Outside the church, Liesl dropped to the ground from where she’d been clinging to the goat’s saddle straps, hidden beneath its shaggy belly. Her cheeks were darkened with charcoal, her dirndl was burned and filthy, and she wore the charred rags of the Loden cape. She snatched the horse whip from the goat’s saddle and stomped up the steps.
She stalked down the aisle and looked to either side. Saw the empty chairs where her friends should have been sitting.
The guests cheered the newly married couple, then quieted, as Liesl, ragged and dirty, approached the alter.
Lukas and Wilda turned to her, faces shocked at her appearance. “Joy to you, Wilda,” Liesl said to the woodsman’s daughter, taking her by the hand. “I welcome you as my sister!” Wilda gaped for just a moment more, then embraced her friend, heedless of how the soot dirtied her wedding gown.
Liesl turned to her brother. She lashed him once across the chest with the horse whip, doubled over in her hand. He cried out, and sat on the floor, then bowed his head. “Congratulations brother,” said Liesl. “I love you still.” She offered her hand, and Lukas accepted her help, rising to his feet, and embraced her.
She turned to the front row of guests, and Krampus recognized her. “You!” He screamed, “you tricked me! I’ll have you back and beat you until I tire, and have wives a plenty after I’ve devoured you!” Krampus leapt for her, but his feet tangled in his overstuffed bag, and he tripped, and sprawled across the floor.
Liesl ignored the demon and spoke to her parents, who turned away in shame. “You left me,” she chided them. Her mother wept and the miller covered his face. They gasped when Liesl lashed them each across the back with her doubled over whip. “I love you still,” she said, lowering her whip, and her mother and father sprang up and embraced her.
Krampus climbed to his feet and reached for Liesl, a bundle of sticks in one hand. She turned to him and dropped the tail of her whip. She sidestepped his grasping hand easily and brought the whip down on his arms. Krampus cringed back and dropped the bundle. “I am not your wife,” she told him. She cracked the whip then lashed down again, cutting across the demon’s face and chest. “I may be wicked,” she lashed down again, and twice more across the beast’s shoulders as he howled, “but I do not belong to you.” She hit him twice more until he fell on the ground groaning, then stepped past him to untie his bag.
The girls stepped out of his bag one by one, russet, dark and ashen. They each picked up a stick from Krampus’s fallen bundle, and eagerly surrounded the demon, beating him as he lay on the ground screaming.
Finally Liesl turned to St. Nicholas, whip in hand and eyes blazing. St Nicholas stepped back hurriedly and put his hands up in surrender. She narrowed her eyes and pulled back the whip, but St. Nicholas patted his pockets, and offered her a square of chocolate.
Liesl accepted it with suspicion and examined it. It had a picture of a demon imprinted on the center. She stared at it, then smiled, and lowered her whip before devouring chocolate Krampus. Her eyes met St. Nicholas’s and they both twinkled merrily. The chocolate was buttery smooth and sweet.