22

Calling

For a long time, neither Agnes nor Peter dared move. Eventually Peter crawled over and found her huddled on the floor. He held her gently and then realized he could hear something.

The wool was being pulled out slowly from the winding.

“You did it!” Peter cried. “Well done!”

Agnes was silent.

“You did it.”

Peter went over to the shutter, and felt the wool paying out through the gap between the shutter and frame. It was not moving fast, or even that steadily, but it was moving.

Being careful not to snag the wool, he opened the shutter again, and saw that the snow had stopped. The sky had cleared and there was enough starlight to see the outlines of the trees. He spent a long time looking for the terrible visitor, but could see no sign.

Faint light was spilling onto the floor of the hut now and he checked the pile of wool. Agnes had been busy; there was enough wool to stretch to Turkey, as far as he could tell. Making sure it could move freely from the skein that Agnes had coiled from her spinning, he turned to her.

“Agnes. It’s time for me to go. Stay here. I’ll be back soon.”

He lifted Agnes up and placed her on the bed again, pulling the blanket up to her neck.

She turned to face him.

“Don’t go,” she said, her voice small and still.

“I have to. This is what we agreed. You’ve done your part. Now I must do mine.”

He took her chin in his hands and tilted her face up to his.

Agnes shivered.

“I kissed him, Peter.”

“You did what you had to. You fixed the wool. That’s all that matters.”

“He was so…cold. So…”

But she couldn’t explain what she had felt.

“Stay here,” Peter said, and leant down, kissing her forehead. “It’ll be light soon. That will make you feel better. Close the shutter when I’ve gone.”

He got up and, without another word, set the stool upright by the window once more and climbed out, slightly more easily than when he had entered, earlier in the night.

Once outside, it was easy to tell that dawn was still far off, and it was hard to see clearly. But Peter smiled to himself. He didn’t need to see, he just had to follow. Agnes had done her job well. The distaff that she had been spinning with had a metal clip on it. They’d broken the clip off and tied the wool to it. In that awful moment as she leant out of the window, she had fixed the clip onto the back of the jacket of her nocturnal visitor.

Now all Peter had to do was follow the wool, and he would find the culprit. He tried to tell himself it was probably just some young fool from the village who had a desire for Agnes, but nonetheless he wished he had his axe with him.

Peter followed the wool, threading his way through the trees.

 

Agnes lay on the bed in the hut, unable to move. Overwhelmed by fear, she blinked in the gloom for a long time, powerless to get up and close the shutter as Peter had told her to. Her mind was occupied with a single thought: she had kissed the thing at the window. She could still taste something on her lips, something foul. At last she made a small movement and wiped her lips with the back of her hand. It felt no better, so she did it again. And again, and again, and then frantically she began to scratch at her face, desperate to rid herself of whatever disgusting coldness it was that clung to her.

She rolled onto the floor and crawled to find her jug of water, wasting it all trying to wash the taste from her lips. Then she heard a noise at the window.

She lifted her head as she knelt on all fours, like a dog getting a scent.

“Peter?” she called. And then panicked. It had to be Peter. Who else could it be?

“Peter! Come in and help me! Come in!”

 


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