Hardly anyone remembers the days before the Bell Boy. Or at least, the time before we noticed him, because in the end he’s always been there. The days before he silenced our music, our joy, our excess. Before he silenced our bells. Made us hear his. Forced us to listen. Forced us to wait and fear. The sound, the noise, the bells that once made us feel grand and untouchable, were made the ones to tear us down.

Bavaria 1863:

The winter had been a heavy one, much colder and darker than most of the people had seen before. Food was scarce. So was wood for fires. The people of the valley sat in their freezing homes waiting for the storm to break. Hoping, sometimes praying for better days, for forgiveness, offering themselves into the dark void they were speaking into. That is at least the story some of them have built inside their heads. The story that they could live with, that didn’t question them and their realities. The truth, though, was somewhat different.

The winter had been heavy, that much was the truth. Many of the working families were short on food and wood to feed their children and warm their homes. It forced the workers to go out into the cold each and every day. They stole wood from properties that wasn’t theirs, went to the servants of the castle and begged them for food. Some of them saw the suffering of the workers and their families and managed to hide food for them, others simply didn’t care or looked the other way. Others again seemed frozen themselves, scared to lose their job and end like the workers themselves. The Lord and Lady of the castle couldn’t care less about the troubles of the workers. They continued hosting their excessive parties filled with nobility from other valleys that were dancing through the golden hall of their home. Tables with food and drink stood at the sides, never emptying. The kitchen staff and servants made sure of that by working day and night to keep up their employer’s carefree lifestyle. They couldn’t fall ill, couldn’t allow themselves mistakes, they had to keep going, just like the music that never seemed to stop, blasting out so loud that it could be heard for miles, disrupting the sleeping nature.

If the wind stood right, it sometimes carried the music down to the farmer’s house. He didn’t hear it, of course. He was busy hosting a party of his own. He had just acquired another piece of land. He had just had the best harvest in years, managed to get everything inside just before the storm had hit. He would say it was his work alone. It wasn’t of course. It was his army of workers, including his own sons. One of which was out at the moment, preparing the ice rink at the farmer’s lake. Some other workers were out there with him, working in the dark and cold. The rink was to be used on days with better weather, bring joy and a feeling of community. Or rather, the farmer wanted to stamp down his workers growing resistance and unpredictabily. While Lord and Lady had the title, were ruling over the money and the valley officially, the farmer was ruling over food and most of the workforce. He had built himself an empire, provided the nobility with food and the working class with work. They relied on him. Or he thought at least the workers did. Just like the Lord and Lady though money could buy them happiness and prestige. That was until the bells came ringing.

Almost nobody had noticed it at first, used to the noise of music and shouting and laughter. The bells just blended in with the indifference of the valley, making its people deaf to the danger that was looming over them.

The healer had been called to the castle that day, a maid had fallen ill, something that wasn’t supposed to happen. At least, not when the Lord and Lady were throwing the party of the year. It was winter solstice, the longest night of the year. And so, the healer made her way over from her cabin to the castle. The snowfall had died down a little as she walked through the snow. She had reached one of the villages at the foot of the castle mountain as she heard the bells ringing. She stopped in her tracks. A chill was running down her back. The bells were shrill and relentless, deafening. They sounded threatening, like a warning, a herald of death and disaster. The healer looked for the source of the sound and noticed it getting louder. Suddenly, a bike rushed past her. A little boy, no older than seven was the rider. He had no hat on his head, his hair ruffled by the wind. He had bells on either side of his dark blue coat. Even more bells were dangling from the bicycle’s handlebar, chiming in with the rest of them. The boy made his way through the village, along the main and only street toward the lake. The snow didn’t seem slow him down, if anything it made him faster. It made the healer walk away at once. She wanted to get away from that boy.

The healer noticed the snowfall getting stronger and the daylight fading quickly. She reached the castle with her coat and hat covered in snow and her fingers red from the cold. She wasn’t wearing gloves. She never did. She knocked on the back door. One of the servants opened it immediately, almost hauled the healer inside. She was led up the stairs to the servants’ quarters, to a room where she found a woman on the edge of lucidity. The healer realised that there was a good chance the woman wouldn’t make it. If only they had called her earlier, but the Lord and Lady hadn’t allowed. Nothing was to disrupt their party. With the help of one of the other maids she managed to get the woman’s temperature down a little. Suddenly, she heard some bells ringing, getting louder, coming closer.

‘Can you hear that?’, the healer asked.

‘The music upstairs?’, the maid answered.

Maybe she had only imagined the noise. It did nothing to stop the dread that crept up the healer’s back. She couldn’t forget the boy or the bells. After what seemed like hours, the fever of the woman had finally broken, and the bells had fallen silent again. The healer reassembled her instruments and tinctures into her bag before putting her coat and hat back on. The maid led her down the stairs again but before they could reach the bottom of the stairs that would lead to the back door another door opened ahead of them. The maid froze immediately. The healer stopped too. But where the maid began to shrink smaller, the healer stood tall. Through the door stepped the lady, face hard as stone, deadly eyes directed at the two women in front of her, softening imperceptibly as she glanced at the healer.

‘What the hell is going on?!’, all her venomous words were directed at the maid.

Or venomous they seemed, but upon closer listening, the healer heard fear and frustration in them as well. To keep the maid from further problems, the healer stepped forward.

‘One of your servants fell ill. She had a bad fever. She needed help as fast as possible!’

The women stood staring at each other, almost battling for who would look away first. Who would let the other win? Neither backed down.

‘Why you? Why not the doctor?’, the lady questioned.

‘Because I’m the best to do the job! And you know it’

With that the healer rushed past the lady and down the stairs. The maid hesitated, still in shock. Then she realised that the lady’s attention lay elsewhere. With the brusque healer on her way back into the snowy night. The maid took that as her possibility to escape the situation and hurried back upstairs. The lady would have forgotten her face by the next morning anyway. At least she hoped so.

‘Wait!’, the word echoed through the staircase.

The maid stopped in her tracks. Further down, the healer did not seem to care. Having directed the words at the latter, the lady quickly descended the stairs as well, trying to catch up on the other woman. The healer had already opened the backdoor, snow falling over the threshold, as the lady caught her by the arm.

‘Wait, please’

The healer turned around to see the lady’s scared, pleading eyes.

‘Will she be alright?’

The lady sounded genuinely concerned. The healer gave her an up and down, lingering on the lady’s hand still holding her sleeve, before she settled on the lady’s eyes. Why was she running after her? The hated healer. A disgrace. Yet, people came to her when they feared the lives of their loved ones. And to be honest, up until now, the healer hadn’t thought that the lady had someone she cared about. Maybe she had been wrong.

‘She’ll make it’

The lady exhaled, apparently relieved, ‘Thank you’

The healer only gave her a firm nod, before turning toward the door and feeling the lady withdraw her hand from her sleeve. She was already over the threshold, when the lady’s voice and hand held her back again.

‘Can you hear that?’

They both stood listening to the wind howling around them, the music’s loud noise above them. But further away, quietly but insistently there was another noise. Irregular. Threatening. Deafening.

‘The bells’, the healer only stated.

‘Where is the noise coming from?’

The healer put her free hand over the lady’s still resting on her sleeve and gave it a hesitant but securing squeeze. They stood there watching each other, studying each other, trying to find a solution to an enigma that was not yet to be solved.

‘I’m not sure. But I think we should hold our loved ones close’

With that she gave the lady a weak smile and walked away. The lady remained standing on the threshold, not caring for the cold or her dress getting ruined. No, the only thing she paid attention to where the bells and she felt something coming for her. Not now but soon. Her reckoning.

Earlier, almost nobody had noticed him riding his bike through the village. Nor had the workers at the lake when he arrived. They should have. He didn’t even try to hide himself, but they hadn’t cared. They had only noticed a change as a crack had all of nature fall silent and only a single bell was left chiming. Eleven times. There was no rhythm to it. No pattern. But with every sound a life was lost. Another worker had fallen into the icy lake, drawn under, no chance to get out alive again. The one man, who was spared, who had not fallen victim to the foolishness and ignorance of the others around him, he had warned them about the ice not being stable, they hadn’t listened. Now they paid the price. Immediately, the man had run back to the farmer, had gathered a group of people to save the ones lost to the ice. It was too late. The bell’s echoes had long faded and fallen silent. Deadly silent. All they could do, was pull frozen bodies out of the lake.

The man stood watching as the farmer clung to the dead body of his son. As he filled the silence with screams and shouts. And there, in the periphery behind them, the man saw a small figure. What looked like a bicycle stood by his side. The boy did not move at first. When he did and rode off, all the man noticed was the sound of bells ringing and echoing through the valley, like hammers hitting steel. At the castle, away from the party and looking out of her chamber window, the lady saw a tiny figure passing the castle. And all she heard when watching him was the sound of a crying child that had once caused her unbearable pain, interwoven with the sound of bells chiming a lullaby. A few miles away, the healer heard the boy’s presence too. But where the lady had heard a lullaby the healer heard a church choir, heralding disaster. This time, as things started to fall apart, three people had heard, had even seen him. And yet, for now, the Bell Boy would not care.