*Rated "pW" for Previous Wielder. Deals with past lives. Based largely on conjecture, historical fact, and previous same-author fanfiction.
Dumbfounded, Bronte hardly knew what to make of the priest's cryptic final instruction to pass the evening alone, in quiet contemplation. It was far more specific than the general type of guidance she was used to receiving. Every time she turned it over in her mind on their way back to the flat, the Witchblade tickled her wrist like a cat swishing its tail in her face.
It hardly mattered, though, her present state kept her eternally cooped up in the flat--with only the occasional visit to the park with Mabel, and trips to Confession and Mass to mark the passing of the autumnal days.
Major Helmut Stretzer did continue to visit--so regularly that she could only begin to imagine his fellow Schutzstaffel officers' reactions at his devotion to her. To continue to court one's own mistress were she to get pregnant was unheard of--at least until after she delivered the child and had regained her figure. But to continue to pursue a woman who was not only largely pregnant, but also made so by another man? Unprecedented.
She welcomed his visits, though; they proved the only moments in this last third of her confinement in which she could even pretend to practice the espionage for which she had been trained and sent here. The only times in which she could hope to acquire even the smallest bit of information with which to continue to fight in the war, instead of languish on the sidelines.
Likewise, it was Stretzer's visits alone that kept food in the pantry and other household staples on the shelves. Unable to find work once she could no longer hide her condition, without his regular assistance--his gifts of ration coupons and sometimes even the actual groceries-- Elizabeth and Mabel would long ago have reached a point lower than that about which she cared to think.
And then there was the addition to their life of nanny Dominique Goudder. A present from the Major, she had arrived at their door some five months ago, with a note signed by Stretzer explaining that she was now to live with them, his instructions much like a card that would accompany a bouquet of flowers, urging you to get them in a vase.
Weeks prior, Bronte and Stretzer had attended a party at Obergruppenfuehrer Krugen's home. Though his wife was out of town visiting family, Krugen was not the sort of man to care much whether his wife knew of his dalliances or not, and not the sort of man to respect Frau Krugen enough to keep such debauchery as other officers and their mistresses away from the Krugen home.
As one of the housemaids that night, Dominique had been serving drinks, her hands shaky beneath the tray, her speech clumsy with fear of the officers--and the officers' women.
Her frail and gawky appearance--like that of a too-tall ballerina--so stuck with Bronte that she found herself mentioning the girl to Stretzer on the way home in his car.
"Did you see that young girl," she asked as he kissed her neck with a lazy amorousness.
"Of course not, my darling," he replied, sleepily. "I saw no one but you."
"That's nice," she told him. "I forgive you for noticing her."
"The Aryan with the large eyes," he asked, his voice showing his lack of investment in the topic of the girl. "Mmm. Krugen has some wicked, wicked stories of chasing her about the parlor--and some other rooms--on more than one occasion. It would seem such bony half-ghosts are very much to his taste--at times," Stretzer confessed.
"Why, she can't be much older than a child!" Bronte could not keep herself from exclaiming.
"Krugen is an unrefined boor," Stretzer agreed. "It is rumored that his mother's half-brother was a Polish potato farmer," he chuckled. "Of course, he denies it. His mother had no half-brother, he says." He moved his mouth back to her neck. "Think no more about it," he suggested. "He will throw no more parties until Frau Krugen is again out of town, which, after the report the staff and neighbor gossips will share with her from this one--will not be until the war is long over."
And they spoke no more about the girl, until the day Bronte opened the door to the flat, and there she, Dominique, stood; large eyes, severely tight blonde braids wound about her head and pinned with Deutsch efficiency, her frame so thin as to question whether she could lift more than half a stone.
And the note she carried: 'Let us make her fat and jolly, round with content--and we will have revenge on Krugen for his cheap brandy yet! Your darling Stretzer.'
Dominique herself filled in the rest; Stretzer had cleverly asked Frau Krugen directly about employing the girl. Frau Krugen had been more than happy to transfer such a stumbling block away from her husband to the other side of town--and to the employ of one of his fellow officers.
And so, as Krugen's comeuppance, Dominique had come to stay.
She proved helpful--though dreadfully inexperienced--at anything she was given to do. The only thing at which she seemed to posses any natural ability or intuition was sewing, by hand or machine. And so Bronte had exploited her to that end--continuing on with whatever household chores she could still complete on her own--and assigning Dominique an elaborate maternity wardrobe be made for her, fall clothing for Mabel, and tiny, exquisite, painstakingly smocked and stitched gowns for the baby to come. Additionally, the young girl spoke nearly perfect French--which she had been enlisted to help (along with Bronte) impart to Mabel.
"Mabel," Bronte asked in that language now, quizzing her young daughter, "do you think the Major will bring fruit or vegetable to us tonight?" Over the top of Mabel's head, she exchanged a smile with Dominique.
Mabel extended her hand toward Bronte's right wrist--a game they played, as if the Witchblade could be made to predict the future (as if the Witchblade could be made to do anything). The child asked permission, using her quiet--but improving--French, and Bronte consented, extending her arm for the talisman, like Aladdin's lamp, to be rubbed.
Mabel's small fingers lightly patted the stone, "Caerdydd-Cymru" she chanted, a meaningless-to-her magical phrase Bronte had provided some time ago, in place of 'abracadabra'.
But before Mabel could pronounce her guess--fruit or vegetable--and be further quizzed in French, tight pain shot down the small of Bronte's back, behind her knees, causing them nearly to give out under her.
She did not know it, but she had unconsciously moved to seat herself on the only available spot near them on the sidewalk--a precarious fountain ledge, the water spitting out behind her, Dominique (and to a lesser degree Mabel) donning worried looks and asking--in German now--if she were okay.
She did not see or hear them, did not see or hear the fountain, or the still-warm fall afternoon. The wielder of the Witchblade was no longer there--she was well across town, her consciousness (if not her body) in Major Stretzer's office--where he was entertaining an unexpected visitor--Hedda Germer, her dead lover Rolf's widow.
DISCLAIMERS: Elizabeth Bronte and the Witchblade (and other characters that will make appearances in other chapters to come) are property of Top Cow and Warner Bros. I mean no disrespect, and am not making any money or profit out of their use here.
Any inaccuracies please chalk up to deliberate anachronism. It's just a happier, more criticism-free world that way.
What happened to Elizabeth Bronte before Possession? Check out Occupation, posted here at fanfiction.net.
Neftzer 2003(c)
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