There Werewolf of Mariahilf am Inn I.3
A Gothic Horror Story
Book I, Chapter 3: Pact with the Devil
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On the morning after the execution, the religious who had been camping in the fields around Mariahilf am Inn for the duration of the three-month ordeal pulled up their tent pegs and departed. But the exorcist and Carmelite nuns lingered for another two days to complete the spiritual cleansing of the toll house.
Mother Ingrid volunteered to sweep the wooden floors and cobwebbed corners of the building with her broom. She repeated the Ave Marias along with the nuns, though she made no distinction between the individual Latin words since she had learned the litany by rote as a child and knew it only phonetically.
The ex votos that had accumulated over the months (the paintings of the Holy Virgin, the soap and wax figurines, the lace crucifixes and carvings of saints) were arranged on shelves and tables amidst a profusion of edelweiss and alpine heather, or were left dangling by twine from the rafters; or nailed to the sills of the shuttered windows.
When the nuns had completed their task, they extinguished the candles, which were left in place, and vacated the building. The exorcist entered with the village priest, Father Reuss. They were followed by two boys in surplices, 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 ex votos from thine humble and devoted servants. Great is thy might and boundless thy grace. May the Blessed Virgin comfort the restless souls who 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 boys repeated. Father Reuss peered gravely at the exorcist under his hooded eyes. When they stepped outside, it was already nearing sunset.
Stout Guido held a lantern under the gabled porch so that Moritz, the village carpenter, could see what he was doing. It was his job to hammer the door shut with twelve iron nails, which had been doused with holy water. This done, the exorcist ascended the steps one last time with a guttering candle held in one hand and a stick of red wax in the other. He melted the wax in the flame and daubed a blood-red cross in the center of the door. Then he dabbed the stick on the locks and seams (to symbolically seal them), and recited a final prayer to Saint Michael, calling upon the vanquisher of demons to keep the evil forever contained within the toll house’s walls.
The assembly returned to Mariahilf, 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 on the morrow; but they would not start their journey until the sun had risen the following day. Tonight they intended to build a campfire on the werewolf’s grave and sleep beside it beneath the starlight, confident that Christ Jesus would watch over them in the night.
Hermann looked anxiously at Oma Ingrid when the exorcist made this pronouncement. But his grandmother seemed unconcerned.
That night, Hermann dreamed that Oma Ingrid 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 one he’d seen stretched out dead on the morning after his encounter with the werewolf in the mountain—stood behind the old lady, stroking her hair. Hermann tried to cry out, but could not find his voice. Oma Ingrid sensed his agitation and looked at him. She seemed to ask with her eyes what was amiss.
“Nothing,” Hermann mumbled irritably because the dark-haired lady was gone.
Hermann awoke and exited the hut because he could hear Papa’s voice outside. Seven adolescent boys were airing out Moritz’s workshop. The stench of the werewolf’s sweat, piss and shit was so 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 dwellings. They resolved to pry the building apart and burn the boards in the valley on the place where the Jesuits had camped, since there had hardly been any grass, foliage or other combustibles, and the wind in that quarter was mild.
Hermann returned to the front paling and looked out toward the mountain’s foothills.
Oma Ingrid and Aunt Magda were returning with three other women carrying empty pails and baskets. They had cooked a hearty breakfast for the exorcist and the nuns in thanks for all they had done for the village. Behind the women, an upcoiling smoke hovered over the quenched campfire; and beyond that, the priest and reverend sisters were already advancing behind their mule cart up the gravel path that led out of the valley and to the junction of the Brenner Pass.
Thank God, no one died, Hermann thought. But he felt queasy and sprinted back inside his hut, leaving the door wide open. Behind the curtain where his father slept was a shelf that held a small mirror and straight razor.
Also on the shelf was a wooden memento mori, which his father had carved from a single block of wood when they had 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. Inside the statue was a mass of writhing worms and maggots. His father had been so proud of this 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 its glass to make sure that he still had a reflection. Then he opened his mouth and touched his canines to see if they were sharp. Oma Ingrid snatched the mirror from his hand and exhaled.
She seemed mildly amused but could tell the boy was distressed.
“Your mother’s heart was pure when she bore you.” Ingrid put the mirror back on the shelf, and gazed out the window, where Moritz and the men were dismantling the workshop. She closed the shutters because the rancid stench was wafting across the yard.
“Come,” Oma Ingrid said, as she parted the curtain and went to the fire. “Sit down. I’m going to tell you a story that your father doesn’t want me to tell you. It will be hard for you to hear, but you deserve to know.”
The two sat down on a pair of stools facing each other. The old woman carefully placed a fresh log on the glowing embers. Hermann rested his hands on his knees, hanging on her every word.
“I helped deliver you. Your birth was . . . unusual and fraught with difficulty. We feared that you would not survive the week.”
Hermann could not shake the feeling that she was hiding something.
“Your mother Ilse was inconsolable. She told your father that her body was now broken and that she would be incapable of bearing another child. Were you to die, she swore that she too would perish, since she would have no reason 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, which your doting father constructed for you. You mother’s milk had turned as black as bile and she could no longer nurse you. And so her sister, you Aunt Magda, who had only recently borne a son of her own, volunteered to foster you.
“Soon after, your mother summoned Moritz to her bedside, flinging the comforter aside. She complained that she was burning in Hellfire. And as her feverish eyes roved about the room, she whimpered: ‘I must confess to you, Moritz, and to Mother Ingrid the tragedy that has befallen me, God have mercy on my wretched soul.’”
With the fire prong Oma Ingrid poked the log and grimaced at the fire. “Your father took your mother’s hands in his. But she flung it away.
“‘Don’t touch me,’ she said. ‘What I have done is unpardonable.’
She looked at your father, almost pityingly, and related the horrid account of what happened to her on the mountain.
“‘I was certain that my baby’s death was imminent,’ she said. ‘And in my distress I fled to the foothills of the mountain until I reached that ridge that beetles over the valley on the other side. I resolved to hurl myself onto the screes below. But a man, whom I had not noticed, stood on a boulder near the ledge. . . .’”
At this, Hermann recoiled.
The corners of Oma Ingrid’s lips curled up into a smile.
“‘I presumed the man I met to be a holy hermit,’ she continued. ‘I told him of the heartache and anguish that had forced me to this crisis. He knew my history; and, with a lascivious leer, informed me that, if I were to offer myself to him such that we became one flesh, my child would recover and would live on. But as for my soul, it would be damned for all eternity.’”
The old woman exhaled and rose from the stool. She paced back and forth before resuming her narrative.
“My son 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.
“Ilse pointed at him. ‘But do you not see him standing behind you, Moritz?’
“Moritz shook his head. ‘There is no one here, my love!’
“‘Do you not feel his hand on your shoulder?’
“Your father gasped and wheeled around. But was confronted only by the empty air. He collected himself and scowled at her.
“‘You must rest,” he said. ‘Your son—’
“‘My son,” Ilse interjected, face glowing triumph, ‘has been born again and shall live on. . . .’
“She closed her eyes and slipped into unconsciousness. I dragged the chair to Ilse’s bedside, so that your father could sit on it and keep vigil with her through the night. But a strange fatigue overcame him and he nodded off, head resting on the coverlet.
“It was I who awoke first on the following morning. You were fussing in your crib, seeking Ilse’s embrace. But she was gone.
“‘Moritz!’ I exclaimed. ‘Look!’
“The mattress on which your mother had lain was drenched in blood and covered in the mutilated body parts of a wolf. On the floorboards, the bloody paw prints of something inhuman led from the bed to the hut’s now-open door.”
Ingrid pointed to the door as Moritz opened it.
Hermann and Oma Ingrid screamed.
“What’s wrong with you two?!” Moritz yelled. He saw the apprehension in his son’s countenance and turned to his mother. “What have you been telling him, Mama?”
“Oma’s teaching me how to boil turnips,” Hermann said.
Ingrid looked away from Moritz, who slammed the door.
In late June 1848 (in the midst of the werewolf’s trial), a representative from the Hofburg in Vienna had presented a decree to the aldermen of the village, proclaiming that, by the will of His Majesty Emperor Ferdinand, the imperial toll house of Mariahilf am Inn was to be permanently decommissioned.
The building had taken on the quality of a Biblical hissing place. Those passing in front of it averted their eyes and refused to speak—unless it was to utter a prayer. Some claimed to hear human fingers scrabbling on the wood, which others discounted as nothing more than mice or carrion birds.
Mariahilf soon returned to the quiet rhythms it had known before the hateful affair of that summer. Two weddings and a christening were celebrated in the weeks leading up to Assumption Day.
Moritz’s workshop had not only been rebuilt on a stone foundation, but had been more sturdily framed. His tools and equipment, which had been temporarily removed to the blacksmith’s sheds and outbuildings, were returned.
“As good as new,” the carpenter approvingly commented.
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 and her cubs. He had not been there since that horrid night. And it was with some trepidation that he made the ascent, going out of his way to skirt the mound in the valley that marked the werewolf’s grave.
As he reached an elevation that put him above the steeple of the ancient alpine chapel, the boy heard the clonk of cowbells echoing from the other side of the ridge. A herder was yodeling to his milch cows to pass the time.
In his carefree state, Hermann yodeled back. But his voice was starting to change, so he made a mess of it. This amused the herder, whose snickering could be heard in the valley below. The yodeler replied with a lusty drawn-out tune in a single breath.
Show off, Hermann thought with a grin. 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 that seemed to totter on the ledge was still there.
This must have been where Mama encountered that man she thought was a hermit. I wonder if it was the same man I saw.
Hermann could see the yodeler standing on the ledge of the opposite mountain. He looked away and was about to walk back down. Wait a minute, he thought. That yodeler couldn’t possibly have made it to the other mountain.
When he looked up at the place where the man had been, a wolf stood looking at him, its head tilted. Hermann ran as quickly as his legs would carry him back to his hut.
Hermann’s eleventh birthday fell on the 5th of September.
The next day, a band of Piedmontese irregulars passed through Mariahilf, bringing with them news from the Habsburg court. Father Reuss innocently inquired into the health of Prince von Metternich, since the old priest had served as his amanuensis during the Vienna Congress.
The soldiers laughed and informed him that the cowardly Chancellor had been deposed in the spring (well before the trial had begun). Now he was abroad with his family—in either England or France. Father Reuss seemed upset that none of the delegates from Vienna had offered to tell him about Metternich’s reversal of fortune during that tumultuous summer.
On All Saints’ Eve, Hermann helped Oma Ingrid cook up a basket full of palatschinken (griddle cakes) that were to be taken to the cemetery on the morrow, where the villagers would gather to hear Father Reuss sermonize before holding a feast among the graves of their dearly departed ancestors.
“It smells so good!” Hermann observed.
Oma Ingrid used a spatula to lift each one from the flat-iron skillet. She put it on a cloth resting on Hermann’s lap. The boy then used his bare hands to place them in the basket, wrapping cloth around each so they didn’t stick together.
“Your Aunt Magda has been making bilberry jam all week, which will go nicely with these.”
“And we’ll have cold milk!”
“Yes, and cold milk,” the old woman said with a grin.
Before they turned in that night, 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 he had finished and three of them had said “Amen”, Oma Ingrid went to the low-slung cot she slept on, which stood opposite the cooking fire. She claimed that in her old age her bones and joints could not longer tolerate the deep sink of a down mattress.
“Can I sleep in your bed tonight, Papa?” Hermann asked. “I can’t stretch out my legs anymore in my bed.”
“You’re growing too fast,” Moritz sighed. “I suppose you can. But if you kick me in your sleep, I’ll kick you out of bed.”
The boy laughed. He felt like an adult, pulling aside the curtain and entering Papa’s private space. Moritz walked outside to empty his bladder. The boy was so exhausted that he had no sooner pulled off his shirt and climbed up into the bed, than he was asleep. He didn’t even hear his father come back inside.
Hermann opened his eyes because he heard what sounded like a wolf howling. But the howling ceased, and now he heard Father Reuss whispering: “Something terrible has happened.”
The boy knew that he was dreaming, because he saw himself curled up in the bed next to Papa as he climbed down out of it. He walked by the shelf where the mirror and shaving razor were. The guts of the wood-carved memento mori was teeming with live maggots. The mirror shattered, as the door to the hut creaked open. Hermann drew the curtain aside.
Oma Ingrid was at the door with her back to him. She held the basket of palatschinken in her hand. When he tried to call out to her, his voice came out in a hideous yodel. Oma Ingrid exited the hut and turned sharply in the direction of the river.
Hermann ran after her.
Outside he saw his grandmother hurling the palatschinken to the left and right. A murder of crows seized the pastries and flew away. But once or twice a cake landed on the ground with a bloody splat, because it was a human organ. The old woman crossed the bridge over the River Inn, casting the basket into the river.
No matter how fast Hermann ran, he was unable to catch up with her. She made it to the other side and turned around to face him. He called out to her from the middle of the bridge. The old woman laughed and sprinted away in the direction of the toll house. Her legs moved as swiftly as those of a young girl.
Hermann reached the end of the bridge and saw the old woman glancing over her shoulder, giggling maniacally as she receded farther and farther away. But now 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 there was a wolf running beside him. But when he turned his head to get a better look, he saw the dark-haired lady whom he had seen lying dead in the wagon—the woman who was said to have borne a resemblance to his mother. But this woman was enraged and there was foam on her lips.
He arrived at the toll house. The same woman had somehow made it to the front door before him and now stood under the gabled porch. The door flew open and the room was bathed in the glow of hundreds of candles. Now the woman was no longer on the porch but inside the toll house;’s antechamber—as was Oma Ingrid.
The two women sat on the floor. The dark-haired lady sat behind Oma Ingrid, braiding the old woman’s hair. His grandmother was lamenting that, because she was so old, her hair was thin and she no longer had enough of it to braid. In response, the beautiful lady began licking the swirl at the back of Oma Ingrid’s head, grinning at Hermann from behind the old woman’s shoulder as she did this.
Hermann sat down in front of his grandmother. He asked why she was smiling when there were tears in her eyes. Oma Ingrid’s eye grew wide. She seemed afraid to answer. She signified by a subtle flick of the wrist that Hermann was in danger and should leave.
The dark-haired lady stood up, and her shadow spread over them both.
“I’m sorry,” Oma Ingrid said, patting Hermann’s knee.
Hermann glanced up at the figure looming over them. It was no longer the beautiful lady, but a monstrous combination of the lady and the cannibal toll collector who had been hanged in the valley.
“Wake up!” Papa shouted.
Hermann gasped awake and saw that the priest and Papa were standing over him.
“Something terrible has happened,” the priest said.
Moritz threw Hermann his shirt and told him to get dressed. Then the boy’s father put on his trousers and boots.
The curtain was pulled aside. Hermann saw several men loitering at the door of the hut, holding lanterns and torches.
“Where’s Oma?” Hermann asked.
No one answered.
Hermann followed his father outside. 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. As they neared the wooden bridge, Hermann saw palatschinken littering the path. A crow seized one and flew off.
Father Reuss could not keep pace with the men and lagged far behind. Papa was panting heavily.
As they neared the toll house, Hermann saw candles blazing behind the shuttered windows. There were even lights flickering behind the round windows of the upper landing. They climbed the porch steps; and Hermann saw that someone had broken the door open. 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 antechamber. All of the candles that had been extinguished before the toll house had been sealed, were now alight. The ex votos had been defiled, destroyed, or arranged in obscene tableaux.
The men parted from the object in the middle of the room. Hermann’s knees buckled, as he heard Papa cry out.
Oma Ingrid sat on the floorboards, with a smile on her face and tears on her cheeks. She was dead. The back of her skull was gone. A wild beast had chewed it away.
Dawn broke on the grimmest All Saints’ Day the villagers of Mariahilf am Inn had ever known. On the orders of Father Reuss, Mother Ingrid was buried at the crossroads outside of town.
Her body was turned face down and placed in a shallow grave 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 where her brains had been.
Moritz hugged his son and sobbed as the blacksmith drove the iron spike through Mother Ingrid’s heart.
