The Werewolf of Mariahilf am Inn I.3
A Gothic Horror Novel
Book I, Chapter 3: Pact with the Devil
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The morning after the execution the religious who had camped in the fields around Mariahilf am Inn pulled up their tent pegs and departed. Some of them had been in the valley for much of the three month ordeal. The exorcist and Carmelite nuns lingered two days more to complete the spiritual cleansing of the toll house.
Mother Ingrid volunteered to sweep the floors and corners of the building with her brush broom. With the nuns she repeated the Ave Marias but made no distinction between the individual Latin words since she had learned it by rote as a child and only knew the phrases phonetically.
The ex-votos that had accumulated over the months (paintings of the Holy Virgin, soap and wax figurines, lace crucifixes, wood carvings of saints) were arranged on shelves and tables amidst a profusion of edelweiss and alpine heather or left hanging from the ceiling or nailed to the door lintels and windowsills.
When the nuns had completed their task, they extinguished the candles and vacated the building. The exorcist and village priest then proceeded inside, followed by two boys, one of whom was Hermann. In his hands, he held a heavy brass crucifix. The boy beside him, the blacksmith’s son, swung a smoking censer.
The exorcist closed his eyes and raised his palms. “O Lord, my God, accept these tokens from thine humble and devoted servants. Great is thy might and boundless thy grace. May the Blessed Virgin comfort the restless souls that perished alone and at an evil hour in this wicked place. May they stand with the martyrs and bear witness to thy glory on the Last Day. Amen.”
“Amen,” the others repeated. The exorcist and priest looked at each other gravely. Then they and the two boys exited the darkened premises. By the time the ritual had ended, it was near sunset.
Stout Guido held a lantern under the gabled porch while Moritz, the village carpenter, hammered the door shut with twelve iron nails that had been doused with holy water. Once the door was secured, the exorcist ascended the cobbled steps with a guttering candle in one hand and a stick of red wax in the other.
He used the candle to melt the tip of the stick. He daubed a blood-red cross in the center of the door. Then he dabbed the locks and seams with wax and recited a final prayer to Saint Michael, calling upon the vanquisher of demons to keep the house’s evil contained within its walls forever.
The assembly returned to the village, crossing the wooden bridge over the river Inn. The exorcist and nuns gathered round the two-wheeled cart in front of the Mariahilf Church. They would be returning to Rome through the Brenner Pass, but would not start their journey till the following day. Tonight they would build a campfire on the werewolf’s grave and sleep beside it under the starlight, knowing that Christ Jesus watched over them.
Hermann looked anxiously at Oma Ingrid when the exorcist made this declaration. But his grandmother seemed unconcerned.
That night, Hermann dreamt Oma sat by the fire talking earnestly to the stew pot, but no sound came from her gibbering lips. A beautiful dark-haired lady—the same he’d seen stretched out dead the morning after his encounter with the werewolf in the mountain—stood behind Oma, stroking the back of her head. Hermann tried to cry out, but could not find his voice. Ingrid sensed his agitation and looked at him. She asked with her eyes what the problem was. “Nothing,” Hermann mumbled irritably, because the dark-haired lady was gone.
At dawn Hermann woke and exited the hut. Seven adolescent boys were airing out Moritz’s workshop. The stench of the werewolf’s sweat, piss and shit was oppressive and the boys wore kerchiefs over their mouths. Moritz was engaged in a conversation with the blacksmith about how they should burn down the workshop without threatening the surrounding buildings. They decided to pry the building apart and burn the boards in the valley where the Jesuits had camped, since there was hardly any grass or foliage there and the wind was mild at that point.
Hermann returned to the front of the hut and glanced out toward the foothills. Oma and Aunt Magda were returning with three other women. They carried empty pails and baskets. They had cooked a hearty breakfast for the exorcist and nuns in thanks for all they had done. Behind the women, an upcurl of smoke hovered over the quenched fire; and, beyond that, the priest and reverend sisters could be seen walking beside the donkey cart up the path that would take them to the Brenner Pass.
Thank God, no one died, Hermann thought. But he felt queasy and sprinted back inside the hut. He left the door ajar. Behind the curtain where his father slept was a shelf that held a small mirror and straight razor.
Also on the shelf was a memento mori that his father had carved from a single block of wood and painted when they were snowbound in the hut for five days last winter. The statue represented a shriveled old man holding a lantern in one hand and pulling apart his chest with the other, revealing the worms and maggots to signify that, even in life, we are dead. His father had been so proud of his creation that he kept it for himself.
But it was the mirror Hermann was looking for. He flung open the window shutter, and, in the pale light of dawn, looked into the broken glass to make sure he still had a reflection. Then he opened his mouth and touched his canines to see if they felt unusually sharp. Oma snatched the mirror from his hands and exhaled. She seemed mildly amused but could tell the boy was distressed.
“Your mother was of pure heart when she bore you.” Ingrid put the mirror back on the shelf, and peered out the window where Moritz and the men were prying planks from the workshop. She closed the shutters because the stench was creeping in.
“Come,” Ingrid said, going to the fire. “Sit down. I’m going to tell you a story that your father doesn’t want me to tell. It will be hard for you to hear, but you deserve to know it.”
The two sat down on the low stools across from each other. Oma placed a log on the dying flame. Hermann rested his hands on his knees and hung on her every word.
“On the day you were born, the midwife predicted that you would die within the week. Your mother was inconsolable. She wept and told your father that she was too weak to bear another child and that, if you died, she too would perish because there would be no purpose for her to go on. . . But you survived and your condition improved—even as Ilse’s deteriorated.
“On the night before your mother’s mysterious disappearance, you slept peacefully in the crib your doting father had built for you. Ilse’s milk had become mysteriously black and she could not longer nurse you. And so her sister, Magda, who had recently borne a son of her own, fostered you.
“Your mother summoned Moritz to her bedside, flung the comforter aside, complaining that she was burning in Hellfire, and, as her feverish eyes roved about the room, she said: ‘I must confess to you and Mother Ingrid what has happened to me, may God have mercy on my wretched soul.’”
With the fire prong Oma poked the log and squinted at the embers.
“Your father took your mother’s hands in his, but she drew it away. “‘Don’t touch me,’ Ilse said. ‘What I have done is unpardonable.’ She looked at your father, almost pityingly. And then she related to him the horrid account of what happened to her on the mountain.
“‘I knew my child’s death was imminent,’ she said. ‘And in my distress I fled into the foothills until I reached that beetling ridge that overlooks the valley on the other side of the mountain. I had resolved to cast myself onto the screes below. But a man, whom I had not noticed, stood on a boulder near the ledge. I presumed him to be a hermit.
“‘I told him of the heartache and anguish that had led me to this situation. But he somehow knew my history. And with a leer he told me that, if I offered myself to him, so that we should become one flesh—in the literal sense of the term—my child would live on. But my soul would be damned for all eternity.’”
Ingrid exhaled and rose from the stool. She paced back and forth before continuing the narrative.
“Moritz could not credit your mother’s story. He told her that she was being foolish, and that, in her delirium, she had imagined the encounter.
“‘But do you not see him standing behind you?!’ Ilse exclaimed.
“Moritz sighed. ‘There is no one here, my love!’
“‘Do you not feel his hand on your shoulder, Moritz?!’
“At that instant, your father flinched and wheeled around. But only the empty air confronted him. He collected himself and scowled at the bed.
“‘You must sleep,” he said. ‘Your son—’
‘My son,” Ilse interjected (and her face glowed triumphantly), ‘shall live on.’
“Then she closed her eyes and slipped into a state of unconsciousness. I dragged the tall chair to Ilse’s bedside so that your father could sit on it and keep vigil with her throughout the night. But a strange fatigue overcame him and he nodded off.
“It was I who awoke first the following day. I heard you fussing in your crib. You wanted your mother. But your mother was gone. ‘Moritz!’ I shouted. ‘Look!’
“The mattress on which your mother had lain was soaked in blood. And on the floorboards, the bloody paw prints of a giant wolf led from the bedpost to the hut’s open door.”
Ingrid pointed to the door as Moritz opened it. Hermann and Oma screamed.
“What’s wrong with you two?!” Moritz yelled. He saw the apprehension in Hermann’s countenance and turned to Ingrid. “Mama . . . What have you been telling him?”
“Oma is teaching me how to boil turnips,” Hermann said.
Ingrid looked away from her son. Moritz glowered and slammed the door.
The imperial toll house was decommissioned. Those passing on the road in front of it averted their eyes and refused to speak, unless to utter a prayer to Saint Michael. But the village itself returned to the quiet rhythms it had known before the hateful affair of the werewolf. Two weddings and a christening were celebrated in the week leading up to the Day of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin. It took seven days to demolish and reconstruct Moritz’s workshop.
On a cool autumn day, when the sun hung bright over the valley, Hermann revisited the ledge where he had encountered the dying she-wolf. He had not been back since that horrid night. And it was with some trepidation that he made the ascent, going out of his way to avoid walking too close to the werewolf’s grave.
He heard the clonk of cowbells, and there was a herder yodeling in the valley on the other side of the ridge. In his happiness and ease Hermann tried to yodel back, but made a mess of it. This amused the herder, whose snickering echoed between the rocks. The yodeler then belted out a long drawn-out tune. Show off, Hermann thought. But he cupped his hands over his mouth and shouted “Wunderschön!” To which the yodeler replied “Danke.”
It didn’t take long for the boy to find the place he sought. The boulder near the ledge was still there. This had to be the place where his mother had made her unholy pact with the Devil.
Hermann saw the yodeler across the way on the opposite ridge. But then he heard him yodel again and the sound came from below. He glanced down and saw the cattle pasturing in the valley and the herder walking with his dogs along a brook. When he looked up at the place where the man across the way had been, he saw a wolf regarding him, its head was tilted and it regarded him speculatively. Hermann cursed his stupidity and ran as quickly as his legs would carry him back to the village.
Moritz’s son turned eleven in the first week of September, and around that time a roving band of Piedmontese irregulars passed through Mariahilf bringing tiding of intrigue at the Hapsburg court. The village priest innocently inquired into the health of Prince von Metternich, since he had served as an amanuensis under him during the Vienna Congress.
But the soldiers laughed and informed the priest that the lily-livered Chancellor had been deposed in the spring (well before the affair of the werewolf had even begun) and was abroad with his family in either England or France.
No one other than the priest seemed to care about Prince Metternich’s fate, since matters of state rarely intruded on the idyllic life of the empire’s alpine subjects, and there was about as much of a relation between the prince and the poor as there was between sugar and salt.
On All Saints’ Eve, Hermann helped Oma prepare two baskets of forty palatschinken (thin griddle cakes) that were to be taken to the cemetery on the morrow. The entire village would gather in the churchyard, and, after the priest had delivered his sermon, they would picnic among the graves of their dearly departed ancestors.
“Oma, they smell so good!” Hermann said. He set them in the baskets between layers of cloth so they didn’t stick together.
Oma scooped the last one from the flat-iron skillet and put it on the cloth Hermann held out to her. “Magda has been making jars of bilberry jam all week. It’ll go quite well with these.”
“And with cold milk!”
“Especially with cold milk,” Oma said with a grin.
That night, just before they turned in, Papa stood with a candle in the middle of the hut and recited the bedtime prayer that begins with the words “O Gott, dessen eingeborener Sohn (O God, whose only begotten Son). . . ”
When they had said Amen, Oma went to the low cot she slept on, which stood opposite the cooking fire. In her old age, she said, her bones and joints couldn’t tolerate the deep sink of a mattress.
“Papa, can I sleep in your bed tonight?” Hermann asked. “I can’t stretch my legs out in mine anymore.”
“You’re growing too fast,” Moritz replied. “I suppose you can. But if you kick me in your sleep, I’ll kick you out of bed.”
Hermann laughed. He pulled aside the curtain to Papa’s private space. Moritz walked out of the hut to use the bathroom. The boy was so exhausted that he had no sooner pulled off his shirt and climbed up into bed, than he was asleep. He didn’t even hear his father come back inside.
Hermann opened his eyes because a wolf was howling. But then the howling ceased. The priest said: “Something terrible has happened.” But the priest was not in the hut.
Hermann knew he was dreaming because he saw himself curled up in bed next to Papa. He stood in front of the shelf on which the mirror and shaving razor rested. The memento mori was teeming with real maggots and there was blood oozing from the statue’s open chest. The door to the hut suddenly creaked open. So Hermann drew the curtain aside.
Oma stood at the door with her back to him. She held one of the baskets in her hand. He tried to call to her, but he could make no sound. Oma walked outside and turned sharply in the direction of the river. Hermann ran after her.
Outside he saw her casting the palatschinken to the left and right. Sometimes the crows seized the pastries and flew away, but often the cakes landed on the ground with a splat, because they were actually human entrails. Oma crossed the bridge over the Inn and flung the basket into the river.
No matter how fast Hermann ran, he couldn’t catch up with her. She made it to the other side and turned to face her grandson, who was calling out to her from the middle of the bridge. His body, which was asleep next to Moritz, whispered “Oma,” but since Ingrid could not hear Hermann, she thought he was telling a joke. So she laughed and began to sprint in the direction of the toll house. She ran with the strength of a young girl.
Hermann stopped speaking, hoping that, if he conserved his breath, he would be able to catch up to her. Oma kept glancing over her shoulder and giggling maniacally, but her laughter sounded like the braying of a donkey. This amused Hermann, and he couldn’t help but to laugh as he ran.
That’s when he noticed the wolf keeping pace beside him. But when he turned his head to the left to get a better look, the wolf was the young woman he’d seen dead in the wagon, who was said to resemble his mother. She was angry and there was foam on her lips.
He arrived at the toll house and the beautiful woman was already there, standing on the covered porch awaiting him. The door opened and the room was bathed in candlelight. When he stepped in, he saw the woman was inside the toll house as well. As was Oma.
The two women sat on the floor, and the young lady tried to braid Oma’s hair, but his grandmother was confiding to her that, because she was older, she didn’t have enough hair to braid. So the beautiful lady began to lick the back of Oma’s head and grinned at Hermann when she looked at him from behind Oma’s shoulder.
Hermann sat down in front of his grandmother, and asked her why she was smiling and laughing when there were tears in her eyes. Oma seemed afraid to answer. She didn’t feel at liberty to give away the secret, so she kept signifying with her eyes that Hermann shouldn’t be here, and that he was in danger.
The beautiful lady stood up, but kept her hand on Oma’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” Ingrid said. And she tapped her finger on Hermann’s knee.
Hermann glanced up at the lady standing over Oma. And that was when he tried to wake up, because it was no longer the beautiful lady standing over him, but a monstrous commingling of the dark-haired lady and the cannibal who’d been hanged for his crimes.
“Wake up!” Papa shouted.
Hermann gasped awake and saw the priest and his father standing over him.
“Something terrible has happened,” the priest said.
Moritz grabbed Hermann’s shirt, threw it at him and told him to get dressed. Then he put on his boots.
The curtain had been pulled down, and Hermann saw several men standing outside the hut holding torches.
“Where’s Oma?” he asked. No one answered.
Hermann ran out of the hut with his father. The blacksmith confronted Moritz and said, “I don’t think your son should see this.”
“Where’s my mother?” Moritz asked.
In a daze Hermann walked behind his father. They followed the blacksmith and torchbearers to the wooden bridge. Hermann saw palatschinken littering the path. A crow seized one and flew off. The priest could not keep pace with them and lagged far behind. Papa was breathing heavily.
As they neared the toll house, Hermann saw candles burning behind the shuttered windows. There were even lights flickering behind the small round windows at the top of the turret. They climbed the steps to the porch. Someone had broken open the door, and a black scorch mark blighted the place where the exorcist had drawn the wax cross.
Inside, a group of men stood around something in the center of the entryway. All the candles, which had been extinguished before the toll house had been sealed, were ablaze. And the ex-votos had been defiled, destroyed, or arranged in obscene tableaux. The knot of men stepped aside, and Hermann’s knees grew weak.
Oma sat on the floorboards with a smile on her face and fresh tears on her cheeks. But she was dead. For a wild beast had chewed away the back of her skull.
Dawn broke on the grimmest All Saints’ Day that the villagers of Mariahilf am Inn had ever known. On the priest’s orders, Mother Ingrid was buried at the crossroads outside of town.
Her body was turned face down and placed in a shallow pit with her feet pointing due north. A stone was lodged between her jaws, and a white cloth was thrown over the gaping hole at the back of her head. Moritz held his son to his chest and began to sob, when the blacksmith drove the iron spike through Mother Ingrid’s heart.
Looking forward to part 4.
I'm learning new words!
This is so different. Intense. Loving' it!