The Brixen Witch Read online

  “Stacy DeKeyser deftly updates the Pied Piper’s tale. The story scuttles with rats, of course, and you end up reading it on your hind legs.”

  —Richard Peck, Newbery Medal–winning author of A Year Down Yonder

  “With lilting language and a unique voice, DeKeyser spins a tale like no other. I loved it!”

  —Barbara O’Connor, author of How to Steal a Dog

  “A surprisingly powerful retelling of the ancient story of the stranger with a magical musical instrument.”

  —Zilpha Keatley Snyder, three-time Newbery Honor winner

  A MYSTERIOUS WITCH LIVES on the mountain above the village of Brixen. Rudi’s never seen her, and nothing much is ever said about her. It’s bad luck to talk of such things.

  One day Rudi finds a golden coin on the mountain and slips it into his pocket. Immediately the weather turns icy and a storm chases him home. Or is it the witch chasing him? The storm rages all night, and an eerie singing comes from the coin. His grandmother tells Rudi he must return the enchanted coin. But when he tries to bring it back, he loses it just as the snows come.

  Rudi is plagued all winter by horrible dreams, and in the spring rats appear in the village: rats in the square, rats in the churchyard, rats everywhere. Nothing the villagers do will get rid of them. Is this the witch’s revenge? Then a stranger arrives, promising to get rid of the rats. But what if his price is too terrible to bear?

  Rudi will need to be very smart and very brave to turn all this bad luck around. Luckily, he gets a little help from his savvy grandmother and a bold young girl in this twisty tale full of mayhem and magic.

  STACY DEKEYSER is the author of the young adult novel Jump the Cracks as well as two nonfiction books for young readers. She lives in Connecticut with her family. Visit her online at stacydekeyser.com.

  JACKET DESIGN BY DEBRA SFETSIOS-CONOVER

  JACKET ILLUSTRATION COPYRIGHT © 2012

  BY GREG CALL MARGARET K. MCELDERRY BOOKS

  SIMON & SCHUSTER

  NEW YORK

  Meet the author, watch videos, and get extras at

  kids.simonandschuster.com

  MARGARET K. McELDERRY BOOKS

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2012 by Stacy DeKeyser

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  MARGARET K. MCELDERRY BOOKS is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.

  Book design by Debra Sfetsios-Conover

  The text for this book is set in Cochin.

  The illustrations for this book are rendered in Illustrator.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  0512 FFG

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  DeKeyser, Stacy.

  The Brixen Witch / Stacy DeKeyser.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Twelve-year-old Rudi stumbles upon a witch’s lair while out hunting, takes a gold coin he finds there but loses it again, then must deal with the witch’s servant who promises to end the town’s rat infestation only if he receives that gold coin, in a story reminiscent of The Pied Piper of Hamelin.

  ISBN 978-1-4424-3328-1 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-1-4424-3330-4 (eBook)

  [1. Witchcraft—Fiction. 2. Community life—Fiction. 3. Rats—Fiction. 4. Magic—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.D3682Bri 2012

  [Fic]—dc23

  2011033680

  FOR STEPHANIE

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I am grateful to an entire community of book lovers, especially these in particular, who helped this book come into the world:

  To my first readers, Dori Chaconas, Kim Marcus, Audrey Vernick, and the Tuesday Writers of West Hartford, Connecticut, for their honest feedback, steadfast friendship, and positive vibes.

  To the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism, for its generous Artist Fellowship.

  To Tracey Adams and everyone at Adams Literary, for their passion, energy, and unwavering faith.

  To everyone at Margaret K. McElderry Books, especially Karen Wojtyla, who has been exactly the right midwife for this book. Her enthusiasm, thoughtfulness, and deft touch have reminded me at every step how lucky I am to be part of MKM’s literary legacy.

  To all my family for their support, especially Kelly, Tom, and Steven, whose love, good humor, and patience allow me to do what I do.

  RUDI BAUER ran for his life and cursed his bad luck. He would never have touched the gold coin—much less put it in his pocket—if he’d known it belonged to a witch.

  It had been a blustery morning, with more than a hint of snow stinging his nostrils, when Rudi left his warm cottage and climbed the high meadow to hunt rabbits in the shadow of the Berg. All day long he scrambled on the mountain, but his aim was crooked, or perhaps it was his slingshot. By dusk, icy pellets stabbed Rudi’s hands and face, and he had nothing to show for the day but the golden guilder in his pocket and its rightful owner flinging hexes down the mountain in his wake.

  So now here he was, half running, half stumbling downslope, the wind and sleet screaming in his ears.

  Or was it the witch?

  Rudi didn’t stop to find out. He hurtled down the mountain, his legs threatening to give way and send him off the edge and onto the rocks below.

  But he wasn’t thinking of that. Or he was trying not to. He was thinking how remarkable it was that the witch was real after all. All this time, he’d assumed she was nothing but a fairy tale; a bedtime fable told to every child in the village of Brixen. His own mother had often told him the story of the Brixen Witch, who lived under the mountain, hidden and silent so long as no one disturbed her domain.

  He had never liked that story at bedtime. It did not result in happy dreams.

  And other than a few stories, nothing much was said about the witch in Brixen. People said it was bad luck to talk of such things.

  “So I found the entrance to her lair,” thought Rudi to himself as darkness fell and the lights of the village appeared below through the slanting pellets of ice. “I wonder if anyone else knows where it is. I wonder if I’d ever be able to find it again.”

  But he couldn’t imagine ever wanting to find it again. Every blink of his eyes brought a flash of memory: the gaping mouth; the teeth like spikes; the foul icy breath. And t
he screech—it had been painful to his ears, like a thousand cats fighting in a room with walls of stone.

  Rudi shuddered as he hurled himself toward his own front door. One last look over his shoulder. One last ear-piercing shriek that may have been the storm, but may have been—

  And he crashed into the house, somersaulting onto the floor as the door hit the wall with a bang. In one quick instant he was surrounded by everyone he loved most dearly in the world, and he had never been happier to see them.

  “Close the door, boy!” yelled his father, jumping from his chair and spilling his pipe onto Rudi’s head. “You’re letting October into the house!”

  “By the saints!” said his mother. “You’re muddy as a salamander. And now look at my rug.”

  “Where are the rabbits?” said Oma. “I’m getting too old to eat my dinner so late.”

  Rudi blinked up at them, trying to catch his breath. He swallowed hard, lifted his head, and croaked, “Witch.” Then he collapsed into a heap.

  “Which what?” said Oma, tsking and nudging Rudi with her toe. “The boy needs to learn to speak up. I don’t see any rabbits on his belt.”

  “Nor do I,” said his mother, sighing. “Then it’s barley soup again.”

  Rudi sat up, dug pipe ash out of his ear, and tried to speak calmly. But all he could manage was, “A cave … on the mountain … something chased me….”

  “What was it?” said his father. “A bear? A wolf?” He squinted at Rudi. “A bad-tempered marmot?”

  “Should have shot it anyway,” said Oma. “It would have been as tasty as rabbit, I’m sure.” She smacked her gums.

  Rudi regarded his slingshot and his grandmother in turn. “It was bigger than me,” he told her. “With teeth. And claws. And a screech like the Devil himself.”

  “Rudolf Augustin Bauer!” scolded his mother. “Such stories you tell!”

  Rudi considered that the stories he told were only those she’d told him first, but he kept silent in that regard.

  Rudi’s father refilled the bowl of his pipe and struck a match. “Your eyes were playing tricks on you, son. You know better than to be caught up there as the light wanes, especially when a storm threatens. Are you sure you didn’t come upon a fox sleeping in its den? That would raise a snarl, I’ve no doubt.” And he snorted and clapped Rudi on the back, so that Rudi nearly collapsed again onto the rug.

  Rudi sighed. His father must be right. It had been getting dark, and the snow had started to fly, and it had become difficult to see. He smiled crookedly, and felt his face grow warm, and scratched the back of his head.

  “You’re right, Papa,” he said. “That was it. I’m sure it was a fox.” And Rudi stood on the rug, kicked off his muddy boots (to his mother’s exasperation), and took himself up the stairs to clean up.

  But as he pulled off his grass-stained trousers, a new thought popped into his head. He plunged his hand deep into his pocket, and his fingers closed around something hard and flat and round.

  A golden guilder.

  It gleamed softly, even in the dimness of the loft, and it was unlike anything he’d ever seen. Not that he’d often seen any gold coin up close before. But it had a thickness about it, and markings he couldn’t read.

  “What kind of fox keeps an old gold coin in its den?” he whispered to himself. But he decided it was just coincidence. If Rudi had stumbled upon the cave, why not someone else? Another hunter had dropped the coin long ago, and today Rudi had found it. That was all.

  His mind wandered to what he might be able to buy with such a coin. A new pair of skis? A new rug for his mother? A slingshot that actually worked?

  And then one ragged syllable burst from Oma’s mouth, flew up the stairs, and scraped Rudi’s eardrums.

  “Witch!”

  Rudi’s breath stopped in his throat. The coin fell from his hand onto his stockinged foot and rolled under his bed. He stifled a curse.

  “Which what?” boomed Papa’s voice from below. Then he laughed. “Is that how you play the game, Mother?”

  Rudi scrambled into clean trousers, fumbled beneath the bed for the coin, and jammed it under his pillow. “How’s that, Oma?” he called over the railing, his voice cracking.

  “When you first spilled into the house all breathless and red in the face,” she called up to him, “you said ‘witch.’ Didn’t you?” Oma’s mind was sharp. It was her ears that sometimes lagged behind, but they always caught up eventually, and that’s what they were doing now.

  Rudi gulped, and resisted the urge to glance back at his pillow. “I was being silly,” he called down. “Like Papa said—it was a trick of the light.”

  Oma squinted up at him for a moment. Then she shrugged and sat herself down to dinner. “As you say. You were there, not I.”

  Rudi breathed a sigh of relief, which brought the aroma of hot barley soup and fried apples to his nostrils. He bounded down the stairs, his appetite surging.

  “All I mean to say,” said Oma, as if the conversation had not just ended, “is that if you did visit a witch, I hope you didn’t take anything. Anyone who steals from the Brixen Witch’s hoard is hounded without mercy until she gets her treasure back. That’s all I mean to say.”

  And Oma dipped her spoon into her bowl and slurped her soup.

  RUDI COULD not sleep.

  He blamed the storm, which continued into the night without relief. The wind rattled the shutters, and it made an eerie noise that sounded to Rudi’s ears like some kind of tuneless singing, or the distant playing of a pennywhistle. In their own corners of the loft, his family somehow managed to sleep undisturbed.

  Rudi dragged his pillow over his head, and his cheek came to rest on a spot of cool metal. The golden guilder. The cursed coin. Oma’s words pushed themselves at him again, as they had done all that evening, no matter how he’d tried to keep them away. And if that weren’t enough, it seemed to Rudi that the pillow did nothing to muffle the tuneless song.

  He sat up and scanned the darkness. Then he slid out of bed and stepped to his trunk, not bothering to tread softly. The noise of the storm stifled all other sound, even Oma’s snores. Rudi buried the coin deep within the folds of his summerweight woolens, dropped the lid of his trunk, and scuttled back to bed.

  At that moment the wind gave a frightful howl. It wrenched a shutter free from its latch and banged it against the house. The panes of the window rattled as the sleet battered the glass like handfuls of stones. For the briefest instant, Rudi thought he glimpsed a flash of color through the window—red, and then yellow—and then he saw something else just beyond the glass.

  A face?

  “Brrrf!” came a groggy deep voice from the other end of the loft. “What the—grmph—shutter!” And Papa tumbled out of bed and lurched half-asleep toward the window. Rudi was sure that the face outside the window was only a result of his own terrified imagination, but just in case, he jumped out of bed and grabbed the hem of Papa’s nightshirt.

  Papa swung the windowpane inward, reached out into the storm, gasped “buh!” as he was splashed with sleet, grabbed the shutter, pulled it tight, and hooked the latch. Then he shut the window again and turned back toward the room, now fully awake and blinking away ice pellets.

  “What?—” Papa said, nearly stepping on Rudi.“Why didn’t you get the shutter if you were up? And why is there still a draft in here?” Papa’s gaze fell upon Rudi’s hand, which was still holding his father’s nightshirt and revealing a good bit of beefy bare leg.

  Papa tugged his shirt out of Rudi’s grasp, and a laugh burst from his lips. “Twelve years old and still afraid of a storm, eh, boy?” He tousled Rudi’s hair. “I won’t tell. It’s a night for the Devil himself out there, don’t tell your mother I said that.” A shiver ran its course from Papa’s knees to his shoulders, and for a moment Rudi wondered if the source of the shiver was the storm, the Devil, or his mother. Papa shuffled back to bed, leaving Rudi to stand on the cold floor with his mouth hanging open.

  Now
it was Rudi who blinked. What had he seen outside the window? It must have been an illusion, created by the slashing sleet against the panes. He recalled how the wavy glass shone with rainbow colors during summer rainstorms, when sunlight peeked from behind the clouds and struck the window at just the right angle. Yes, that’s what had happened now. Something like that.

  Proud of himself for thinking so logically despite the disturbances of the night, Rudi clambered into bed for a second time. He turned over and tried to sleep.

  It was no use. He couldn’t shake the tuneless song from his head, even though he knew it was just the wind twisting itself through the chinks in the walls and into his ears. He concentrated on hearing only the wind, and blocking from his mind whatever musical sound he thought he heard entwined with the sound of the storm.

  But he could not. If anything, Rudi heard the tune even more loudly than before.

  And now he heard a scratching at the window.

  It was only a pinecone, Rudi told himself. Or a bit of branch that had caught in the shutter, and now it was rubbing against the windowpane. Rudi would not prove his father right about being frightened of a storm. He sat up in bed, intending to scold himself, but instead of whispering “Stop it, Rudi!” different words spilled from his mouth:

  “Go away!”

  But the scratching continued, and the shutter rattled (though this time it did not give way), and now Rudi was certain that the music—the tuneless song that sounded something like the wail of a pennywhistle—was not the wind, and it was not his imagination.

  He slid under his blankets until they covered his head, and he did not sleep, but could only wait for morning.

  Rudi sat up with a start. He must have dozed after all, because now he heard a different sound outside the window. The sound of the wind not blowing.

  No sleet lashed against the house. Nothing rattled the windows. The storm had passed.

  So why did that maddening tune still prickle his ears?

  It was not yet first light, but Rudi rolled out of bed and stumbled down the stairs to clear his head.