But, despite the garlic, I wondered if she really did.
We dragged Ruth out of the tub and awkwardly stuffed her into her dress. We were barely able to pin it shut over the bundle around her midsection, but we tried. Frau Gerlach tied Ruth’s shoes on her feet, while I tucked her soggy hair into a bonnet. I tried to do a decent job, make it look good.
Not that it mattered. I knew that the Hexenmeister would see this house in flames before the night had fallen.
We laid Ruth on the floor of the spring room, then went upstairs to turn our attention to her mother. Frau Gerlach harrumphed at the men still standing around, staring at the two dead men.
We climbed the stairs to the parents’ bedroom. Frau Gerlach put her hands on her hips, contemplating the woman impaled on the bedpost.
“Huh,” she said. “I think it would have been easier if they let the Hexenmeister burn the house.”
I swallowed.
“Katie, go tell one of those men to find me a hacksaw. There’s no point in trying to save the furniture.”
I remained at the Hersberger house until late in the afternoon, side by side with Frau Gerlach. I worked numbly, following her terse directions, dimly aware of the passage of time. Outdoors, a few men were making simple caskets out of sheets of pine. The Hexenmeister had disappeared, and I assumed that he had gone to make preparations for the evening. Everyone else avoided the house.
We had to take down the bedpost, and Frau Hersberger landed on the floor in an awkward pile. But we succeeded in getting her cleaned, wrapped up, dressed, and lined up next to Ruth on the spring room floor. I managed to slip some garlic in her mouth when Frau Gerlach’s back was turned.
The four sisters were more problematic.
I followed Frau Gerlach into their bedroom with my eyes shut. I smelled blood, felt my shoes sticking to the floor. My breath was shallow, and I could feel my own living blood rushing in my ears.
I heard Frau Gerlach’s footsteps in the sticky mess, tracking back and forth, and her breathing. I heard her open a window.
“Katie,” she said, with unusual gentleness.
I forced myself to open my eyes.
The girls had been torn to pieces. Bits of flesh and bone were strewn from wall to wall. I saw a small arm reaching from under the bed and fixed my eyes on that. At first, I thought it was a doll’s—but then it registered that it was the limb of a young girl.
I looked down. I was standing on a girl’s finger. I backed up, balled my fists, and was preparing to flee. The room spun crazily around me: the reddened quilts, the smears on the walls, the human leg cast upon a half-full hope chest, a doll face-down in blood. I stared at it, unsure whether to retrieve it and clean it up or let it be.
“Katie,” Frau Gerlach repeated. She shook me.
I forced myself to look at her. “How . . .?” I had no idea what the Elders expected us to do with this.
“Ask the men to bring us four boxes from the yard.”
“But how . . .” I couldn’t imagine trying to sort the limbs and cleaning.
“We will do the best we can,” she said firmly. “God will understand. And if the Elders don’t . . . Well, they’re not here.”
I nodded, then walked robotically away, down the stairs and into the sunshine of the yard to ask the men for the boxes.
My father was there. I blinked tears at him, relieved that he’d come. He put his arms around me, and I embraced him gratefully, willing myself not to cry, not yet. He smoothed my hair back from my face, offered me some water. I saw him staring at a red stain on my rolled-up sleeve, at the red on my apron. “I came as soon as I heard.”
I nodded, taking a small sip of water before my stomach turned.
“She’s a good girl.” Frau Gerlach had come up behind me, put her hand on my shoulder. “She is a strong girl. The only strong one here. She is helping me attend the women. You should be proud of her.”
My father looked at me with sad pride. “I know.”
My lip quivered. “I have to help Frau Gerlach. There’s . . . there’s a lot to do.”
He nodded. “I will tell your mother.”
I kissed him on the cheek quickly and turned back to Frau Gerlach, who had chosen four small hollow boxes that stood beside the door. She left the lids on the grass.
We carried them to the girls’ room, arranged them on the floor.
“There is not enough left to fill these boxes.” Frau Gerlach sighed.
“How do we know . . .” I looked around the room. “How do we know what belongs to . . . whom?”
She shook her head. “God will take them however he finds them. And the congregation does not need to see them. We will just do our best.”
We began with the larger pieces, putting them in the boxes according to size. I merely wanted to get through with the task. I slipped a clove of garlic into each box, though I only found two pieces of jaw and part of a scalp. I put the ruined doll into the box that had the smallest body parts in it.
We worked for an hour in silence, before Frau Gerlach stood and said, “
She stared up at the late-afternoon light on the ceiling. “They will have to have the service outdoors. There will not be enough time to clean the house before then.”
I was relieved. I could not imagine all the buckets that it would take to scrub this place clean.
“You have done well, Katie,” Frau Gerlach said. “You would make a fine midwife someday, if you ever wished to learn.”
I cast my eyes down, exhausted and shy and afraid and proud all at once. “All I have managed so far is to be a midwife to the puppies.”
She reached out to pat my cheek with a bloody hand. “God smiles on those who quietly do his dirty work, my girl.”
Chapter Nineteen
The sun was slipping toward the horizon by the time I’d trudged back to the kennel. I hauled aside the heavy door. I was exhausted, but there was still work to do.
“It’s Katie,” I called softly.
Copper raced up to me, and I knelt down to rub his ears. He sniffed at me dubiously, flattened his ears.
“I’m sorry, boy.” I surely reeked like a slaughterhouse, but there was nothing to be done for it. If I headed directly home, I knew that my mother would fling me into the bathtub, stuff me full of soup, and not allow me out for the rest of the day.
Alex ambled up to me, a sly smile on his face. He was eating an apple.
“Where did you get that?” I snapped.
He shrugged. “From the apple tree out back . . . They’re a little wormy, but that’s just extra protein. You shouldn’t be outside, Bonnet. Sunset’s coming.” He fixed his gaze on my stained apron. “What happened?”
I blew out a deep breath. “A family was found dead this morning.”
“Dead?”
“Killed by vampires.” I shut my eyes. “It was awful.”
He knelt beside me and put his arm around my shoulders. “I’m sorry.”
I nodded, leaning into the warmth of his side. “I spoke with the Hexenmeister.”
“Did he have any ideas?”
“He does. But the Elders don’t believe him.”
“Don’t believe him? Or don’t want to believe him?”
“Some of both. The Hexenmeister wanted to burn down the house with the bodies in it, but the Bishop
