about her. But she was silly and stupid no longer.
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A sharp rap on the door announced the return of the servant and saved her from her damning thoughts. Marta shot Edda a furious glance that told her that their conversation was far from over. She hurried over to admit him, exclaiming in surprise and not a little aggravation when she saw that he had overlooked her earlier insistence and was now accompanied by two others. Two buckets of steaming water were carried in, along with several rolled towels. One of the servants set a tray on the table before Edda, pouring two cups and handing one to her. Eager to be rid of the foul taste in her mouth and mind, Edda gulped the fragrant liquid with greed.
The servants were intent on setting the chambers to rights, despite Marta’s continued and increasingly flustered assertions that she would tend to the mess herself. They ignored her politely, with trained smiles, until Marta finally surrendered, throwing herself onto the settle beside Edda with a sigh of irritation.
“I don’t think I have ever been so tried,” Marta muttered under her breath, just loud enough for Edda to make out. And she knew the portly woman referred to far more than the respectful defiance of the servants before her.
Guilt slowly crept in; and though she tried to convince herself otherwise, little of it had to do with her mistreatment of Marta. Marta had suffered a few days of her poor behavior, but if what Edda now suspected was indeed true, she would suffer only that. Marta would live, if Edda was right. And Edda would live, too.
Edda took a deep breath and reached for Marta's hand, squeezing it in a way that she hoped conveyed an apology. Marta did not pull away. Rather, she rotated her hand in Edda’s grasp to lace their fingers together and squeezed back. And within the tight knot of their hands, Edda found her resolve; twisted up with the guilt and the fear and the dark solace she had found in that evening’s realization. Beyond that ball of emotion, beyond the impossibility and the absurdity of the situation, the thought was there. She did not relish it. Certainly, it unnerved her in more ways than one. But if it was not all about her, then that meant that it could very well be about someone else.
Any of them would do, as long as it was not her.
The servants were efficient in their work. Before long, the sweet smell of floral soap replaced the acrid scent of sickness, and Marta rose to see them out. She had calmed considerably, now, but her face was still drawn and tight with worry. However, she did not resume her line of questioning just yet. Rather, she turned toward one of the buckets of hot water that had been left behind. “Let’s ready for bed,” she said quietly, and Edda knew the woman was mulling over her thoughts.
Some time later, Edda found herself seated before the vanity mirror, studying Marta’s troubled expression as the woman unpinned her hair. She began to work her way slowly, relentlessly through the brittle locks. Finally, Marta’s rhythmic brushing stuttered. “I have known you since your girlhood, Miss Edda,” she remarked, “And I have never known you to be afraid of anything, whether that be for good or ill.” She paused again, setting the brush down and raising a hand to Edda’s shoulder. Their reflected eyes met. “Witchery,” she whispered, “You really do think it is so, don’t you?”
Edda licked her suddenly dry lips. “Yes,” she confirmed, and the pit of her stomach, empty though it was, seemed to drop out from beneath her. She had thought as much to herself before. But some part of her had still resisted, hesitating to pick up this last, jagged piece of the puzzle—not truly wanting to see how everything fit together. “I can think of no other explanation,” she murmured.
Marta’s hand tightened on Edda’s shoulder, frowning. “Sometimes chance is the explanation, Miss Edda.”
Oh, Edda might have spelled it away as such before, had she been smart enough to notice the last time she had met Cachtice Castle’s guests. To gather in one place four young women from disparate parts of a country who resembled each other closely in looks and circumstance…Back then she still would have dismissed it as inconsequential, with hardly another thought. But it was precisely because she had lived the consequences, precisely because she had died because of them, that she could not relegate it to mere chance.
“It cannot be,” Edda reiterated, “I am certain of it.”
Marta was silent again, pensive, as she resumed her task of smoothing out Edda’s ruined hair. Edda could not fathom the woman’s true thoughts. Her expression was still strained, but her movements were otherwise unperturbed, fingers both tender and familiar as they worked. Did Marta think her mad? Hysteric, as Ivar had said? Edda almost wished that were the case—perhaps then, she could fool herself into thinking the same. Madness would be a welcome reprieve.
Finally, Marta set the brush aside. “You must rest, Miss Edda,” she said, still lost in her thoughts as she helped Edda to her feet.
“I fear I will not be able to,” Edda replied.
The bed appeared almost monstrous in the flickering lights of the chamber. Edda had slept in it before, so many years ago, and yet this night it felt foreign to her. It was still made for the cold of winter, with warm layers of quilts and blankets atop the linen sheets. Thick curtains were tied back at each of the four posters; when loosed, they would obscure her from both cold and sight. She sunk into a mattress so soft it seemed to embrace her, and yet she found herself wishing for her bed in Hesse, set so close to Franka’s that she could reach for her in the night. Even the simple straw mattress in the village inn had felt more comfortable, somehow.
Marta brought a cup of the remaining herbed water to her bedside. Wordlessly, she produced the packet of sleeping powder and added a pinch of it to the liquid. She turned to Edda as if sensing her unease and settled herself on the edge of the bed, the cup still in her hands. “In my village,” Marta said suddenly, “black dreams were not to be taken lightly.” She moved a hand to Edda’s head, smoothing a bramble of hair away from her face. “The stories I told you when you were a girl were stories told to me by my own mother, told to her by her mother, and so on. But I believe they were not meant to be mere stories.” The cup trembled in Marta’s hands as she brought it to Edda’s lips. “They were warnings.”
Edda did not drink. She found herself shivering beneath the blankets. “Will you tell me again what you know of witches?” she asked barely audibly, even though she did not wish to know.
Marta nodded imperceptibly. “Not tonight. Tonight, you must rest.”
Edda downed the medicated water. She needed to know more, but perhaps Marta was right. Perhaps, it need not be tonight, when she still grappled with what she now understood about the events that would unfold at Cachtice Castle and her altered role in them. Yes, perhaps not tonight, when relief and fear and guilt and horror still warred inside of her, a seething black mass in her hollow stomach.
The sleeping powder could not take away the sharp anxiety she felt as drowsiness suddenly overwhelmed her; still she worried that she would sleep and wake in her cell again. But tonight, the allure of unconsciousness was greater than her fear, and she quickly welcomed the narrowing darkness of sleep. As the powder pulled her beneath the surface, she was aware of Marta’s affectionate touch, drawing the blankets up around her.
Her thoughts grew abstract and fuzzy. But one emerged in stark relief, a petrifying beacon amidst her clouded mind. She could not escape it in her last moments of wakefulness, with Marta’s warm hand still upon her chest. Would Marta forgive her for allowing another to be burdened with this cursed fate, even if it was the only sure way to avoid it?
And more than that, would Edda be able to forgive herself?