Evil comes all shapes and sizes. The evil one young girl will experience comes in a form least expected.

Chapter One: The Katzeleute’s Goal

Selena held her brother’s hand tightly as he guided her down the tightly winding stone staircase. He had said he had a surprise for her, and Selena loved surprises. Ever since she was a small child she would wait up to all hours of the night for her father to return home and present her with something from his travels. It was from one of his travels that her father had brought Selena a book on alchemy. Ever since that time, she had been fascinated with it, learning as much as she could from her father and older brother.

Selena loved surprises.

But she hated the dark. The only light came from the lighted torches set in the damp stones walls at lengthy intervals. The light from the flames cast the pair’s shadows on the wall and steps in front of them. The shadow then would travel up until master and shadow reached the light.

“Brother,” Selena said, looking up at his face, “where is this? I don’t remember ever hearing of a passage below the cellar.” As she spoke, they came to another torch, and the girl squealed in fright at the sight of a large rat nibbling at the corpse of a former rat-comrade.

Her brother, Nicholas, kicked the rat away and continued walking. He didn’t answer his young sister until they had reached the bottom of the stairs; they ended at an old wooden door with rusting hinges and a large padlock.

“This has been beneath the castle for ages, Lena.” Nicholas released Selena’s hand momentarily to unlock the padlock with a key from beneath his shirt. “It has been kept a secret among the Katzeleute family since the castle was first built.”

“A secret?” Selena asked. She had never heard of the Katzeleute family, but she knew that the name translated to “cat people”. “Who were the Katzeleutes?”

“A group,” Nicholas began, taking his sister’s hand again, “of great wealth and influence in the government and church.

“Did you know,” he continued, opening another heavy wooden door, “that the science of alchemy was once forbidden? Way back when the church was the law and the military was under the church’s rule. It was seen as witchcraft and the devil’s works, so whoever was found out to be working alchemy was tried and burned.”

“That’s totally barbaric!” the girl said. “How could the church have so much influence as to forbid people from practicing science?”

Nicholas grinned at her. “The church was afraid. It was afraid of the science that simple men had established. It already was powerful, and if the people had seen a power greater than their beloved God, they might have revolted and overthrown the church.” Selena looked down at the ground-it was dirt, now-and thought over the little history lesson she was getting.

“How did the military get control? I mean,” she paused, collecting her scattered thoughts. “How did the military get to what it is now? When did the church fall?”

“It never fell, Lena,” he explained patiently. “People finally saw alchemy as something good and something that could help them directly; something God had never done witnessed.

“The church had to explain the science to the people, and it said that the power was given to common man by God. “ The young man opened a third door and lead his sister into a large cavernous room lit by dozens of torches. Tables and stools were scattered throughout the room, while bookcases reaching the ceiling lined all the walls. A metal staircase on wheel spiraled up to the very top.

“So everyone was happy, then?”

“Yes, I suppose you could say everyone was happy. We had our powers, and we also had our God-someone to blame if anything went wrong.”

“But Brother!” Selena protested. “Not that I didn’t enjoy your lesson, but who were the Katzeleutes?” Nicholas sat her on the stool nearest the door and left her momentarily. She examined some of the books near her, but recognized few titles. Most were written in strange symbols she didn’t know or words that made no sense. Curious, the girl reached out and grabbed a book randomly.

It was filled with hand-written words and equations in the first few chapters. Drawings of jars and viles and odd-looking creatures filled the middle pages. The very end of the book was empty.

Nicholas returned, holding a long rectangular case in both arms. It was about a foot and a half long, a foot wide with a depth of only a couple inches. He laid the case with great care on the table beside his sister and opened it.

“What is this?” Selena squeaked. The box was filled with bones and small jars of reddish organs.

“This is Katzeleute’s dream.” Nicholas lovingly picked up one of the bones-from a leg presumably- and stroked it. “The organization has been kept secret since the days of Religion’s rule. It was devoted to the science of alchemy and creating the perfect homunculus. One that would obey orders without question and at a moment’s notice give up its life for its master.”

“A zombie?” Selena poked at one of the jars and nearly fell from her stool when the thing turned in its jar and winked at her. An eye.

“Not quite.” The man put the bone back into the case. “I am the head of the organization, after the death of our dear father.

“During his research, Father found that the transferring of souls would work just as well as making the homunculus piece-by-piece. The problem, as I have found, is that we must have a subject compatible with the animal.”

“What do you need an animal for?” Selena was beginning to feel scared. Her brother didn’t look like the boy she knew and loved. He was thinner and more haggard, much like their father in his final years.

Nicholas put a finger to his lips. “That is one secret I cannot share with you.”

Hours later, after a hearty dinner of lamp chops and potatoes, Selena was soaking in a hot bubble bath her nurse had prepared for her.

“You know, Sofie,” she said, sinking down into the water, “I’ll be sorry when you must leave.” She was speaking of the time she turned sixteen, two years from the present time, and had no need for a nurse anymore.

Sofie, a small woman with liquid brown eyes and curly red hair, smiled sadly from her seat across the bathroom. “Yes, miss. As will I. I’ve had the privilege to watch you grow from such a small baby to a beautiful young woman.” Having no children of her own, Sofie had raised Selena as her own child.

Selena stared out the frosted-glass window for a moment before telling her nurse to hand her a towel. “I’m tired; I think I’ll go to bed early.”

After being helped into her pajamas and the lights dimmed, Selena lay in her bed and closed her eyes. Sleep, however, was the farthest thing from her mind.

‘What is Brother doing? Why-if it is so secret-did he tell me?’ Sights of the staircase, the flickering flames, and the tall cavernous bookshelves filled her mind, chased by the remembrance of the living eye in the glass jar.

The window was open on her terrace, letting a cool breeze billow into the curtains and the smell of fresh lilacs fill the room.

“Lilacs,” Selena said aloud. “In winter?” Her eyes fluttered briefly in a final attempt at staying awake, and then they fell closed in deep sleep.