The Master's Apprentice - Oliver Potzsch Page 0,247

face; the air shimmered with heat. “Just like you . . .” Suddenly her voice took on a different tone, low and jarred as if she were speaking from inside a well, as if she were someone else.

Someone profoundly evil.

“Just like you looked after Martin, right? You bloody coward! You piece of dirt!”

Clouds moved in front of the sun and a shadow covered Margarethe’s face, which ceased to be hers. It became that of Martin, then of Signore Barbarese, of Tonio, then of Gilles de Rais.

The face of Gilles de Rais, the handsome knight.

“I like to catch two children at once. Then I kill the first one and make the other one watch,” said Margarethe, and her lips melted onto the ground like hot wax.

Johann wanted to scream but only managed a gargle. His tongue had been ripped out and was lying in the dirt before him.

A thunderclap announced an impending storm, and the wind whipped waves through the rye field. He could hear footsteps now, as loud as the cutting of a scythe. They plowed through the field toward him—swish, swoosh.

Closer and closer.

Swish, swoosh.

“Who’s afraid of the boogeyman?” asked Margarethe in a hoarse whisper. It was the opening line of a children’s game of catch. And every child knew what to answer.

“No one,” replied Johann.

“And what if he comes?”

“Then we run!”

Swish, swoosh . . . swish, swoosh . . . swish . . .

He jumped up and ran across the field as the first raindrops struck his face. After a while he noticed that he hadn’t thought of Margarethe. He had forgotten all about her in his fear and had simply run away.

When he turned around, she was gone.

“Margarethe!” he shouted into the rain, thunder, and howling wind. “Margarethe, where are you?”

He searched everywhere with growing desperation. There she was! She was standing among the ears, waving. But when he looked again it was only a scarecrow. The scarecrow’s eyes were black, black, dead, button eyes, as piercing as needles.

“Where are you?” screamed Johann again.

“I’m in hell,” said Greta, his daughter, the scarecrow with the button eyes. “Search for me in hell.”

Then she stalked away on broomstick legs, a shrinking spot on the horizon until the rain washed her away. Only her words still echoed across the windswept fields.

“Search for me in hell.”

The boy who used to be called Johann a long time ago—in another life—awoke with a feverish scream. His face was bathed in sweat, and his mouth as dry as a brittle Eucharist host.

“Margarethe!” gasped Johann. “Stay with me! Greta.”

“You’re safe, Doctor,” said a voice from next to him. “All will be well.”

Johann opened his one eye and the memories returned instantly. The worried face of Karl hovered above him. He was holding a wet rag, which he used to wipe Johann’s forehead. From the corner of his eye, Johann saw some old wooden beams on a ceiling, a narrow window covered in cobwebs letting in some milky sunlight, a small bed, and reeds on the floor with a foul-smelling chamber pot in the middle. From afar he heard shouting and cheering, and the music of fanfares, drums, and bells.

“Where are we?” asked Johann. He was a little dizzy and his head ached, but he felt better than earlier.

“In the attic room of a tavern,” replied Karl. “Not far from Sebaldus Church. You passed out and I carried you here. You slept for a few hours.” He gave an exhausted smile. “The tavern keeper thought we were two drunken itinerant preachers and gave me this chamber under the roof. It’s not the best room in the house, but at least I didn’t have to answer any nosy questions.”

Johann groaned as he felt the bandage on his face and the empty eye socket below. Carefully he touched the left side of his face; the cloths seemed fresh.

“I might not have studied medicine for very long, but I remembered a few things,” said Karl, eyeing his patient with concern. “There was a pharmacy not far from here, and I used the last of my money to buy a few herbs to stanch the bleeding. Lady’s mantle, shepherd’s purse.” He paused. “Our professor at the university said that we ought to cauterize the wound and smear it with a paste of egg and ash, but I didn’t. At least your hand and face are bandaged properly now. We’ll see what happens.”

“Th . . . thank you.” Johann slowly rose from the musty-smelling bed. He still felt nauseated from the potion