#19 The Afflictions of Mrs Liedl

Mother was weeping. Again. But when she wasn't weeping she was screaming at them. 

The twins had watched her descent into despair for over a year now. The tipping point had been that night when they hadn't come home to her, the night they'd spent in Barfunweltz Manse.

She'd seen her feral children run off into the cemetery and refuse to come back when she called. It was no wonder their actions had broken her, for her children had disappeared into the very cemetery where her husband had been lost, forever. Yet Anya and Dieter had seen their father's gheist that night, and he had saved them - perhaps.

Wracked with guilt and remorse for their foolishness, the twins had tried to reassure their mother. But nothing they said or did seemed to help. She collapsed into hopelessness, convinced that they were all destined to follow her husband into undeath. The family had swiftly run out of money and Mrs Liedl's increasingly strange and disturbing behaviour eventually pushed away even their kindliest neighbours. To survive, all three of them had each been forced to contribute to the household in their own way: Mrs Liedl had resorted to scavenging; Dieter to begging; Anya to stealing.

Dieter sniffed the air. The results of their mother's foraging was cooking in the pot over the fire. Where she was getting her supply of meat from, the children had no idea. It always smelled sweet and appetising, but almost too appetising. The twins never ate it, preferring to gnaw on the crusts of bread and other morsels that Dieter had been handed by compassionate passers-by. Occasionally, his sister would steal something more filling, but he was an honest lad and would rather live on charity than crime.

He had a plan to save his family, but he didn't dare even mention it to his mother. He was going to join the Glymmsmen like his father. He would earn his stipend, support his family and avenge his father's death. But he knew she wouldn't hear of it. The thought of her son following her husband would push her over the edge. Or maybe she had already passed that point.

As she sobbed, Mrs Liedl was scratching something on the rotting board that served as their table. The children tried to look without drawing her attention lest she start screaming again. She had been drawing the same shape over and over - something like five leaves, or perhaps petals, arranged in a circle. It looked vaguely familiar. She had coloured some of them in with something reddish-brown.

Anya watched her mad scribbling. Tears streaked the grime on her broken mother's emaciated face. Suddenly, in that moment, Anya knew that she would not let herself suffer the same fate. Glymmsforge, Shyish - it was a hard place to live, but she wasn't going to let it break her. She wasn't going to give up. Her mind's eye flicked to the treasure she had hidden in the alleyway behind their hovel. The candelabrum from Barfunweltz Manse. She had brought it back home the morning after their night in the cemetery, secreted beneath her ragged cloak. She didn't quite know why, but she had never told anyone she still had it - not even her twin brother. It was a beautiful, but oddly disturbing object, a triple candlestick inlaid with an intricate rose motif. 

She was certain it was worth quite a lot - certainly enough to help get her family back on their feet. And yet she had kept it. At first she had told herself she needed to wait so that the theft wasn't traced back to her. But was it really theft? She had simply found it in what had turned out to be the ruins of an old house. So she had justified the secrecy by telling herself it would be a nice surprise. Or that she needed to find the right fence to give her its proper value. Now she could delay no longer, the time had come to sell - or perhaps it was already too late for their mother. 

Mrs Leidl suddenly span around and stared at her twins. A change had come over her face. Her eyes were wide and, for the first time in at least a year, her mouth wrenched itself into a smile. Anya and Dieter froze in stunned silence.

"My loves," she said, her voice gentle and motherly once more, "there is hope."

She gestured to the designs she had carved on the board, moving them into the pale light. Dieter looked more closely - he knew that sign. Anya recognised the reddish-brown pigment. They both spoke simultaneously:

"Blood?" said Anya.

"Rose?" said Dieter.

"Yes!" smiled Mrs Liedl as she got up, walked to the fire and took up the cooking pot. She turned and proffered to them the sickly-smelling meat, her face radiating madness. "Take, and eat. Join me at His feast. There is hope in the Way of the Rose!"

#20 BATTLE IV - THE DISSATISFACTION OF THE SLAYER