“It’s our home and if it’s not good enough for the likes of you, then you’re welcome to leave.”
“No, it’s wonderful—" Celia began.
“Enough of that, husband.” Greta cut her off before she could go any further. “Think how you would feel if you were a stranger to this place.”
Friedrich continued to glare at Celia for a moment longer, then his expression softened. “You’re right,” he said. “My apologies. I’ve allowed what this place has become to get inside me. I used to have better manners and hospitality.”
“It’s fine,” Celia said. “I understand. You’ve been through so much.”
He patted her shoulder gently as he went past, joining his wife in the small kitchen area. Pulling a loaf from a cloth sack, he took a sharp knife from a block on the counter and began to slice it. “We don’t have much,” he said, “but what we do have you’re welcome to share.”
“May I help?” Celia asked.
“No, you sit,” Greta said.
“Actually, you can,” Friedrich said, “and you don’t have to get up to do it.” He glanced at his wife, then continued slowly slicing the bread. “Tell us what you saw. All of it.”
Greta didn’t look at her, but her silence made it clear that she too wanted to know. Celia sighed and told them the tale. When she finished there was a soft sniffle from Greta and Friedrich wiped his eyes on his shirttail.
“You actually hit one of the bastards?” he said, turning to the table with the sliced bread on a wooden platter. He set it down in front of her, then walked back to a cupboard and opened it. Inside was a dusty bottle that he removed and pulled the cork from. He took three empty cups and poured a measure of liquid from the bottle into each one.
“Here’s to you, girl. And to your kindness and bravery. You’ve done more than most of us.”
He raised his cup and drank, and Celia followed suit. The liquid was bitter, with a sharp bite in the back of her throat. She coughed once as she set the empty cup back on the table.
“Really, I didn’t do much. I wanted to save her.”
Greta set a cup of tea in front of her and hugged her quickly. Then she disappeared through the same curtain that Friedrich had earlier. From the other room, Celia heard her weeping quietly.
Friedrich held the bottle toward her, but Celia shook her head. He poured a bit more into his cup, recorked the bottle, and put it back into the cabinet. Then he sat across from her and took a slice of bread. “Eat”, he said, his eyes wandering to the curtained doorway.
“I don’t mind if you go to her,” Celia said, taking a slice herself. Unlike the liquid, the bread was delicious.
Friedrich shook his head. “She needs a few minutes alone. I know my Greta.”
Celia smiled at that small bright spot in an otherwise gloomy atmosphere. If the love that was plain between these two, and between them and their daughter, survived, perhaps there was hope for this place after all.
“If this has always been home,” she said, “what happened? How did it get like this?”
Friedrich shrugged. “It happened gradually, but in a way that, looking back, it feels like it was overnight.”
He chewed his bread, his face thoughtful.
“Once, this place was like I imagine any other town. It had its problems, but for the most part, people were good and decent. The Minister, that’s what we called the headman, was fair, somewhat hard-working, and mostly honest. He used the office to enrich himself, but no more than would be expected. Made some good decisions and some bad. Like any other town.”
He stopped and took a small sip from his cup. Celia ate her bread and waited for him to continue.
“The Minister lived, well, lives still, I guess, in the large house at the end of the main street. It comes with the job, although his father was Minister before him, and his before that. I’m not sure anyone even noticed when it became hereditary. As long as they weren’t too corrupt, most of us didn’t care. Let us alone to live our lives, you know?
“Then he started being seen less and less frequently. Instead of showing up for town celebrations or events, he sent others in his place, with the excuse that he was too busy, or ill, or whatever they said. People noticed, but we didn’t put too much stock in it. He was just putting on airs, getting too good to associate with the common man, that sort of thing.”
“Then he stopped everything.” This from Greta, reemerging from the other room, her eyes still red. She took a seat at the table and reached for a slice of bread. “We never saw him again, but the proclamations started coming from the manor. No more celebrations, longer work days, more taxes. Things like that. Folk started to grumble.”
“And to make it all worse, the constables started to disappear,” Friedrich continued. “At first no one noticed. If you don’t have need, who wants to see a constable, right? Then, some people did notice, and as you would suspect, they were the type of people who were used to watching out for them. The bad elements started to get bolder, taking what they wanted, and growing more brazen all the time. Before long, no one was even trying to stop them.”
“Where was your Minister?”
“No one knows,” Greta said. “The proclamations stopped also. No word from the manor and no one has gone in our out. We woke one morning and the place was boarded up. Soon after that, they showed up.”
“The hunters,” Celia said.
“That’s as good a name as any for them,” Friedrich said. “That first night, there were
