The old man rose to his feet and so did his companion. He hadn’t said a word. He probably had come along to intimidate them. “We are also here to inform you that from now until the end of your wife’s trial we’ll station a Brotherhood guard in front of your house. Only to ensure that none of your wife’s possible conspirators try to attack you.”
Bullshit. They were keeping an eye on them to make sure they wouldn’t run away. And where would they run anyway? There were few countries where the Brotherhood didn’t wield power, and those few that did exist weren’t exactly making a habit out of granting asylum to many witches. They were worried conflicts would arise between the magical and human population if too many witches lived in their countries. Not that Nela would have left even if she could have moved to Canada or Sweden or the Netherlands. She wouldn’t abandon her mother.
“We appreciate it,” her father said with a tilt of his head, but when he closed the door after the Brothers, he looked as if he’d aged twenty years during their interrogation. “They’ll question us again during the trial.” Again there was that calmness around him. She turned around, not able to stand his passive face a moment longer.
***
Nela stared out of her window. A man was sitting in a black BMW on the other side of the street, watching their house. It was almost midnight. Couldn’t he fall asleep? He’d been keeping guard for almost twelve hours. His spotlights came on, and hope that he would drive off rose in Nela. It was crushed when another BMW appeared in their street and took his position with a freshly rested guard behind the steering wheel.
This wasn’t going to work. She glanced at her cellphone. What if the Brotherhood was keeping tabs on her calls as well? She had to let Darko know why she couldn’t come to their meeting. She dialed his number. After the third ring he picked up. “Nela? Is something wrong?”
“You can’t sneak into my bedroom window tonight,” she said. It was the first thing that came to her mind. Maybe if someone was listening in, they would lose interest if they had to listen to love talk. “The Brotherhood is watching our house for protection.” She sounded so stupidly gentle that she wanted to puke.
There was silence on the other end. Darko probably thought she’d lost her mind. Then he said, “Maybe you can convince your dad to let me stay over night.”
Nela stifled a laugh. Yeah, that would be going over well. “I don’t think he’s going to like that. We’ll have to figure out another way to spend time together.” She let out an exaggerated sigh. “What am I going to do without you?”
“Remember what I did when we first met?” he said in a low voice, which caught Nela by surprise. She knew it was all pretend but his words sent a shiver down her back and made her remember their kiss. It took her a while to figure out what he meant. “You mean the drawing?”
“Exactly,” he said still in that same voice. “Salt and water makes my drawings come to life.”
Of course! “Miss you,” she said a bit too quickly.
“Miss you too. Sweet dreams.” She hung up and smiled. He’d given her instructions on how to meet without catching the Brotherhood’s attention. She really hoped someone had been listening in on this weird conversation.
Nela closed her blinds and hurried downstairs, grabbing a packet of salt and a bottle of water before she returned to her room. She carefully drew a pentagram on the wooden floor with her mascara. She could erase it later with her make-up remover. Then she sprinkled a mixture of water and salt over the drawing. The air began to crackle. Darko appeared in the center, then briefly disappeared again until he finally stood in front of her.
“What was that?” she asked.
“The connection wasn’t very strong because you didn’t use the right water.”
“Oh,” she said, then a thought struck her. “Why couldn’t you come here by shadow?”
“You can’t enter most homes without an invitation. They are protected by charms. Yours is like that of most witches, and funnily enough all of the Brotherhood’s buildings. They don’t mind using magic for their own purposes.”
“So the pentagram was an invitation?”
Darko smiled. “Sort of. I wonder who did your protection charms.”
“Not my father,” Nela said. “I don’t think he’s ever done magic in his life.”
They stood there for a moment. Nela wasn’t sure how to act around him now that they’d kissed. Should she hug him? Kiss him? He didn’t seem to know what to do either. “So,” he began. “Are they out there?”
Disappointment filled her. “The Brotherhood? Sure. One guard in a BMW.” She forced a smile. Would it always be this awkward between them? His dark eyes wandered around her room; it was the first time he was there. His gaze lingered on the board above her bed where she kept a few stuffed animals from her childhood. Heat rose into her cheeks. She should have put them into the basement long ago. Her hamper was overflowing with dirty clothes – she hadn’t bothered taking care of laundry since her mother had been taken, and her walls were covered with pictures of places she wanted to visit if she ever got the chance.
Darko pointed at a picture of the Grand Canyon. “I’ve always wanted to go there. When I was younger my parents sometimes talked about emigrating to the US. Maybe they should have. Maybe they’d still be alive then.”
“Things aren’t easy for witches over there either. That’s why my family left and came to Germany.”
Darko laughed. “It’s not much of an improvement.”
Nela sighed. “I guess not. We finally got the okay to visit my mother in the Witch Tower on Tuesday. What if they hurt her?”
Darko touched her cheek and she leaned into it. “If your mother is as strong as you are, she’ll survive whatever they throw at her.” Someone else may have tried to assure her that the Brotherhood wouldn’t hurt her mother, but not Darko. He knew better, and she was glad for his honesty. She wouldn’t have believed him if he’d said anything else. “So,” she whispered. They were close again and she didn’t know what to do with it. “What are we going to do now?”
Darko shrugged before he leaned down and kissed her again. She leaned into him, her pulse quickening. Eventually they pulled back.
“I don’t know why I always end up doing that,” Darko murmured with a frown.
“Because you want to?”
Darko smiled, but there was a hint of apprehension in his eyes. Nela wasn’t in the mood to try and figure out what that meant. She had too much to deal with as it was. “Did you see the reports about the newest murder?”
Darko moved away and sank down on the bed. “I found her.”
“You did what?” Nela perched on the edge of the mattress.
“I had a feeling the killer would strike again and then I found the body.”
“You just found the body?” She shook her head. “Sometimes you scare me.”
“Sometimes I scare myself. But that wasn’t one of those times.”
“Is it true that she was bled out?” Nela asked. There had already been so much blood when Darko had killed the cat, but a human was much bigger. “It must have been horrible.”
“There wasn’t any blood.”
“I really don’t get it. Who’s doing this? Because of them they’ll make my mother pay.”
“The victim was another member of Wicca. They had burnt her skin where the symbols would have been.”
“Wicca?” Nela repeated. She had heard the name only once before when she’d walked in on her parents having an argument, but she hadn’t googled them.
“They are humans who are pro-magic and pro-witches. The members even celebrate the Sabbaths and brew potions and do rituals as if they were witches. I don’t get it.”
“Why would someone kill them?”
“Because they are pro-witches.”
“I knew it wasn’t one of our kind doing the killings,” she said with satisfaction.
“Then you are one of very few. People on the street are out for revenge on witches. Soon our bo
dies will be found in dark alleys.”
Chapter 19
The large structure rose into the sky above them – the Witch Tower. It was square and four times as high as it was wide. From the outside it looked as if it belonged into the middle ages: built from massive brown stones, which were only interrupted by narrow windows, too small for a grown person to slip through, and topped by a roof of dark red shingles forming an onion dome. The windows had bars in front of them but a couple of decades ago window panes had been added so it wasn’t raining into the building anymore. Sadly that was probably more to protect the precious building than its occupants.
Her father cleared his throat. Nela wasn’t sure how long she’d been frozen to the spot, gaping at the prison. Only witches were kept in its cells. Nela had never seen pictures from the inside but the stories she heard didn’t give her much hope. Where once had been a simple arched wooden door as an entrance, the Brotherhood had set up a glass cubicle in recent years. There was a wide square in front of it.
Nela and her father stepped through the silent gliding doors into the sterile air of the prison’s reception area. Three guards were waiting inside. One was sitting at a desk with dozens of computer screens lined up before him, the second guard stood beside a metal detector, and the third guard waited next to the heavy steel door leading into the actual tower. Nela and her father were ordered to put their phones and keys into a small plastic container before they could go through the detector. “You’ll get your belongings back when you leave,” second guard said curtly.
Her father put a hand on her shoulder and gently steered her toward the steel door. The guard there gave them a long hard look before he pressed a button that made the steel door slip into the massive stone wall. While the air in the glass cubicle was dry and warm, what hit her face now was cold and dank. She shuddered but followed her father into the tower. A strange sensation passed over her as she entered and Nela remembered what Darko had said; the Brotherhood used charms to keep unwanted people out. Was that what she’d felt? She squinted into the darkness. Torches lined the walls. Of course they ran on electricity. The torches were probably for tradition’s sake. Narrow metal doors lined three of the four walls. The fourth was the one they’d stepped through. To the right of the door there was a glass cube with two guards inside. One of them got out and greeted them with a nod. He led them toward the winding metal staircase that traveled up and down. Nela hadn’t even known that the Witch Tower had a basement.
“What’s downstairs?” she asked. Her father shot her a shocked look, but the guard didn’t seem offended. He was quite young and didn’t look as hateful as many of the others.
“That’s where the convicted are awaiting their death sentence.”
What a horrible way to spend the last few days before you were burnt to death. Without daylight and fresh air, dozens of feet below the ground. Shivering, she followed the guard and her father up the winding staircase. Every floor harbored eight doors. The sign of the brotherhood, the swords dripping blood, was everywhere, and the metal stairs creaked with every step they took. Now and then she caught curious eyes looking at them through the narrow bars in the upper half of each door. Their appearance was probably the only distraction the prisoners had all day. She gave them an encouraging smile, but most stared back at her with empty eyes.
The guard finally stopped on the fifth floor and steered them toward the door on the far left. Her father appeared as if he’d been carved from stone. Nela wrapped her arms around herself, bracing herself for what she would see.
The guard unlocked the door with a sweep of his keycard and then he pushed it open. The cell behind it was even smaller than Nela had feared. It was square and maybe five feet wide and seven feet long. A narrow bed was pushed against the wall on the right and Nela’s mother was sitting on it. There wasn’t a chair in the cell. The only other place where she could have sat was the small toilet across from the bed. Dim light streamed through the small window covered in dust. Her mother slowly rose from the bed, her eyes wide with disbelief. Had nobody told her about their visit? They probably didn’t want to get her hopes up, the bastards.
Nela quickly crossed the few feet between them and wrapped her arms around her mother before the guard could say anything. She wasn’t sure if touching was allowed and she didn’t care. It felt good being in her mother’s arms, but she could tell that her mother had already lost weight. Nela pulled back to scan her mother’s face. Her cheekbones were more pronounced and her chin looked sharper than before. Her mother gave her a smile, then her eyes darted to something behind Nela.
Her father stepped up behind them and Nela backed away to give them room. Her father embraced her mother until it seemed as if they’d become one. The guard stood silently in the doorway, watching them with keen eyes, his hand casually resting on the gun at his waist. He probably had to make sure they didn’t give her mother anything. Though after the metal detector, there weren’t many things left a prisoner could have used to escape. The cell brimmed with the stench of sweat and urine. Former prisoners had scratched their names and the dates of their imprisonment into the anthracite stone. One of them dated back to 1857 and its creator had spent sixteen years in this forlorn place. Nela couldn’t imagine how someone could survive for so long.
“I wish you didn’t have to see me like this. If I’d known you came, I’d have made myself representable.” Was she actually joking? Her mother ran her hands over her unwashed hair self-consciously, then sank back down on her bed. She looked small and helpless, and the need to protect her rose in Nela. She couldn’t stand seeing her mother like that. They had to get her out of here.
Nela took a seat beside her mother. The bed dipped low and groaned as if it would break under their combined weight. She clasped her mother’s hand. It was clammy and a bit sticky. Nela wasn’t sure what to say. The questions she wanted to ask, she couldn’t because of the guard. “I missed you,” she whispered.
Her mother blinked a few times, then nodded. “I missed you too.” She looked up at Nela’s father who stood beside them like a statue.
“Are you okay?” he asked in a gruff voice.
“I’m fine. I’m glad you’re here for the hearing.”
“Hearing?” Nela repeated. All three of them looked in the direction of the guard.
“There’s been a hearing scheduled?” her father asked.
“Yes. It’ll start in thirty minutes. You’re allowed to attend.”
“But what about my wife’s lawyer? Was he informed?”
“Only a trial requires the presence of a lawyer. Hearings don’t.”
“Since when?” Nela’s father asked.
“The law was passed this morning.”
Nela couldn’t believe it. The murders were the reason for this. Everything was getting worse, and her mother was the one to suffer.
“Don’t worry,” her mother said. She’d said it before, and Nela wasn’t sure if she was trying to convince herself or them.
***
Thirty minutes later her mother was led out of the cell, her hands shackled. Nela and her father followed close behind. For a moment Nela thought about attacking the guard and running off, but they’d never get out of the tower alive. Guards were stationed on every floor and they wouldn’t hesitate to shoot them.
The guard led them to the topmost floor; it didn’t have eight doors like the other floors. Instead there was only one door, which led into a wood-paneled room with a desk in the middle. A human judge sat behind it, rimless glasses perched on his nose. He wasn’t a member of the Brotherhood. It was required by the law that an independent judge had to decide if a defendant would be put to trial in front of a Brotherhood court. That was supposed to ensure that the Brotherhood didn’t have too much power. Of course it was mostly for show. The Brotherhood could veto the appointment of new judges; that meant people who were too liberal regarding witch laws never made it that far. Another man stood to the left, clad in a black Brotherhood frock. He
belonged to the guards of the Brotherhood, probably a prosecutor. Those two men, both biased by their beliefs and their hatred for witches, would determine her mother’s fate. Nela and her father were told to sit down on one of the wooden chairs in the back while her mother was brought up to the desk.
The prosecutor of the Brotherhood straightened his white tie and smoothed his black frock before he began his speech, explaining that they had received a tip that Nela’s mother had been practicing as a healer for years.
Nela leaned toward her father, whispering. “But that’s not Maleficium! It’s only Practice Magic.”
“It doesn’t matter. In the hearing they only have to prove that she broke the law, the full extent will be determined during the actual trial,” he said, barely moving his lips.
The prosecutor pulled out a knife from his leather briefcase. “The baring of the defendant’s back will prove our claims. If you’d allow me?” He dipped his head submissively. The judge gave a quick nod.
“They can’t do that!” Nela hissed, but her father looked defeated. “They can. We can’t stop them.”
The prosecutor of the Brotherhood approached Nela’s mother. The two guards heaved her to her feet and turned her around so her back was facing the audience and judge. Nela pressed a hand over her mouth. She could see how tense her mother was. How was it possible that her life was falling apart before her eyes and she wasn’t able to do anything? The prosecutor cut open her mother’s shirt in one fluid motion. The air left Nela’s body in a rush, but her father remained motionless beside her as if he wasn’t witnessing the same thing she did.
It was worse than Nela had thought. Not only was her back covered in ink, but the lines of the tattoo had spread all over her shoulders, arms, lower back; Nela could even see the ink lines disappear in her mother’s pants and wrap around her ribcage. Was any part of her skin not covered in ink? How was it even possible? How could she still be alive? She should have died of iron poisoning long ago.