The sound of her feet on the floorboards accompanied the slow clicking of the pestle against the mask on her belt. Click, click, click. A slow and monotonous sound that both drew attention to her as well as rendered her invisible.
She moved through the hall slowly, taking in the room. The clock had stopped ticking a long time ago. Behind the stained glass, its arms were stuck on a quarter to twelve. Meanwhile, in the world outside of the glass, it was seven o'clock at the latest.
In the taproom, barmaids lit candles and started fires. Crackling logs and the voices of travelers and villagers blended into a soothing buzz that would be the background for her work.
Her fingers traced the furniture, chairs, closets and dressoirs. Deep snoring sounds came out of the kitchen where the dishonest innkeeper took a nap. He had been scamming his customers for years. The priestess had trouble combing through the chaos in his mind, and when she let go, she felt sullied by the contact. On the cupboard next to his sleeping body, a vial appears. On the label, a blob of brown ink unfurls into the words, ‘for the innkeeper’.
As she ascends the stairs, she has her second target in mind. A thief rummaging through the luggage of a sleeping traveler finds a vial he simply cannot resist. One more. She thinks to herself. That’s the deal, three per village for the Silent One.
Slowly she descends again, and in the taproom she finds her final target. Behind a veil of pain and fear sits a woman with a dark past. Every time the priest had named someone a witch, she pointed at another. She would scream and scold and condemn. Everything and anything to make sure that she at least would escape the unjust fires raging through the land. Herein she turned old, hard, and bitter. Her fear and deception might have brought her protection but it also had made her life miserable. Years of lies ate away at her body and soul.
The priestess needn’t read the old woman’s mind. She could tell just by the bitter line that formed her mouth and the hazy eyes. The woman had been waiting for her. Perhaps for a long time.
Without hesitation the priestess put the last bottle down in front of the woman. The priestess saw the old eyes glow faintly, but could not be sure if it was magic or simply the reflected glow of the candles. Boney fingers folded around the glass and in its contents, like all the chosen ones, the old woman saw the escape she so longed for. For a short and tender moment, she seemed without worry.
The priestess moved to the alcove in the corner of the taproom. Behind a ring of candles, she opened her book and waited, waited till the last traveler had sought out their bed and the moon slowly started to make her way back down the sky, surrendering to the sun. She breathed in, opened the heavy book and started writing.
The innkeeper was to be the first. Every disturbing sentence his mind had produced landed on the paper. The quill moved with determination, held by her fingers but steering of its own accord. ‘More wealth will make me happy. I deserve more, more, more.’
Page after page the quill told stories both good and bad, the ending finally signified with a final dot of ink before the quill ceased moving.From the kitchen, a scream could be heard, and everything that still held the innkeeper's empty vessel together disappeared into the walls of his beloved inn.
The story of the thief went quick and painless in comparison. A short plea escaped their lips, revolving around never having to go back to the place it all began. Never having to turn back to the reeking alley in their city of origin. She understood what drove him, but was obligated to choose an offering for the Silent One, so no matter their background, the thief’s life was forfeit. And so the quill penned on till the end. A dot of ink, just like the first completed the tale, followed by a faint thud on the floorboards above her head.
The old woman hadn’t touched her vial yet. A strange and impressive feat. She had managed to withstand the potion’s appeal and just sat there at her table across the room from the priestess. Her empty eyes fixated on the priestess’s golden mouthpiece.
She opened the vial only after she had ensured she’d have the priestess’s full attention and finished it in one go. A thin rivulet of liquid ran down the valleys of her wrinkled chin and flowed into the neckline of her tunic, the dark brown stain slowly spreading.
The priestesses hands started to tingle, her quill shivering as it made its way back to the paper one final time. For today, anyway. The old woman started to float. The priestess hated this part. The woman’s arms spread and with every move of the priestess’s quill a part of what used to be her story faded. Her first words, her first kiss, her first argument. The pen wove the story of her life like a fine tapestry until a floating vessel was all that was left.
I did what I had too, now to nourish myself, the priestess thought. Her hands grasped at the air, at the lifeless figure. Quicker and quicker her hands moved, as if she was roping something towards her. From deep within the withering vessel, a reddish glow emerged. As if sunlight passed through the skin, the whole figure started to glow. Every vein suddenly exposed. A map of red roads that once led to a beating centre.
The priestess opened the palms of her hands and received. She felt it in her bones, the vessel emptying, filling her own belly with fresh blood. Enough blood to last. At least till the next inn came into her sight.
